Power: BBW Alien Lottery Romance (Chosen by the Karal Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

thought her father connected to her in those twilight hours and planted the pictures in her head.
    It was the thing that had kept her sane as the rest of the world slipped further into madness. Madness fuelled by the arrival of the aliens, the Karal.
    “What’s your world like?” she asked, turning to where he stood.
    His hand pressed against the door, as if hoping to keep out the flood which must be flowing down the street. But she had seen worse and knew the warehouse wouldn’t leak. Although, as a protective measure, most of her paintings were stored on the next level. Everything else on the ground floor could be moved quickly upstairs if needed.
    He whirled around to face her, and at first, she thought he was going to deny who he was. Then as his face darkened. She wondered if instead he might simply kill her to keep his identity a secret. After all, why was a Karalian walking past her home on a night like this? He had a secret. One he could keep. She wanted no part of him, only for him to give her new dreams, new life to paint.
    “Alive,” he answered simply.
    “Will you tell me? About your world? I’ll find some food, it won’t be much, and you should drink your tea before it gets cold.”
    “I do not need your food,” he answered, but he came back towards her.
    “You probably wouldn’t want to eat it anyway.” She smiled, hoping he would still tell her about his world. The lights flickered and she moved to light the candles; the dark spells became longer than the light as the power faded from the grid. “Here, help me with these.”
    He hesitated and then took the unlit candles from her and she showed him where to place them while she lit each in turn. The flickering electric lights gave the whole apartment a strobing effect, disorientating her. She should be used to it by now, but she never was. She hated the dark; it reminded her of how her life felt when her father died.
    As they lit the last candle, the electricity finally flickered out for the last time. Vanessa went to the switches and turned them off; she had known fires break out when the electricity surged back into old wiring. She didn’t want to risk anything happening to her paintings.
    “Is it always like this?” he asked.
    “The lights? Yes.” She went to the table and sat down on one of the sofas surrounding it. “You might as well make yourself comfortable; it will be hours until it’s safe to go outside again.”
    “How do you live like this?” he asked, disgust lacing his voice.
    “Because there is no other way to live.” She tried to collect her thoughts and explain it more clearly. “We all cling onto a hope it will get better. Although we know it’s not going to. Or at least that’s what people believed before you came. Now they cling to the hope that you are our saviours.”
    “I am not.”
    “I know.” They were beyond saving; she might be one of the only humans to realise that as fact. “But you cannot stop people from hoping. Especially when you have given some women the chance to escape, with your lottery.”
    “Do you enter the lottery? To escape?”
    She shook her head. “No. I will die here on the Earth. It’s my home.”
    “Yet you want to know what my planet is like.”
    “Yes. So I can paint it. If you tell me, it will fuel my imagination. There’s nothing left on this planet to do that. Only books and pictures. And dreams.” She hesitated. Weren’t those enough? “But if you tell me, I can paint it, make it real.”
    “I do not wish your people to hope. I do not wish you to paint my planet in case it gives them false hope. The lottery will enable some females to come to Karal, but many more of them will die here.”
    “We know that. And anyway, we all die.” She was quiet for a moment. “Please. Just one thing. Describe to me the most amazing thing you have ever seen on your planet.”
    “There are too many to choose from.”
    She smiled at his evasion. “Pick a favourite. One