The Exodus (Darkest Skies, #4)

by Farrar, Marissa

  I hit the button that allowed me to communicate with the other ships. “Echo-two-seven-six in position.”

  “Camille Harran? Is that you?”

  My heart leaped. I’d recognize Mike’s voice anywhere. I should have known he’d be on coms, too. “Yes, it’s me. I needed to fill in a spot, Mike. Now isn’t the time.”

  I wasn’t going to have this conversation with him when we had far more important things going on. Besides, I knew this was broadcasting across each of the ships, and there was no way I wanted everyone hearing our lover’s tiff. I still stood by my stance that I had every right to be fighting alongside the rest of them.

  “We’ve got incoming,” Applegate said through the earpiece.

  I lifted my gaze, craning my neck to gaze out of the huge windows that spanned the front of the rocket ship. Sure enough, in the seemingly endless expanse of space, were several bright lights—too small to be planets but growing larger with every passing second. The radar blinked to life, revealing eight new dots that weren’t part of our original launch.

  “The Athions?” I asked hopefully.

  Captain Bruner nodded. “Let’s hope so. If they’re not, we’re in some serious trouble.”

  We raced toward the Trad ship, visible in space before us.

  “I’m attempting contact now,” the captain said, flicking several switches on the dashboard. Because these were Athion ships, they were already compatible with the approaching spacecrafts—that was assuming they were Athion and on our side, and not more Trads, of course.

  “Custo A-ninety-six approaching,” came a muffled voice through the coms.

  We all breathed a collective sigh of relief. The approaching ships were the Custos here to help, and not more Trads.

  The Trad ship grew larger through the window. Pretty soon, it would block out the stars and space on either side and fill the full view through the windows.

  “Take up position.”

  We were so close I could make out the detail on the surface of the Trad ship—the whorls and lines carved into the outer metal shell. It was made up of multiple branches, each protruding at an angle from what I assumed was the bridge in the middle. How many Trads were on board? Did they take on their human form while they were all together, or were they in the same form I’d caught a glimpse of back at the government facility?

  All across the rest of America, in every area where one of the Trad ships had appeared and there were working Observatories to allow for multiple launches, a similar battle was about to take place. We would show the Trads that we wouldn’t be pushed around.

  We would end this.

  The Trads clearly wanted to show us who was boss as well. By not using the forcefields for protection, we were openly going to war. It was the Athions the Trads wanted to fight rather than humans, but the Athions were only in this position because of us, and we would fight at their sides.

  “Initiate initial firing,” the captain commanded.

  The older woman, Trish, waited with her thumb over a red button. “Initial shots firing in three, two, one...”

  I braced as twin beams of blue light shot from the belly of the space rocket, aimed directly at the branch of the Trad ship that we’d been instructed to take down.

  The Trads immediately returned fire.

  Captain Bruner took evasive action, veering the ship to the left, throwing us all to one side. But the returned fire missed us, and I allowed myself to relax a fraction, though my heart was pounding, my breath short in my chest.

  From all around the Trad ship, multiple battles were taking place. I wish I knew which ship the guys were in, terrified I’d see one of our own rockets vanish from the radar. I wasn’t stupid. I knew the chance of lives being lost was extremely high, but we needed to do this.

  The captain pulled us back around, flying in a wide circle to bring us face to face with the Trad ship again. Another beam of lasers shot out at us, and once more Bruner was able to avoid them with some skillful maneuvering. He pulled the ship back in, edging us closer to return fire of our own. Our lasers hit the shell of the Trad ship, exploding in a fireball, though it didn’t seem to have damaged the actual structure.

  Something different caught my eye, and I frowned and leaned forward. A blue light spread like the veins in the leaf of a tree across the body of the massive ship.

  “Anyone else seeing this?” I asked worriedly.

  The captain yanked on the controls, trying to pull the ship back. “Shit! It’s dragging us in.”

  Panic sparked through me. “What can we do to help?”

  Were the other Athion rockets having the same problem? Or was it simply because we’d gotten too close? Was this their reason for showing themselves to us all along?

  I hit the button to broadcast. “Emergency. Requesting backup. There seems to be some kind of electrical magnet across the Trad ship. It’s pulling us in. All other units keep back.”

  I didn’t know if we were going to win our battle, but I didn’t want any of the others caught in the same thing we were. Crazily, the thought that Mike was going to be seriously pissed at me went through my head. If I died, would he still be angry, or would he forgive me in death?

  We were still being drawn in.

  Trish fired into the center of the Trad ship. Small explosions hit the outer shell, but they didn’t appear to be making any difference. We were pulled closer still.

  Suddenly, something hit the ship. The explosion cracked impossibly loud, and I was thrown backward, my head hitting the seat behind me. Sirens sounded, warning alarms—System failure! System failure!—blaring in my ears.

  “We’ve lost our forcefield,” Trish shouted.

  Something else hit the ship, everything rocking around me.

  And my world went black.

  Chapter Ten

  I was rising from the darkness.

  I’d been sinking before, held beneath the surface and unable to swim. But now there was a light, and the heaviness that had been weighing me down had finally vanished.

  I didn’t remember what had happened to me. I wasn’t even sure I remembered my own name. I sought my mind for events preceding this moment, but there was nothing—only frustration.

  I was lying on a metal surface, hard and cool beneath my body.

  “Hello, Camille.”

  I jerked further into wakefulness at the sound of my name. The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. It didn’t belong to Aleandro or Casey or Mike, but it was definitely a male voice I recognized. It was also a voice that struck a fresh jolt of fear through me, and I knew I needed to wake up properly. I was still surrounded in a strange fug, caught between awareness and oblivion.

  Open your eyes, Camille. Focus. You’re in danger. You need to open your eyes.

  My body didn’t seem to want to comply with my brain, and I was suddenly fearful that I might have experienced some serious trauma—like paralysis or brain damage.

  That was enough to get my heart racing, and my limbs twitched. I was like a baby calf that had just been born—still at first, but then jolting, and jerking, and gradually becoming aware of my own body. My arms and legs were still working, which meant I wasn’t paralyzed, and I seemed to be able to think straight.

  I struggled to sit, wincing at the pain in my neck and lower back, but I was moving, and that was what mattered.

  I blinked open my eyes, and sudden light pierced my brain. I raised my hand to shield my vision, and pain shot through my entire body at the movement. What had happened?

  An impossibly handsome face loomed over me—deep-brown eyes with flecks of gold around the pupils, a perfectly square jaw, and full, kissable lips. Only I knew that wasn’t what he looked like for real. This guise of a beautiful, perfect man was only how he appeared for human women, to lure us in and use us to spawn their next generation. I’d seen their true form—like demons from another planet.

  Oh God. I was on the Trad ship.

  “Dean,” I managed to groan. “
I hoped I’d seen the last of you.”

  I sat up straighter, taking a moment to check out my surroundings. I was in a hexagonal room, like being inside a giant honeycomb, only all the panels were white and silver. A glowing blue light ran in lines between each of the panels, threading them all together. At the far end, a massive window, also hexagonal, looked onto the vast void of space. Right in the lower part of the window was the distant curve of a blue-and-green planet, a white light emanating from its surface. Earth. So, I was definitely on a spaceship—a Trad spaceship—and we were somewhere above Earth. I took a little solace at the fact. We weren’t on our way to Tradrych just yet. I remembered the possible reason why. Didn’t women first have to be impregnated before they were able to be moved to Tradrych? Even though I’d been unconscious, I didn’t think anyone had laid a finger on me, and I was still fully dressed. There was no way I’d been implanted with a Trad fetus. Not yet, anyway.

  “I have to admit I was surprised to see you, too,” he replied, his eyes narrowing.

  I shifted position and winced as pain shot up through the back of my head. I must have given my head a nasty knock, but considering what the others had probably suffered, I figured I could hardly complain.

  “What happened to the ship I was on?” My voice was low and gravelly, as though I’d been asleep for a while. How much time had passed since I’d been taken? I had no idea. Was this even the same Trad ship we’d been attacking? If it was, our attack clearly hadn’t worked. The ship didn’t look as though it had been harmed in any way.

  Was everyone else okay? I tried to recall what had happened, but my memories were muddled. There had been shooting from both sides, I remembered that much. Then we’d lost the force field, and there had been an explosion. The next thing I knew, I’d woken up here.

  “It went down, but that’s all I know.”

  I stared at him, blinking back tears, a painful lump in my throat. “It went down?” Did that mean the others were dead? My thoughts went to Captain Bruner, the co-captain, Gil, the woman, Trish Johns, and Nigel Applegate. They’d all had families. People who would miss them. A surge of anger at the Trads rose inside me.

  “If the ship went down, how did I end up here?”

  “We detected a human female of fertile age on the ship. We’d never risk the life of someone so important. Since the force field was down, we were able to beam you out of there.”

  That was me he was talking about. Important? Did they really think we were important? No, their way of considering us important had nothing to do with our brains or who we were as people, or our positions in society. The only thing that was important about a human woman in the Trads’ minds was her womb.

  “You took me and left the others?”

  No emotion registered on his handsome face. “Yes. We had no use for them.”

  “Of course you don’t, you fucking bastards,” I muttered, half to myself. “What about the other ships? Did they go down, too?” Unbelievable pain pierced my heart at the idea of the entire fleet being destroyed, and tears pricked my eyes. Surely we couldn’t have lost them all? I desperately needed to know if the ships containing the guys had gone down, and the one containing Irus and Leif.

  “No, not all of them. They retreated when they saw there was no chance of winning.”

  There was still hope the others might be alive. I needed to cling to that hope. If I didn’t have that, what would be the point in anything?

  You’d still have Molly and Elodie, I reminded myself. Life without the guys was unthinkable, and I knew I’d never get over it, but I needed to keep fighting, if only for the future of my sister and the little girl I’d left on Earth.

  Yes, I did. I wouldn’t just give in to these bastards. I’d make things hard for them every step of the way.

  I was still sitting on the floor, unsure if my legs were strong enough to hold me, and not wanting to fall down in front of him, but I straightened my back and lifted my chin defiantly. “What do you want with me?”

  Dean regarded me with a slow smile curling one corner of his lips. “I think you already know that.”

  My blood ran cold, chilling me right down to the bone. “You’re going to rape me?”

  “No. Whatever you might think of us, Trads don’t rape. None of the women we’ve had sex with have been forced into it. They’ve all given themselves to us more than willingly.”

  I barked laughter at that. “They were tricked. You use pheromones and a disguise to make the women think they’re falling for you. Do you actually think they would have sex with any of you if they knew what you were and what the repercussions of that act would be?”

  His beautiful eyes narrowed. “Don’t humans do exactly the same? They dress up to attract a mate, the females wear makeup, and both sexes wear different scents. They make themselves out to be loving and caring, when often they end up acting cruelly to each other. Many lie about the resources they have, making out like they can provide for each other when they can’t. How is that any different?”

  My mouth dropped open at his comments. Did the Trads truly believe that?

  “You’ve brought me here fully against my will,” I snapped. “No part of me consented to this.”

  He pointed at me. “You’re different. You were attacking our ship.”

  “You wanted us to attack you. Why else would you reveal your ships?”

  “The Athions needed to be reminded who is the stronger race. They shouldn’t interfere in Tradrych business.”

  Ah, so we’d been right when we’d assumed the reason for the sudden appearance of the Trad ships. It had been a warning. Or a threat. And it looked like it had worked. We’d failed to bring down the ship, even with the help of the Custos, and I figured the same was true right across the country and even the world where the Trad ships had appeared. A terrible realization settled into my soul. We were never going to be rid of the Trads. This was it for humanity now. Earth was destined to be a breeding planet for the Trads, the female population for generations to come would be allowed to grow into fertile young women, and then they would be harvested by the Trads to be used as incubators to produce Trad babies. The Trads would be forced to leave enough women on Earth to allow our own population to continue, but we’d be no more than breeding stock for them.

  The Trads owned us, and there was nothing we could do about it. Even help from the Athions hadn’t been enough to save us.

  I clenched my fists in my lap, filled with cold anger and hatred for Dean and all the other Trads who’d decided to destroy us. There would be no safe passage to Athion, if the Trads could help it, no different future for girls like Elodie. This was it for us now.

  My thoughts went to Tara. “Do you keep them here?”

  He frowned at my sudden change of topic. “Who?”

  “The other women you’ve taken. My friend, Tara, was kidnapped from the Observatory a few weeks ago.”

  Did I dare hope she might be on this same ship? My heart lifted at the possibility of seeing her again, despite my own circumstances. Even with everything that had been going on, my best friend had never been far from my thoughts. I hated that I’d never had the chance to say goodbye to her, and that I had no idea what her life was like now. Though I believed she was still alive, her loss had felt like a bereavement to me. I had no way of contacting her—couldn’t pick up the phone for a chat to see how she was. Whenever something happened, or I just wanted a gossip or a giggle about how things had ended up with the men, my first instinct was to call her, but of course, that was impossible.

  But Dean frowned. “This isn’t a transporter ship, Camille. We don’t keep the human females here.”

  My heart sank. It had been a stupid thing to wish for anyway. Weeks had passed since Tara had been abducted. She’d have been transported to Tradrych a long time ago. Was she aware of her pregnancy yet? Was her stomach swollen? Could she feel the Tradrych baby moving inside her? I’d always assumed that when one or the other of us started a family, we’d be
at each other’s side, sharing the excitement of our bodies changing, and shopping together for cute baby clothes.

  Instead, Tara was a prisoner, and now, it seemed, so was I.

  “I’ll never let you seduce me,” I insisted.

  I didn’t care what happened, I’d keep my legs firmly shut.

  He moved even closer. The material of his gray shirt was like a second skin, molding to every muscle. The way he loomed over me gave me a perfect view of his squared pectorals and his rounded biceps, and I experienced that familiar little flutter of arousal at his proximity. “I’ll keep you with me until you’ve changed your mind.”

  “That’s never going to happen,” I spat back through gritted teeth.

  I hated that he still affected me, even though I knew exactly what he was doing. Releasing his pheromones, making me heady. My body tingled with arousal, and my core tightened. I remembered what had happened when I’d touched him back at the government facility, how, at the moment of climax, his body had changed. His cock had elongated in my hand, growing thicker than my wrist. My pussy throbbed at the idea of that length pushing inside me.

  To distract myself from my thoughts, I forced myself to change the topic. I took in my surroundings. I hadn’t seen any other Trads so far, and I couldn’t see any kind of control mechanisms for the ship here. I didn’t know what this part of the ship was used for, but I didn’t think I could cause much trouble in here.

  “Shouldn’t you tie me up or something?” I said, trying to act brave.

  “Why? There’s nowhere you can go. It’s not as though you can just open a door and escape. You’ll die if you try.”

  You’ll die if you try. His words rang in my ears. Would dying be better than becoming a breeder for him and whichever Trads decided to use me after him? Once more, my thoughts went to Tara. If I had to give her advice about what to do, would I suggest that she die rather than continue to live as a breeder for the Trads? No, I wouldn’t. I would tell her to keep fighting and never give up, and I had to apply that same principal to myself. If I gave in to Dean and allowed him to do what he wanted, would I be taken to the same place as Tara? Would there be a chance I’d see her again?