My Alien Guide Said He'd Send Me Home, But He Abducted Me to Be His Mate

The first sensation was not cold steel, but softness. A yielding, velvety texture beneath his cheek, cool and damp. A scent filled his lungs, thick and heady, like rain-soaked earth and a flower he’d never known, sweet with a sharp, spicy undertone. It was this, the smell, that fully pulled him from the black void of unconsciousness.

Kyrin’s eyes fluttered open. He wasn't in a sterile white room, strapped to a table under buzzing fluorescent lights. There was no metal, no hum of machinery. Above him, a canopy of enormous, drooping leaves pulsed with a soft, internal light, casting shifting patterns of turquoise and violet across the ground. He was lying on a bed of what looked like moss, a deep, vibrant green that glowed with the same faint luminescence.

He pushed himself up slowly, his muscles aching with a dull throb but otherwise whole. His clothes—simple jeans and a t-shirt—were intact, if a little damp. He ran his hands over his arms, his chest, his face. No cuts, no needle marks, no signs of the violent abduction he vaguely remembered. Just the lingering phantom of a bright light and a falling sensation.

Panic, cold and sharp, began to prick at the edges of his calm. He was somewhere else. Somewhere profoundly not Earth. The air was too clean, the silence too deep, broken only by a faint, melodic chirping that seemed to come from the glowing flora itself. He scrambled to his feet, his boots sinking slightly into the plush forest floor. Towering trees, their bark like smooth, polished obsidian, spiraled towards a sky he couldn't see past the thick, glowing foliage. Everything pulsed with a gentle, living light. It was terrifyingly beautiful.

His breath quickened, his heart hammering against his ribs in a frantic rhythm. He was alone. Utterly and completely alone in a world made of impossible colors and living light. He spun around, searching for a path, an exit, anything familiar, but there was only more of the same ethereal, alien forest in every direction. The panic was about to consume him, to send him screaming into the glowing wilderness, when a figure stepped from behind one of the obsidian trunks.

It was tall, impossibly so, and slender to the point of fragility. Its limbs were long and elegant, moving with a liquid grace that seemed to defy gravity. The being’s skin was a pale, milky white that shimmered with an opalescent sheen, catching the ambient light and refracting it into soft rainbows. It wore no clothes, yet there was nothing indecent about its form; it was as natural as the trees around it. It turned its head, and Kyrin’s breath caught in his throat. Its face was serene, with delicate features and a small mouth, but it was the eyes that held him captive. They were immense, dark pools of liquid night, holding an intelligence so deep and ancient it made the nascent scream die in his throat.

The being took a silent step closer, and a voice bloomed inside Kyrin’s mind. It wasn't a sound heard with his ears, but a thought, clear and calm, that settled over his panic like a cool blanket.

Do not be afraid. The voice was genderless, resonant, and felt like music. I am Xylar.

Kyrin stared, his own thoughts scattering like dust in the wind before the sheer presence of Xylar’s. The alien’s mental voice wasn’t just words; it was a sensation, a wave of profound calm that washed over his terror, soothing the frantic edges of his panic without erasing them entirely. He could feel the meaning behind the thoughts, a sincerity that was impossible to fake.

You were not brought here for harm, Xylar continued, their large, dark eyes holding his gaze, unblinking. There was a current of deep sorrow in the thought, a resonant chord of regret that vibrated through Kyrin’s own mind. My people… we are explorers of a different kind. We do not conquer; we seek to understand. We observed your world, your species. We were fascinated. We wished for a… connection. A sharing of knowledge.

Kyrin’s mind reeled. An exchange? He was part of a cultural exchange program he hadn't signed up for? The absurdity of it was almost enough to make him laugh, a hysterical, broken sound. He took a stumbling step back, his boot catching on a glowing root.

It was a mistake, Xylar projected, the feeling of shame so potent it was like a physical weight in Kyrin’s chest. Our methods were crude. We did not understand the trauma it would cause. We believed we could bring one of you here, learn from you, and return you safely, all without distress. We were profoundly wrong. For that, we are… The thought that followed wasn’t a word, but a complex emotion of such deep, humbling apology that it silenced Kyrin’s burgeoning anger.

Xylar took another slow, deliberate step forward, extending a long, three-fingered hand, palm up. The gesture was universal. An offering. A plea.

We are working to correct our error. The process that brought you here is not easily reversed. It is delicate, and it will take time. Until then, you are vulnerable in this place. I will be your guide. I will keep you safe. I will ensure you have all that you need.

Kyrin looked from the offered hand to the alien’s impossibly serene face. Every instinct screamed at him to run, to fight, to reject this calm, quiet captor. He had been kidnapped, ripped from his life and deposited in a glowing jungle light-years from home. But where would he run? Into a forest where even the plants seemed to watch him with a strange intelligence? And the being before him… it emanated no malice. Only a deep, abiding sadness and a powerful sense of responsibility. His fear was still there, a cold knot in his stomach, but something else was stirring alongside it—a powerful, undeniable curiosity. He looked at the opalescent skin, the fathomless eyes, and the world of living light around them, and a part of him, a part he didn't want to acknowledge, was captivated.

His gaze dropped from Xylar’s fathomless eyes to the outstretched hand. The skin was smooth, without pores or hair, and seemed to capture the ambient light, glowing faintly from within. Three long, elegant fingers, tipped with what looked like dark, polished stone, were held perfectly still. It was a peace offering from the being who had stolen his life. Every cell in his body screamed that it was a trick, a lure to draw him into a deeper trap.

But his eyes traveled up the slender arm, over the gentle curve of a shoulder that shimmered with soft pinks and blues, to the calm, patient face. The telepathic apology still echoed in his mind, not as a sound, but as a feeling—a deep, resonant shame that felt utterly genuine. He was a prisoner here. That was a fact. He could either die alone in this beautiful, terrifying forest, or he could trust the creature responsible for his predicament. It was no choice at all.

His survival instinct, cold and pragmatic, made the decision for him. But as he prepared to accept, another feeling rose alongside it, something warmer and far more dangerous. It was a profound, aching curiosity. He looked past Xylar to the glowing trees, the pulsing flora on the forest floor, the very air that felt alive and scented with the unknown. And then his gaze returned to Xylar.

The alien’s body was a marvel of elegant lines. Unclothed, it was androgynous and graceful, the opalescent skin stretching taut over a lean frame. A smooth chest, devoid of human markers, tapered to a narrow waist and hips. There was a vulnerability in their nakedness, a complete lack of artifice that Kyrin found strangely disarming. His eyes traced the long line of a leg, the gentle swell of a thigh muscle, and a confusing heat pooled low in his stomach. It was a flicker of awareness, a purely physical reaction to the being’s form that was entirely separate from his fear or his anger. This creature was his captor, his only hope, and, in a way that made his breath catch, utterly captivating.

He finally tore his eyes from Xylar’s form and met their gaze again. He ignored the offered hand, not yet ready for that kind of contact. The boundary of their skin felt like a line he was not prepared to cross.

“Okay,” Kyrin said, the word sounding rough and alien in the quiet forest. His throat was dry. “Okay. I’ll… I’ll go with you.”

A wave of palpable relief washed over him from Xylar, a soft, warm current in his mind. The alien’s hand lowered slowly, their expression unchanging but for a subtle softening around their dark eyes.

Thank you, the thought came, simple and sincere. I will not fail you.

Kyrin nodded, a single, jerky motion. He had just placed his life in the hands of his kidnapper. He was surrendering to the unknown, to this impossible world and its beautiful, unnerving inhabitant. The cold knot of fear remained in his gut, but now it was tangled with a thread of something else, something hot and compelling that promised to make his captivity far more complicated than simple survival.