Page 115 of Roping Her Alien Ranchers

The final piece of our quaternary bond approached last. Vantor, moving with measured precision, his towering human form casting a long shadow in the starlight as he joined our circle, placed one large hand on my shoulder while the other lifted to cup Tammy’s cheek with surprising tenderness.

“You’re here to stay, right?” Tammy asked, her eyes locking with his, her voice suddenly smaller, more vulnerable. Her gaze traveled, taking us all in. My sensory receptors detected the minute tension in her muscles, the slight elevation in her heart rate. Her Omega scent spiced with worry. “You won’t suddenly change your minds later?”

“We will not,” Vantor replied with absolute certainty, his deep voice brokering no room for doubt. He only offered her a simple, powerful truth.

Tammy leaned into his palm, her cheek pressing against his skin in a gesture of trust that made my respiratory system momentarily malfunction. “Good,” she said simply. “Let’s go to the house then. Let’s go home.”

Home. The word activated neural pathways that connected to memories of crystalline spires rising through clear waters, of bioluminescent coral gardens stretching toward three moons. Yet those images felt distant now, theoretical rather than experiential.

Home was no longer a place but a presence—specifically, the copper-haired human woman now stepping toward the open barn door with the three of us in her gravitational pull.

We moved as one unit toward the exit, leaving the damaged ship behind us without a backward glance. The cool Kansas night air hit my artificial skin, carrying scents my specialized receptors automatically identified: fresh grass, horse manure, wildflowers, and the distinctive pheromone signature that was uniquely Tammy’s. I inhaled deeply, allowing my respiratory system to catalog and preserve these chemical markers of our return.

As we walked toward the farmhouse, its windows glowing with warm light, I let my human body marry bits of my original form. A tentacle emerged from beneath my shirt collar, extending of its own accord toward Kalith on my right. Beside me, Kalith’s own appendages were already appearing, one wrapping around my extended tentacle while another reached for Vantor. Within moments, we had created a living network of connection, our tentacles intertwined with each other and with Tammy, who welcomed the alien touch without hesitation.

The human disguises we wore for the outside world mattered little in this moment. Here, under the Kansas stars, walking toward the home we had chosen, we were our new, true selves.

We were forever three hybrid beings from a distant ocean world who loved one remarkable Earth woman. Our quartet was bound together forever, in the way human Alphas tether to their one true mate. A pack.

My tentacle brushed against the bite mark still visible on Tammy’s neck—the mark I had placed during our bonding. The sight sparked deep blue satisfaction across me beneath my human skin. My brilliant brain, once dedicated to objective observation, now found its greatest fulfillment in this subjective experience: the sensory input of Tammy’s fingers stroking my tentacle, the visual data of her smile in the moonlight, the auditory stimulation of her voice saying “home” and meaning us.

We walked the final distance to the house united physically and emotionally, our silhouette against the starlit sky unlike any other on this planet—one human woman and three aliens in imperfect disguise, tentacles rippling in the gentle night breeze. Not explorers, not scientists, not visitors anymore.

Home. We were finally home.

41

TAMMY

Crazyyyyyy, for thinking three aliens would love meeeeeee.

Isat alone on my porch steps, the wooden edge of one riser digging into my thighs through thin cotton shorts as I tipped the whiskey bottle to my lips for the umpteenth time that evening. Patsy Cline’s heartbreak spilled from my ancient radio, her voice carrying across the empty Kansas night like it was made specifically for abandoned women like me. The burn of alcohol couldn’t match the searing pain in my chest—that special kind of hollow that forms when something that was never supposed to be yours in the first place slips through your fingers and shoots off into the stars, taking pieces of your heart along for the ride.

“Crazyyyyyyyyyy,” I warbled along with Patsy, my voice cracking on the high notes. I sobbed, missing a few words, before singing off-key again. “My stupid human love could—” I hiccuped, made a pitiful, whimpering sound. When I tried to keep singing, my voice failed me.

Three empty bottles of Jack lined up beside me like fallen soldiers, testament to the battle I was fighting against the memory of tentacles wrapped around my waist, silver eyes watching me with wonder, and the scents of ocean depths and forest floors that had become as familiar to me as my own skin. One night since they'd left. One endless night of pretending I could function, could breathe, could exist in a world that suddenly felt two-dimensional and colorless.

The porch light cast sickly yellow patterns across the yard, illuminating the newly repaired barn that Kalith had fixed with such care. Every inch of this ranch held their fingerprints now—the straightened fence posts Vantor had reinforced, the thriving pasture grass enhanced by Cyro’s alien compounds, the horses that now grazed peacefully side by side because of their intervention.

I’d spent my entire adult life being left. My parents died when I was twenty-two. College friends moved on to bigger cities. Derek had kept me around only as long as I was willing to be his pretty, silent accessory. I should have built up immunity by now, developed some kind of emotional callus against abandonment.

But this—this was different. This was three beings who had seen me—really seen me—and chosen me anyway. They had known my flaws, my fears, my failures, and still looked at me like I was the most fascinating creature in the universe.

And then they’d left.

Because of course they had. They had a mission. They had a dying planet. They had millions of their own kind depending on them. What was one heartbroken human woman compared to all that?

My throat burned raw from hours of singing along to sad country songs, each lyric feeling like it had been written specifically about loving and losing alien cephalopods. I swallowed another mouthful of whiskey, feeling the gulp slide down to join the lake of alcohol already sloshing in my empty stomach.

“You think I don’t miss them?” I slurred at Mystery, who watched me judgmentally from the fence line. “You think this is pathetic? Fuck you, horse. You got your happy ending.”

Mystery snorted and turned away, as if he couldn’t bear to witness my breakdown anymore. Even my horses were disappointed in me.

I stumbled to my feet, the world tilting dangerously as I found my balance. The whiskey bottle dangled from my fingertips, nearly empty now, a single golden swallow clinging to the bottom. Above me stretched the vast Kansas sky, stars scattered across black velvet like diamonds on display—cold, distant, and completely indifferent to my pain.

“You are cruel assholes!” I screamed upward, my voice cracking as tears streamed down my face. “You’re worse than Derek! At least he never made me love him first!”

My words echoed across the empty ranch, bouncing back to me and making me flinch at their harshness. I didn’t mean it. Not really. Derek had been controlling, belittling, undermining my every attempt at independence. My aliens had been... everything opposite. Supportive. Kind. Amazed by my capabilities.