The Vilka's Servant: Scifi Alien Romance (Shifters of Kladuu Book 1)

by Pearl Foxx

  When he was finished, he examined the edges before asking, “It’s not too tight?”

  “It’s fine.” Vera pulled away from his touch.

  His eyes found hers. He was still too close, much too close. Quietly, he said, “I’m sorry, Vera.”

  Tears pricked at the back of her eyes, and she jerked her gaze away. “Then let us go home.”

  Rayner retreated to another grouping of cushions and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Unfortunately, you witnessed Drausus’s ability to transform his shape. Although we’ve known about Earth for a very long time, we can’t afford to allow humans to learn about our planet. Your human raiders tear alien planets apart. Pillage their minerals and leave nothing but ruins behind. The clans on this planet might war with each other, but we are united on one front: we will protect our planet until the last star in this galaxy dies. Right now, humans believe shape-shifters are nothing more than myth, and we will do everything it takes to keep it that way.”

  Vera fought back a grimace. The Falconer Elites raced through space, hunting the exact type of planet she now stood on for exactly the reasons Rayner spoke of. Earth needed resources, but her people didn’t pillage. They bought the resources. They traded for them fairly, leaving most alien planets better off when they left. Rayner was misinformed, and Vera knew better than most—the Falconers operated under Commander Gideon’s command right on her home station.

  “So blindfold us and take us home.” Vera jerked to her feet, swaying only slightly, to pace in front of Rayner. She filed away the fact that these aliens had known about Earth for who knew how long for later consideration. “It’s not like any of us could find our way back here.” She lifted her head. “Where are we exactly?”

  “I will strive to give you only honesty, but that I will not tell you.”

  Vera had guessed as much, but it had been worth a shot. “If you refuse to send us home, then you’re holding us prisoner. Flesh trading is illegal under the Intergalactic Alliance of Planets and Lifeforms. The crime is yours.”

  His gaze fell away from hers. “Our planet is not part of the Alliance. But indeed, the crime lies with me for not keeping Savas and Drausus in line, and while they’re the ones who broke our laws, it’s you who will suffer for it.” Looking up, he met her gaze, the same sadness she’d seen earlier present again. “Believe me, if I could send you home, I would—”

  “We don’t care if you can turn into a wolf,” she pressed, almost pleading.

  “Vilka,” Rayner said. “We’re called Vilkas, not wolves.”

  “Please. Please send us home.” She hated that she would beg for her freedom, but beg she would if it meant Niva got to see her family again. As for Vera, there wasn’t much for her back on the Zynthar station besides her career. At the thought, a bubble of hysterical laughter escaped her mouth.

  Rayner cocked his head. “What is it?”

  Vera’s shoulders slumped. She laughed again, but this time it sounded like defeat. “Back on my station, I worked as an engineer beneath men who thought I wasn’t capable of being their equals. Now I’m here, against my will, and I’ll once again serve men in a position deemed less than them.” Her gaze turned watery behind tears.

  “You will have your own quarters and receive a small wage. Although you won’t have full clan privileges, as long as you stay within the mountain, you will be protected by the clan. You won’t be beaten or forced into … relationships that aren’t of your choosing. It’s the best we can offer given the circumstances.”

  “I understand you want to keep your planet a secret,” she said. She swiped at an errant tear. She did understand his motives, damn her. Maybe if she was an alien from a faraway planet, she would want to stay away from the humans of Earth too. “And maybe this is the best you can offer, but it’s not good enough. It’s not good enough because it’s not freedom.”

  Rayner stood. He loomed over her, even though Vera was tall by human standards. He spoke slowly and carefully as if he tore each word from his very soul. “I can ensure your friend is placed in a safe and respectful home. No harm will come to her or any of the other women, I give you my word. You can make a new life for yourself, Vera. I know it’s not the one you had before, but other servants have come to be happy here.”

  “Don’t be so proud of making an unbearably shitty situation slightly less shitty.” Vera fought the tremor in her voice. “We shouldn’t be slaves or servants or anything else. We should be going home.” She stabbed a finger toward the bedroom door, lowering her voice as she said, “That young girl should be going home to her family. She should feel safe. Not trapped. Not forced to serve the people who stole her.”

  Her words made his jaw tighten and his eyes narrow. She’d struck a chord with him. “Niva will be protected. I swear it,” he vowed. “While I cannot apologize enough for what Savas has done, I must enforce our laws here as the clan’s Beta. You will not be leaving. You will remain here as servants, but not slaves. The Clan Vilka does not participate in flesh trading anymore.”

  Another defeated laugh fell off Vera’s lips. “And you really think there’s much difference between a stolen, imprisoned servant and a slave?”

  “Yes. Of course,” Rayner said strongly. He really believed it. “Our Alpha and I fought to make it so. We have many refugees come to the mountain, hoping for a servant status.”

  “Right.” Vera sank back to the cushions, her good arm wrapping around her knees as she tucked them up beneath her chin. She was dirty and hungry and tired beyond belief. She would never be head engineer. Never walk the corridors of the station or stare out at the stars again. Her hope flickered and extinguished.

  They were never leaving this planet, and she didn’t even know its name.

  “If you won’t tell me where we are,” she said, looking up at her new boss, her new master, “then at least tell me the name of this place.”

  Rayner seemed to stand a little straighter, his chin lifted in pride. “This is the planet Kladuu. From this day forth, you are under the protection of Kaveh, Alpha of Clan Vilka.” His face softened slightly. “And Vera?”

  She wanted to curl into a tight ball and cry, but she forced herself to hold Rayner’s gaze. “Yes?”

  “You are under my protection as well.”

  6

  Rayner

  The next day, Rayner prowled into the training room, tension boiling off him like an asteroid crater in summer. He needed to train until he was worn out and thoughts of Vera’s scent weren’t polluting his mind.

  He drew in a deep breath of the rich, warm smell filling the cavern, which was dug into one of the various mountain peaks—a sanctuary for the clan’s fighters, where fighting and sparring and bleeding was the closest they’d ever come to religion.

  Pausing in the center of the open space, Rayner scrubbed his hand along his jaw. He needed a shave, but Vera and Niva had been asleep this morning when he woke to come train with Gerrit. He would have to get Vera started on her servant work today, or else Decallian, the servants’ keeper, would report him to Kaveh. He’d allowed her to rest yesterday, her shoulder still too sore, but today, he would have to send her into the servant tunnels.

  And it killed him. Every time he blinked, he saw his mother, exhausted and waning from the work. Guilt had kept him tossing and turning on the cushions last night while the women had slept in his bed. He couldn’t stop replaying Vera’s derision toward the different between slave and servant. But it hadn’t just been her words keeping him up. Thoughts of Vera sprawled against his sheets, her fine, pale skin slipping across the threads, her red hair tangling against his pillow—

  “Hailing Rayner. All systems check?”

  Rayner glanced up at the rock ledge encircling the training room’s dome fifteen feet above his head.

  Gerrit perched on the rim’s edge, already undressed and ready to train, his lips pulled back in a lopsided grin that revealed his sharp canines. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”


  The youthful lightness in Gerrit’s voice eased Rayner immediately. Although the royal was twenty-three and a mere six Kladian years younger than Rayner, the difference sometimes felt like decades to Rayner’s tired soul. Gerrit’s refreshing positivity in the face of any obstacle made everyone love him. No one could ever be in a bad mood around Gerrit. But that positivity was mostly rooted in naivety, and Rayner dreaded the day when Gerrit lost that innocence. When his face hardened and his eyes glinted with less laughter and more ruthlessness.

  “No one ever listens to a word you say,” Rayner called back. Anywhere else, the words could have been treason, but here, in the training room, everyone was equal, even among royals.

  “Ah, now you’re just being mean. Having a bad day, are we?” The sinewy young man leaped from the edge, his muscular form arcing through the air and landing in a perfect crouch amid a cloud of dust and tiny rocks.

  “Show off.” Rayner waved the dust away from his face.

  A smile broke out on Gerrit’s face, his river-blue eyes glimmering with mischief. “You’ve taught me well for an old man.”

  “Big talk for such a little pup.” Rayner rolled his shoulders before removing his shirt and stepping out of his pants. Nearby servants skittered in to retrieve the clothing and disappeared into the recesses of the dome until Rayner was ready to dress once again.

  “Mind your hip.” Gerrit smirked and moved out of range, dropping into a fighting stance. “I’d hate to break it. Again.”

  “I fractured my collarbone,” Rayner corrected, raising a brow as he recalled the slight. The scamp had leaped out of hiding during one session before Rayner had even undressed, causing him to fall from the ledge. “Try not to cheat this time.”

  Gerrit snarled, his brows drawing into a scowl. “Cheat? I’ll show you—”

  Without waiting for the threat’s conclusion, Rayner sprang into the air, shifting before his paws hit the ground. His vision sharpened, his hearing amplified, and his sense of smell grew acute enough to detect a person’s identity from their blood type. But along with his senses, his instincts morphed too, and his human worries faded away. Only two things in the world mattered to his inner Vilka: fighting and fucking.

  Gerrit barely dodged Rayner’s passing claws.

  Rayner swiveled his long ears to listen as Gerrit jumped from one rock outcropping to another. Using both hands to pull himself up, the young Vilka once again climbed onto the narrow rock ledge circling the dome.

  As he watched, Gerrit struggled to shift, to call up that inner alien essence and the very core of him that fed off the relics deep inside the planet. The Kladian relics—bones of the Original shifters—were the source of all the clans’ abilities to shift. It meant having a deep-rooted connection to the world beneath your feet, to feeling Kladuu not just around you, but also inside you. That was the key to a fast shift, and it was also the shifters’ greatest weakness.

  For if the humans found the relics, that essence could be mined right out from underneath the Kladians.

  Even the Hylas, the oldest of all the shifters and the strongest clan, wouldn’t be able to stop a fleet of Falconers led by that damned Gideon.

  Gerrit’s back arched with the strain, his head thrown back, veins popping out along his neck. He let out a choked howl.

  Trying too hard, Rayner thought, the words just the barest of whispers in the back of his mind where his human form waited to be called forth.

  Gerrit had to learn some things the hard way.

  Rayner leaped from the ledge, and no sooner had he hit the ground than he coiled himself to leap again. He sprang and landed at Gerrit’s side, claws poised.

  Gerrit’s eyes sprang open. Arms pinwheeling, he dove to avoid Rayner’s punishing swipe. As he fell, he attempted again to shift, his skin rippling and stretching. His human form smacked onto the ground with an all too human howl.

  Unrelenting, Rayner vaulted through the air after Gerrit, who tried to gather himself to roll away, but his body couldn’t respond fast enough. Rayner landed next to him and placed one paw on the royal’s chest with the lightest pressure. Everyone was equal in the training room, but there were some unspoken rules, like never pin a royal to the ground.

  “I hate it when you do that.” Gerrit shoved Rayner’s paw away and stood with a grunt.

  Rayner transformed back with smooth grace and laughed. “Most people hate it when they lose.”

  “I don’t mean that,” Gerrit snapped, rolling his neck. Dirt smudged his smooth, tanned skin. “I hate it when you hold back.”

  Rayner sighed. Despite his position as Beta and his close relationship with the young royal, Rayner was still the lowborn son of a slave. “I push you much harder than anyone else would. Plus, you almost shifted during your fall. That kind of speed isn’t easily achieved. Even the best soldiers aren’t that fast.”

  “Almost shifting isn’t actually shifting. I hit the ground like some kind of nursling batted away by his mother.” Gerrit stretched his neck. “How do you do it? You’re the fastest shifter I know.”

  Rayner’s speed in shifting and his penchant for the law had awarded him the position of Beta at a young age. His connection to Kladuu had come from his mother and her nightly stories of the planet and all its creatures. Of Avilku, the very first Vilka to shift. But none of that would help Gerrit. Rayner cuffed the heir’s shoulder. “Don’t pout. No one respects that in a leader. Learn to do it right or try something new.”

  “Very poetic.” Gerrit shook out his arms. “Again?”

  “Again,” Rayner said, letting Gerrit take the lead in their next bout.

  The morning slowly stretched into midday as the Vilkas sparred and took turns to battle other soldiers as well. The workout felt good after last night’s lack of sleep. As they wrestled and bantered, Rayner even managed to quiet his thoughts about Vera. Mostly.

  “You’re done, old man.” Gerrit stood atop one of the stalagmites dotting the training area.

  The royal dove from the ceiling directly at Rayner, shifting in midair. Claws swiped at Rayner’s flesh, but he rolled out of reach, completing a full shift as he moved. Doubling back, he batted Gerrit into the large rock obstacle in the middle of the room.

  Gerrit shifted back into his human form with a shudder and spat blood from his mouth. “Cheater,” he muttered with a red-toothed smile.

  “I have never in my life cheated.”

  “Ever the good guy, aren’t you? You need to learn to relax.”

  Rayner’s mind drifted back to Vera, and the fire in her eyes that he craved. But she was his servant to protect. He’d vowed it to the moons. A relationship with a servant was an exploitation he would never permit. Not after what he’d seen happen to his mother.

  “What’s with you?” Gerrit placed his hands on his bare hips. “You’re not even paying attention, and you’re still kicking my ass. How much do you hold back on a normal day?”

  Shaking off his thoughts, Rayner wrapped an arm around Gerrit’s shoulders and led the way back to the entrance where the servants returned their clothes in neat bundles, along with a small loaf of bread for each of them. “It’s my job to train you, not grind you into pulp.”

  “Think I’ll ever beat you?”

  “That last round was impressive. You almost got me.”

  Gerrit ducked his head, but Rayner could see he was beaming from the compliment.

  “I have a favor to ask you.” Rayner picked up his pants. “The women who came from the space station—”

  “I’ve already tried to convince him myself after your meeting yesterday morning,” Gerrit said with a grimace. “Father won’t let them return.”

  “I’m not asking that.” Rayner wondered at Kaveh’s lucidity in this matter, but the Alpha’s word was law, whether Rayner agreed with it or not. “One of the women needs special refuge. Her name is Niva, the young woman Drausus singled out. I can’t just place her in any home.”

  Gerrit blinked, his head poking halfway through his dark
ly dyed shirt. “Are you asking to bring her to the donjon?”

  “Your father’s stronghold is the only boundary Drausus and his men might respect.”

  “She’s certainly welcome.” Gerrit jerked on his shirt. “I’ll send Gladia to retrieve her, but what has you taking such an interest in one human?”

  “How we treat one is proof of how we treat all.”

  “Yes, enough of the Alpha training.” Gerrit rolled his eyes. “What aren’t you telling me, Rayner?”

  The young man knew him too well. Despite the difference in age and rank, Gerrit had been Rayner’s confidant on more than one occasion. Rayner leaned against the curved wall at his back. “The woman who came to reside in my home …”

  Gerrit’s eyes lit up with curiosity. “You’re doing this for a woman?”

  Rayner straightened, already regretting the honesty. “I’m doing it to show them they can trust us. They need to feel safe here.”

  “I completely and without reservation believe that’s the reason you’re going out of your way to arrange this.” Gerrit chuckled. “Nonetheless, tell me about the servant you’ve taken into your home.”

  Heat flushed Rayner’s skin, and he was glad for the shadow of the ledge overhanging the practice arena. “She was assigned—”

  “Draqon shit.” Gerrit raised an eyebrow. “I know you asked Father for her specifically.”

  Rayner gritted his teeth. He was teaching this young pup to pay attention too well, it seemed. “Vera is different from other servants.” Different from all the other Vilkan females he’d met before too, but Rayner held that bit back. Her scent, the one that pulled at some place deep in his belly, flared to life in his nose again. No matter what he did, he couldn’t run from it. It followed him everywhere.

  He wished to smell it through his Vilkan nose, to experience the full range of her scent in his most complete form.