The Alien Bounty Hunters Complete Series: Books 1-8

by Mills, Michele

  Heartbreaking.

  This routine had been happening for the last four prison diurnal cycles. They woke up when the lights came on, with Sara all over the poor Xylan. He was always so gracious about the whole thing. She’d untangle herself from him, dying from embarrassment, and they’d both get up, one at a time, pretending like it hadn’t happened. Like she hadn’t been all over him.

  First, Syrin got out of their “bed” and used the urinal while Sara pretended not to hear. He washed up, drank some water and then he left and went next door, and waited for her there, allowing her some privacy. This was sweet of him, she had to admit.

  When she was finished with her morning pee and washed up too, Sara knocked on the wall. Pounding footsteps echoed from next door, growing louder, and Syrin would slide the door open. “Hey, big guy,” she’d greet him, always saying the same thing, every single time. His lips would twitch and she’d feel her day was complete—she’d made the grim Xylan smile.

  Trax and Rengeli would give her barely perceptible chin lifts because both of them were still obviously not ready to pull her into their circle of trust. It sucked, but what was she going to do? Hopefully with time they’d come to know her better and maybe actually believe she hadn’t killed Cylo Rin or understand she wasn’t a scam artist out to stab them in the back.

  Time would tell.

  Each morning after the awkward non-greeting from Syrin’s friends, the four of them would go to the cleansing station. They would strut in there, greeted with a collective grumbling and muttering of what she assumed were curse words from the half-dressed inmates. Trax would do his whistle and Rengeli would bellow for everyone to exit, and then after a mass exodus, they’d have the place to themselves, which was nice. They’d wash their bodies and their clothing, which again only took minutes.

  Although being naked, even for a few minutes, was always nerve-wracking when you were the only female in a prison full of males who wanted you dead.

  And then they went to the mess hall because they always ate there together three times per cycle.

  In between eating, sleeping and cleaning, the males checked each floor of 149, visually inspecting the inhabitants of each cell and had so far not found what they were looking for. She could tell they were getting frustrated. They still hadn’t told her the details of their “mission.” She suspected the real reason why Syrin went next door without her in the mornings was so he’d have some alone time to talk to the others without her there, overhearing.

  After the last meal of the day they went back to their cells and Syrin exercised before sleep cycle. It was awe inspiring. He asked if she wanted to learn his super-seekret Xylan warrior moves. “I am about to begin warrior’s journey,” he said. “Would you like to learn the movements?”

  “Uh, no thanks. I’ll just watch,” she answered, not wanting to get physically closer to him than she already was. She slept in the same bunk with him, ate every meal next to him, spent every moment together. And now he wanted to also become her teacher? Sheesh, she needed a break before her brain fried from all the male magnetism she was supposed to be ignoring. A girl could only take so much. “I used to jog most days,” she said, leading with her best excuse, as silly as it was. “I was a runner. I miss it. But I think here the only way I’ll get to do that again is if I’m running away from someone.”

  He flashed her a rueful grin.

  It was nice of him to ask her to join, though. In fact, unexpected. She’d told him the truth, she really enjoyed jogging. On Omega 9 she’d used the holo deck daily to go for runs right after she awakened. She liked setting it for a path on a Zamarilla seaside cliff. This wasn’t cheap, she paid more for a private run with any setting she wanted, but since she didn’t have many other wants or needs or anything to spend her hard-earned currency on, she’d decided this one luxury was her gift to herself. And when had she ever been given a gift before?

  She glanced around the four gray walls of her cell and missed those morning jogs so, so much.

  Instead of joining in with Syrin, she watched the seven-foot-tall Xylan male, his head nearly touching the ceiling of their cell, performing ritualistic motions. And it was torture. Pure torture. He always unzipped the upper half of his jumpsuit and left it tied about his waist. Beings would pay big credits to see this. Syrin of Forty-Six bare chested, performing the Xylan warrior movements. She sighed. A vid of this could be sold, as a live feed, and they’d have billions of subscribers.

  Syrin was enormous everywhere, even his waist was thick, but in proportion to the enormity of his shoulders. There was a V leading down to the juncture of his thighs, hidden by his jumpsuit. She found herself daydreaming, wondering if his cock was in proportion with the rest of his body, and what exactly did a Xylan’s cock look and feel like…?

  Ugh.

  This was the time when she missed her tablet the most. She’d love the distraction of doing what she really enjoyed—breaking code, building code, speaking with computers and manufacturing work-arounds. She would love, love to get her hands on the inner workings of the prison’s system. For instance, what type of program did they use for maintenance on 149? She hadn’t once heard the voice of an AI, so she assumed they went the cheaper route of using actual programs that had to be hand calibrated, which meant they had a system analyst here at the prison. When you had an AI it took over that job and everything went seamlessly.

  She lay on their bunk, twirling her blonde hair in her fingers, her mind running escape scenarios based on the logo of the system architect she’d identified.

  Gods, she was so tired.

  Syrin did his last movement, warrior stance, and blew out a lasting breath.

  Sara, his female, was watching him. Her eyes were drowsy, though. Blinking closed.

  “Female, do you feel well?” he questioned.

  She yawned. “Sorry, I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  He knew that. He monitored all of her sounds, her sleep, her movements. If she was awake, so was he. So, he, too, hadn’t slept as well as usual. He needed to observe her movements to make sure she didn’t accidentally grab his hands or initiate extreme contact with other parts of his exposed skin. When she slept her body reached for his. This wasn’t all bad, he didn’t mind. In fact, he discovered her scent and the weight of her limbs were pleasant, especially when she kept the contact to the areas of their skin that were covered by their jumpsuits.

  When he’d first realized he was going to need to sleep with the human on the same bunk, it had taken all of his concentration to not let the berserker burst through his skin. The thought of having to spend his sleep cycle in the dark, avoiding touching the bare skin of a female who would be pressed so close…and this was being done to him on purpose, as a trick to make him angry. Well, it made him angry.

  The berserker had scratched against his insides, threatening to break free.

  Syrin had spent incredible amounts of time and energy calming and shutting down his rage. He lay there, with the female close, her scent filling his nostrils and running through his system, and somehow reined in the adrenaline, the impulses, the raging blood. The fire and heat dissipated. He was pleased, it had never before been something he was able to accomplish. For once in his life he had been able to shut down the berserker before it started. His human female did not realize how close she’d come to death that first night.

  But, eventually he became acclimated to her presence. And his female proved her word was good, she did not purposely try to touch his bare skin. While she was awake and aware she respected his wishes. Although when she was asleep, she continually reached for him, her leg searching out his shaft and rubbing there, as if she wished it would come to life. Again, he was not angered by this, instead he found himself proud of the fact that a female of her obvious worth would continue to want him for a mate. Despite the fact that he was a berserker, and she thought he was a criminal, and they were in prison. She still continued to follow his every movement with her blue gaze. Her body al
ways close and her voice in his ear.

  And he found this pleasant.

  He glanced at Sara. Maybe going into sleep cycle early wasn’t a bad idea. They could both use the extra rest. But he needed to meet, alone, with Trax and Rengeli first.

  “Sleep,” he told her. “There is nothing wrong with going to bed early. Sleep cycle starts soon.”

  When he looked at her again, her eyes were closed and her breaths even.

  There was a scratching noise. The most annoying piece of crap goddamn scratching sound to ever exist. Ugh. Sara woke up. Not that she wanted to, but that noise was bugging her. Her eyes fluttered open. She looked around the dark cell, disoriented. Wow, she must’ve passed out.

  “Syrin?”

  No answer.

  She blinked and sat up, brushed hair away from her face and wiped dried drool off the corner of her mouth. The lights were still on in the small cell. And then it all came flooding back. Syrin had known she was tired and had told her to go ahead and go to bed early. So she had.

  But there was the sound again. A scratching sound. She shook her head. What the hell was that?

  And then she heard him, “Human. Come here.” Syrin’s distinctive voice. She stood up. He was nowhere in the gloomy cell. Where was he? A shadow passed by the window.

  Her brow furrowed. Syrin?

  Why was he outside?

  “Human.”

  That was him again. What the hell was he doing? Was he having trouble opening the cell door? Was it past lockdown? No. No. The hall would be dark. Lockdown was also lights out.

  She pushed the panel and the door slid open. “Syrin?” she whispered. In retrospect, she realized later that she should’ve paused and knocked on the wall of the cell next door, alerting Trax and Rengeli instead of just blindly opening the door.

  Hindsight is twenty-twenty.

  As soon as a crack opened at the entrance that was large enough for her to pass through, two orange-clad arms reached in and snatched her out, practically popping her arm out of its socket. Before she could even let out a frightened gasp, a squishy, tentacle-type hand covered her mouth. The door slid closed behind her.

  Sara immediately flew into a frenzy of fight or flight, thrashing, trying to scream, putting everything she had into not being taken away to their secondary location. She tried to bite the suction cup hand, but no luck. They were too strong, like metal bands. The next thing she knew she was silently struggling while being whisked away from her cell by a group of Cannibals.

  Holy. Fucking. Shit.

  9

  “Where is Sara?” Syrin asked.

  He could see the door to their cell was unexpectedly open, and his female was not inside.

  She was not inside.

  His jaw and face tightened, eyes burning as anxiety rushed throughout his body. He’d left the exhausted female asleep in their quarters when he went next door into Trax and Rengeli’s cell for an informal Guild meeting. She was safe in their locked cell; it was the only time he ever left her alone.

  “Who?” Trax asked, absently.

  “The human female who shares my bunk,” he growled. The female he’d spent every moment of the last five diurnal cycles with, which had been more pleasant than he’d originally assumed. In fact, he had to admit he was habituated to her presence.

  His claws fisted. Where was she? A fire began to bloom in the pit of his stomach. A familiar fire, one that stoked the heart of a berserker.

  He needed his female. He craved her scent. Images flashed in his mind—the curve of her colorless neck, her hair and that space on her skin next to her small ear—the spot on her body where her scent was strongest. The area he needed to smell prior to falling asleep. He never touched it, of course he didn’t, just inhaled her enticing scent. The scent he was now without. The after effects lingered, small pockets billowed within the small space, but no…her fragrance was fading fast in his periphery.

  Syrin cursed.

  Humans were addictive. He’d never experienced anything like this before. And yet Trax and Rengeli seemed wholly unaffected.

  “Didn’t you say she was asleep?” Trax asked, continuing to be of no use whatsoever.

  Syrin stepped inside their cell and turned around. Why was their door open? He always left it firmly closed for her protection. It wasn’t possible for any of the other inmates to open the door from the outside. The door could only be opened in two ways: either by the two inmates coded to the door, or by a guard.

  Syrin exhaled, his breath heavier and more labored as he tried to calm the rage storming inside. If Sara wasn’t here, this meant she was wandering on her own in 149, captured by rabid Cylo Rin fans, or being led elsewhere by guards—both of these outcomes were catastrophic.

  A snarl rolled in his chest. His muscles felt both edgy and twitchy as blood rushed through his system, increasing his strength tenfold. A pounding began in his ears. Claws clenched and unclenched, fangs elongated.

  She was gone. His female was gone. They had taken her.

  His back bowed and a thunderous roar tore from his throat.

  …If she had even one scratch on her, they were dead.

  Dead.

  All of them.

  He turned and swept out of the cell, determined to find the female he’d vowed to protect. The female who wasn’t his Bride but who was still the being he wanted most in the universe.

  “Syrin, where are you going? It’s almost lockdown,” Trax shouted after him.

  “The female is gone, I’m going to find her,” he answered, his voice barely recognizable as his own.

  “Rengeli? Rengeli. Get off your ass. Syrin’s on the move and he’s on the edge of berserker. Let’s go.”

  “We’re going to slit your throat and watch you bleed out.”

  Peerans, the Cannibals that roamed the prison after sleep cycle lockdown, had her pinned to the damp rock wall of the cleansing units. Sara could hear water trickling and the echo of their enormous breaths. Her arms and legs hurt like hell. Her cheek scratched against the hard surface of the wall. A group of them surrounded her; she felt the weight of their bodies close by, but they were a blur because she was busy being more terrified than she’d ever been her entire life. And that was saying a lot.

  A sharp claw pressed harder at her throat. “I am Proval, and I will avenge Cylo Rin. I am his greatest fan.”

  Holy gods. She swallowed, worried she was about to be cut. Worried she was about to die. “But Cylo Rin isn’t really dead,” she said, trying to reason with him. “The last time I saw him I’d accidentally shot him in the shoulder. He was wounded, but fine. He was up and walking. He’s not dead. I didn’t kill him. I was framed.”

  “Lies! It is all over the vid markets. Sara Smith is the murderer of Cylo Rin. Cylo Rin will be avenged.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” she hissed. It was so ridiculous, beings trying to kill her over something she didn’t even do.

  “It’s on vid. Vid doesn’t lie. It had a truth seal.”

  “I know what it looks like, but I didn’t.”

  “You planned out his murder. And now we’re going to plan your death.”

  The others in the group grunted their acknowledgement. They moved closer.

  Oh fuck.

  Think, think, think.

  Sara knew she wasn’t the strongest, but she could hack her way out of shit and she was fast. Those were her strengths. What could she do to get out of here? To distract them?

  “Computer,” she shouted. This system wasn’t AI, but it had audio monitors. She could verbally announce override from anywhere in the facility. She knew the override because she’d studied the architect. The override could only be used once, because the system’s analyst would curse and close the loophole immediately. She’d hoped to hoard it for her escape, but she couldn’t escape if she was already dead. “Command override Zeta 149 cycle two. Turn off the lights in the cleansing station, turn on the sprinklers and turn on sirens.”

  Immediately the room turned
pitch black, freezing cold water poured down in a torrent from the ceiling and sirens pierced her ears.

  It was total chaos.

  The claws and tentacles holding her down loosened and she used her precious element of surprise to shove them aside and sprint for the door. Once outside she immediately turned around and coded the doors to jam lock. Then she ran for the lift.

  A few other beings were still in the common area, finishing their final meal. They looked up in surprise as she sprinted past.

  She tore around the corner and slammed her hand against the lift signal. The double doors opened. She raced inside and touched the closure. She could hear the distant pounding against the cleansing station doors she’d jammed.

  Bang. Bang… Bang.

  Oh shit, they’d gotten out. The Peerans growled and shouted, their voices getting louder as they ran to find her. The doors to the lift were sliding closed, there was only a sliver of space left. Sweat ran down the side of her face. Her heart thundered in her chest.

  “Close. Please fucking close.”

  She caught a flash of orange jumpsuits just before the doors connected. She blew out a breath. “Thank you, gods.”

  There was a stairway. It wasn’t close, but if they took it, once she reached her floor, they wouldn’t be far behind.

  Her heart hammered in her chest, her breaths labored as she waited an eternity for the lift to make it to the fifth floor and for the doors to open. She sprinted down the hall, running faster than she’d ever run in her entire life, her boots pounding, sharp breaths bursting in out of her chest.

  She heard them, flooding out of the stairwell. They were right behind her, like a pack of Vrighton wolves. Snapping at her heels.

  Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.

  She ran faster.

  Her cell was so close now. So close.

  “Syrin!” she screamed.

  She stumbled. They almost got her, but she bit a clawed hand and a tentacle, and she was scrambling to her feet and running. Then they had her again, they were pulling her back to the floor…