Jalen: It’s because of my competitiveness the large fish swallowed me! If I hadn’t let Vinker goad me into the Challenge…. but the prize of a flying craft? I just couldn’t control myself. After all, forbidden spacecrafts have never crashed into the water in front of us before. As Alpha leaders, Vinker and I only gather our Encampments together briefly on an annual cycle. One of us had to win the rights of salvage. Imagine my surprise when I finally open the egg-shaped machine and discover an alien female! While I’m hiding the outlawed spacecraft from the Low Dwellers, Vinker leaves when he spots another streaking across the sky. I’m left caring for the injured female and hoping she’ll survive. And I want her to live. After all, I’ve never felt such a powerful compulsion to claim and keep a female. She’s mine. But why is she here? I still can’t communicate with her, and I wonder if Vinker learned more. Is he hiding and hoarding his claim like I am? Tessa: Someone abducted me from Earth, operated on my head, and then dumped me on a purple planet! I don’t remember getting abducted… or sent here. I just wake up from an amazing dream about my grandmother—and I’m here. Was the dream prophetic? Is this purple alien really mine? But why here? And just where is here? Jalen’s Challenge is part of a science fiction alien romance series. All the story lines run consecutively, so this 18,000 word short story can be read as a standalone with its own HFN. The main characters all appear in other books.