Rohn

by Nancey Cummings

  Rohn

  Warriors of Sangrin

  Nancey Cummings

  Starr Huntress

  Menura Press

  Copyright © 2019 by Nancey Cummings

  Cover design by Nancey Cummings

  * * *

  Rohn: Warlord Brides

  Warriors of Sangrin #7

  * * *

  Published May 2019

  Published by Menura Press

  * * *

  All rights reserved.

  This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book only. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printer or electronic form without prior written person from the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Author’s Note: This is a work of fiction and all people, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. All characters depicted in this work of fiction are eighteen years of age or older.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Foreword

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part II

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Also by Nancey Cummings

  Foreword

  What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

  Nakia may have lost a leg during the Invasion, but she’s not going to let something like that keep her from what she wants.

  And she wants Rohn. She has since the moment the alien warrior rescued her from a collapsed building. But she’s afraid he still only perceives her as a damaged, frail human. She wants him to recognize her as so much more, and she won’t rest until he understands they belong together.

  Rohn might be past his prime, but he’s not blind.

  He knows the other males look at his mate with envy, admiration, and want. They would tempt her away from him, take her for their own, and claim that an old, scarred warrior like him could not satisfy the appetite of a vibrant young female.

  He’ll battle any threat to his mate, friend or foe, and prove himself worthy.

  * * *

  The Story So Far

  * * *

  When aliens arrived on Earth, it happened with an invasion—just like the sci-fi movies taught us to expect.

  The vicious Suhlik meant to enslave Earth and rob her of her resources. Only the Mahdfel warriors stood against them.

  Once the slaves of the Suhlik, the Mahdfel won their freedom. But as a lingering reminder of their oppression at the hands of the Suhlik, they cannot have female children.

  Now, in exchange for protecting Earth, the hunky alien warriors demand only one price: every childless, single and otherwise healthy woman on Earth is tested for genetic compatibility for marriage with a Mahdfel warrior. If the match is 98.5% or higher, the bride is instantly teleported away to her new mate.

  No exceptions.

  Part I

  Earth during the invasion. 16 years ago.

  Chapter 1

  Rohn

  “Hurry up.” Cirra sat on her bags, huffing dramatically. Classically beautiful, the Sangrin female had an even plum complexion and delicate, curling horns. She wore a traditional robe of fine white silk, wrapped tight with a thick sash against the chill in the air.

  She was also the most entitled, irritating female Rohn had ever encountered. Whatever physical beauty she had; she dispelled that illusion the moment she opened her mouth. Mud splattered the hem of the white fabric and Rohn couldn’t help but think it couldn’t happen to a better person.

  “If you’re bored, you can load those bags. Save us time,” Rohn said.

  The female tossed her head back, the ornamental metal tips on her horns glistening under the Earth sun. “Isn’t that your job?”

  “My job is to operate this ship safely.” Rohn slapped the matte gray side of the transport vessel. “Personal valet is not part of my job description.”

  She huffed again. “Fine. Never mind. Just get me off this uncultured planet and back to civilization.”

  Rohn refrained from reminding the female that Earth was in the midst of a war against the Suhlik. Piloting one female about in a ship was a tremendous waste of resources. He’d much rather be in a firefight than acting as a personal chauffeur to the spoiled female.

  “Not my mate, not my problem,” he muttered.

  “Excuse me? What was that?”

  Rohn scratched the base of his horns. “Let me finish the pre-flight checklist and we’ll be ready to go.”

  “That’s better.” Cirra gathered up the muddy hem of her robe and stomped up the ramp, disappearing into the ship. No doubt she would soon complain of the lack of in-flight entertainment or refreshments.

  The sooner he took off, the sooner he got rid of the irritating Cirra, and the happier everyone would be.

  Famous last words, as the Terrans say.

  * * *

  Nakia

  * * *

  School was dumb. Going to school during an alien invasion? Super dumb.

  No matter how much she protested, Nakia’s mom wouldn’t budge on school attendance. It didn’t matter if everyone else stayed home—where it was safe. No one was going to school these days, not even the teachers.

  She understood her mom’s reasoning. Attending school kept up the appearance of normalcy, and when the world was in the midst of chaos, anything normal became precious. Sacred.

  Her mom still made her a packed lunch. Today was a dented can of peaches and a sandwich made with weird homemade bread. Pickings were slim but it was something. Her mom wasn’t the greatest cook in the world but back when the supermarkets were opened, meals came out of a box or frozen. Easy. You didn’t have to be a great cook to put a frozen lasagna in the oven. Those days were gone but her mom did what she could with the food aid boxes and even followed the suggested recipes in the pamphlets that came with the box. Everything her mom made was burnt on the outside and undercooked on the inside, but she put a meal on the table and Nakia ate it, grateful for that piece of normality.

  Aliens weren’t normal. Nakia didn’t care what the news bulletins said. The golden-skinned lizard-looking aliens arrived and they turned out to be the bad guys. She watched the same disastrous footage again and again when the Suhlik gutted the president during a press conference.

  What happens when aliens murder the president on live television? Chaos.

  Cell phones had stopped working immediately. Television had been reduced to what could be received with an antenna, which was mostly news bulletins. But that didn’t bother Nakia. She gobbled up any information she could get and watched the president die again and again, along with footage of bombed out rubble of New York. As major cities joined the list of destroyed cities, Nakia couldn’t tear herself away from the screen. It wasn’t healthy. Her obsession with watching the world fall apart slowly consumed her.

  Then the power went out. Suddenly the trouble that was happening far away was happening to her. It became frightening and, worse still, real. Her only link to the outside world, to information to anchor her in the chaos, came over the radio.

  The government said they had an alliance with another alien faction, the Mahdfel. They brought an army and the weapons humanity needed to fight off an invasion, but they also had much-needed supplies, including medicine.
/>
  It sounded too good to be true, of course, but Nakia hadn’t seen an alien in person, Suhlik or Mahdfel, so she couldn’t say for sure. She wished she knew what the good guys looked like. The radio said they were red, green, and even purple. They had horns and tails, or just tails, shaggy fur like a yeti, they could camouflage their skin like a chameleon, or turn pitch black and disappear, and none of it made sense.

  The Mahdfel couldn’t possibly be all those things. Right? At least the bad guys all agreed to look the same, with their golden skin and murder-lizard reputation. If she ever saw one, she’d recognize it a moment before it tried to kill her.

  The worst of the invasion stayed far away from her little town in the middle of nowhere. Her biggest problems were the lack of power, staying warm during the winter, and being one of the few nerds to bother going to school.

  The world was falling apart, and her mom insisted that as long as the school was standing, Nakia ’s butt would go.

  Well, joke’s on her. That morning the air raid sirens went off and something big struck the school. The walls shook, the floor wobbled and Nakia dove under a table as the building collapsed into a huge pile of rubble. So there. No more school.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance, only it wasn’t thunder. It was bombs and the sound of buildings collapsing. The rubble surrounding her muffled the sound but she felt the vibrations in the earth. Or maybe that was the floor about to give way.

  Nakia counted to ten and then backward, letting out a deep breath. Panic wouldn’t help her. She needed to be calm and alert. Rescue would come. Stay calm.

  Nakia shifted, trying to find a comfortable position and ignore the rubble digging into her butt. She could feel her butt, so that had to be good. In the dark, she couldn’t see the large slab of concrete pinning down her leg, but she felt the weight of it. At least it didn’t hurt, which had to be a bad sign. Being crushed under a wall was supposed to hurt, not be a distant numbness. Or maybe her brain partitioned off the pain, like how she read about that sometimes happening in survival situations.

  Voices cried for help, suffocated by the rubble.

  Partially under a library table, the collapsed debris formed a cocoon around her. Dusty, warm and stuffy, she briefly worried about air. Panicked thoughts of suffocation closed in on her.

  No, if she could hear other people, then enough air got through. No warning sirens went off about incoming alien bombers, so it was lucky she’d dived under the table when she heard the aircraft engines. Bobby Jasper—another unfortunate nerd who wouldn’t miss school—laughed and teased her about being chicken just before the ceiling caved in.

  Shit. Should she be calling out for help?

  “Bobby? Bobby, are you there?” No response. She really hoped Bobby was okay. “Hello? Anyone?”

  She was tired and thirsty. She wanted to tell her mom that going to school while the world was ending was so, so dumb but mostly she just wanted her mom.

  Did she pass out? Nakia didn’t know. Pain seemed to be a distant thing as she floated above her body, which probably meant she was losing too much blood.

  Fuck this. She wasn’t going to sit quiet while she bled out.

  “Hey! I’m here! Help!” she shouted until her throat went raw.

  Chapter 2

  Rohn

  The voices crying for help guided him. He shifted debris, freeing the humans trapped in the building.

  His heart hurt when he realized the people buried under the building were children. He wanted to rage at the Suhlik and their dishonor to attack the vulnerable young, but the building had been brought down when a Mahdfel shuttle crashed into it. Under attack, the ship spun out of control as it plummeted through the atmosphere. That just demonstrated zero control and little skill.

  He should know; he was the pilot.

  Rohn focused on digging out the survivors.

  Human medics appeared, scrambling to set up an area for triage. Rohn continued to dig, shouting for the medics when he found another survivor.

  His muscles ached from the strain of lifting and shifting the debris. He welcomed the burn and fatigue. While his body moved, it kept his mind from replaying the launch and the pre-flight check. The female passenger, Cirra, complained and generally worked his nerves. He had been eager to get underway and get her off his ship as quickly as possible.

  Did he hurry through the system checks? Did he miss a warning or a suspicious reading? If she had not goaded him about schedules and missed appointments, he would have taken the time needed to perform his duty correctly.

  It did not matter. Females were precious, even the ones that complained nonstop. She was loved and important. Any male in the clan was sworn to protect a female and Rohn failed her.

  He had carried Cirra from the ship’s wreckage. He knew enough of basic medical aid to recognize that her wounds were serious. When he reached a flat area, free of debris, he fell to the ground. He covered her wound with his hands to slow the bleeding and waited until a medic appeared to take his place.

  More survivors managed to pull themselves free and wandered in a daze until the crisis responders arrived. “This was supposed to be the safe area!”

  “What happened? Why didn’t the sirens go off?”

  Rohn knew the answer but he did not respond to the frantic babbling of the dusty and battered people. Crisis responders guided them to safety, handing out blankets and hot beverages.

  He worked until his knuckles bled and he lost sensation in his fingers. He worked until the sun slipped below the horizon. Lamps were set up too as Terrans had poor vision in low light settings. Finally, the warlord arrived.

  Rohn expected Vadi Ruh to discipline him on the spot. The large red male always seemed to know what the warriors of his clan would do before they did it. Rather than question Rohn about the fitness of the shuttle to fly, malfunctions, or the fitness of the pilot, he joined Rohn in the search and rescue effort.

  He heard the small female, voice weak from shouting. Shifting large chunks of debris, he found her, half under a table. A collapsed structural beam pinned her leg in place.

  She blinked under the harshness of the portable lights, face nearly white from dust, and fixed her gaze on Rohn. Her eyes were wide, but she did not flinch away in fear, which pleased him. Too many Terrans were timid at their first encounter with a Mahdfel. It grew tiresome.

  “Drink this,” he said, pressing a water sphere into her hands.

  She bit into the sphere without prompting and greedily slurped down the water. “More,” she said.

  He complied. While she drank the second one at a much more controlled rate, he inspected the beam.

  “It’s bad, isn’t it?” she asked, far too calm.

  Shock, he decided. “It’s too risky to move without medics.”

  “I knew it.”

  “Are you in pain?” Vadi Ruh crouched down to inspect the child’s leg.

  “I don’t know. I’m tired and cold.” If the large red male with facial tusks frightened the young female, she gave no indication.

  “What is your name?” Rohn asked.

  “Nakia Sykes.”

  “I am Rohn Ogana, and that is Vadi Ruh. He’s my boss so be sure to act impressed with my rescue. Oohs and aahs, general sounds of amazement, would be appreciated. I’m aiming for a promotion.” Rohn gave a comically exaggerated wink and Nakia grimaced before smiling, thin and tight. She might not admit to pain, but clearly, she felt it.

  “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts,” she said in a rasping voice.

  Shouts over his shoulder told him that the medics had arrived.

  “Nakia, we’re going to shift this beam and free your leg,” he said.

  Working together, he and the warlord shifted the beam enough for the medic to pull the youth free. In moments, they had her on a stretcher and administered a pain blocker.

  She stretched out a hand to Rohn. “Don’t leave me,” she said, voice fading.

  “The child remains under your protection unti
l her family is located,” the warlord said. The red male watched as medics carefully moved the unconscious child to a stretcher. “Or until her condition stabilizes.”

  “Sir, I would much rather be productive than sit at vigil at a sick bed,” Rohn protested. Exhaustion wore away the filter that normally kept his tongue in check. He could not think of a more pointless way to waste his time than sitting and waiting.

  The warlord tossed him a sharp look. Rohn squared his shoulders to face the warlord but his gaze shifted to a point beyond Ruh. The warlord was not an unreasonable male and tolerated a fair bit of colorful impertinence from his pilot, but they were standing in the ruins of a building that collapsed because of Rohn’s failure as a pilot.

  “The Terrans do not trust us,” Ruh said. “Caring for the child you rescued will generate goodwill.”

  “Won’t I frighten them?” The few Terrans he had encountered always reared back in alarm, despite his best efforts to smile. Perhaps it was the horns, or his height, or the fangs.

  Fangs. Probably the fangs.

  “And I do not?” Ruh’s tail uncurled from his side, the barbed tip lazily swaying. “Terrans say I resemble a demon.”

  “Not to your face, though.” Rohn wondered if he too resembled any Terran demons. Researching the subject would at least give him something to do since there was no getting around the warlord’s orders.