by Aileen Erin
This book is for anyone struggling right now and needs a little Ami spirit in their soul.
This world—this life—is hard. Be like Amihanna.
Don’t quit. Not ever.
Especially when it’s hard.
Because the hard parts always pass, and there will be glittering golden times ahead.
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xoxo,
Aileen
First Published by Ink Monster LLC in 2021
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Ink Monster LLC
100 Commons Rd., Ste 7-303
Dripping Springs, TX 78620
www.inkmonster.net
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ISBN 9781943858750
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Copyright © 2021 by Ink Monster LLC
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All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Also by Aileen Erin
The Complete Alpha Girls Series
Becoming Alpha
Avoiding Alpha
Alpha Divided
Bruja
Alpha Unleashed
Shattered Pack
Being Alpha
Lunar Court
Alpha Erased
* * *
The Shadow Ravens Series
Cipher
* * *
The Aunare Chronicles
Off Planet
Off Balance
In Command
On Mission
On Destiny
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
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
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Don’t miss the exciting finale of the Aunare Chronicles!
Looking for more from Aileen Erin?
Also by Aileen Erin
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter One
AMIHANNA
There weren’t many crowds I liked.
Usually, crowds meant something bad or dangerous or, at the very least, uncomfortable was going to happen. At least that’s how it was for me. But this group was different.
The gym was large—nearly four times as big as my old warehouse gym on Earth—and that didn’t include the four rows of spectator stands off to the side. The back wall was made for climbing, and the floor was made up of some magical substance that was hard when I needed to run and soft when my sparring partner tossed me to the ground. This was the first place on Sel’Ani that felt like home, and whether my father liked it or not—I’d claimed this gym as mine.
Teaching again—teaching here—was something that I couldn’t quite put into words, other than to say that I loved it. I really, truly loved it. And this class? It was good. It felt like something I was meant to do.
I’d already been through my workout with my guards. They were now sprinkled around the walls, keeping an eye on everyone in the room, just in case. But no one in here was anyone I’d call an enemy.
My eyes stopped on Plarsha. Apparently, she’d been my nanny when I was little—not that I remembered much from back then—but now she was the head of my father’s estate. She basically ran the whole place from her office in the estate’s massive kitchens. She’d been helping me navigate the estate and all the strange Aunare food since I got back to Sel’Ani. I owed her a lot, but even if I didn’t, I still would’ve taught her how to defend herself.
Plarsha usually wore a half-apron—something she apparently considered part of her uniform even though I’d never seen her cook—but not right now. She’d traded the apron for loose pants and a stretchy wicking shirt that she could move in. Her long, graying brown hair was in its usual braid coiled in an intricate pattern on top of her head, but she had a tiny crease in her brow that told me she wasn’t sure at all about what she was doing. I didn’t love that. She’d been my first Aunare student, which meant that she should’ve had a little more confidence by now.
I watched her move and couldn’t help but wince. Her right shoulder was next to her ear. Just looking at her positioned like that made my own neck ache in sympathy. “Shoulder down just a little, Plarsha.”
Plarsha startled and looked around the room before turning back to me with wide eyes. It was as if she was shocked that I noticed her with so many others in the room. Which was fair. She was one of thirty today—a full class—but I did my best to give everyone attention so that they would feel confident.
“You’re doing fine,” I said calmly. “But your neck’s going to cramp up if you keep your shoulder in your ear like that.”
Her eyes drifted to the people in the stands, and I forced myself not to sigh. She was especially self-conscious when we had people watching the class, and today, the stands were packed. I probably shouldn’t remind her that the lesson was being livestreamed across the Aunare colonies. What were the chances she’d notice the camera zooming toward her right now?
Her skin flashed bright.
Yep. She definitely noticed.
I started toward her. “Like this.” I held my body as a mirror of how I wanted hers to be.
Plarsha forced her gaze away from the fist-size camera hovering in front of her. She dropped her hands to her sides, shook out her shoulders, and then raised her fists again. “This?”
No. Nope. Not that at all.
Plarsha had approached me with a few of the kitchen maids, asking for lessons. They’d heard about how I taught Earthers, and after the attack on the estate, some of the staff here were having nightmares. Plarsha thought that being able to defend themselves would help.
Nightmares and being afraid were something I could relate to. I knew I had to help, even if my schedule was as bad as Lorne’s these days. Plarsha might have been one of my first students on Sel’Ani, but she was the one I had the hardest time teaching. Forcing her body to move in a different way than she was used to had been next to impossible, but I wasn’t giving up. I hadn’t met a student I couldn’t teach, and I wasn’t letting that happen now.
I stepped closer to her, correcting her stance again. Before walking back to the front of the room, I went through the motions a few times with her to make sure she wouldn’t hurt herself, pausing to adjust other students as I went. I tried to give the newest attendees a little extra attention before making it back to the front of the gym. When I got there, the bleachers were to my left, my thirty in-person students were spread out in front of me, and a camera still zoomed around to capture everything for the livestream.
After the first few weeks of this class, I’d had to limit the size. It’d been just Plarsha, a few kitchen maids, and some of the housekeeping staff, but then every time I taught, more people would s
how up. Eventually, someone let it slip that I was teaching classes, and then it wasn’t just the people who lived and worked at my father’s estate that wanted lessons. It was everyone.
Roan said we should just stream my classes across the galaxy, which worked out really well. Way more people than I’d ever imagined tuned in to watch live, and even more watched the recordings later.
Today—like most days now—we were full with thirty people in staggered rows standing in front of me, repeating over and over the easy one-two punch combo I’d demonstrated earlier. Depending on how many times they’d come to class, some of them were watching me watch them or waiting for me to give them a nod of approval.
I noticed a few of my regulars were missing today, but there were also a few new faces in the class. Each in-person student worked on the estate, so I wasn’t worried about new people, but if there were still new faces showing up when there was an absentee, then I still wasn’t able to fit in everyone at the estate that needed to be here. The vids of the class were good, but in-person instruction was so much better. When they were here, I could help them fine-tune each move and make sure they were feeling confident in protecting themselves.
Damn it. I was glad to have newbies here, but maybe I needed to talk to Eshrin—my head guard, currently standing against the far wall—about finding a new classroom. Something that could accommodate more people. Although I knew what he’d say. More people meant less safety.
I was still a bit of an unknown to everyone, but that was slowly changing. The Aunare were starting to not hate me quite so much. Every day it got better, but there was still a risk.
I made a mental note to talk to him later. “Okay. Everyone’s doing a great job so far, which means we can move on to the next exercise.” I nodded to Eshrin. He gave me a nod back and then turned on the holo program for the next part of the class. Suddenly, three-foot green holographic targets hovered in front of every student.
I’d worked with Roan and Eshrin to make this program run the way I wanted it to. It was so beyond better than anything I’d had in my old warehouse. It almost made me sad that I didn’t have it there, but I was thankful for it now. Even if I did miss the days when I made Roan wear layers of padding and get hit repeatedly by my students. That was always fun.
I paced back and forth in front of the class, trying to make eye contact with as many students as possible while I spoke. “We’re going to work on packing everything you can into your punches. Those who have been with us the last couple of weeks are used to the holo-targets and how they work, but I’m going over it again for the new people—even if you’ve watched it via the stream, it’s different in person. Here, you actually have the holo-targets to hit. And we’ve got a bunch of newbies this week.”
Some of them nodded, but others stayed still and focused, waiting for me to tell them to start. It didn’t matter to me how they responded as long as they were paying attention. “Phase one of the holo-target program is pretty easy-peasy. The target will explode with proper fist placement. You do it five times in a row, and the targets go through their shimmering transition from green to blue. Got it?”
There were some nods but no questions. Not even from the newbies. “Phase two of the program is a little harder. You’re going to have to hit it correctly and with enough force to knock an average person off-balance.”
There were some grumbles, but I kept going. “After ten good hits, it’ll get harder again. You’ll know you hit the final stage when your target does a shimmering transition from blue to red. Once you’re there, it’ll only keep exploding if you’ve surpassed your previous hardest punch. This will not only increase your strength, but your endurance will build up so that if you end up in a longer fight, you’ll have the stamina to keep going.” If anyone made it more than a few past the red, they’d feel like their limbs were wet noodles by the time I was done with them.
“These targets are awesome, and that’s not just because I helped make them. They’re going to help you get the power you need to punch through someone’s face.” A few eyes widened, and I almost laughed. “Not literally. But figuratively.”
There were a few chuckles from the stands.
“The way you’re holding yourself, the way you’re holding your hands, the way I’m teaching you, will mostly keep you from hurting yourself, but—”
One of the newbies in the back called out, “Mostly?”
“Yeah. Mostly.” There were some grumbles, and that was to be expected. Especially from anyone who was here for the first time. “You guys, get real. You hit someone in the face, it’s going to hurt your hand. A face has a lot of bones in it. But what’s a little bit of pain when you’re fighting for your life. Right?”
“But I don’t have the powers that you do. I can’t do this. It’s not in my skill set.” Almya—my new seamstress and designer—sounded defeated, and that wasn’t what I wanted. She was one of the newcomers today. “I don’t even know why I’m here.” The last part was muttered softly, but I still heard her.
If she was saying it, then others here were thinking and feeling it. Probably even more who were watching the feed were feeling it, too. That wasn’t what I wanted at all. That wasn’t why I’d agreed to teach.
I didn’t want anyone to quit, so that meant I needed to address Almya’s grumbled complaints. “You’re here because you want to learn how to defend yourself. You want a way to participate in what’s happening, and that’s a good thing. And yes, I have different abilities than everyone in here—except for my guards. We’re made for this kind of work,” I said. “But you can’t let that be an excuse to not try.”
I looked at the rest of the class. “Every single Aunare is faster and stronger than the average Earther. That’s just a fact. It’s the way your muscles are built. I’m sure my friend Audrey over there—who studied not just Earther medicine but Aunare medicine—would know more about why the Aunare are faster. That’s not my skill set. All I know is that I couldn’t use anything on Earth that would’ve made my skin glow. I would’ve been hunted and killed. So, I shoved away all of the extra abilities that make me a better fighter than most everyone in this room. I managed to survive by fighting with the same techniques I’m going to teach you right now. You can do this. With the proper training, anyone can do this. Earther or Aunare.”
“You really want us to believe you didn’t use any of your abilities before coming here?” That was from someone else in the back of the room. The snarky tone gave away the fact that they probably didn’t want to be here. Maybe their supervisor wanted them here, or maybe a friend dragged them here, but either way, I was going to answer the question because if one person was saying it aloud, there could be thousands of people thinking it.
Or better yet, I’d make my best friend answer it. “Roan? You want to respond to that?”
Roan’s bright green gaze darted up at me, and he blinked a few times as he caught up. He was leaning against the wall at the front of the class monitoring the gym feed with one earbud in, but there was a slight delay on the tablet. The second he heard the question in his earbud, he gave his goofy grin.
“Did she ever use her abilities on Earth? No. She was never this badass before.” He gave me a little wink, and I wanted to roll my eyes at him. He thought that wink was way more charming than it actually was. “This whole exploding melons and moving so fast I can barely track her? That’s new. I didn’t see her do anything like that on Earth. I wouldn’t have been able to keep up with her if she did, and I kept up with her just fine. We patrolled together nearly every night for years. She was good. Don’t get me wrong. She could kick way more ass than I could, but not like this. She’s so light-years beyond my level now.” He jerked his chin toward me, all of his smile and flirty looks gone. This was Roan when he was about to be serious.
“Listen to Amihanna. She’s a pro. She’s been teaching for years. Saved more lives doing that than anything else, and that’s saying something. Trust me. If you follow what she says, you�
��ll be doing more than a favor for yourself. You’ll be able to save your own life and the lives of the people you love. We are in a war right now. These skills are a gift no one can take away from you. She’s saving you today.”
Roan looked at me with a respect that was almost reverence on his face. It was something that I’d never seen from him before. I never knew he felt that way about my teaching. He was my best friend, and we talked about everything, but I wasn’t sure we’d ever talked about it. This was just something I always did. He came to help me when he could, but I didn’t know he thought I was giving people a gift.
Roan’s tablet flashed, and the moment was gone. He looked down at it and started typing back to the livestream viewers. I’m sure what he’d said opened a floodgate of questions.
“All right.” I cleared my throat. Hopefully the explanations made everyone feel a little more confident and less like they wanted to give up. “Back to it, everyone. Start punching. Keep going until the holo target in front of you explodes. I want to see at least ten explosions from each of you. Five of those are total giveaways. That means I need five on the blue targets. It’s not a lot. You can do it. Push yourselves. Picture the attack on the estate. Picture fighting back and hit those targets.”
