by Luna Hunter
“Stop it, Kerax!” he cries desperately, the battle rage lowering his voice an octave. “I don’t want to hurt you!”
His words barely register. The battle rage has already taken me. My muscles have doubled in size, the armored plates on my skin have grown hard and impenetrable, and my brain is only focused on delivering as much pain as possible. All other functions have taken a backseat.
The time for words is over.
I fling myself at my brother with all the power I’ve got, my vision a red blur as I rain down my fists. My power is unmatched, but Vukaror has always had one advantage. He’s quick.
Quick enough to dodge my blows and deliver a decisive strike, right on my temple. I feel his fist connect, my feet leave the ground, my skull fracturing.
And then it all goes dark.
Chapter 14
Makayla
I wake up from a restless sleep with an ache in my chest. Without even opening my eyes, I know something is terribly, terribly wrong.
I sit up straight, only to notice a horned figure standing in the doorway.
“Kerax,” I sigh, filled with relief. “I had a horrible, horrible dream where you… Kerax?”
The tall figure takes a step forward, into the light, and my blood turns to ice.
It’s not Kerax — it’s Vuka.
My worst fears are confirmed in an instant. Vuka’s face is bruised, his lip split and his eyes blackened, but the crushed look in his eyes tell me all I need to know.
I collapse in a heap of tears.
I can’t believe he did it. After all that I said! I pleaded, I begged him not to go, and he did it anyway. Vuka lifts me up, and I angrily slap his arms away. I don’t want to feel his arms around me. I want Kerax, I want my nera, my fated mate.
Oh god.
The thought of never seeing him again makes me nauseous to my very core.
I’m practically lifeless as Vuka carries me all the way home. Without Kerax, nothing matters anymore. Jade, Dev and Zoey are all waiting for me, hollering and cheering as they see us approach, but I don’t even have the energy to raise my hand.
Vuka places me on my feet in front of them, and I instantly turn to Jade, whose got Ka’de perched on her arm.
“Ask him what happened!” I command. “Ask him what he did! I need to know!”
Jade turns as pale as a ghost. “What happened, Kay? What are you talking about?”
“Kerax! Ask him about Kerax!”
My best friend turns to her mate and they converse for a moment in the Kaizon language. She turns back to me, and I can already see the pain in her eyes before she speaks.
“Vuka said that Kerax attacked him, and he had no choice than to defend himself.”
“Liar!” I scream. “Liar! Did you kill him?!”
“Makayla, please—”
I run to my room and lock the door behind me, tears streaming down my face. I don’t want to believe it. I can’t believe it. I have to believe that I reached Kerax, that I changed him… this is all a great misunderstanding… why can’t it go back to the way it was? Why did he have to go?!
Why?!
Chapter 15
Kerax
“You are sure this is going to work, right?”
“Well, it ought to work, yes.”
“Ought to? I’m not paying you for ought to, Otto. I’m paying you deliver me the greatest warrior this world has ever seen.”
“Well, sir, it ought to work. I’m a scientist, not a psychic. I can’t see into the future.”
“If this operation is not a success, then you don’t have a future, Otto. I’ll push that bespectacled face of yours into sulfuric acid myself, HAVE I MADE MYSELF CLEAR?! I haven’t sacrificed dozens of my men to clear this black site, just for you to fuck it all up!”
“Y-y-yes m-m-mister Livingston, you have made yourself v-very clear. The subject s-should be w-waking up now.”
I feel a creeping sensation pass through my skull.
Strange.
I could have sworn I died.
I don’t quite remember what happened, though. There was a fight. A flash of dark gray. I remember feeling… regretful.
That is all.
And then I died.
At least, that’s what I thought.
But this table feels cold. The needles sticking into me ache. Now I think about it, every part of me aches.
And to ache, you need to be alive.
I open my eyes.
“Eureka!”
“My god Otto, you’ve done it! You crazy bastard! My own pet alien. Now I can teach those bitches a lesson!”
Strange. I’m strapped to a table. There are two human males in the room. The one standing to my left is wearing a surgical gown, covered in blood. The one to his right is much older, with burns covering half his face. He’s the one screaming and hollering like a maniac.
“Where am I?”
“An underground facility,” the surgeon answers, pushing his glasses up his nose. I know his name, I realize: Otto.
“Yes, it’s crazy the kind of tech Old Earth had, huh?” The old man says. “I am Kingsley Livingston, and I am your new master!”
“I don’t have a master,” I say. I try to remember who these people are, or why I’m here, but there is a fog in my brain that just won’t go away.
“Oh, but you do!” Livingston says, waving around a remote.
“He only just woke up, he needs time to acclimatize to this new reality,” Otto warns. “Don’t spring too much information on him at once.”
“Bah, hogwash! If you did your job, Otto, then he’ll do exactly as I say!”
I glance down at my chest. Only now do I realize there is a massive scar running across it. The unfamiliar feeling of fear trickles down my spine.
“What have you done?!”
“I’ll tell you what we’ve done, big guy. We’ve just made you my little bitch, and with your raw power, we can take down that other alien fucker that did this to my face!”
The old man is fuming, a crazed look on his maimed face.
I’ve heard enough of this nonsense. I tense my muscles, and rip the chains holding me down to this table off in one go. I rise to my feet and stretch my neck, before turning my attention to the frightened humans.
“Start talking sense right now, or I’m tearing you two limb from limb. What the hell did you do to me?!”
Livingston chuckles. “Time to see if this thing works. If not, then Otto, I hope he attacks you first so I get the satisfaction of watching you pay for your mistakes.”
He presses the button on his remote right as I raise my fist so strike him down. Instantly, a colossal pain passes through my head, turning my vision white hot. All I can do is drop down to my knees and scream.
“Make it stop!”
“It works! Otto, you mad genius. Forget what I said about dying painfully. You are a genius!”
“Sir, the system is meant inspire discipline. It’s not meant to be used as a torture device.”
“Are you telling me how to do my job, Otto?”
“No sir, I am telling you you’ll drive him mad if you don’t stop, and that would be a waste of such a valuable tool.”
I can barely hear a word they’re saying. My ears are ringing, my stomach clenched, my hands shaking, as pure pain makes my skull throb. It’s like icy daggers stabbing me a thousand times over, tearing every inch of me apart.
“Hm. Now that’s a good point, Otto.”
The pain disappears as quickly as it came, but the ringing in my ears does not subside for several minutes. When the world comes back into focus, Livingston has a wicked grin on his face.
“Excellent. Excellent. You’re going to make me the most powerful man on Earth, big guy. The other governors won’t know what hit ‘em.”
These humans, they… did something to me. I can barely comprehend what, the fog in my brain too dense for that, but I know it’s bad. My thoughts drift towards a female figure. I can barely make out her shape,
but I know somehow, deep inside of me, that she is the key to all of this. The key to who I am, to how I ended up here.
“Listen, big guy,” Livingston says. “I want you to track down the beast that did this to my face. You will do that for me, won’t you?”
Chapter 16
Makayla
“Kay, you’ve got to eat something. Please, if not for yourself, then do it for me. It’s been three days now, and you’ve barely eaten a thing. I’m worried about you, girl.”
Dev is sitting on my bed, trying to entice me with the smell of fresh stew, but I just pull the covers over my head and hide from the world.
That’s all I want to do anymore.
Kerax is gone. Killed by a man I have to see every day. Now there’s a giant, Kaizon-shaped hole in my heart, and no amount of food is going to fill that.
“I’m just going to leave it here, okay?” she says as she gets up. “You can eat it while I’m gone. And I won’t even tell the other girls if you don’t want me to.”
Dev softly closes the door behind her. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this gentle and emotional before; she must really be worried about me. There’s no coming back for me, though.
What I had with Kerax was unique.
Sure, he had a bit of a temper, but he was also passionate, kind and understanding. I felt so safe around him, so accepted, so whole… and now I’m more broken than ever.
Why couldn’t him and Vuka just talk it out, what set them both off? Those are questions I’ll never get answers to. Vuka avoids me. He looks pained as well, but I don’t know if I can ever forgive him…
I hear raised voices in the hall. They’re probably arguing about what to do with me again — it’s all they’ve been doing. Zoey’s in favor of force feeding me, bless her heart, but Jade wants to give me to time to grieve at my own pace.
“Makayla?” Jade calls. “You’re going to want to come and see this!”
I hug my pillow a bit tighter. I’m not falling for that trick again. They’ll probably have the table set, and want me to pretend we can have a normal dinner. No thank you.
“Makayla! There’s someone here for you!”
Someone?
Okay, now I’m intrigued. I slip out of bed and open the door. If she’s talking about Ka’de, I’m going to throw a fit. None of this is that baby’s fault, but not even his round little cheeks can cheer me up now.
Jade’s eyes are wide with excitement, and she points out the window. “There! Look, honey!”
I glance through the window. That strange, tall figure, shrouded in darkness… is that… those horns… that can only be…
Kerax!
Kerax
I have followed the scent to this sturdy, wooden house. It cannot have been built by human hands, I spot instantly. The planks used are too big for humans to use, the measurements too precise.
Behind me, hidden in the bushes, the human males lurk. All this time they’ve been following me. They fear me and so they keep their distance, but they talk so loudly they might as well be screaming in my ears. It’s all crude talk about how they’re going to make the human females pay.
A human female — that is who I’ve been chasing.
The old man wanted me to track down the scent of a warrior like me, but my heart told me to follow the female scent. I know nothing about her, except that her smell makes my heart race and my cock thicken.
She holds the key.
My memory is blank. I don’t even know my own name, all the space within me filled with anger, pain, and desperation. And yet, I know at a subatomic level that she is the one for me.
The door of the house opens, and a female figure wanders out into the clearing. Her curly hair is unruly, her curvy body hidden underneath a pajama. Despite the woman’s disheveled look, she is the most gorgeous creature I have ever laid eyes on.
“Kerax?” she calls.
Her warm voice triggers something inside of me, like a flame being ignited. I rush towards her, heat spreading through me like wildfire.
“Kerax, it’s you!”
She opens her arms for me and I grab her and lift her up, the warmth of her skin pushing all of the pain inside of me away. I hear the old man in the distance calling for me to attack her, but I push the command away.
A second later the now familiar surge of white hot pain passes through me, but this time, I manage to resist dropping to my knees. This female, she gives me strength, she gives me power! The way she looks at me makes me feel like I’m worth a damn.
“I don’t remember,” I grunt, fighting the pain.
She places her hand on my cheek, her big brown eyes filled with compassion. “Maybe this will jog your memory, my nera.”
The human female stands on the tips of her toes and kisses me, right on the lips.
An explosion of endorphins rush through my veins, the doors of my mind blown open by the tender feeling of her lips on mine.
Everything comes back to me.
Kerax - Kysus - Vukaror - Earth - Makayla.
“Makayla!” I breathe.
I remember!
“That’s right,” she chuckles. “I was so worried about you… what happened to you? If I knew you were out there I would have come looking, but I thought you were…”
“Livingston!” I say.
She looks up in surprise. “What does he have to do with anything? How do you even know about him?”
There are so many thoughts rushing to my head at the same instant, it’s hard to make sense of them all, let alone form them into coherent sentences, but that is what I must do. My nera’s life depends on it! And yet, the stabbing pain that is assaulting my senses over and over again, courtesy of the humans who tried to enslave me, is making talking extremely difficult.
At this moment her home is surrounded by human males, armed with guns, and they can charge at any moment. Every second counts.
“He’s here!” I say.
“Who? Livingston? That’s impossible, I saw his helicopter go down myself. Are you okay, baby? You look… like you’re in a great deal of pain.”
“Kerax.” That deep, low growl can only be one man. Vukaror. He’s standing behind my mate, his eyes set on me.
“Go!” I urge my mate. “Inside!”
Instead, she turns around and spreads her arms wide open. “You’re not going to hurt him again, you hear!” she says. “If you want to fight him, you’re going to have to fight me first!”
Such strength, such courage. This woman truly is remarkable!
I place my hands on her sides and kiss her neck. “Go, please,” I grunt through my teeth. “Please.”
Makayla turns around, tears in her eyes. “Are you sure?”
I nod vigorously. “Yes!”
I’m relieved when she finally obeys my wishes, and heads towards the home. The other females are watching us from the window — those must be her sisters she told me so much about.
“What’s the meaning of all this, brother?” Vukaror growls in Kaizon. “I smell human males. Have you sold your soul to them?”
In any other circumstance, his verbal jab would have enraged me, but I no longer care about my pride.
I’ve let it get the best of me before, and it lost me everything. Despite my failure, I’m getting a second chance at life.
I’m going to make this one count.
“I am sorry, brother,” I say. The pain throbs inside me like a parasite, but I fight it with all I’ve got. “I should not have antagonized you. The males, they found me and… did something to me. I have led them here, but we can fight them together. As brothers.”
Vukaror nods thoughtfully. “I am the one who owns you an apology, brother. I should not have attacked you. I should have listened to you.”
“We can talk about this later,” I growl as I stretch my hand towards him in the human greeting. “When all these human males can no longer harm our females.”
He grabs my hand and shakes it. “Agreed, brother.”
&n
bsp; “Attack!” a human male voice shouts. In a co-ordinated move, dozens of human males charge from the forest, guns blazing, the rat-tat-tat sound triggering my battle rage.
Vukaror dashes across the battlefield, uttering a primal roar as he descends upon the men like a hurricane. I turn towards Livingston, the man who did this to me, the man behind all of this suffering.
I know exactly in what tree he’s hiding, for I can smell his stench from a mile away. The pain intensifies as I get closer to him, the throbbing in my skull now a full blown earthquake, but still I persist.
The men who stand in my way are easily dispatched with a swipe of my claw. I shake the trees he’s hiding in, and the old man comes tumbling down.
“Damn it, Otto, why isn’t it working?!” he calls out frantically. He scrambles to his feet, back pressed against the tree, his panicked eyes looking for a way out.
There’s no escaping me.
“You used me like a weapon,” I growl as I swipe towards him. He ducks, and my claws swipe through the tree itself. It comes crashing down with a hellish noise. “You would have me hurt the ones I love!”
“Look, big guy, listen to reason,” he pleads. “Do you see this red button here? That’s a kill switch, you understand? I press this button, you die! It’s wired directly into your heart. So I’d back off if I were you!”
I cock my head. I’d gladly die for my mate. It is all a Kaizon can desire.
“What do you want? Females? Because I’ve got a bunch of those. You fight for me, you’ll get so much pussy you’ll drown in it.”
“I want you to die,” I growl as I launch my final strike, my fist headed straight for his face. Before it can connect he pushes the button.
My two hearts convulse in pain. I drop down to my knees, gasping, willing my body to continue, to get up again, but it is a fight I am losing.
“Such a waste,” Livingston says as he scrambles back up to his feet. “You could have had it all—ARGH!”
Through half-opened eyes, my vision blurry from the pain, I see a long, dark shape knock Livingston off his feet.
