ARMOR [New World Book 2]

by C. L. Scholey

  Dasks decided he would ask Cobra if he had any ideas. The little female couldn’t stay in that cave forever. She needed food; the poor thing was starving. Dasks stopped dead in his tracks and once more hung upside down in a tree pondering his thoughts. Food. Of course. He would coax his little female, Amy, out of the cave with food. She would show herself, if not for her then for the sake of the others.

  Dasks, you’re brilliant.

  * * * *

  “Dasks, you’re an idiot. This will never work. Why would any scared female show herself for mere food?” Talsk said grumpily.

  “Shhh,” Dasks commanded. “Because she’s starving. There’s no food here and she’s desperate. I saw how desperate she was last night. She was almost injured stealing from the males I saved her from.”

  “The males starve their women here? Are they related to Tonan filth?” Talsk sounded appalled. “No wonder Cobra was so urgent to come here.”

  It was on the tip of Dasks’ tongue to say they weren’t starved on purpose. Earth was being depleted of sustenance. Even the males were malnourished and desperate. Then he remembered the men he had killed. They wouldn’t have shared with his female; they would have harmed her for the sake of meat. So he remained silent and let his warrior mate think what he wanted. Talsk cocked his head at Dasks and Dasks shrugged.

  No one knew him better than Talsk. Each Castian warrior took a warrior mate. Talsk and Dasks warrior mated by biting one another during their mating ceremony and exchanging blood when they were only twelve. They were inseparable, bonded. Their feelings were heightened toward each other almost to the point of being able to read the other’s thoughts. Each always knew where the other was. Each knew if the other was in danger. A Castian fought armored with no weapon. Weapons were for the weak. A Castian and his warrior mate always fought back-to-back. They moved so quickly there wasn’t anything that could come between them.

  The small cave hiding his woman was in sight and Dasks could smell her fear. Everyone remained quiet in the cave, as though their silence would be taken for vacancy. What the humans didn’t realize was that Dasks and Talsk smelled them, their emotions. They had left a basket of food in plain view then had moved off to hide.

  “I sense seven women,” Talsk said, his head tilted curiously. “One male and two very little female smells. What do you suppose they are? The little ones I mean.”

  “Pets?”

  “Female pets?”

  “Would humans keep little humans as pets?” Dasks asked. It was a mystery. Nevertheless two small human female scents were detectable.

  “Maybe they will send the pets out for the food,” Talsk said.

  Dasks could sense his warrior mate’s overwhelming curiosity.

  “If they do, don’t kill them. I read humans can become attached to their pets.”

  Talsk’s scent was now that of being appalled. “I would never harm anything female.”

  “Shh,” Dasks whispered. “She’s coming out.”

  “She’s beautiful,” Talsk said with appreciation.

  A new scent from Talsk invaded Dasks’ nose and he bristled.

  “She’s mine,” Dasks growled. Talsk looked at him. Dasks could sense his warrior mate’s hurt confusion. Dasks had never growled at him. “Sorry, Talsk.”

  “Your male hormones are unusually spiked,” Talsk said.

  “I know. I can’t help it when she’s around. My skin touched hers and I felt her. There is something primal about mating.”

  “We should get ready. She’s almost at the bait.”

  Dasks nodded. They watched Amy’s timid approach from over thirty feet away.

  She scanned the area, took a step, stopped, scanned. When Amy was close enough, she grabbed the food they had set on a stump and made a mad dash for safety. Her arms sagged under the weight and her steps faltered. The basket with replicated meats and cheese and bread was close enough to the cave to give her a false sense of security. It had been weighted down with a few rocks.

  The female had no idea just how fast a Castian warrior in armor was. Dasks was at the crevice entrance before Amy had gone three steps. Her gasp of alarm made his heart race until his armor controlled it.

  Amy threw the basket at him and ran. She didn’t get far before Talsk crouched in front of her blocking her escape. Amy backed away. Her neck turned from side-to-side watching them while trying to find a new route to take. Her body began shaking as they closed in on her. Cobra had told them that if they caught a female to return to the ship at once. On Earth it wasn’t safe for their armor to come down. The females couldn’t see them in their flesh until safely aboard. Cobra warned them that the females would find them terrifying. It would be hard for a Castian male not to react to the musky scent of terror. No matter how great their scent of fear, it was imperative to remain armored.

  “Go away,” Amy demanded.

  Her words were stern but shaky and Dasks smiled. She wouldn’t see his smile.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he soothed her. “We won’t hurt you, Amy.”

  Her eyes widened at his use of her name. She blinked in confusion. Her emotions changed so fast, Dasks was bombarded with a variety of scents until his head reeled. Fear, frustration, anger, sadness, longing, hurt—it erupted from her. Lord of Dargon, but he wanted so badly to drop his armor and comfort her. He was drawn toward her. His long razor-sharp talons reached for her wanting to hold her. Amy shied back. The scent of terror was thick in his nostrils urging him forward. Perhaps if he dropped the armor on his hands…

  Just then a small blur jumped at Dasks. With surprise, Dasks flung it off with an easy toss. The little being screamed, went sailing, landed with a thump onto its behind and fell to its side and lay quietly.

  Amy howled for Dasks not to hurt it. Amy raced toward the human—it was the male.

  Dasks’ talons clicked together as he approached his cowering female. Amy had her arms wrapped around the dazed little male as it lay on the ground. The small being looked up at him with a mat of unruly hair and blue eyes the likes of which he had never seen. Great Lord of Dargon, the being was tiny for a male—even a human male.

  On all fours, Dasks sniffed at it. His fangs grew longer with the musky male scent and he growled deep within his throat. The little male howled in fear. It cowered deeper into Amy’s arms and Dasks snarled.

  Amy hit at Dasks with her fist and cried out when she struck his armor. Undeterred, she struck again.

  If she were to hit his armor again she would be hurt; he knew this.

  When she struck, a small piece of his armor disappeared and her tiny fist hit flesh.

  Dasks felt her, her terror. It was hard not to lower the rest of his armor. As it was, that small area snapped immediately back into place—he doubted she had even seen his skin. But his armor reacted to her already. She was his. Dasks looked at the male human with loathing.

  “Is this your mate?” Dasks asked angrily.

  “What?” Amy stammered.

  “Is this male your mate?”

  “He’s only a little boy,” Amy said.

  Her words were tinged with desperation for his understanding. But Dasks didn’t understand.

  “A little what?”

  “He’s a little boy,” Amy cried out when Dasks moved closer.

  “Leave him alone!” someone else howled.

  Dasks watched with fascination as one of the small smelling female humans attacked Talsk. He had thought Amy to be tiny, but this little being was half Amy’s size.

  Talsk picked the tiny female up by the scruff of clothes on its neck and held it before him dangling it off the ground. The female continued to kick and yell. Flailing limbs the size of Earth twigs banged against Talsk’s armor until he moved her away from the danger of harming herself.

  “What an odd little thing,” Talsk claimed, twisting it forwards and back. “No weight, no fangs, no strength, no armor. Where is its defense? What a poor little sweet creature. No wonder you keep it as a pet.”

&
nbsp; “For the love of God have you never seen children before?” Amy cried out.

  Earth children? Dasks smelled the male again; there was definitely something he had missed with his hasty annoyance. It was male, but not a grown human man. Neither Dasks nor Talsk had ever seen a female child, and they hadn’t seen a male child in four hundred years, since they themselves were small. Were he and Talsk really once this tiny?

  Amy was afraid for the little male child. Dasks sensed it was even more helpless than his female. To kill it would be cruel.

  Talsk lowered the female child onto her feet and she slumped, spent, in the dirt. Amy gathered her into her arms.

  “Please let us have the food,” Amy said quietly.

  “You can have the food and the children can return to the cave unharmed but you are coming with me,” Dasks said.

  “Where?”

  Dasks frowned, she looked horrified and the stench of fear wafted to his nostrils. “You and at least one other woman will accompany us back to our ship.”

  “What are you?”

  “A Castian warrior. Talsk is my warrior mate. I have chosen you to be my female. It would be best if the woman Meg came with us as well,” Dasks said.

  “What will you do with us?” Amy whispered.

  “Mate with you.”

  Chapter 2

  Amy could hear the others in the cave crying. If these creatures took her away, the others would have no hope for survival. What would three children be able to do? Leah, their mother, was on a mound of rotten blankets dying. The other four women banded together only for survival. With Meg and Amy gone, the other women would have no reason to help Leah and her kids. Already the others grumbled they were too much of a burden. They didn’t mean to be cruel. The children were too young to hunt and were of course concerned for their mother so the two littlest cried often. All three of the youngest battled colds and were miserable from it. If Amy and Meg were gone, who would heat water for the children to sip at night to quiet their coughs? Who would rock them when they were scared? Their mother could hardly move.

  “I can’t leave,” Amy whispered desperately.

  What did these creatures mean by they would mate? Couldn’t they see they were too different? The thing before her had to weigh hundreds of pounds. Amy would be crushed by it. She knew it was male but nowhere on it could she see any sex. There was just a large rounded bump where a human man’s dick normally sat. Both creatures’ behinds were well defined and looked rock-solid. Neither wore clothes nor did they shiver in the cold air. If by chance humans and these things could actually have offspring, the creature-baby would rip her apart when she gave birth with its talons and claws. If she survived a birthing, it would rip her breasts off with fangs.

  “I can’t,” Amy stuttered.

  “Your world is all but dead,” said the one who had killed the other men last night. “If you come with me, you will be safe. You will never go hungry. I will offer you my protection against anything. I swear I would never hurt you. You’ll like my world. It’s filled with color, not this gray nothingness. Two suns shine, and you will never be cold again. I sense your worry and confusion. I’m in my armor—we aren’t so different. I know I am larger than most Earth males but there are similarities to our anatomy. We are compatible. You may even find me pleasing once I can retract my armor aboard our vessel.”

  “I’ll go.”

  Amy looked over at Danni as she emerged from the cave hesitantly.

  Danni stood for a moment assessing the situation with caution. She then walked tentatively to the basket of dropped provisions. Neither creature stopped her. Her hand shot out to snatch at the food and she bit into a hunk of bread. She devoured it, choking it down in eagerness then grabbed a large chunk of yellow cheese. Danni was a petite blond. Her face was pale like alabaster. Danni’s green eyes were an open book of longing and desperate need. She would be beautiful when cleaned up. Her look was optimistic when she settled her gaze onto the fare before her.

  Amy realized then just how hopeless life had become when women were willing to go anywhere on promises alone with strange-looking beings.

  “You may come,” the armored creature said, sizing Danni up. “There will be another who will mate with you as long as you are fertile. If you are not, there may be an older Castian who will take you regardless, but may not mate with you. Either way you will be safe from any harm on our home planet, Bagron. We will be heading to Dargon first.”

  Amy shook her head sadly. Danni was young and no doubt fertile. Danni had been scheduled to leave on a shuttle, but her mother had grown ill and she refused to leave her. After her mother had died it was too late. There would be hope for Danni if these creatures spoke the truth. But Amy was dying. Once they found this out, she would be dumped back on Earth and again abandoned. The creature who offered his protection against the unknown wouldn’t want anything to do with her. He specifically claimed to want a mate. What other older male would want anything to do with a dying woman?

  “Who among you females wants to live and leave this hell?” the creature bellowed toward the cave.

  He knows. How does he know there are more in the cave? How does he know they are all female?

  One-by-one the women slowly crept from the cave until all but one was seen. Amy could see the youngest of their brood, Lisa who was four, peer from inside the crevice. The child eyed the food on the ground the other women were devouring. She was too frightened to go forward. Amy looked at Meg, her friend.

  “We’re dying here, Amy,” Meg said quietly. “There is no hope left here. None at all. We’re alone. No one will ever come for us.”

  Amy could see Meg had given up and yet was grasping at promised straws. There was a seducing power in just the feeling of wanting to be wanted. Meg too had been left behind, abandoned by the human race. Only the perfect of body or the wealthy had left on shuttles. By the time it came to the rest of them, their time was up. Like the planet of misfit toys. Meg had only one kidney, enough to declare her imperfect.

  “What about Leah and her children?” Amy asked.

  “Let them come, too,” Meg asked one of the armored beasts. “Please, there is a woman inside the cave who is ill. It’s pneumonia. If you have medicine she can be cured. She’s had three children, so she’s definitely fertile.”

  Bitterly, Amy knew it to be the truth. Leah was fertile. Her and her three illegitimate children were left to die on the planet to hide a senator’s dirty little secret. Amy couldn’t imagine the woman’s feelings of betrayal. It had been bad enough for the man to leave Leah, but sentencing his own children to death was abhorrent. Amy hoped the man had crashed in a shuttle and died.

  “What’s your name?” Amy asked the creature before her.

  “Dasks.”

  “Please, Dasks. I will go quietly if you let the others come.” Once they found out it was too late for Amy, the others could be away. Away to where she didn’t know, but anything had to be better than this hell. Meg was right, there was nothing left for anyone here. Earth was all but dead. Even the circle of men were no more, so there was no one left to steal from. If these creatures wanted their demise, they would already have been killed. One by itself had ripped through fifteen men; what were two capable of? It was obvious the creatures had food from what she could see in the basket. All of it was fresh. Perhaps there would be more.

  Dasks looked to be thinking it over. It was hard for her to tell because the thing was devoid of facial features. Oh God it’s so ugly. How could she have sex with something so hideous?The only remote thing close to decent about it was its tattoo. Amy had never seen such a beautiful intricate design. It lit both sides of its face from temple to jaw. The other creature had the same type of glowing tattoo, but it was decidedly different. Amy wondered if that was how they could tell one another apart—perhaps like snowflakes, no two were the same.

  “All but the male may come,” Dasks finally said.

  “He’s a child,” Amy raged and jumped to
her feet. She hadn’t expected that. They couldn’t leave the little boy all alone to fend for himself; it would be cruel.

  “He’s a male. We have no need of more males on our planet.”

  “He’s only a little boy,” Meg wailed. She limped on her sprained ankle to the other warrior and placed a pleading hand high onto his arm. The creature towered over her. “Please, he’ll die out here all alone.”

  “Why don’t we let Cobra decide?” the other armored beast said.

  Amy noted the way the creature inhaled Meg’s scent. The being moved closer to her and strangely Meg didn’t pull away or appear to be afraid. She looked somewhat confused.

  “Talsk, Cobra said no males,” Dasks ground out.

  Amy reached out to Dasks. Her hand connected with his arm. For a second she thought she touched skin and she felt a jolt of electricity pass between them. She hadn’t been mistaken the previous night. The feeling was real. Dasks felt it too because he jumped.

  “Please, Dasks,” she begged. “Their mother is dying. They have no one but us. Please? I will go with you if the boy can come. I’ll even discuss mating.”

  It was slight and hardly noticeable but Dasks nodded. Amy stooped down and pulled both children to their feet. Dasks towered over all of them. She heard him draw in a deep breath and a small grumbling noise clicked at the back of his throat. He cocked his head at her and Amy wondered if these beings sensed deception. Amy shivered; she meant what she had said, only left out the part about her inevitable demise. Her apprehension surprisingly stemmed toward what would transpire when they discovered her ruse. With a little luck she would be away from this hell—headed to God knows where. But nevertheless away.