by Pearl Foxx
Table of Contents
Introduction
Vera
Rayner
About the Author
The Vilka’s Servant
The Shifters of Kladuu Book One
Pearl Foxx
The Vilka’s Servant is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real people, place, or event is purely coincidental and not the intention of this collection.
No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the proper written permission of the appropriate copyright holder listed below, unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal and international copyright law. Permission must be obtained from the individual copyright owners identified herein.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Vilka’s Servant copyright © 2017 Pearl Foxx
Contents
Introduction
1. Vera
2. Rayner
3. Vera
4. Rayner
5. Vera
6. Rayner
7. Vera
8. Rayner
9. Rayner
10. Vera
11. Vera
12. Rayner
13. Vera
14. Rayner
15. Vera
16. Rayner
17. Vera
18. Vera
19. Vera
20. Rayner
21. Vera
22. Rayner
23. Vera
About the Author
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1
Vera
Vera hunched over a pile of rubbish.
At least, to anyone else, it would look like rubbish, but to her, it was a glorious heap of disassembled reactor parts waiting to be rebuilt. She reattached and adjusted, recalibrated and polished until the pile took shape beneath her hands.
She straightened away from her workbench and swiped at a piece of red hair that had fallen loose from her tight ponytail. Around her, the other engineers of the Zynthar International Space Station orbiting in deep space near Saturn worked to rebuild one of the fleet’s passenger shuttles. She was the only woman in a sea of male engineers, but the fact that she’d been given the reactor to rebuild was huge. It was the most important part of the shuttle. Without the reactor—
“Vera!”
Frank, her boss, slunk over to her workbench. “Yes, sir?” she asked, instantly wary.
His heavy-lidded eyes caught on her cheek, where she’d likely smudged grease across her fair, freckled skin. At least it was her cheek this time that caught his attention and not her breasts or ass. “Shift’s over,” he grumped. “Head out.”
Her hands clutched the reactor protectively. “But I’m almost done. I thought I could help with the install—”
“We’ve got it.” Frank hitched up his belt. “Go get some rest.”
Let the men handle the hard part, Vera heard the unspoken words ringing in her ears. When would she get the chance to prove she was a better engineer than half the men in this room?
“Sir,” she said through gritted teeth. “If you don’t mind, I want to stay here and—”
Above them, an alarm began to wail. One of the exterior cargo bays in their sector had been opened without decompressing the interior chamber first. They only used the cargo bays for incoming broken-down shuttles and ships.
“What the hell?”
“Are we expecting anything else today?” Vera asked her boss.
“No.”
The alarm quieted as suddenly as it had started. Everyone was looking around, exchanging nervous laughs, when the chamber door whooshed open.
Silhouetted against the cargo hold’s dim lighting, a swarm of hulking figures swept forward with large rifles raised. They were clad in black suits with large gas masks covering their faces. Vera had time to feel her stomach dip in fear before blasts peppered through the air. Realizing they were being fired at, the engineers shouted and ran blindly for the exits. Those that almost reached the doors fell to the ground, unmoving, with large darts sticking out of their backs.
They were under attack—alien attack. Vera had time to think before she reacted, because the only humans this far out in space were on the station and wouldn’t be coming in through an exterior bay door.
It wasn’t the first time aliens had attacked them.
“Get down!” Vera shouted at Frank.
But his eyes were stretched wide in fear. A dart struck the reactor between them, sending up a spray of sparks. As Frank scrambled for cover, he knocked Vera across the workbench and out into the open where darts whizzed by above her head and running engineers stepped on her hands and arms. Before she could get to her feet, a large hand wrapped around her neck.
“What do we have here?”
“What the hell is a female doing in the mech bays?”
The voices were deep and raspy. Male. And they were speaking the American Corporation’s universal language.
The hand on her neck wrenched her around, and she looked up at two nearly seven-foot-tall forms. Their faces were obscured behind their masks, their voices muffled. She jerked against the steely grip on her neck, but her efforts barely fazed the giant alien holding her.
“Take her to the ship. We want this one,” he said. He shoved her into the second alien’s arms.
“Fuck you.” She spat at him.
“Leave her alone!” Frank rushed in like a banshee, swinging a heavy wrench at the alien who’d just released Vera.
Laughing, the alien easily caught Frank and restrained him. Vera struggled, but insanely strong arms clutched her tight. “These humans,” the alien holding her said, and Vera heard the dark smile in his voice. “So pathetic.”
Frank thrashed in the other alien’s hold. “You won’t get away with this. Commander Gideon will—”
A dagger thwacked into the soft orb of Frank’s eye before he could finish his threat. His mouth hung open, a trickle of blood trailing down his cheek. He collapsed to the floor.
Vera screamed.
The alien pulled his dagger from Frank’s eye with a wet squelch before raising his rifle at Vera’s chest.
Her eyes stretched wide, her heart caught in her throat. “No,” she pleaded. “Please.”
He fired.
The blast sent fire spreading deep into her sternum, and then everything went black.
Vera woke to the sudden force of acceleration. She threw out her hands to keep her balance but was jerked short.
What the hell?
Metal cuffs secured her hands against the decking. Good, solid metal cuffs of an unfamiliar alloy. Vera knew good metal. She’d spent her entire life welding and working it. The smell of molten silver was her favorite perfume. But she didn’t recognize this.
Someone whimpered beside her.
She looked up to meet the gaze of another woman, also bound to the floor. Beyond sat at least twenty other wo
men chained in a row, eyes glittering with fear. They all wore space station uniforms, though Vera recognized none of them. An enormous cargo hold stretched beyond the limits of her vision in the dim light. Unfamiliar tubing and foreign circuitry ran overhead in a confusing tangle. This wasn’t the Zynthar International Space Station.
She was on another ship, and judging by the acceleration, an incredibly fast one.
Next to Vera, a young girl wearing a Zynthar student uniform stirred. She looked barely eighteen with smooth black skin and dark hair in a trendy, complicated braid. She whimpered, her split lip trembling.
“It’s okay,” Vera whispered, keeping her voice as low as possible. “You’re okay.”
The girl’s light green eyes stretched as big as saucers and brimmed with tears. Vera’s own panic began to swirl, but she gripped tight to her logic. It wasn’t unusual for the odd alien forager to attack the space station to steal goods or slaves. But the Zynthar Space Station housed some of the military’s finest units. Commander Gideon, the man in charge of the entire galactic force, lived on the station, and he always squashed attacks and dealt with the criminals decisively. It would only be a matter of time before he sent an entire unit of Falconer Elites to recover Vera and the other women. The thoughts soothed Vera’s frazzled panic. She inhaled deeply, letting the smells of coolant and electricity work like a balm over her fear. When she could speak calmly, she asked, “What’s your name?”
“Niva.” The girl trembled so hard her teeth clacked together.
“I’m Vera.”
“Wh-where are we? What happened?”
“The space station was attacked.” Vera tried to remember the details. She recalled the gunfire and a hand on her neck. The two aliens. And Frank. The knife embedded in his eye. His body folding onto the floor, never to move again. She cringed.
“They were human,” a woman whispered from a few feet over. She ran a shaking, chained hand through her tangled hair. Her lavender tunic was torn at the shoulder, but she looked otherwise unhurt. “They came into the temporary boarding section. It was like they’d appeared out of nowhere, and they had gas bombs that knocked everyone out.” The woman’s breathing started to hitch.
Vera looked around and realized there were no children or elderly among them. All women. On some alien planets, human flesh trade existed, and women were highly prized. Her skin prickled with goose bumps as the reality of their situation sank in. “I see.”
The other women put the same pieces together, and their faces filled with fear. Though they all lived on a predominately military station, these women were civilians. Whoever captured them had targeted victims who would be less likely to fight back.
But they’d judged wrong when they took Vera.
Around her, the women murmured to each other. Some were crying. Niva let out a choked sob, and Vera pulled her as close as their restraints would allow. “I don’t know where we are or what they want, but I do know that we’re stronger together. Does anyone have any jewelry or hair pins I could use to unlock our chains?”
“Don’t bother with that.”
A deep growling voice rumbled from the far end of the room. A tall alien strode out of the gloomy bay’s depths. He was massive, his broad shoulders straining beneath a tightly woven flight uniform that shimmered beneath the lights like black silk. He’d shoved his long hair back from his face, the ends tangled, and a heavy stubble lined his square jaw. But his eyes were dark and menacing, and a chill tumbled down Vera’s spine. Behind him followed six equally massive men.
Something about them wasn’t right. They were humanoid, and no humanoid aliens existed this deep in space. In fact, Vera recalled none from the Intergalactic Alliance of Planets and Lifeforms. Were these men—aliens, she corrected herself—undiscovered?
The women shuffled back toward the wall. All except Vera and the shivering young girl cowering against her side.
“None of you will be going anywhere.”
When the leader spoke again, Vera recognized his voice. He was the one who had killed Frank and shot her with the tranq gun.
The smell of the aliens, sweat and blood, overpowered Vera. It broke through the mechanical scents that had calmed her soul only moments before. The danger she was in came into sudden, sharp focus.
“Stand up,” the leader bellowed at the women.
His crew surged forward, pulling terrified women by the hair and shoving them against the room’s cold metal wall. Vera got herself and Niva to their feet before anyone could grab them. Across the hold, one woman spat in the face of the sharp-nosed alien who held her.
Swiping at the spit on his face, he grabbed the woman’s hair and yanked, ripping the locks free from her scalp. She screamed in agony. He laughed and shoved her hard against the wall, using his body to keep her from collapsing. “If you want to play rough, I’m sure we’ll have buyers who are interested in such sport.”
Vera pushed Niva behind her to block the small young woman from the aliens’ ire.
“Drausus,” the leader said. “No damaging the merchandise.”
“Yes, Savas.” The younger alien named Drausus released the woman, who collapsed and clutched her bleeding scalp. Keeping the hair he’d torn out, he sauntered back to Savas’s side.
“Merchandise?” Vera said, shocking even herself by her boldness. She should shut up, keep quiet until she figured out what was going on. These aliens were huge. She had no hope of physically overpowering them. She had to outsmart them. So why was she still talking? But the fear welled deep in her belly, and she couldn’t stop herself. “What do you mean merchandise?”
The one called Savas stalked forward until she could feel his breath against her face. She craned her head back to look up at him, refusing to avert her eyes.
“You are whatever I say you are. From now on, you are mine to do with as I will. Now shut your mouth or there will be consequences.” His eyes slid to the young girl at Vera’s side.
Vera eased Niva a little farther behind her and trained her gaze on the decking, hating herself for backing down but needing to keep herself, and the other women, as safe as she could.
Savas backed away with a smirk. But Drausus wasn’t finished. He eyed Niva’s trembling body. “Dark women are thought to be quite sensual lovers in my culture,” he said, stepping closer to finger a lock of Niva’s hair. To the leader, he asked, “If the merchandise remains unblemished, is there any reason not to sample the goods while we make our way home?”
“I suppose we have a little time before we reach the wormhole nexus.”
The mention of a wormhole sent Vera’s heart bucking. Humans hadn’t even proved the existence of wormholes yet, and they were heading toward one? Where would it take them? To another galaxy? How would Commander Gideon follow then? But her worry shifted as Drausus pulled a key out of his pocket and reached for Niva’s cuffs.
“No, no …” Niva tried to squeeze between Vera and the wall.
“Leave her alone!” Vera shouted.
With a dark chuckle, Drausus backhanded Vera across her cheek. White-hot pain seared through her head, and she stumbled to the ground. Drausus jerked Niva’s shackles to pull her closer. Tears ran down her face.
Vera shook her head to clear away the dizziness. Using the wall, she managed to stand once again. Drausus paid her no mind as he slid the key in Niva’s cuffs. Vera’s chest ached with a need to do something. To stop this. Perhaps she could at least distract the man long enough for him to leave Niva alone.
Breathing in shallow gasps, she waited until Niva’s cuffs were unlocked. The moment the metal slipped free and Drausus was distracted by the feel of Niva’s skin, Vera struck, smacking her cuffs against his nose. The bone crunched as metal met flesh.
Drausus’s head snapped back. Blood welled from his nose, and he lowered his head to stare at Vera, letting the crimson fluid pour down his lip and drip from his chin. His sharp nose was now bent at an angle, and a magenta welt lay across his cheek.
The carg
o hold went silent.
Vera took a step back. This was going to be ugly.
A growl reverberated deep in the huge alien’s throat. His shoulders shook, and a crack like splintering wood filled the hold. Drausus’s massive body gave a shudder. Skin rippling, he threw back his head and howled. Another crack sounded, followed by another and another as his back and shoulders contorted.
Bones. His bones were breaking and reforming right in front of her.
Vera clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from joining the other women in screaming.
The dark suit he’d been wearing split at the seams, revealing grotesquely stretched skin.
Vera stumbled back, her head smacking against the ship’s wall. Around her, the women were doing the same, clutching at each other and shrinking to the decking, trembling and sobbing.
Drausus’s shredded clothing fell to the floor as his body pulsed. He dropped to his hands and knees with another piercing howl. His face elongated, and silver fur erupted along his flanks. What had once been a humanoid face morphed into a muzzle, and when he opened his mouth to growl again, his teeth had become fangs.
Vera couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
A huge wolf stood before her, shoulders as high as her head. Its paws were larger than Vera’s face, claws long and razor sharp. The creature’s eyes radiated malevolent hunger that turned her blood to ice. It advanced, claws clicking over the floor, the scent of its hot breath overpowering. She breathed through her mouth in shallow pants.
The beast stopped before her, sniffing the air around her head.
She flicked a glance at the leader. Savas stood watching with his arms crossed over his massive chest, a mild smirk on his lips. Dammit, he isn’t going to let this go too far, is he? She remained as still as possible, remembering something about not triggering instincts in wild animals by running.
