Rax

by Maia Starr

  "Take off that dress. I am done playing with you,” he said as he walked slowly toward me. I began to back up, bumping recklessly into a small table and wrapping my hands around a heavy candlestick on top of it. I kept it hidden behind my back as I stepped backward. He continued to come toward me with his sinister smile and dark hair that was shaggy and down to his middle back. His dark eyes and heavy eyebrows furrowed as he tilted his chin down and looked up at me with his eyes full of lust. He had that look, one of dark desire. But it would be the last look of desire he ever made.

  "Don't come any closer; I am warning you,” I said as I moved flush against the wall right next to the large mirror.

  "I do enjoy your spirit. I only hope you are as wild and fiery when I take you,” he said. He put his hand on my shoulder and yanked at the strap of my dress violently.

  BAM! I hit him on the side of the head with the heavy candlestick. He stumbled and tripped over the chair and fell to the ground. But before he could get up off of the ground, I quickly grabbed the mirror off the wall and crashed it over his head; it shattered into many pieces. I grabbed a very large shard of glass and drove it straight through his heart as I jumped on top of him. The look of shock in his eyes gave way to death. I had warned him. I had warned everyone, but they didn't listen. Now I would need to get out of there. But how could I get out of a heavily secured fortress that sat on an asteroid millions of miles from Earth? I would need help, and I wasn't planning on that help coming from an unlikely place.

  "What have you done?!" a familiar voice whispered in shock. I looked up from my position straddling the leader known as Yiqua with his blood on my hands.

  "You are still here? I thought you would've left as soon as you got rid of me. You handed me off to this piece of crap Corillion here dead on the floor,” I said to him.

  "What did you do Karissa?"

  "Exactly what I warned you I would do,” I whispered to Captain Kai Spornium. He closed the door quietly behind him and ran over to my side.

  "You killed him! I can't believe you killed him! Have you lost your mind?” he whispered to me as he threw a blanket at me and said, “Wipe your hands.”

  "Have I lost my mind? I could ask you the same question when you abducted me from the moon base near Earth. So you're allowed to take human life, and I am not allowed to take Corillion life? That doesn't sound fair to me,” I casually said to him.

  He turned to me, and his blue eyes turned into an icy stare. He was angry. He should be; he was the one that had brought me here, therefore, the murder of the leader known as Yiqua was on his hands as well.

  "They will kill you for this,” he said to me.

  "Not if they don't catch me. Help me get out of here. You were the one that brought me here; you should be the one to get me out of here. This is all your fault. Now you must fix it,” I said to him.

  He just stood there looking at me in shock. His shoulder-length blonde hair was pulled back into a tight bun on the back of his head. His tall figure loomed over me. His shirtless torso and shoulders gave me easy access to his six pack abs half covered in blue scales. He was perhaps the hottest Corillion warrior I had ever seen, and I had seen many.

  He let out a very frustrated sigh. He had already had enough of me. We had spent a week together aboard his ship after he abducted me from the moon base of Earth. I had not made it easy for him. In fact, I had fought and struggled the entire way, so when he finally gave me to the leader known as a Yiqua, he was relieved.

  That was only a couple of hours ago. Poor guy.

  "I knew you would do this. This was why I had not left yet and gone back to my home. I thought there might be trouble, but I wasn't expecting this much trouble,” he said to me.

  "After an entire week together, you should know me by now. I told you for a week that if you tried to force yourself on me, I would kill you. I told you if anyone tried to force themselves on me, I would kill them. I told you every day for a week, so this should not be a shock to you.”

  "Just hurry up and follow me. We have very little time to get out of here,” he said as he dragged Yiqua and placed him under the bed. He threw blankets on the pool of blood and turned off the lights. “There; at least they will not be expecting Yiqua to show himself until the morning. They will think he is very occupied with his new bride. Now come with me,” he said as he pressed against the wall and uncovered a hidden passageway.

  "How do you know about that?” I asked him.

  "It is a long story. Now come,” he said, pushing me into the dark passageway. I quietly followed the twists and turns of the passageways until we were near the exit.

  "I have to put you in this,” he said to me. I turned to see that he had a very large, rough sack.

  “Oh no, you're not!” I said to him.

  "Keep your voice down. This is the only way. Do you think those warriors won't notice that I am walking with a human female to my ship, the same human female they saw wed their leader only hours before?"

  I sighed, “Fine. Just be gentle,” I said as he held open the sack and I climbed inside of it. He drew the drawstrings shut and then picked me up and threw me over his back, hard.

  "Ouch,” I said quietly. He laughed. Jerk. The sack was thick, and I could barely see anything of what was going on outside of me. But I could hear. Soon I heard the engine of a ship; we were close. Then, whack! I was dropped onto the floor. I restrained a yell. I cursed under my breath, “Dammit."

  I heard the engine roar louder, and vibrations started underneath me. We were on his ship. Then I slid across the floor and slammed into the back of a wall. I could hear Kai laughing.

  I slowly opened the sack and peeked out. We were in his ship and looking out the windshield, I could see that we were in space. I looked around the flight deck, and there was no one else there. I angrily climbed out of the sack.

  "You jerk! Why did you not tell me that we had made it to the ship? I have been sliding around all over the place, hitting myself on the walls!”

  "Yes. It has been very funny,” he laughed.

  I grunted in anger as I took a seat and buckled in. I looked out the window at the asteroid behind us. I was glad to be away from there. But where were we going? I tried to decipher the coordinates on the screen in front of me, but they were all in Corillion language, which I did not understand.

  "Where are we going, Kai?” I asked him.

  "How many times have I told you? You will address me as Captain Kai Spornium,” he said angrily. “I am taking you back to Earth, your moon. Taking you was the worst mistake of my life, and it is a short life to begin with.”

  "Oh don't worry, Kai. I am sure you will eventually get laid, and your life will be saved,” I said to him.

  "That is not a joking matter," he said sadly.

  "You know what else is not a joking matter? Stealing human females from Earth just to save your own damn life and your own damn species!” I said, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “Can't this hunk of junk go any faster? Your race will be searching for me in a matter of hours. Can we not jump into hyperspeed?” I said, banging on the dashboard in front of me.

  Kai turned to me and narrowed his eyes at me angrily. “I must stay this course toward my home for a few miles or else it will look suspicious. And stop questioning my methods. I am the one that saved you, and you should be grateful,” he said to me.

  "Yes, but you are also the one that took me in the first place. See how your logic does not make any sense? No wonder you are a dying breed: you are all stupid.”

  "Enough!” He shouted at me.

  I smiled. It was fun getting under his skin. I had grown fond of it over the course of the week we had spent together in space flight. Now we were going to take another journey, but in the opposite direction. There was plenty of time to tease him, and boy was I going to.

  Chapter 2

  CAPTAIN KAI SPORNIUM

  I was not like any other warrior in the Corillion galaxy. I was the only one doing double duty. I
was both the captain of a fleet of Corillion warriors and the leader of a small Corillion tribe that lived on the comet known as Spornium. Spornium was the one and only comet to have a Corillion tribe spawn from it. The others had spawned on asteroids or on moons; because of the constant movement of the comet, only a small amount of Corillion spawned from it. Therefore, as the leader, I was also the captain. As a captain, I was responsible for the fleet of ships that set flight from our home, Spornium. All of the Corillion warriors that were spawned from the comet claimed the name Spornium. It was so for all Corillion warriors: they took the last name of the place that they were born, the name of their tribe.

  It had often been said that Spornium had split off from an asteroid known as Vextor hundreds of years before. Because of this rumor, I was also pledged in allegiance to the leader of the Vextor asteroid, known as Yiqua Vextor. It had become Yiqua’s time to mate; he only had three years left before meeting the end of his 22-year cycle. At 22 years, if he had not found a mate, he would die off. It was the way of the Corillion.

  It was also that way for me. But since I was placed under the leader of Yiqua, I was not allowed to find my own mate until I found one for him and he successfully impregnated her. I’d thought I found one when I took Karissa Lane, but I could not have been more wrong. She was not the perfect mate for Yiqua, but she turned out to be his perfect murderer. Now Karissa and I were in serious trouble, but I don't think she understood exactly how much trouble it was. The safest thing that I could do was to return her to Earth and return home myself. I should have never taken her in the first place.

  "Taking me back to Earth is the smartest thing you have said since I met you. What will you do afterward?” she asked.

  "Why does it matter to you what I do? I just need to be rid of you and then clean up the mess that you made,” I said to her.

  "It is your mess as well,” she said to me.

  "Speaking of it, the mess you made, how exactly did you do that? Yiqua is a fierce warrior leader. He is three times your size and stronger than anyone I have ever known. It does not make sense to me that you took his life,” I said to her.

  "It makes perfect sense to me. That entire bedroom was loaded with weapons: the candlestick, the mirror, there was so much to work with, and he did not see any of it coming,” she grinned.

  Her grin, with bright red lips and dark hair in that flimsy green dress, made me smile at her in return. She was a beautiful human female, and clearly very strong. It was impressive. She was my match, if circumstances had been different. But it was not possible now. She would be hunted throughout the entire galaxy; Earth was the only safe place for her now. I was risking a lot by helping her escape, and I would have to come up with some sort of cover up when I returned. But I would worry about that later; for now, I needed to just get us out of the Corillion galaxy.

  "Prepare to jump into hyperspeed. Marking coordinates for your outer solar system,” I said to her.

  "It's about time. Let's get the show on the road," she said.

  "What? What does that mean?” I asked her.

  "Nothing. Let's go,” she said.

  "Jumping into hyperspeed,” I said as I pushed the lever forward and the ship sped out of the Corillion galaxy and toward Earth.

  Moments later, we were deep into hyperspeed and I had put the ship on autopilot.

  "I am going to see what provisions we have on the ship. I did not exactly get a chance to stock it for a long journey. I had only refueled it thinking I would be headed home and not on an escape journey to Earth,” I said, unbuckling my seatbelt and walking towards the back of the ship.

  "Will you stop with the guilt trip already? You are not going to make me feel guilty for helping me. As I said before, this is all your fault. It all began when you took me from the moon base without my permission. This is all your fault, and I will not let you make me think otherwise. Now what do you have back there, because I am starving?” she said as she followed me to the back.

  She was very annoying. She was making my blood boil with rage. But anytime she stood within inches of me, I grew very warm, and then hot, and then absolutely filled with desire for her. She had that effect on me, and judging from how Yiqua must have attacked her, she had the same effect on him. I was still very impressed with how she took him on. He was a large Corillion warrior. I turned to her, and she rummaged through the food supply, stuffing her face.

  "What exactly did you say you did on the moon base? You seem like a very skilled assassin for a nurse or a doctor,” I asked suspiciously.

  "I did not say what I did on the moon base. You never asked me,” she said with a grin and food stuffed in her cheeks. Even when she was making a beast of herself, she was still adorably sexy.

  "Well, I am asking you now. What was your position on Earth?”

  "I am an intelligence officer in the Earth Intelligence Agency, or the E.I.A., as we call it," she said as she picked herself up and sat on the counter.

  "You are what?! You are a warrior then? I did not know they had trained human female warriors?” I said in shock.

  "Yeah, I kind of figured that. A word of wisdom: you might want to steal from a convent or something next time, not a full intelligence base on the moon. You expected a female that was docile and obedient; instead you got a trained killer. Nice work, Captain,” she said with a wink. She was making fun of me, and it was infuriating. Yet, I had grown used to it.

  "Dammit,” I said in response. This was more dangerous than I had ever thought it to be. Not only had she killed a Corillion leader and would now be a wanted criminal in the Corillion galaxy, but now I was returning her to Earth with more knowledge about everything Corillion than she could ever hope for. Dammit.

  "Are you worried now? The look on your mug changed,” she said casually as she propped her long, thin legs up on the counter. It was a lot to look at, and I could not stop looking.

  I cleared my throat, “Mug?”

  "Your face. Mug means your face,” she said, popping some food into her mouth.

  "No, not worried, just annoyed. You are very annoying, Karissa Lane,” I said, grabbing some food out of her hand and eating it myself. She would leave me to starve with her appetite. How could somebody so tiny consume so much?

  "So we're stuck on this ship for a week, right? That's the same time it took us to get from Earth to your stupid galaxy of rocks. So it should be the same amount of time to get back, yes?” she asked.

  "Yes, believe me, if I could make it go faster, I would. Anything to get rid of you, Karissa Lane,” I said to her.

  "Oh come on, Kai… you know you love me. I can see the way you look at me, but keep it in your pants. Looking is the only thing you get to do unless you want to end up like your dead friend,” she said as she jumped off the counter and left my sight. I watched her walk away; I watched all of her walk away. It was a glorious and bouncy sight in that flimsy dress. It was much better than the black suit that she had worn when I captured her, although as tight as it was, it was quite enjoyable as well.

  I sat there counting the stock of reserves that we had; it seemed ample enough for the two of us, if the human female would learn to ration a bit. It seemed like a lifetime ago that I had set out to capture some human females for the Yiqua Vextor. I remembered getting the order in my office as I sat around making plans to find my own human mate. It would almost be my time, and I always believed in planning in advance. That is what made me a great leader and an excellent captain: planning and knowing every maneuver possible with several outcomes, because you could never rely on one way of doing things. You had to prepare for all things.

  "It is time, Captain Kai Spornium. You must to go to Earth and collect as many human females as you can. Remember, as soon as you have found a worthy made for your superior, Yiqua, then you can claim one for yourself. Your life and his life depend on it, the entire Spornium tribe," Metra, one of the supreme counselors of the Corillion, said to me over the screen communication.

  "I
will set out immediately,” I had replied. Then I was off on a mission to secure a mate for Yiqua, but I did not do it the traditional Corillion way. Usually, it would be a large fleet that would go and bombard Earth and steal as many females as possible in the chaos. I took a different approach; a quieter approach. I would take only one ship, and only I would be going. I was going to silently penetrate the moon base of Earth. I knew there would be several human females, but I only needed one. I only needed for Yiqua to be satisfied and then I could make a second trip to gather a large amount of human females from which I would find one that suited me. I wanted to find one that I truly matched with, not just a human female for the sake of creating Corillion offspring. I wanted more. I wanted connection.

  I was a rare case for wanting that amongst the Corillion race. Perhaps it was because I was from a smaller spawn of Corillion and we spawned differently. We needed connection and mutual interest. I hoped to achieve that, but then everything went wrong. When I had silently penetrated the moon base and slipped some toxin over the face of Karissa, she fell quickly to sleep in into my arms. Then I took her and left just as quietly as I had entered. No Earthlings had chased us. It was 24 hours before she woke up and we were very far from Earth, too far for her to try to escape and get back on her own. But then she began to speak, and struggle, and give me an overall hard time, and I knew I had made a mistake. Still, I took her to Yiqua, and now I was dealing with the consequences. Now, I would be putting myself in more danger than she was worth.