Close Encounters of the Alien Kind (Alienn, Arkansas #0.5; Nocturne Falls Universe)

Pilot. Guard. Prisoner.

All three are crashed in the Georgia woods, lost on a world where extraterrestrials are the stuff of science fiction. Blending into the human world is doable, if dangerous. But what if the locals are far from human themselves, with secrets of their own?

Former bounty hunter Stella Grey grew up an orphan on family-centric Alpha-Prime, so she knows the value of belonging. Leaving everything—and everyone—behind to join distant kin a galaxy away in Alienn, Arkansas, is a small price to pay. Heading up a retrieval operation following a spacecraft crash in rural Georgia is her chance to prove herself to them. Her mission? Locate the ship’s occupants. Secure the prisoner. And, above all, keep the earthlings from discovering that aliens live and walk among them.

Draeken Phoenix is the bad boy from one of Alpha-Prime’s best families, known for getting in and out of scrapes with wit, charm and sheer bravado. He never expected to become an actual prisoner bound for a galactic gulag. Until now, the worst thing that had ever happened to him was losing the woman he loved.

But he has a plan.

He’s bet his life on it.