Warrior: A Scifi Alien Romance (Galactic Gladiators Book 2)

by Anna Hackett

  Just as she reached the doors to Medical, Kace pushed out of the room.

  “How is she?” Regan asked.

  “Healed,” the gladiator said, his now-healed face unreadable. With a nod, he left.

  As Regan entered the large, airy room, she saw that Rory was just being helped out of a regen tank by one of the tall, slender, and genderless Hermia healers.

  Regan hurried over to her cousin and helped wrap her in a robe. “How do you feel?”

  “Pretty darn good, considering.” The bruises on Rory’s face were gone, leaving only her natural scattering of freckles across her nose. Rory pulled Regan in for a hug. “Thanks to you. Thanks for getting me out.”

  Regan hugged her cousin tight. She could hardly believe Rory was finally safe. “Love you.”

  Rory made a noise that sounded an awful lot like a sniffle. Her tough cousin never cried. “You too.” Rory pulled back. “Harper already visited me.” A wide grin. “She’s going to teach me some gladiator moves.” Then Rory’s smile disappeared. “She also told me we can’t go home.”

  Regan grabbed Rory’s hands, holding them tight. “No, we can’t. I know it will take some time to accept and understand it. You okay with that?”

  “Not really. You’re right; I’ll need some time to digest it all. My family…” Rory dragged in a deep breath.

  Regan nodded. “I know. I wasn’t close to mine like you were, but I still miss them.”

  “God, Regan…my parents, my brothers. They’ll be devastated. It breaks my heart that they’ll never know what happened. And I know your parents could be difficult—”

  “You call them Mr. and Mrs. Asshole.”

  Rory sniffed. “Seems a bit mean, now. But they are judgmental, selfish people, Regan. They treated you like shit, but I still think they’d be sad.”

  Regan gave her cousin a rueful smile. “No, they wouldn’t have been. Sad that I didn’t marry the perfect man and pop out perfect grandkids. Sad that I didn’t give up my silly career. But sad that I’m gone…I kind of think they would have been relieved.”

  Rory gripped Regan’s shoulders. “It’s their loss, Regan.” A cheeky smile crossed her face. “I have to admit, I would’ve liked to see them lay eyes on your big gladiator.”

  Imagining her parents taking in Thorin made Regan burst out laughing. Then a slashing pain crossed her chest. She swallowed. “He’s not mine. He…he doesn’t love me. We were just having some fun. I think I’m just an interesting diversion for him for a little while.”

  Rory paused in belting her robe more tightly. “I don’t know everyone here yet, and just between you and me, I am steering clear of scary Galen as much as I can. But from what I saw, Thorin fought for you. He literally turned into a beast to protect you.”

  “He’s a good man, but I can’t make him love me. I’m done trying to make people love me, Rory.”

  Rory’s brow creased. “I don’t know. I saw the way he looked at you—”

  Suddenly, the door slammed open, and Raiden rushed in. “Healers, you’re needed. Now.”

  Regan jumped, watching as the Hermia healers gathered their gear. “What’s wrong?”

  Raiden turned, his face face. “It’s Thorin.”

  Regan’s heart spasmed. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “We’re not sure. He’s sick.”

  As the healers raced out with Raiden, Regan and Rory rushed after them.

  When they reached Thorin’s room, she saw him lying on his bed, on his side, unmoving. His chest was bare, and the sheets were a perspiration-soaked tangle around his lower body.

  His shoulder was an angry red, and swollen, where the plant had bitten him.

  The healers knelt by the bed and set to work. Regan moved closer, circling around to the other side. Suddenly, Thorin began tossing and turning, sweat beading on his face.

  Raiden put his arm around Harper, both of them watching Thorin with concern.

  Screw this. “Thorin.” Regan climbed onto the bed. She touched his forehead. God, he was so hot. Too hot.

  “Here.” One of the healers handed her a cloth.

  She nodded and started to run it over his face. He turned toward her, his eyes glazed, like he didn’t recognize anybody.

  Regan made herself look at the terrible wound. “It’s infected.”

  One of the Hermia healers was already standing beside the bed, scanning Thorin’s body with a small, hand-held device. The healer frowned. “No. It’s poison.”

  Soft curses echoed around the room.

  “But you can get it out of him, right?” Raiden asked.

  The Hermia frowned at the screen. “I’m not sure. This poison has been genetically enhanced.” The healer looked at them solemnly. “I have no treatment.”

  “What about the regen tank?” Regan asked.

  “It won’t help. Unless we can find an antidote for this particular poison, we cannot help him.”

  Regan pressed her hand to his arm, her hands flexing on his skin. “No.”

  “Regan?” The word was a harsh croak.

  “Thorin.” She pressed her hand against his cheek. His skin was on fire.

  Galen strode in, his gaze running over Thorin. “What’s going on?”

  “Poison,” Raiden answered. “No cure.”

  “Drakking Vorn,” Galen bit out. He turned to the healers. “I want you in Medical now. I want the team working on finding an antidote for this.” With nods, the healers glided out of the room.

  “Hurt,” Thorin said. “Thirsty.”

  Regan reached to the bedside table and grabbed a glass of water. She held it up to his lips so he could take a sip. “You’ve been poisoned. That plant bite injected a toxin into you.” She set the drink down, pushing his damp hair off his face. “You got hurt protecting me.”

  “I’ll always…protect you. Until I stop breathing.”

  Regan was so focused on him that she was only dimly aware of the healers leaving the room.

  “I know you don’t love me, Thorin, but that doesn’t change the fact that I love you. I can’t lose you, you need to fight this. I love every tough inch of you.”

  His eyes seemed to clear a little, staring at her directly. “You love me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even after you saw my inner…”

  “Every inch.”

  “Regan.” His hand reached for her. “I told Kuhl I didn’t love you, so he wouldn’t use it against you.”

  She went still.

  “I’m not entirely sure what love is. I’ve never really experienced it, at least, not as an adult. I sometimes wonder if my family ever loved me, or if I was always just a useful abomination to them.”

  “You are not an abomination.”

  A faint smile flickered on his lips. “Regan, everything I have inside me, it’s all for you. I love you, so much it scares me.”

  She felt tears pricking her eyes. She leaned down and pressed her lips to his. “Oh, Thorin.”

  “I’ve never said those words to anyone,” he whispered. “And…my other side considers you its mate. Its mate for life.”

  Mate? The idea was startling. No one had ever wanted her so much as to claim her for life.

  Suddenly, he groaned. She pulled back and saw pain race across his face. His muscles locked and he thrashed on the bed.

  Dammit, she had to do something to help him.

  “You hold on, Thorin.” She leaped off the bed and yanked open the door. “Raiden, please stay with Thorin. Harper, I need things from my lab. Now!”

  She wasn’t letting her gladiator die.

  ***

  He was hurting. Everything hurt.

  Thorin opened his eyes and realized the room was blurry. Everything was covered in a haze. He looked over and distantly noted Regan, hunched over a table pushed up close to his bed. Regan. His everything. His mate.

  He saw lines of stress bracketing her mouth, and she was focused on mixing things in various glasses on her desk. She turned, tapping on a

glowing screen.

  He tried to say something, but he couldn’t move his lips. Then, he drifted away, floating in the blackness of pain.

  When he came to next, Regan was forcing something down his throat. Something foul-smelling and bad tasting.

  “Come on, Thorin,” she murmured. She moved and he felt her press something cool to his throbbing, burning shoulder.

  “You’ll kill me with that smell,” he managed to gasp out.

  “Thorin!” He felt a quick kiss on his cheek. “This is going to hurt. Bad. I’m so sorry. We need to draw the toxin out of your body. This is the fourth version I’ve tried.” She pressed her head to his chest. “Don’t leave me.” Ragged words. “I need you.”

  No one had ever truly needed him before. As a weapon, yes. As a fighter, definitely. But not just him—Thorin, the man.

  Fire ripped through him. It started at his shoulder, racing through his body. He heard Regan murmuring to him, but he couldn’t make out her words. He thrashed his head and caught sight of Raiden and Kace holding him down on the bed.

  As the pain swelled, Thorin let out a roar. He saw Regan’s face, tears tracking down her cheeks.

  Then the blackness took him again.

  Finally, he surfaced again, clear, morning light spilling through the window.

  He shifted a little, waiting for the pain to tear into him again. But there was nothing. He felt fine. Tired and weary, but there was no burning agony.

  He glanced down at his shoulder and saw a faint red ring, but other than that, there was no sign of the bite mark.

  Then he noted the slight weight pressed against his side. He glanced lower and saw Regan curled in an exhausted ball beside him. With love filling his chest, he reached down and stroked his fingers through her hair.

  “She tried to stay awake, but she lost the battle a couple of hours ago.”

  The female voice made Thorin carefully turn his head. Rory was sitting in a chair beside the bed. She reached over and offered him a drink.

  He nodded and carefully took a sip. “You look better.”

  She smiled. “That should be my line.”

  “I don’t mean the bruises.”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “I am not going to let the fucking Thraxians or Vorn have the satisfaction of keeping me down.” Her lips firmed. “I’ve lost my planet, my family, my life…I won’t lose myself as well.”

  Then she looked at Regan. “I consider myself lucky. I have Regan and Harper, and they tell me that all the people here at the House of Galen aren’t so bad.”

  “You have all of us, Rory. Not just Harper and Regan,” Thorin added quietly.

  A quicksilver smile. “They both said this is a good place to start over.”

  Thorin managed a nod, feeling tired.

  “She worked herself to the bone to find a way to draw the toxin out of your body,” Rory said. “She wouldn’t give up on you. I don’t know all the scientific details, but she worked with the healers, and used stuff from all those plants down in her lab until she was sure she could save you.”

  He stroked Regan’s hair.

  “She loves you,” Rory said.

  “I know.” He felt such a sense of wonder at that.

  Rory sighed. “I had this big, overprotective-cousin speech prepared. I was planning to tell you that you needed to wake up and tell her that you love her. But one look at your face, and I think you know that. I think you’ll look after her.”

  “Every minute of every day,” he said. “She’s my heart.”

  Rory smiled. “That’ll do.”

  “Thorin?” Regan’s sleepy voice.

  With a wink, Rory stood and left the room.

  Thorin looked down at the woman in his arms. She reached up and touched his shoulder. “It looks good. Thank God.”

  “Thanks to you. You saved me.”

  She reached up and cupped his cheeks. “It was my magic botany powers, actually, but really, I think we saved each other.”

  “I love that smart mind of yours.”

  She smiled. “Oh, and what else?”

  “Your gentle fierceness, and your sexy side.”

  Her gaze traced his face. “You do love me, don’t you?”

  How could she doubt that? He cursed the people who’d made her feel that way. “I’ll spend every day proving my love to you.” He moved, rolling her beneath him on the bed. He moved his hips, nudging her with his hardening cock.

  She shook her head. “You’re supposed to stay in bed—”

  “I am in bed.”

  “Resting,” she said with exaggerated patience. “The Hermia gave you some supplements to help replenish your energy, but you still have to rest.”

  He moved against her. “I think we can safely say I’m feeling better.” He pressed his lips to the side of her neck, loving when she squirmed against him. “If you’re nearby, I’m hard. Love you, my sweet Earth girl. My mate.”

  “I love you too, my big gladiator. Hold on to me and don’t ever let go.”

  “Never.” A promise etched on his heart.

  ---

  I hope you enjoyed Thorin and Regan’s story!

  Galactic Gladiators continues with HERO, the story of clean-cut, military gladiator Kace, and will be out in December 2016. Read on for a sneak peek.

  For more action-packed romance, read on for a preview of the first chapter of Marcus, the first book in my bestselling Hell Squad series.

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  Sneak Peek – Hero

  The sound echoed off the stone walls around him.

  It wasn’t thunder, or the roar of an engine. It was the shouts of thousands of voices chanting his name.

  Kace Tameron stood at the tunnel entrance and assimilated all the information. The heat of the setting suns on his skin. The thunder of the crowd sitting in the seats circling the arena. The bright strobe lights shining into the darkening sky.

  His heartbeat stayed steady and he shifted his combat staff, the smooth steel cool and familiar against his palms. In his head, he ran through an Antarian fight chant to focus his thoughts.

  Once he got the order, he’d step out onto the sand of the Kor Magna Arena.

  It was the fiercest gladiatorial arena in the galaxy’s outer rim. Where slaves fought for freedom, where fighters battled for glory, and where soldiers, like himself, came to hone their skills.

  Around him, his fellow gladiators were stretching, checking their weapons, focusing their thoughts.

  “I’m ready to smack some Thraxians into the sand.” Thorin slapped the head of his axe against his palm.

  Kace eyed the giant Sirrush gladiator. Thorin was a little wild and deadly on the sand. His fighting partner stood beside him, the champion of the Kor Magna Arena, Raiden Tiago. The man’s tattoos gleamed on his bronze skin and there was no missing the fact that he was built like a fighter, and not the prince he’d once been.

  Just beyond them in the tunnel stood another fighting pair from the House of Galen. Mountainous Nero and showman Lore. Kace was a career soldier and he’d worked with some of the best fighters on his planet, but this team was beyond good.

  In the arena, projectile weapons were banned and considered dishonorable. Here, most technology was frowned upon too. Here, you fought up and close and personal, and you had to be good.

  It was one of the cardinal rules of the arena—and there weren’t many rules in Kor Magna—that a gladiator not be enhanced or controlled by tech. They fought robots, used some energy shields and weapons, and raced chariots. But at the end of the day, it was gladiator against gladiator, man against man.

  Someone bumped his shoulder and Kace looked down at his own fighting partner. Saff Essikani was grinning at him, her teeth white against her darker skin. Her long, black hair fell to her waist in a mass of tiny braids. She was tall and muscular, and a hell of a gladiator in the arena.

  While eagerness wafted off Saff, Kace stayed still and composed.

  He wasn’t an arena slave fighting for freedom or a lifer like his friends, who considered the desert world of Carthago and the city of Kor Magna home. Kace was military. Born and bred to fight. He was here on a contract for two years to hone his skills.

  A man stepped in front of them wearing all black. His black shirt covered one arm and left his other muscled bicep bare. His powerful body was held with a precision that let you know he could burst into action when required. Kace recognized a fellow warrior when he saw one.

  With a scarred face and a black eye patch over one eye, Galen, Imperator of the House of Galen, was an imposing man.

  “I don’t need to tell any of you to fight well. You do every time you step in the arena.” His single icy-blue eye took them all in. “I will tell you that the House of Thrax is still very unhappy with us.”

  Kace knew that was an understatement. They’d rescued several women from the Thraxians, and beaten the aliens time and again. Kace felt a very un-soldier lick of satisfaction. The Thraxians were slavers and they deserved everything they got. They snatched people from all over the galaxy, and they’d made the unfortunate mistake of taking a transient wormhole to a distant star system on the opposite side of the galaxy.

  They’d abducted a group of women off a space station near a planet called Earth. The very small women had also proven to be very tough and fierce. Thinking of them almost made him smile. The Thraxians hadn’t known what hit them.

  Kace, along with the other gladiators in the House of Galen, had helped free the Earth women. And now Harper, Regan, and Rory were stranded here, unable to return to their planet.

  “The House of Thrax is looking for revenge,” Galen said, his voice deep. “Watch yourselves out there.”

  Kace tightened his grip on his staff. It was of typical Antarian design—his people made some of the best weapons. In the military, he also used ranged weapons, but here in the arena it was considered cowardly. His proficiency with the staff had increased substantially in the six months he’d been a member of the House of Galen.

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