My sister isn't a leader who sits on her ass all day. Instead, she’s the type to go out and get her hands dirty. It shows in her appearance, from her dirty boots to the scar across her face from battling with an alien triple her size. She'd killed the alien but not before he'd left the evidence of the war on her face. While the scar makes her look tougher, it doesn’t diminish her beauty. Chocolate skin, brown eyes, plump lips. We’ve been told we look alike more times than I can count. If it weren’t for the fact that she keeps her long, dark hair braided while I like to keep mine out in its curls, a lot of people would get us mixed up.
"Saylor, don't you think that telling me will help?" I try to persuade my sister.
"How?" she asks, folding her arms over her chest.
I bite down on my lip, looking at my feet for a moment before glancing back up at my sister. I shrug. "I don't know, but maybe if I know exactly what I'm looking for, things will go quicker."
Saylor shakes her head, a muscle ticking in her job. "No, Teagan." I open my mouth to protest, but she holds up a hand, quickly shutting me down. "Teagan, you may be my sister, but don't forget that you're a soldier first. I wouldn't let any of my other soldiers mouth off or continue to question me, and you don't have special privileges. If you continue with this insubordination, I'll have no choice but to punish you."
The cold, harsh words make me snap my mouth closed. I know from prior experience that when Saylor says that she will punish me, it isn't an empty threat. Sister or not, she'll tie me up and hit and beat on me until I've learned my lesson if she has to.
"I'm sorry," I quickly apologize. My eyes roam over her face, thinking about how different she is than she was at the beginning of the rebellion when she was seventeen. Now twenty-eight, the woman in front of me bears no resemblance to my sister as a teenager. She's been fighting this war for over a decade, and it's evident in the lines around her eyes and the hardness in her words.
She's a different leader than the one I originally signed on to follow. The one who I pledged to give my life to and join in battle. The one I planned on wiping out the aliens with.
When my sister recruited me to join her in the rebellion, I'd been excited, thinking that I was going to get to help the rest of the human race while hanging with my big sister, the one who had taken care of me, even before our parents were killed.
Now though, she's practically a stranger, morphed into this cold-blooded person that you don't want to cross no matter who you are, and I understand it. She's being who she has to be for the greater good, to help take back the human race. But lately, I’ve started to wonder if maybe she isn’t turning into a bigger monster than the ones we’re fighting against.
And there’s a rift between myself and the rebellion that I can’t continue to ignore, no matter how much I want to.
I'll never tell Saylor, but I'm starting to think that maybe the rebellion isn't the best place for me.
Chapter 5
"Little human, it's time to wake up." The deep voice drifts into my consciousness.
I'm confused for a moment until everything comes back to me in a harsh mesh. I jerk to the side, expecting for my hands to be restrained by cuffs and chains.
Instead, I'm free to move, and my mind tries to catch up to what in the hell is going on. I know where I must be, captured by the aliens. Then why am I not dead or, at the very least, being restrained?
I blink my eyes open, finding myself in an unfamiliar room that doesn’t actually look like a prison. Instead, I'm lying in a soft bed, dark silk sheets covering my chocolate skin. My gaze shoots around as I try to figure out where I am. However, other than a wall that appears to be made of metal with thin beams of neon light on them and the bed, there's nothing in this room.
Other than the big alien standing across from me.
A cruel smile curves Jabex’s lips as he looks at me. "Done checking out the scenery?" he questions, the sarcasm dripping from his words hard to miss.
I scoot back on the bed, the silk sliding along my skin as I stare at him. Being free in this place is much scarier than when I'd been bound, because I don’t know the play here. Why leave me free and unchained?
Before I can try to piece together what is going on in my head, my stomach lets out a loud growl, betraying me.
Jabex’s smile spreads, but there's a certain malice and mischief in it that only sends my heart into overdrive. He shakes his head. "If you'd stop running away from me, I'd take you to get food."
I tilt my head to the side, not moving out of the bed, keeping the distance between me and the alien. "So that you can poison me? Why not just snap my neck here and now, alien?"
He rolls his eyes. It looks weird and out of place on his angular face. "I'm not going to kill you, and neither will anyone else. Did you not hear me and my brother tell you that you're our mate?" he questions. "The only harm to come to you from now on will be mixed with pleasure. Unless you try to escape because we can't have that."
My head spins as I try to process what in the hell the man is saying to me.
Mate?
Why my brain stops on that word and not the rest of the sentence, I'm unsure. I also have no idea what the man means by that. And I don’t remember him or his brother saying anything about it to me.
But you did hear the word before you passed out.
I let out a screech, my thoughts fizzling out as I'm hauled into the air. Strong arms wrap around my waist and a shoulder digs into my stomach. I lift my hands to fight the man off.
"Don't," he hisses out. "I don't have time to deal with this." There's slight amusement in his words, and he mutters something under his breath as we start to move.
"Put me down," I order. Unsurprisingly, I'm ignored as the man jostles me slightly.
"Quiet," he says.
I tell myself that I'm not quiet because he tells me to, but because I'm trying to take in my surroundings. I need to memorize this place so that I can try to get free later. However, it all seems to be nothing but pieced together metal and bright lights. There's a bunch of loops and turns, too many for me to keep up with.
It's only after I give up on trying to figure out the landscape of the place that I notice the warmth in my chest. The way that my body is relaxed, and my mind feels… peaceful, as the alien hauls me around.
And am I leaning myself closer into the alien’s body?
No, that can’t be.
The soft whistle and swoosh of a door makes my eyes snap open. I stare at the metal door as it slides out of the way, and pieces start to click together in my brain.
The weird lights, all the metal, the slight rumble that I can feel every now and then, the soft hum.
"Please don't tell me we're on a spaceship,"
"Well, of course we are, mate." Azrhan’s face appears in front of me as he steps past the now open entrance. "You can’t escape if we're in the air, now can you?"
Chapter 6
There's so much for me to process. The fact that I've been kidnapped. Being stuck in a spaceship, god knows where. However, what my brain stops on is that one word again.
Mate.
Jabex lets me go, and I slide to the ground.
My gaze remains on Azrhan, even as Jabex pushes me past the door frame of the room. "What are you talking about?" With my heart pounding quickly in my chest, my eyes move around the space. I don't know why I'm even bothering to look for an escape since the man is right. If we're in the middle of the air, there's nowhere to go. But... "Mate? What the fuck are you talking about?" I ask, shooting the word back at Azrhan as I stare at him.
My head is spinning, yet that one word seems to vibrate through my skull, keeping my attention and not letting it go. Azrhan doesn't say anything, only looks at me for a moment before going to sit at a small round table. His brother follows his lead, moving into one of the empty chairs and casually plopping down.
Neither of the men seem too worried about the fact that I'm not being restrained when only before they were choking me a
nd grabbing onto me to make sure that I didn't go anywhere.
What the hell happened while I was passed out?
My eyes move to the steel door that's slid closed and doesn't show any signs of reopening. But it's as that thought goes through my head that the door actually does open up, and my feet are moving before I can think about it.
There's no shouts to stop or any sound of movement from behind me, which puzzles me as I make my way toward escape.
Surely they aren't so arrogant as to believe I won’t be able to escape this death trap.
Don't they know I'm the sister of Saylor Aengst? I know to fight until I can't move and that escape is never as far as it may seem. Except that they don’t know Saylor is your sister, or else they would have turned you over to the AHA by now. My sister is the most wanted human on earth and in all the galaxies.
I don’t let myself focus on that any longer as I continue sprinting, my feet pounding against the floor.
I run into something solid and let out an oomph as I go flying backwards. I land on my butt hard before I'm being roughly hauled to my feet. And then I'm released.
I blink, looking at the alien in front of me. A scream nearly passes my lips as I look at the monster. His flesh is red, scales littering his neck. Long, dark hair falls past his shoulders, which are barely covered by a too tight tee. Claws extend from his long fingers, but that isn't the scariest thing about the man.
No, it's all the weird pieces of steel covering his body.
Metal covers his entire right shoulder, smooth and without a dent. It expands down to his hand which is made of the same material, silver claws protruding from his hand, almost an exact match to his left side, which is made of actual flesh. My gaze snaps up to his face where a round, glowing piece of metal covers his eye. The metal seems to be embedded into the skin around his eye, yet the transition from flesh to metal looks seamless. The skin doesn’t look scarred or even raised.
I almost doubt for a second that the man is actually an alien and not some freak genetic cyborg from all the attachments.
I stumble back as he looks at me. "Azrhan, Jabex, why is your mate running into me?" he asks, turning his head to look at the brothers.
Realizing that I'm stumbling back in the direction of the alien brothers, my feet stop. I turn to look at them, finding them relaxed as ever, not moving from their seats at the table. I glance back at the scary alien standing in front of the door, which has shut again.
I'm caught between a cyborg and two aliens.
My heart feels like it's about to fall out of my chest, no matter how much I tell myself not to be scared, that I can get myself out of this situation.
Saylor will eventually send someone after me if I can manage to survive.
I need to play this smart, but as I stand between the three men, I have no idea what to do.
"She has... issues." The words come from Jabex, who is now standing and making his way toward me, a hand outreached.
I flinch back before his skin can make contact with my own. His eyes darken as he looks at me. "Mate, I told you once that I will not harm you unless you ask for it, or I know you want it. So, you have no reason to flinch from me." There's something slightly threatening in the man's words as he stares at me.
"Why do you keep calling me mate? Stop it," the words flow off my tongue quickly, my skin buzzing.
The cyborg-looking man lets out a snort from somewhere behind me, but it doesn't sound humorous or even human.
Well, that's because he's not human, Teagan, he may not even be alien, but something completely different.
A sound moves through the room and when I look over, I find Azrhan pushing his chair back. He stands, his tall frame foreboding in the room. He glances over my shoulder at the other man. "We need some privacy, Wylfynsen."
I hear a grunt and then the sound of that steel door sliding open again.
I turn, going to run when a tight grip grabs my wrist, yanking me back. The steel door slides shut again right in front of my eyes.
"Obviously, you are not understanding what is going on here and that you're not going to escape, so let's talk." I turn around to find both pair of piercing blue eyes on me, but it's Azrhan who's speaking. "Mate."
Chapter 7
My wrist is released, and I stumble back into the hard wall behind me, the cold material sliding along my skin.
Neither of the brothers move for a second. Then Azrhan starts to strip off his shirt, ripping the white fabric over his head.
"What are you doing?" I ask him, hanging onto the wall in fear that I'm going to hit the ground if I try to stand on my own.
God, I'm not as strong as I've always told myself I am. Now that I'm actually in the face of aliens with no backup, no weapons, no Saylor, I want to run and hide.
Maybe I'd been thinking that the rebellion wasn't for me lately, but this is most certainly proof. Rebels don't run in the face of aliens; they attack without mercy, without fear.
"Calm down," Jabex says, his eyes watching me closely. I don't say anything, and his eyes narrow further before he smoothly glides over to me. I shrink against the wall. Anger flashes in his gaze, but he only stands a few feet away from me without doing anything.
Azrhan's shirt is completely gone now, and I think he's going to strip out of the rest of his clothes, but he leaves them on.
"Pay attention," Jabex hisses out, though there isn't as much malice in his voice as there was a moment ago.
I keep my gaze on Azrhan, taking in the peachy skin in front of me. It almost appears as if the man has been carved from stone, abs defined and veiny, packed with muscle.
Before my eyes, the peach skin starts to morph into a dark blue. The color is almost royal, and it only makes the muscle beneath look more defined. I suck in a sharp gasp as a lighter blue color with intricate designs appear along the darker skin.
My gaze shoots up to Azrhan's face, finding it almost the same, but also different. It's the same dark blue as the rest of him, emphasizing his crystal blue eyes. His black hair is the same length, just barely falling past his ears. Along the side of his neck, those light blue designs appear again, and they look even more intricate than the other swirls and lines. My mouth falls open and warmth fills my body as the man's jawline appears to somehow be more defined.
He’s supposed to look like a monster, not… not like some….
"You're not looking at the right thing," Jabex hisses, and then I'm being pulled forward.
Despite myself, I don't try to pull away or run. Something about the man's body... it makes me want to get a closer look.
It's not like I have a choice, anyway, as Jabex parks me in front of his brother. Azrhan's cool eyes watch me. My body can't help tuning into the heat of the alien standing in front of me. On instinct, my body starts leaning towards his, wanting to be closer. I jerk back sharply.
"You're drawn to him," Jabex says as I feel his breath dance along the back of my neck.
I shiver.
"As you should be," Azrhan says. His jaw is tight, his eyes hard. None of it does anything to dim his beauty.
My mind is freaking out. I'm standing inches in front of an alien in his true skin and yet, I'm not running. The opposite is true, in fact, as I draw closer to the man. I want to touch his warm skin, trace those designs with my fingertips.
Warning bells shoot off in my head, and my sister appears in my mind.
Oh god.
I turn, finally moving to run when my eyes stop on Jabex. The man has also removed his shirt. While he's slightly smaller than his brother, it's not by a lot and the muscles that he sports are just as impressive. My eyes shoot along his blue skin and the lighter designs. I blink, thinking they look nearly identical to his brother's. I glance back at Azrhan, looking back and forth between the men. I can't tell if it's a trick of the eye or if I'm missing details, but I swear that they're the exact same markings.
Maybe it's something that's common amongst all their people.
I t
ake a step back, but I'm stopped when a hand wraps in one of the belt loops on my jeans. "Stay," Jabex orders.
My feet remain still.
"You wanted to know why we keep calling you mate; you're looking at it," Azrhan says as he moves closer, his body crowding mine. "The markings you see are our mate marks, identical because we share a mate. All of our kind bear the marks. Some share them with one person, others with dozens, some with none. My brother and I have always known that we've had the same mate and that they would eventually come along. We just didn't expect her to be breaking into my office."
The words spin around in my head as I try to figure out what the man is saying to me. However, while the pieces of the puzzle seem to be connecting, I try to push it away, try to ignore it and pretend the men aren't saying what I think they're saying.
I shake my head, sending my hair flying. "I don't... no... I can’t." Everything comes out in a rush and jumbled up until I have no choice but to snap my lips closed.
"But you are," Jabex says, pressing in behind me until I'm crowded by him and his brother from both sides.
My knees go weak, my body sets aflame, and my vision swims.
"The way you're feeling, it's from being in the presence of both of your mates," Jabex says as something wet licks along my neck.
Heat floods my core, and it feels as if I'm going to faint.
Hands dance along my shirt and I want to push them away, but it's as if I can't get my limbs to work properly. "Don't believe us, look down, look at the marks along your body. They match ours." Azrhan says, and I know that it's his thick fingers that keep skimming along my flesh, igniting tingles.
I want to tell them that I don't have any markings, that if I did, I'd know. It's my body for fuck’s sake, and I've looked at it everyday my whole life. It's brown with no markings other than a few scars. But again, my mouth just won't work, my body overwhelmed and pulsing with an unfamiliar energy.
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