Forced Marriage To The Alien General

The flatline tone of the medical scanner pierced Allegra's skull like a hot needle.

She snapped her eyes open.

Blinding, sterile white light assaulted her retinas. She gasped, a sharp, ragged intake of air that burned her dry throat. Her chest heaved. The sudden movement sent a violent wave of nausea crashing through her stomach.

Her gasp triggered the life-support monitor beside her bed. The machine shrieked. Red warning lights strobed across the pristine walls of Trauma Center Room 402, shattering the dead silence.

The automatic doors slid open with a pneumatic hiss.

A nurse rushed into the room. Allegra's breath caught in her throat. The woman was wearing standard medical scrubs, but protruding from the top of her head were two long, white rabbit ears. They twitched frantically, swiveling toward the sound of the alarm.

Allegra's brain short-circuited. She scrambled backward, her hands gripping the sterile sheets. Her weak limbs gave out instantly. She collapsed back against the pillows, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," the nurse said.

Her words were soft, spoken in a language that her brain somehow flawlessly translated as if it were her native tongue, but those ears were still moving. Paige Foster-her name tag read-pressed a firm, warm hand against Allegra's trembling shoulder.

"Try to breathe. You're safe," Paige coaxed, her rabbit ears flattening slightly in a universal sign of appeasement.

Allegra stared at the ears. She couldn't look away. Her mind spun, desperately searching for a logical, Earth-bound explanation. A cosplay convention? A hallucination from the crash? The lack of oxygen made the edges of her vision go dark.

Heavy footsteps echoed from the corridor.

Dr. Owen Reynolds strode into the room. Allegra's survival instincts screamed. His eyes were a piercing, unnatural gold. The pupils were vertical slits that caught the harsh overhead light. A wolf. The man had the eyes of a predator.

Owen didn't offer a comforting smile. He pulled a handheld metallic scanner from his coat pocket and leaned over her.

"Hold still," he murmured, his voice a low, gravelly rumble.

He moved the scanner toward the side of her neck, searching for a data port. Allegra panicked. She thought it was a weapon. She jerked her head away so violently her neck popped. The scanner's red laser beam missed her skin and painted a bright line across the white bedsheets.

Owen stopped. His golden eyes narrowed.

"Why isn't your Bio-ID chip emitting a signal?" he asked. The coldness in his tone made the blood freeze in Allegra's veins.

A chip. They were looking for a microchip. She didn't have one. She had no identity, no record, no legal existence in whatever nightmare world she had woken up in.

Allegra forced herself to take a shallow breath. The metallic tang of fear coated her tongue.

"I... I don't remember," she lied, her voice shaking perfectly. "My head hurts. The crash... everything is blurry."

Paige's rabbit ears drooped in sympathy. She looked at