Page 28 of Roping Her Alien Ranchers

Just as hard as it had last night.

Waking up parts of my Omega nature that had been dormant for my entire life. Never awoken by a human Alpha. What the hell’s wrong with me? My brain screamed. It’s a crazy ass alien with tentacles! Don’t be a psycho!

I stumbled backward from its touch. My boots caught on a tuft of grass, and I nearly fell, windmilling my arms to regain balance while somehow keeping hold of the pitchfork. The movement sent a fresh spike of pain through my cut palm, warm blood trickling down my wrist.

The creatures froze, all three of them turning those mirror-like eyes toward my bleeding hand. The scent in the air shifted dramatically. The strong odor intensified to something that made my sinuses burn. This wasn’t the delicious cologne that made me want to toss common sense out the window and jump their boneless body like I was fully in heat. This was like rotting seaweed left baking in the sun, mixed with cheap beer, and a base note that reminded me of the hospital where I'd spent a month after breaking my leg during a cheer competition in high school.

Then they were advancing on me fast, spurred from motionless statues into blurred bullets, each trying to get closest to me. The noxious, acrid cologne wafting through the air around them settled back down, returning to warm beaches, sunshine, and ice-cold drinks in glass bottles.

Underlying it all was that unmistakable musk of Alpha—times three, amplified beyond anything I'd ever encountered, not just stronger but fundamentally different from the human variety I was used to.

My body responded before my mind could process what was happening. Heat flooded my cheeks and neck. My breathing quickened. Deep in my core, a treacherous warmth began to build—my Omega biology recognizing something my conscious mind wanted to reject completely. But I couldn’t ignore my nature. Whatever these things were, part of me sensed their dominance, their power, and it wanted me to submit.

"No," I whispered, more to myself than to them. I bit down hard on my lower lip, using pain to focus my thoughts. "Stay back!"

I pushed the pitchfork toward them, jutting it out hard, the rounded tines rocketing toward the purple-red alien’s stomach. It made a sound like water being sucked down a drain, then stepped to the side in a movement too fluid to be human. The creature caught in an Autumn haze mirrored the other’s action, the two of them circling to flank me on either side, as the deep sea of blue and green undulated straight toward me. A classic predator strategy. I spun, trying to keep all three in my field of vision, but it was impossible. For every degree I turned, they adjusted their positions with unnerving precision.

My Omega perfume changed again, terror and adrenaline turning it into spoiled lemons laced with pepper. Sweat beaded along my hairline and between my shoulder blades, despite the icy fear flooding my core. My heart thundered so loudly I was sure they could hear it. God, they could probably smell my every emotion the way I could smell their alienness.

Did they know I’d been momentarily aroused like a mad woman? If so, I’d be mortified.

Did they know I was truly terrified of them right now? If they did, they didn’t seem to care one damn bit.

A tentacle came into view, reaching toward my hair. Forest. Seas. The hues of my world hovered in my sightlines. The suckered appendage moving with hypnotic slowness through the air between us. I jerked backward, nearly losing my balance again, my boots sliding on grass slick with alien excretions. The tentacle’s tip hovered just inches from my face, close enough that I could see the small, center barbed suckers lining its underside and the strange, shifting patterns that rippled across its surface like living tattoos. Not waves of color, but texture. Part of me wanted to let the creature touch me.

The other part of me wanted to run.

"Don't touch me," I hissed, brandishing the pitchfork with renewed determination. "I'm warning you⁠—"

The movement happened so fast I barely registered it. One moment I was holding the pitchfork, the next it was gone, snatched from my grasp by a lightning-quick tentacle from the blue-green alien. The creature held my weapon aloft, turning it this way and that, its silvery eyes studying the tines with what could only be described as scientific curiosity. The wooden handle looked absurdly small in its massive appendage, like a toothpick in a human hand.

I stood frozen, arms still raised in the pitchfork-holding position, my brain struggling to catch up with what had just happened. The aliens' scents plumed into the air around me, stronger now, almost triumphant in their potency. The Alpha musk intensified, sending my Omega instincts into overdrive—submit, appease, survive. My head swam, turning my brain foggy. Heat in my stomach turned into a bonfire.

Cold waves of realization washed over me. I was completely defenseless now. No weapon. No backup. No plan. Just me, my trembling body, and three alien creatures that could probably crush me without effort. The same creatures that had survived a crash that obliterated my supply barn.

"Shit," I whispered, the words escaping on a shuddering breath.

The blue-green alien lowered the pitchfork, holding it almost delicately between two tentacles. Then, with deliberate slowness, it bent the metal tines as easily as I might fold a piece of paper. The protest of bending metal cut through the morning air, making me flinch. It surprised me that the creature didn’t simply, barbarically, ruin the tool. Instead, the twisting and turning began to create spiraling where straightness once existed.

When the galactic monster was done, even the metal portion of the handle was crushed and pinched. It was no longer fit for farming or for protection, manipulated more into a piece of art than anything else. And, despite working hard to change the pitchfork just so, the alien dropped it with zero care to the ground.

The message couldn't have been clearer if they'd spoken English: Your defenses mean nothing to us.

My legs threatened to buckle beneath me, knees turning to water as the remnants of my courage washed away. These things could have killed me at any moment—last night when I first discovered them, or as I’d stood foolishly challenging them with a farming implement. Yet they hadn't. They'd destroyed my weapon, yes, but with a casualness that didn’t suggest pure malice.

The creatures congregated, mercifully gathering which meant they no longer circled around me. The purple-red alien made another series of popping, gurgling sounds, and his companions responded in kind. Colors swirled. One seemed to grunt, the sound almost annoyed. Eventually, after what I could only describe as a heated discussion, they each raised two long, serpentine appendages and touched one another. Like freaking footballers huddled during a game. Then, in that perfectly synched, unsettling way of theirs, they stared me down again. Three freakish, silvery orbed gazes reflected a warped version of me.

The intensity of their focus was physical, a weight pressing against my skin. Their scents changed again, warming and soothing. Waves crashing on a midnight shore. The window open in late Spring. The scent of saltwater threading through a dream. Belonging. Home. Happiness. Peace. I wasn't sure if I was picking up emotional cues from their pheromones or if my Omega was creating something out of nothing.

I only knew that the smell that poured from them all right now calmed my frightened brain.

The creature made of ocean and land slipped over the grassy pasture in my direction. It extended a tentacle toward me again, slower this time, the movement almost hesitant. I remained frozen, caught between the instinct to flee—though I knew with horrible certainty that running would be pointless—and the growing desire to stay. These things could catch me in seconds. If they wanted me dead, I would be dead already. The fact that I was still breathing suggested they wanted something else. Was my Omega truly picking up the right vibes? Were these oddities some kind of outer space Alphas?

My voice, when I finally found it, emerged as little more than a whisper.

"What do you want?"

The tentacle paused mid-air, hovering just inches from my face. It twisted its upper body, looking behind him at the other two. The three aliens exchanged another series of those unsettling noises, their skin patterns shifting in rapid, complex sequences that seemed to correspond with their vocalizations.