Prologue
PROLOGUE
“Shit, shit, shit!”
Cordelia’s breaths came out in terrified gasps as she sprinted headlong through the Aragnokan forest. She glanced behind her again, her heart pounding, afraid she would find her captor chasing after her in the darkness.
She’d only just escaped the hole in the ground he’d kept her trapped in for weeks, finally managing to sneak out while he’d been resting.
Hopefully he was still sleeping in his house, but she wasn’t going to slow down to find out. If he was out here hunting her then she was determined to be as far away from him as possible.
Not that she would have an easy time seeing him out here, even if he was hot on her tail. His skin was a light gray, and among almost pitch-black surroundings, he blended in seamlessly. The only light was the strange orange glow coming from the plants and trees.
Her eyes were slowly adjusting to the world around her, thanks to the neon orange hues and the bright stars shining high in the night sky. There was even a planet that resembled Saturn sitting among the scattering of stars, the giant ring breathtaking to behold despite the fact that she was running for her life.
Oh so slowly, she was beginning to discern more nuanced details like rocks, non-glowing bushes, and other fine details. Hopefully she’d notice any alien animals or people nearby, though she hadn’t spotted any yet.
She was surrounded by trees and vegetation only; bushes taller than her spread out in thick sections around her. There was a snap of a branch to her right, and Cordelia shrieked, jumping high into the air like a damned cartoon character and crashing to her knees as she landed.
Shestruggled back to her feet, facing where the branch had snapped. Pausing in her race for freedom was stupid, she knew.
She’d already wasted precious seconds, but her legs were killing her, practically begging that she just take a moment to breathe, to give her body a brief respite. She’d been running for what felt like forever, with almost no water or food in her system, and it was taking a heavy toll on her.
When she’d first been abducted from Earth and brought to Aragnok, she was informed she had been injected with some kind of vitamin that would keep her hydrated and nourished for weeks. That time had come and gone while she’d been living in that damned hole, and now her body was starved and exhausted.
But a bit of hunger was nothing compared to the abject terror spreading through her body as she listened for another sound to indicate she wasn’t alone, panic gripping her tightly, refusing to let go. It honestly felt like her heart was going to burst from her chest, it beat so loudly against her sternum.
She just wanted to go home, to pretend the last few weeks of her alien abduction had never happened. But that wasn’t possible.
Cordelia was never going to find a way home.
Her whole body began shaking, a fine trickle of sweat sliding down her spine as she sucked in a trembling breath, warily listening for any other sound beyond her sharp breaths. Her gaze was glued to the right, eyes as wide as saucers as she waited for some crazed beast to jump from the bushes and attack her.
Was it her captor? Had he found her so easily?
God, she hoped not. That alien was such an evil dickhead! He’d been keeping her trapped in his home for weeks, taunting her mercilessly, spitting on her. He’d spewed all kinds of twisted shit while he waited to turn her in to the Aragnokan government.
Something about earning ‘points’ in some disturbing competition called The Harvest Games, which he bragged about incessantly in broken English.
She honestly didn’t even understand how she’d managed to escape considering how closely he’d been monitoring her, but he’d been a dumbass and left the latch to her makeshift prison door unlocked before falling asle–
Cordelia’s thoughts fled in an instant when she heard another branch snap, this time so much closer to her. She didn’t wait to see what was lurking through the thicket of bushes. She pivoted to the left and forced her tired body back into a run, traveling into the thicker brush.
Her feet were on fire and bleeding from being on them for so long without shoes, her muscles burned with every second she traveled, and she smelled disgusting. Weeks without a bath will do that to a person.
It was still hard to believe all of this was real; that she’d been kidnapped from her bed on Earth, just plucked right out of the comfort of her own home while she’d been sleeping, and deposited onto this fiery hellscape called Aragnok.
She’d barely lasted a full day before getting snatched up by her captor and thrown into an unsettling little dirt dungeon built into his basement, her only source of light a grated door above her head that had been locked until tonight.
It all sounded so ridiculous. Who the hell gets abducted by aliens and then abducted again by a different alien in as many days?
Oh, that was right. Her. What shitty luck!
There was a blur of movement in front of her, and Cordelia couldn’t stop in time as a solid object entered her path. She slammed face-first into something warm and hard. Her head hit something with a dull thud, and she fell backwards with an ‘oomph’, landing hard on her ass.
Head ringing, Cordelia blinked furiously, desperate to shake off her dizziness as the world swayed around her.
An angry, harsh cadence came from the stone wall she’d just smacked into. Cordelia’s head jerked up as her sight corrected itself, eyes connecting with an Aragnokan male looming over her. Her mouth dried in horror.
He was the tallest one she’d seen so far, maybe close to seven feet tall, which didn’t help her fear at all as he towered over her small frame.
He snapped his sharp, white teeth together, the sound causing her to jerk back in horrified fascination even as her eyes roamed over his features, taking him in. His sinewy torso was covered by a brown leather breastplate, heavily muscled thighs were encased in leather pants, and there were black boots on his feet.
But where her captor had a muted, unimpressive blue shimmer along his light gray skin, this Aragnokan’s veins glowed a brilliant white, making his deep gray skin appear even darker. Nearly black. His glowing veins were like cracks of lightning that peeked through his flesh, illuminating the darkness around him.
Even his black eyes had flashes of beaming white through them, increasing in intensity the longer he stared at her. There were small horns protruding from short, black hair set on the top of his head. He had long nails, too, that curled slightly, like claws, and full lips accentuating his strong jawline.
He reminded her of a hot alien warlord.
She’d never seen anything quite like him. He was as breathtaking as he was terrifying, and despite her fear, she felt a distinct flare of desire begin to rise within her.
Clearly she was confused, because there was nothing to be desired about her situation. It was likely a side effect of adrenaline, she told herself. Nothing more.
He huffed, snarling at her, shouting something harshly that she didn’t understand. He repeated the words twice, and then he reached for her, those large, clawed hands clamping over her forearm and pulling her up.
Cordelia screamed, immediately struggling in his monstrous grip.
“Let me go, you son of a bitch!”
He shouted more foreign words at her, each one harsher than the last, drowning out her own panicked cries.
He shook her slightly when her screams grew louder, echoing in the woods around them, and Cordelia did the only thing she could think of.
She kicked, her shin slamming right between his legs.
The Aragnokan let out a low grunt, releasing her as static filled the air around them, providing such a heated charge that her nipples hardened, lust reigniting inside her even as her brain screamed at her to flee.
A deep gray mist began to pour out around him, almost as if it was seeping from his skin, billowing out along the forest floor.
“What the hell?” Cordelia asked in disbelief, a fine tremor starting in her voice and spreading through her entire body as the mist moved forward. As if it was reaching for her.
She stumbled backwards, tripping over her own feet before she turned and fled, her escape taking on a far more frenzied edge as he bellowed something dark and threatening behind her.
She ran like hell, refusing to look back.
“Foolish human!” Ezul yelled, rising unsteadily to his feet as his mist swirled angrily around him, pulsing in time with the ache in his balls.
He had only just arrived back on Aragnok after several months at war, and now, not even a few minutes from his home, he was accosted by a human in the woods. He’d heard her from ages away, wheezing and running about frantically. He had come here to help, thinking she was in some sort of danger.
He didn’t expect that she would be the danger.
The menace hadn’t even answered his questions about her welfare, instead she’d shrieked in his face like a demon as he’d attempted to help her stand and then nailed him in the balls like a trained assassin.
And now? The nuisance was running through the woods again with no shoes. She must have cut the soles of her feet; there were tiny dots of blood soaking the forest floor, leading a trail directly to her.
Not that Ezul needed to see her tracks to follow her; he could simply scent the metallic essence of her blood in the air.
Most of his kind would be unable to use such means of tracking, but he was a warrior, born with superior senses and abilities. He could call on mist and lightning, using them to win wars for his planet as he had for years.
He should have seen her attack coming from a mile away, but he’d been so caught off-guard by her striking black hair and the fear shining in her haunting green eyes. Ezul had never seen a human woman before and was unsure if they all looked so achingly beautiful and exhausted.
She must be a candidate of The Harvest Games, he thought to himself, slowly beginning to draw his mist back into his body as he calmed down and the ache eased.
The Harvest Games was a recent competition among the males of his race where women from all over the universe volunteered to compete for their ‘freedom’, tasked with finding specific males with keys that would allow them to escape back to their home worlds.
The males in turn attempted to ‘collect’ the women before they could escape, earning a point for each one that was turned in to the government.
The prizes for winners were vast: glory, money, and the option to mate with a rare female of the Aragnokan race, a much sought after prize since their population had been dwindling for years.
The human must have been a competitor, but she’d been frightened. Injured. And even though he’d probably regret it, Ezul began chasing after her, intent on assisting her. She needed to find shelter.
He wasn’t competing in The Games, but perhaps she’d run because she’d assumed he had been. Maybe a competing male had harmed her, which was expressly against the rules, although not unheard of. There were bad beings on every planet.
As far as Ezul knew, the competition only took place in these woods, which extended for hundreds of miles and were close enough to the city of Ragtar, where the final portion of The Games commenced. Knowing that, it would make sense that the human woman was here for the competition.
Spotting her sheet of damp black hair in the gloom, Ezul breathed a sigh of relief.
“Stop! Allow me to assist you!” he bellowed.
She ignored him yet again, veering straight into the mouth of a cave.
His stomach tightened in dread as she disappeared through the entrance, and the mist he’d barely begun to pull back into himself flared out once more, reacting to the fear that now clawed at his throat.
She’d gone straight into a leiling den!
Ezul put on a burst of speed as urgency assailed him, careening into the cave opening.
She stood just inside the entrance, wheezing, her hand braced against the far wall as she hunched over.
“You must leave this den,” he spat, glancing about the cave for trouble. He barely noticed her jump in surprise at his voice, squinting her eyes against the darkness as she tried to see him. “You’ve led us into a nest, human! The leilings within can paralyze their prey with a single bite!”
“Stop yelling at me!” she cried, facing him. The position left her back completely exposed to the depths of the cave as she trembled. “I don’t know what you’re saying!”
Ezul’s eyes bulged. She didn’t have a translator? He’d assumed anyone competing in The Games would have one. It allowed them to understand one another perfectly, several thousands of languages downloaded into the small chips now attached to his eardrums.
Ezul sputtered, grappling with how to pronounce anything in a human language. He was well versed in hundreds of dialects throughout the galaxy, but he’d grown lazy due to the translating device that had been implanted in his ears years ago.
He barely recalled any human languages from his studies, having never ventured to Earth to acquaint himself with the species.
“Paralyze with a bite,” he repeated in several languages, talking as quickly as possible as he stepped closer to her.
She backed away and he paused, not wanting her to venture further into the cave. He was close enough that he could grab her, but the thought of scaring her had his stomach twisting in distress.
He was unaccustomed to the sensation, and he didn’t enjoy it in the slightest. Nor did he enjoy the overwhelming need he felt to keep this human safe, as if it was ingrained in his very being.
Ezul had never felt so protective of anyone before, and he didn’t even know this woman.
Her eyes widened at one particular language, and she shouted at him in outrage, “Paralyze? You’re going to paralyze me with a bite?”
“Leilings,” he bit out in answer, frustrated that there was no other term to describe the beasts.
It was then that he saw it; a monstrous, eight-legged leiling began to emerge from behind her. It was easily twice his height with thick, hairy legs; a hairy, bulbous torso, and its face…
Leilings were disturbing creatures with smooth, creamy faces, dozens of eyes dotted along their foreheads, and pincers for mouths that clicked as they walked. Their facial features strongly resembled those of people, though, which only added to their horrifying appearance.
“Behind me,” Ezul snarled, snagging the human in the blink of an eye and forcing her to his back just as the leiling leapt.
The human screamed, no doubt seeing the creature he’d saved her from. Two more leilings appeared, attempting to surround them.
“Stay with me,” Ezul murmured over his shoulder, mist billowing out around him until it formed a protective barrier around his frame, like a shield. His mist was useful for several areas of combat.
At this very moment, it layered over him, adding height and definition to his body until he was nearly as imposing as the leilings prowling toward them. It also added an extra layer of protection like a coat of armor.
He continued to swell in size right as he heard the human behind him exclaim, “Good luck!”
“What?” Ezul snarled, turning toward her in time to watch her sprint from the cave.
She’d lured him here and then left! Ezul let out a howl of rage right as the first leiling attacked.
