Beast: Book Nine in the Galaxy Gladiators Alien Abduction Romance Series

by Alana Khan

  The two muscular humanoid guards follow orders, unsheathing their swords and approaching in a split second.

  Beast, who’s known Plenum for over a decade, already had his sword drawn.

  I pull a small kitchen knife from where I’d hidden it under my suit jacket. Both the guards are so busy attacking Beast, they completely disregard me. I never thought I was the type of person who could kill anyone, but I plunge my little knife between one of their shoulder blades. He roars in pain, but doesn’t miss a beat in attacking his foe.

  Plenum keeps repeating on his comm, “All guards to my office. Now.” If his words didn’t relate the urgency of the command, his tone certainly does.

  Both the guards are dead on the floor. After watching him on Galgon, I had no doubt the Beast of Tramachor would get this done in record time.

  Now, though, additional guards are pouring in. Some look like they just bounded out of bed and are wearing nothing but a sword and a fierce look. Others must have been on duty elsewhere and are dressed and more than prepared to take Beast down.

  I’ve seen Beast fight three gladiators at a time, but when the eighth guard piles through the door, I fear for Beast’s life.

  He’s backed into a corner, hacking to keep the males at bay. There’s no way he can fight his way out of this.

  “This can end one of two ways, slave,” Plenum bites out, his tone furious. He’s not the type of male who tolerates being bested in any way. “Both you and your female die, or you give up and I let her live.”

  He waits, every male in the room is on edge. Every muscle tense and waiting in fight-or-flight mode.

  “Throw your sword to the floor and I’ll let her live. Spill any more blood on my fine Hercleve carpet, and I’ll hack off her head in front of your eyes. Ten, nine, eight, seven . . .”

  I have no fear for my own life. Somehow I know Beast will die before he lets harm come to me. As I feel the heft of the little knife in my hand, I calculate if I can leap across the desk and kill Plenum. I guess there was a method to the fucker’s madness when he bought an eight by ten piece of wooden furniture to sit behind. I’ll be dead before I’m within striking distance.

  “Let her go free. Her people will come pick her up,” Beast says as if he’s in a position to bargain.

  “I offered to let her live, slave. Five, four, three, two—”

  “Kill me. Let her live.” He drops his weapon.

  If I do live, the look on his beautiful face will forever be seared into my brain. It is filled with sorrow, and apology, and brimming with love. Not to leave any doubt, he spears me directly with his gaze and murmurs, “I love you, Aerie.”

  I’ve experienced physical pain a million times in my life. I was very young when I learned how to tolerate it. This. This right here, the pain in my heart knowing these are the last words I’ll ever hear from those beautiful lips, is a hundred times more excruciating than anything Mr. Ochsner could mete out.

  Two guards grab my arms, and the knife is wrested away with all the effort it would take to snatch a bottle from a baby.

  “Don’t kill him yet,” Plenum orders as four guards approach Beast. “I want to have some fun.”

  Good. A reprieve of some sort. Every second he lets Beast live is a second we can hope for a miracle.

  “Let’s move this little meeting to the arena, shall we? Crom!” he shouts.

  Tree-like Crom pokes his head in the door, keeping the rest of his body hidden. The white all around his eyes is showing. Plenum is clearly a maniac. I wouldn’t want to approach when he bellowed, either.

  “Yes, Master?”

  “Arrange for a match. In ten minimas I want the Beast of Tramachor to fight six of our best fighters. Make sure Erro, Maximus, and Fabius are in the fight. Word has it you four were friends, Beast. Let’s see how many you kill before they kill you.”

  I pull against the strong grip of the two males who are detaining me. Plenum is such a fucker I could kill him with my bare hands if I had access.

  “Crom, the female and I will watch from the viewing auditorium. Stock it with fruit and wine. I’ll enjoy her favors while we watch the spectacle. Oh, and get her a dress better suited for a party than a business negotiation. See, Beast? I promised she’d live. I didn’t say how comfortably, nor did I promise how long.”

  Beast pulls against the four males who are now restraining him. When he almost breaks his bonds, a fifth approaches and places his sword’s edge across Beast’s throat. It’s a gentle touch, he wouldn’t want to deny his employer the spectacle he’s ordered, but the blade cuts Beast enough that a slim line of blood trickles down his green skin.

  Beast stands straight, complying with orders. He’s not the type of male to give up in a fight, I know he’s doing this for me. I hope he has a plan to get us out of this.

  Glancing at the clock on the wall, I note it’s early. The Fool’s Errand isn’t expected for hours. Whatever happens in the arena will be long decided by then. Beast is a Pinnacle. One of the ten best gladiators in the galaxy, but even he is no match for six other fine fighters. We both know he barely made it off of Galgon alive, and that was only fighting three males at a time.

  Twenty minutes later, I’m in the viewing auditorium Crom showed us yesterday. The poor male was tasked with going into the ladies’ room and guarding me while I changed clothes.

  He kept his eyes averted the entire time. Although he’s so alien-looking, he has a lot of compassion and humanity.

  “Crom, I did some research on your homeworld yesterday,” I say as I shimmy into a gold fabric gown that looks like it stepped right out of ancient Rome. “I was relieved to see that the planet is thriving. Remind me, what made you think no one was left alive?” I ask in my most calm, sincere voice.

  “There was a terrible war. All were lost. No one is left.”

  “Here,” I say, the Intergalactic Database page already cued up on my wrist-comm. I pull it off and hand it to him.

  “I can’t read.”

  “Yes, that’s very convenient for a personal assistant, don’t you think?” I ask. “I set it to show only images.”

  He scrolls through, fast at first, then slower, taking time to examine details.

  “Do this,” I instruct, showing him how to widen his fingers to enlarge what’s on the screen. “You’ve been gone what, years? Decades? If these pictures are old, might there be some clues that indicate the passage of time? Might these pictures be recent, Crom? Do you think your Master might have . . . lied to you?”

  He’s scrolling even slower now. I can practically hear the wheels turning in his head.

  “Crom!” Plenum bellows from the auditorium. “I want her out here. Now!”

  “And the ledger, Crom?” I whisper in a rush. “He stole from Beast and several other gladiators. He scammed them, tricked them into buying their females’ freedom. I think the women were paid to make the males think they were in a relationship when they were just mercenaries used by Plenum to part them from the hard-earned credits in their ledgers.”

  “Crom!”

  “Tell him I’m getting myself beautiful for him.”

  “She’s putting the finishing touches on, Master.”

  “You can read numbers, Crom,” I say, assuming it’s true. “Have you ever wondered why he doesn’t want you to have a peek at your own ledger?”

  I slip into my Louboutins and wait at the doorway, my palm out so he can drop the comm into it.

  Crom’s rugged face is so alien it’s hard to read subtle emotions, but there’s nothing subtle about his expression right now. It’s a cross between shock and rage.

  In the auditorium, the crimson curtains have already been pulled back. I can see the black, blowing sand of the arena. None of the gladiators have entered yet.

  There are two well-armed guards on either side of the wide viewing window, their backs to the action. Their sole purpose is to guard Plenum. Crom takes up his spot near one of them. He’s near the speaker to relay commands to the
gladiators outside.

  Plenum has had two of the chaise lounges pulled together. They’re in the middle of the first row. I can’t control my full body shiver as I realize he’s going to rape me while I watch my lover get killed before my eyes.

  It slowly dawns on me that I’ve prepared for this my whole life. Eighteen years of childhood hell, learning how to tolerate man’s inhumanity to man—or actually man’s inhumanity to little girls. I know how to go deep inside my head and turn off everything inside me that resembles the real Aerie Evans.

  I’ve perfected the art of turning to stone. I swear by all that’s holy I will get through today. I’ve come to terms with the fact that the male I love will perish out there on the blazing hot sand not thirty yards in front of me. But unless Plenum kills me on the chaise lounge he’s patting, I will live through this and by God, I will kill the motherfucker if it’s the last thing I do.

  “It’s partly because of you that I’ll be losing my best slave today. I’m certain he wasn’t smart enough to decide to buy himself without some help from you. You owe me something. I’ve already appropriated the million credits in gold coin.” He pats the black bag hanging from the sash on his waist as if it’s the head of a hated enemy. “I’m also appropriating you. I will get as much use out of you as I can take, then give you to my guards. I’ll warn you, though, they never learned how to play nice.”

  He gazes out the window, as if talking to me is less interesting than an empty arena.

  “The last female I gifted them with lasted less than three weeks, poor thing. And she was a four-armed Mordite made of much sturdier stock than you.”

  His chuckle reminds me of a lousy character actor’s malevolent laugh.

  Beast

  There are six well-armed guards surrounding me. I’m defenseless against them. The moment they give me a weapon—if they give me a weapon—they’ll add six gladiators to the fight. I may be the Beast of Tramachor, but I can’t win against twelve adversaries.

  “Maximus! Erro! You don’t have to fight me,” I call into the gloom. It’s a small area, I know they can hear me even though my guards have pushed me into a dank corner.

  “Shut up, asshole!” one of them sneers as he thumps my head with the butt of his laser pistol.

  I shake my head, trying to chase the dancing stars from my eyes.

  “They’ve never given seven of us weapons at the same time,” I shout after I collect my wits. “We can beat them.”

  This earns me another drubbing, this time by a different guard.

  I’m right, though. Within the hoara, there will be seven armed gladiators, the best fighters the ludus has to offer, in the arena. There is no doubt the seven of us could beat every guard on the estate. And the gladiators are slaves. There is one constant in the universe, more than the pull of gravity or the need every being has for air and water, that is a slave’s hatred for his master and the yearning to be free.

  Only one thing stands in the way of my plan. Well, two. First I need to convince my comrades to join me in the fight. The second is the pain/kill collars.

  Mine is deactivated. I guess Plenum assumed that with all his guards surrounding me I didn’t need to be controlled by the device for the scant amount of time it will take until I’m dead.

  All I need to do is strike down one guard, snatch the controller from his wrist, and I can turn off all the males’ collars. Of course, another guard can reactivate them, but my males are strong, they’ve been taught to fight through pain. Even with intermittent activation of the collars, I can keep turning them off. I have faith that these males are strong and determined enough to win even with the odds against us.

  My thoughts stray to Aerie. Visions bombard me of the things Plenum could be doing to her right this minima. I banish those thoughts to the far recesses of my mind. Those pictures will do me no good—none. I need to keep focused.

  I did tell her I love her, though. I’m glad I got the chance to say it. I’ve been turning the thought around in my head for days now. I just knew it was too soon to speak out loud. I thought we had all the time in the galaxy to explore the heat that radiates between us. If she lives, I hope the memory of those words gives her comfort even if she has little else.

  “All right assholes,” one of the guards says. He calls six gladiators to the door of the weapons closet. I peer over my shoulder, watching as each of my friends is outfitted with greaves, spaulders, helmet, shield, and weapons.

  Two are equipped with trident spears and nets and two are given three-fierto swords. Erro and Maximus, my two best friends for the last many annums, are given their weapon of choice—bow and arrows.

  Are the guards insane? Did they not hear me inciting my friends to riot? Are they so dim they can’t envision what could happen the moment these males are unleashed in the arena if they are bent on rebellion? What a stroke of luck.

  “Now, shitheels,” one of the guards orders, and the six are marched into the arena.

  I turn, waiting to see what weapon and shield they’ll assign to me.

  “You too, asswipe.”

  “You forgot my weapon,” I tell him levelly.

  “You forgot to pay your master proper respect,” he responds.

  I’m to enter the arena against six of the best gladiators in the galaxy without so much as a sword?

  I’m prodded by the barrel of a laser pistol into the blazing sun of the arena.

  “Brothers! Never have six males in this ludus been armed at the same time. Erro, Maximus, shoot your arrows at the guards. My collar doesn’t work, I’ll grab a controller and turn your collars off. No matter how many times they turn your collars on, I can turn them off.”

  I know what I’m asking them. I know the searing pain of even a short jolt of the collar. I also know these males hate captivity, and even more than that, they hate Plenum himself. Most of them were tricked into buying the freedom of a street prostitute. Tricked into believing they were loved.

  “Can I count on you brothers? We have not one but two ships coming to rescue us before sundown.”

  None of the six seemed interested in my plan until I shared this last bit of information.

  “Is this truth?” Erro asks.

  “The Fool’s Errand and a new ship they recently won and commandeered. They’re coming to Trent to pick up me and my female by nightfall.”

  “Will they take us with them?” Maximus asks, even as the guards step to the edges of the arena. The fight is about to begin.

  “Their new ship doesn’t have enough crew. They’d be proud to have you on board. All the males are gladiators.”

  “Does that mean there are females?” Justus asks. I imagine his eyes rounding in interest behind his helmet.

  “Yes,” I say, even though it’s mostly a lie. There is, after all, only one single female—Willa.

  Over the loudspeaker Crom says in a shaky, reedy voice, “Let the fighting begin.”

  Before the command is out of his mouth, both Erro and Maximus spear two guards with arrows. I run to the nearest one and grab his laser pistol and wrist controller.

  Not wanting to waste his laser charge, I snap his neck, then turn to join the fight. It’s obvious when the gladiators’ collars are activated—it’s hard to miss their grunts of pain.

  I turn the collars off as I watch the fight proceed. The archers were a stroke of luck. Between the two of them, even with the barrage of agony from the collars, four of the six guards are down.

  Knowing swords, even swords wielded by the most proficient arm, are no match for lasers, I allow their pain to continue while I kill the other two guards with my pistol. I turn the collars off, and they get a respite, but we all turn to the arched opening into the arena at the sound of approaching boots.

  Eight additional guards in full battle gear enter at a run. I can only imagine the panicked request for backup demanded by the great Plenum of Trent.

  Five of my six comrades have snagged a laser weapon from a dead or dying body. When the
reinforcements enter, they’re all nearly seared in half by the combined power of our lasers.

  Wrage, his three-fierto gladius sword in hand, is busy going from body to body, severing heads from shoulders. “I want none of these pieces of drack to rise from the ground to hurt any of us again,” he shouts above the wet squelching sound of his hacking.

  Aerie

  Six gladiators enter the arena at a run. Beast’s two matches on Galgon educated me about this fine ‘sport’. I notice how well-armed they are—from metal shields to the gauntlets that cover them from wrist to elbow, and the shin guards that protect their lower extremities. Archers, spear throwers, swords, they’ve got it all.

  Six against one. Beast can’t win unless they’ve equipped him with nuclear arms, and I doubt that’s the plan.