Broken

by Presley Hall

  Broken

  Fated Mates of the Kalixian Warriors #5

  Presley Hall

  Copyright © 2020 by Presley Hall

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Fated Mates of the Kalixian Warriors Series

  Claimed - Book 1

  Stolen - Book 2

  Rescued - Book 3

  Bound - Book 4

  Broken - Book 5

  Consumed - Book 6

  NOTE: Each book in this series can be read as a standalone, but for maximum enjoyment, it’s recommended that you read the series in order.

  Voxeran Fated Mates Series

  Her Alien Prince - Book 1

  Her Alien Savior - Book 2

  Her Alien Beast - Book 3

  TBA - Book 4

  TBA - Book 5

  NOTE: Each book in this series can be read as a standalone, but for maximum enjoyment, it’s recommended that you read the series in order.

  Contents

  1. Jade

  2. Jade

  3. Brele

  4. Jade

  5. Brele

  6. Jade

  7. Brele

  8. Jade

  9. Brele

  10. Jade

  11. Brele

  12. Jade

  13. Brele

  14. Jade

  15. Brele

  16. Jade

  17. Jade

  18. Brele

  19. Jade

  20. Brele

  21. Jade

  22. Brele

  23. Jade

  24. Brele

  25. Jade

  26. Brele

  27. Jade

  Epilogue

  Also by Presley Hall

  1

  Jade

  I’m staring at the door of a sketchy payday loan building, trying to gather up the nerve to go inside.

  I don’t need money. My bank account is actually looking pretty healthy for once.

  No, what I need are answers.

  Glancing back over my shoulder at the man who’s sitting on the curb by the bus stop, I lift an eyebrow. “You’re sure you saw her go in there?”

  He nods, scratching his chin. “Yup. I’m sure.”

  “And she didn’t come out?”

  One shoulder lifts in a shrug. “Not that I saw. Unless she went out the back or somethin’.”

  Shit. This just gets worse and worse. I have no idea why my best friend would’ve gone to a place like this in the first place, but the fact that she wasn’t seen coming out makes me even more worried. I know that whatever brought Emma here, it can’t be good. My shy, sweet friend wouldn’t come to this part of town for fun. She must have had a damn good reason… or else she was brought here against her will.

  “Was there anyone with her when she went in?” I ask the homeless man. He looks like he’s getting bored of our conversation. I already gave him all the loose change and cash I had in my pocket, but I need to get as much information out of him as possible.

  “Nah.” He squints up at me. “She was alone.”

  I nod, taking in the building again with narrowed eyes.

  What the hell is this place, really?

  Nothing about it is inviting. It’s shabby and worn down, with peeling paint, a garish yellow roof, and misspelled marquee signage. I glance down to see the man who recognized Emma’s photo watching me with curious eyes, probably waiting to see what my next move will be.

  “Thanks,” I mutter quietly. “You’ve been a big help.”

  With that, I square my shoulders and head toward the payday loan building. Whatever I might discover in there, it’s better than not knowing. And if I don’t do this, I may never find out what happened to Emma.

  It was pretty clear from the tone in the police detective’s voice when I talked to him this morning that the cops have given up on finding her. They have no clues other than a cell phone ping in this area weeks ago, no leads as to who might have taken her. It’s like Emma just vanished, and no one but me cares enough to find her.

  She’s just a missing girl in a sea of other missing girls.

  But I’m her best friend. Even if no one else will keep searching for her, it’s my job to make sure no stone is left unturned.

  Maybe this is why you came into her life, I think, staring at the door as if willing it to tell me something.

  I always thought it was crazy how two people as different as we are wound up becoming so close. Emma is shy and sweet, a bookworm who prefers to stay inside and away from people. She gets drunk off one glass of wine and isn’t the type to really want to try new things—foods, places, meeting new people.

  Me? I’m the exact opposite. Loud where she’s quiet, adventurous where she’s reserved. I can drink a man under the table while shooting whiskey or tequila, and I like going out to new places. I prefer movie adaptations to books, and I’ve been a fighter since I was a teenager. Not just a scrappy street brawler either—a real, honest-to-god MMA fighter. 5-0, best in my local division currently.

  Which means, when it comes right down to it, that maybe fate or Zeus or the Force or whatever power controls the universe brought us into each other’s lives for a reason. So that when Emma got kidnapped, I’d be here to do whatever it took to find her.

  The homeless man seemed pretty damn sure he saw Emma. He said she was so beautiful that there was no way he could forget her. That checks out—she’s one of the most gorgeous girls I’ve ever seen. She keeps her hair above her shoulders, wears dresses that don’t really show off her curvy figure and doesn’t often wear makeup, but she’s one of those girls who just can’t not be beautiful. She’s naturally that way.

  Of course, she says the same thing about me, but I’m not sure I believe her. I’m tall and muscular, lean with long dark hair and bright green eyes that I’m pretty sure have a permanently guarded or annoyed look in them. I’m not exactly the most welcoming person, and I like it that way. I decide who gets to come into my life. And for the last few years, that’s mostly been Emma.

  I miss her like hell. I need my best friend.

  The man said she went into this building… and he seemed very certain that he never saw her come out. A chill creeps down my spine at that thought, at the idea of whatever might be going on in there. But I’m a fighter. It’s what I do for a living. Whatever’s behind that door, I can handle it.

  So I push it open and walk inside.

  To my surprise, the interior of the loan place isn’t nearly as nefarious as I expected. It’s cleaner inside than out and pretty nondescript. A bored-looking customer service agent sits behind a counter reading a book. No one else is waiting in the roped-off line, and the speckled linoleum tiles look freshly mopped. In fact, the scent of bleach and cleaning products is so strong that I have to fight the urge to clap my hand over my nose. It’s already giving me a headache, making me yearn for a breath of fresh air.

  But I’m not leaving until I get some answers.

  The agent, a middle-aged woman who looks completely average, from her faded brown ponytail to her black polo shirt to her slightly lined, makeup-free face, looks at me with bored eyes. “Can I help you?”

  “Yes,” I say firmly, stepping up to the counter and fishing the photo of Emma out of my pocket. “I’m lookin
g for this girl. She was seen entering this building several weeks ago, but she wasn’t seen leaving. Do you recognize her?”

  “No.” The agent’s voice is bland as she looks back down at her book.

  I narrow my eyes. “I just talked to a guy right across the street who says he saw her come in here. You’re telling me you’ve never seen this girl?” I push the photo across the counter. “Look closer.”

  Now the agent is clearly annoyed. “No, I haven’t seen her. You think I remember every customer who comes in here?”

  “Emma wouldn’t have been a customer,” I say shortly. “She’d have no reason to come to a place like this. Someone must have brought her here.”

  The woman shrugs, but I catch her gaze darting nervously to the wall at her right. “I don’t recognize her,” she repeats evasively. “If there’s something else I can help you with…”

  I grit my teeth, suppressing the urge to reach across the counter and grab this lady by the front of her shirt.

  “The police have a ping from her cell phone near this intersection. When I go and tell them that someone saw her come in here, they’re going to come check out your little establishment. Do you think your boss wants that?”

  I glance down for a name badge so I can call her by her name, but there’s none pinned to her shirt. As my voice trails off, the agent looks up at me. Really looks at me for the first time.

  I smile coldly at her. It seems my threat of the police has gotten through. I have no idea if they’d actually come down. They seem very eager to file away Emma’s case for good. But it seems to have snapped this woman out of her blasé attitude, at least.

  Then I see the look in her eyes—a strange sort of nervousness that turns to resolve. I expect her to answer, even just to make an excuse or tell me to get out. But instead, she reaches over to the wall and flips a little switch.

  “What—”

  Before I can get more than a single word out, a bright light suddenly gleams above me, like a huge spotlight being turned on. The beam illuminates the spot right where I’m standing, and I have one second to look at the agent, who’s now smiling triumphantly at me, before everything whirls around me in a sea of colors.

  The world seems to spin so quickly that I feel like I might throw up.

  And then everything goes black.

  There are hands on my arms. Both arms. Broad, thick, bumpy-feeling hands, gripping me so tightly that it hurts.

  Slowly, my vision starts to come back, like tunnel vision in reverse, and I feel my feet being dragged along, my boots sliding over the smooth surface of the floor. My body is dangling in the air, supported only by those awful-feeling hands squeezing me.

  Everything is blurry. I smell sweat—or maybe it’s something worse than sweat. It smells rank. Fishy, almost. It’s mixed with leather and the strange smell of warm metal and engines. I can hear those engines now, humming in the distance.

  Where am I?

  A growly voice speaks to my left. “What’s the deal with this one? She’s an unexpected arrival. No tribute brides expected this week.”

  Someone snorts on my right, a thick, phlegmy sound. “She was asking too many questions. Sent her up to shut her up. You know the deal.”

  “Out the airlock, then?”

  Airlock? My pulse leaps, making me feel dizzy all over again. What the fuck is going on? I try to struggle, but my limbs feel numb and heavy. My head feels like it weighs a hundred pounds.

  “Worse,” the one on my right says, and he sounds as if he’s highly amused by this information. “She’s going to Alkul. A human female to shut him up and keep him in line.” He snorts again, a piggish-sounding laughter. “Waste not, want not. I think that’s one of their sayings.”

  Yeah, it is. But I don’t think this is what it’s supposed to mean. Whoever Alkul is, I’m convinced already I don’t want to go anywhere near him.

  “Alkul has been whining about wanting a human bride for months. This little piece ought to shut him up for sure. Look at her.”

  “Eh. Too muscular for my taste. I like them soft. The soft ones cry more. This one doesn’t look like she’s going to cry.”

  Damn straight, I think, anger clearing some of the fog in my mind. No way in hell am I letting you see me cry. But you might cry, if I ever get the use of my arms and legs back.

  “How do you know? You’ve never gotten to touch any of the women brought here.”

  The piggish laugh comes again. “Maybe when Alkul is done, he’ll reward us for bringing her to him. Soft or not, I wouldn’t turn it down.”

  “Me neither.”

  Whoever these two disgusting men are, they keep dragging me down what I can now see is a long hallway ahead of me. It doesn’t look like any hallway I’ve ever seen before though. The floor is a gleaming black with red lighting glowing on either side, and the walls curve up on either side of us, pristine, blank, and white.

  I manage to turn my head just enough to get a glimpse of the arm connected to one of the hands that’s holding me, and my heart plummets, even as my head swims with confusion and nausea both from moving and from the sight in front of me.

  The creature—that’s the only word I can think of for it—holding me is tall and hunchbacked. His skin is a thick grayish-green and covered with lumps. His arm is sparsely scattered with wiry black hairs, and his lips protrude thickly from his squashed face, with curved tusks emerging from between them.

  What the fuck?

  Did that lady drug me back at the sketchy loan place? Was the light meant to disorient me so she could shoot me up with something that would make me hallucinate? The monsters dragging me down the hall look like they’re straight out of some kind of science fiction novel, and my surroundings look equally futuristic, like the inside of some kind of spaceship.

  I turn my head in the other direction just as we pass an open door and catch a glimpse of something that looks like a control unit. It has panels of screens and huge windows that let me see… nothing. There’s just black, vast emptiness beyond them.

  Oh shit.

  I have to be hallucinating. I must be.

  “She’s waking up,” one of my captors grunts. I can understand his words, although his voice is so deep it sounds like gravel. “Hurry up.”

  They haul me even more unceremoniously the last few yards, the one on my right lifting me up and pinning my arms tightly behind my back as the other knocks twice on a metallic white door.

  Pins and needles prick at my limbs as if ants are crawling through my veins. Whatever drug they used to knock me out, it’s finally starting to leave my system, but I can barely walk, let alone fight. Still, I struggle weakly against the man as the door slides open.

  Then I get a look inside the room, and my breath freezes in my lungs.

  2

  Jade

  I did acid once, years ago, with a boyfriend who was obsessed with the sixties. I saw some weird shit, but there was always something in the back of my brain that vaguely seemed to understand that what I was seeing wasn’t real. There was a wavy quality to it, like I was looking at something underwater.

  There’s nothing like that now.

  I’m fully awake and everything is in clear focus, enough for me to plainly see the creature sitting in the chair in front of me, swiveling away from his computer screen to face us. He looks a lot like the two holding me, except slightly smaller.

  Is that why he doesn’t get one of the ‘tribute brides’? I wonder, and then immediately want to scream at myself for even thinking for a second that any of this is real. There has to be some kind of explanation that makes sense.

  He’s fatter than they are, I realize as he stands up. He’s more squat, but there’s definitely muscle under it all. His tusks are a bit shorter, and his arms are thickly scarred, with swirling painted designs intersecting the scars. He’s wearing nothing but a leather and fur loincloth, and the entire picture is possibly one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen.

  I’ll literal
ly die before I let them give me to him.

  But right now, I have no way of stopping the monsters who are holding me from doing anything. I couldn’t win a fight against a house cat in my current state.

  The one in front of me stands up, grinning lasciviously as he walks toward me. He licks his lips with a thick, grayish-black tongue, and I find some strength in my still-weak limbs, yanking myself backward in an attempt to scrabble free of the two guards. I have to get away from this awful creature who’s looking at me with beady eyes full of possessive, anticipatory lust.

  It’s useless though. The men holding me only growl, their hands tightening until pain shoots up my arms, making my eyes water.

  Alkul reaches out with one stubby, lumpy finger and caresses the side of my jaw, that blackish tongue licking his lips again with a sound that makes me want to vomit.

  His touch makes my skin crawl. And he’s only touching my face.

  He turns my face from side to side, prying open my lips, checking my teeth like I’m some kind of animal. His other hand goes lower, squeezing one breast under my t-shirt so hard that my eyes water again. He looks down, gaze roving over my body, then steps back.

  “She’ll do,” he says thickly, and I can see his loincloth shifting with evidence that he’s aroused.

  Oh, fuck no.

  “Strip her.” He tosses the command carelessly to the two guards. “And then leave us be.”