“Is your mind always on defending yourself?” Genine jumped off the boulder, her boot heels ringing against the compacted sand.
“Always.” His cock hardened. They would mock fight and then they would rut.
Once they found a private place.
The clone elders had expressed their disapproval of anything more carnal than hand-holding in public. Rutting wasn’t part of their culture.
They didn’t know what they were missing. Batu’s gaze followed his gerel.
“We’ll test your theory.” She retrieved something from the boulder. “And we’ll test this.” She donned a black leather hand covering. There were long thin blades protruding from its fingers.
She wanted to be like him. Vastly amused, he resisted the urge to kiss his adorable mate.
“Your pseudo claws won’t assist you, my little human warrior.” He deliberately taunted her. “You’ll never defeat me.”
“Oh, I think I will.” Her smile was smug. “You’ll surrender before this battle is over.”
He laughed, entertained by his gerel. “That will never happen.” He would defeat her and then take his reward, ravishing her until her screams of pleasure faded her voice.
Batu extended the claws on only one of his hands. He’d keep the battle even, give her a chance.
His gerel attacked. He caught her constructed claws with his. Metal clinked against reinforced keratin. One of her blades snapped off, falling to the ground.
“Shit.” She backed away from him, gazing at her hand covering as though it had betrayed her. “I have to find a better way to attach the blades.”
“Your contraption will never work.” No manufactured claws could ever equal his. Batu waved his natural weapons, the sun’s rays glinting off their deadly tips.
“It has to work.” She attacked again.
He easily defended himself. Another blade snapped off. “Why does it have to work?”
“If it doesn’t work...” she attempted to push him back with her three remaining claws, “...training our child will be solely your responsibility.”
“What?” Batu froze in place, unable to trust his hearing.
“I refuse to be excluded from the process.” His gerel, not noticing he had paused the battle, stabbed his palm with her finger blades.
Pain coursed through him, sharp and intense. “Stop fighting for a moment.”
“I was expecting you to defend yourself.” Genine tugged on her pseudo claws, trying to extract them from his flesh. They snapped off. “You had time to do that. Do you want to hurt yourself?”
“I want you to repeat what you said.” Batu pulled the blades, one by one, out of his palm. The hurt was minor compared to past wounds.
“I was expecting you to defend yourself.” She yanked the hand covering off her fingers, her expression disgusted. Her contraption had failed her, as he’d predicted.
“That’s not the sentence I want to hear.” He licked the blood off his palm. The nanohumanics in his saliva would hasten his healing. “And you know that.”
“I refuse to be excluded from the process.” She reached for the daggers strapped to her hips.
“The battle is over. You’ve won.” Batu, for the first time in his long lifespan, no longer cared about being victorious. “Repeat the line before that one.”
“You heard it correctly.” Genine played with her daggers’ hilts.
Every part of him hoped he had heard it correctly. “I want to hear it again.” He gazed at her beautiful face, needing to hear the words from her lips.
“If it doesn’t work, training our child will be solely your responsibility.” His gerel’s gaze held his, her eyes soft with emotion. “We’re having a child, Batu.”
They were having a child. He stared at her. “You’re certain?”
She nodded. “I’m certain.”
“You’re certain.” Batu swayed as though struck. “We’re having a child.” He would have a gerel and a little warrior to protect. “We’re having a child.” He tilted his head back and yelled that wondrous news to the sky.
The girls stopped fighting and turned to face them, their eyes wide.
Batu ignored them. He rushed toward his gerel and lifted her off the sand, burrowing his face into the curve where her neck met her shoulder.
“We’re having a child.” His happiness threatened to overwhelm him, his chest swelling until it almost exploded. “We’re having a child.”
Batu swung her around, repeating that sentence, unable to construct another thought. He had once been alone, had nothing to live for, no one to safeguard, and now he had a family, a future, love.
“I won this battle.” Genine threaded her fingers through his hair, a smile in her voice. “You surrendered.”
“You won every battle.” He carried her toward their domicile. “Because every battle I’ve ever fought was for you. I merely didn’t know it at the time.”
“You know that now.” She kissed his forehead.
“I feel it in my heart.” The joy his gerel had given him lit up the darkest corners of his soul. “I love you, warrior female.”
“I love you, Warlord.” Genine smiled down at him.
Batu smiled back at her. He had won many battles but his mate was his most valued prize. He would cherish her forever.
The End
About Cynthia Sax
USA Today bestselling author Cynthia Sax writes SciFi, contemporary and paranormal erotic romances. Her stories have been featured in Star Magazine, Real Time with Bill Maher, and numerous best of erotic romance top ten lists.
Dark Warlord is a standalone story in her award-winning Refuge series. The first story, Dark Thoughts, features an all-powerful enemy-eating hero and a human heroine who is more than his match. Dark Thoughts is dark and gritty and unlike any other story you’ve ever read.
To find out more about Cynthia Sax’s stories, sign up for her dirty-joke-filled monthly newsletter and visit her on the web at www.CynthiaSax.com.
Keep in touch with Cynthia using the following links:
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Draekon Rescue by Lee Savino and Lili Zander
Chapter One
Dorothy
Worst. Day. Ever.
My head pounds in time to blaring music. The flashing neon lights aren’t doing me any favors. Add the remains of party decorations from five birthday parties and about seventy million screaming kids high on cake and ice cream and... yeah. Not even a bottle of aspirin can help me.
“What’s that?” I call over the music to the pimply teen gawking at my breasts.
“Are you DPitts?”
“Yeah, that’s me.” Dorothy Pitts, but everyone calls me Dor. I refill Teen Creep’s Coke and move on. My tight ‘Super Mario Bros.’ t-shirt helps with tips, but only if the customer is an exhausted dad who dragged his kids to the video arcade so he can watch the game over the bar. Teens don’t tip well, even if they have their parents’ Mastercard. It’s like no one taught them waitresses are people.
When I return, Teen Creep and his friends are standing around the StarShip Wars console. Two years and my high score still stands. DPitts holds number one by a good margin. I allow myself a private smile.
“How did you do it?” The teen gets back in my face, his arms folded over his chest. “You get your boyfriend to play for you?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.” I unload my tray of chicken fingers and fries, and the gaggle of gamers falls on the food like they’ve fasted for a week.
“Seriously, what’s your secret?” another guy asks between shoving fries in his mouth.
“StarShip Wars is pretty much a shooting game. It’s not hard.” At least, not for me. Of course, once I got the hang of it, playing nine hours a day for four hundred days straight put my score in the top five in the world.
; Yeah, I’m a nerd. Sue me.
“Wait.” A teen gestures to the rest of the consoles. “DPitts holds the highest scores on all the games around here.”
I shrug. “I’ve worked here awhile.” They gape at me, and I roll my eyes. What, girls can’t play video games?
“DPitts. More like D-tits,” Teen Creep says to his buds. They guffaw, food spraying from their mouths.
And there it is. My cue to leave. “Let me know if you need a refill,” I fake grin and spin on my heel.
“Hey, I’d like a girlfriend who can handle a joystick,” Teen Creep says. “What time are you off?”
“Way past your bedtime,” I call over my shoulder.
Unfortunately, my boss sees and waves me over. “If you’re going to flirt with the customers, do it on your own time,” he says.
I stop several feet away from my manager, aka Slimy Stan. He smells like stale sweat. Then again, so does everything in this pit.
“Of course, you can always flirt with me.” He laughs like he’s hilarious. His eyes drop to my chest, and I turn away before I visibly shudder. Or start barfing.
What made me think that taking my high school job back was a good idea? Video game arcades are cool until you’re about twelve. Fifteen, if you’re a geek. I’m twenty. If it weren’t for Slimy Stan, I’d be the top contender for the Biggest Dweeb Ever award.
I duck into the break room. My red Chucks are my favorite shoes, but after eight hours, all I want to do is go home, take them off, put my feet up, and play some StarShip Wars. I downloaded the latest update last night, and it is excellent.
Too bad. My student loans are due, and that means I gotta work overtime.
My phone’s battery is red, but there’s enough juice for me to check my email. There’s a new one from Valstorm, the video game company that makes StarShip Wars. My heart stops.
Without opening the email, I read the first line.
“We’re sorry to inform you your application has been declined...”
I sag against the wall. Typing furiously, I check the internet to see who did get the scholarship. Sure enough, the awards are posted. The recipients smile smugly at the camera. Two of them have worse game scores than I do.
My phone dies before I can read any further.
Could this day get any worse?
“Dor! Doooooora,” Stan sings out. I stuff my phone into my back pocket just before he comes through the door. “There you are. You’ve got cleanup. Men’s bathroom. A bunch of boys made a mess.”
“I’m not supposed to clean the men’s. Only the women’s,” I stammer.
“Nathan’s busy at the bar, and Joey’s fixing the pinball machine.”
“What about you?”
“I’m the manager.” He raises his brows in challenge.
I zombie walk past him to get the mop. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the group of teens rolling with laughter.
“We left a present for you in there, D-Tits,” one of them calls.
Worst. Day. Ever.
* * *
“Bummer about your car. Do you get flats a lot?” Stan asks as he peels out of the parking lot at midnight.
Wrinkling my nose at the car’s musty smell, I shrug. My two flat tires weren’t a coincidence. After enduring two hours of harassment, I’d convinced Nathan to throw Teen Creep and his cronies out. Ten bonus points to guess who took their revenge out on my poor Honda. If they hadn’t guessed my car from the StarShip Wars bumper sticker, the ‘GamrGrl’ plates would had given me away.
They stiffed me on the tip, too. Jerks.
“No matter. I can pick you up tomorrow, too. I won’t even charge you for gas.” Stan leers at me, and I sink down further into my seat, ready to ignore him until he drops me off at the end of my block. I’ll walk the rest of the way home. It doesn’t matter how much my feet hurt; there’s no way I’m telling Stan where I actually live.
“So what was that phone call you made earlier? Had to be important, for you to ask to use the office phone.”
“Nothing.”
“Really? ‘Cause I checked the number. It was to a college. Thinking of going again?”
“No.” I cross my arms over my chest. Stan is literally the last person I want to talk about this with. Why does my cell phone have to be dead? Then again, it’s not like I had anyone else to call for a ride.
“You went to college for a few semesters, right? Dropped out because you couldn’t afford it.”
Shut up, Stan. I try telepathy, but it doesn’t work.
“Must suck to have to take your old job back. At least when you turn twenty-one, you can work the bar.”
I stare out the window, pretending not to hear him. The car passes the last of the town and heads into the country. I live out here because it’s cheaper. Clean air and pretty fields are just added bonuses. There are more stars in the sky, too. I raised a thumb and forefinger, pretending to shoot the larger ones. So much possibility, just out of reach.
Who am I kidding? Today isn’t the worst day of my life. There’s always tomorrow, and the day after that. I’m a twenty-year-old college dropout whose greatest achievement was mastering a video game. Talk about useless life skills.
What am I going to do?
A familiar sign flashes by, and I sit up. “Stan, stop. That was my turn back there.”
“Relax, Dor. The night is young.” He leans over and turns on his radio to a singer crooning about rains in Africa.
Fuck. This. “I want to go home. Pull over, or I’m jumping out now.” I tug the car handle to prove I’ll do it.
“All right, all right, relax. I’ll turn around.”
Instead, he pulls onto an old farm road and cuts the engine.
“That’s it.” I throw myself out before he can lock the doors.
“Oh, come on.” Stan’s car rolls after me, Toto still playing.
I reverse direction and head into the rows of corn. Soft leaves wrap around my legs. The car headlights flood my way, and I stop in my tracks.
A giant disc hovers over the field.
I recognize it immediately. I’ve only seen the shape in TV broadcasts nonstop for the last five months. The first aliens ever to land on earth. The mysterious and enigmatic Zorahn. They came announced, cured a bunch of diseases, and recruited a group of women on some kind of intergalactic diplomatic mission. Since then, we’ve heard nothing.
Now there’s an alien ship parked in Farmer Henry’s field. Ten bonus points to guess its origin.
Acting on instinct, I start backing up, hoping the aliens haven’t noticed us, but unfortunately, today’s not my lucky day. The ship lights up. I fling my arm up, gritting my teeth against the sudden brightness. An engine roars behind me, and I whirl in time to watch Stan drive off in reverse.
Can this day get any worse?
I really should stop asking myself this.
There’s a whirring noise behind me, and a bottom section of the ship opens.
Yes. Yes, it can.
I run. Leaves whip my legs until my jeans are heavy, soaked in dew. My red Chucks skid in the mud. Lights flash above as I zigzag across the field. It’s no use. The ship is gaining on me.
The wind rises. Cornstalks rip out of the ground, swirling as the ship’s force field sucks them upward. The ship looms above my head. My feet leave the ground as the tornado pulls me into the spaceship.
Worst. Day. Ever.
Chapter Two
Zlatin
Three hundred and twenty-seven days. That’s how long I’ve been a prisoner, held captive in a nondescript warehouse on an unknown corner of Zoraht, imprisoned by three scientists, Ashl’vi, Travix, and Kal’vi.
Do they act alone, or are they sanctioned by Brunox, head of the council of scientists? I don’t know. Does Lenox, high emperor of Zoraht, know what’s going on? I don’t know that either.
What I do know is that in the time I’ve been a prisoner here, they’ve brought in fifteen women from the home world and from other planets. Adrash
. Maarish. Kraush. Gaarven. Each time, they hope to activate the Draekon mating bond. So far, their attempts have only resulted in failure.
And the women? Killed. Because of me. I couldn’t protect them. I couldn’t intervene. The only reason they died was because they weren’t my mate.
My soul is tattered; I will be judged harshly in the gardens of Caeron.
At the start, I’d looked for every opportunity to escape. Lately... I’ve stopped searching for a way out. There isn’t one.
I’m a captain in the rebellion; I know our rules. If you’re captured, you’re on your own. We don’t go back for our fallen. We can’t afford to. There are too few of us.
I will die in this prison.
Chapter Three
Dorothy
Cold. I try to curl into a ball, but can’t. Something’s holding me down. There’s a dull ache in my wrist, and my throat feels like it was scraped with sandpaper. I blink, but everything blurs.
Shapes move around me. I cough and start convulsing, my limbs shuddering like they don’t belong to me, but the fit passes quickly. Voices swim around me and away, speaking nonsense. A light shines on my face, and then away.
I can’t sit up, can’t scratch my nose, can’t move. All I can do is blink, so I do that, over and over, until my vision clears.
No wonder I’m cold. I’m bare ass naked on a shining white surface, a table of some sort. Thick straps at my forehead, middle, and knees hold me down. I can raise my head a little, but that’s it.
The aliens move around me, barely paying attention to their captive human. I study them covertly. The Zorahn look mostly like humans, tall and stern, with striking piercings and tattoos. There’s three of them, two women and one man, all wearing blue-purple robes.
That’s when it really hits me. I’ve been abducted by aliens. Goodbye Earth, hello alien probe.
I cough, and my throat screams in pain. Could things get any worse?
One of the aliens—a woman—looms over me, a long, thin syringe thingy in her hand. A needle. No, no, hell no. I shriek, the sound barely escaping my badly scraped throat. Another alien covers my mouth. I strain against my bonds, wild with panic.
Alien Alphas: Twenty-Three Naughty Sci-Fi Romance Novellas Page 31
