by Sara Fields
I was a warrior.
My sisters and I had spent years together in the forest, practicing how to fight, how to defend ourselves against our enemies and how to kill if we had to. All four of us. We’d trained together just like the men in our camp had insisted. I’d been able to break out of any hold that any man had put me in, no matter how much bigger he was than me. We never stopped. We always remembered that at any moment, we may no longer be safe. We all had to fight for our freedom.
Once we had learned, we taught everyone else. Every man, every woman, every child. It was one reason we’d survived for so long. We were strong together.
I was more than just a little tiny human. I was a fighter. I was a Stryke.
I opened my eyes.
And sprang into action.
I squatted slightly and burst upward, while both of my hands grabbed the wrist holding the knife. Using every muscle fiber in my body, I bent forward and flipped Skinny over my shoulder. He hadn’t expected it and that was obvious by the look on his face as he flew forward. I was practically naked, just a terrified tiny human female capable of nothing more than tears and screams. A vulnerable set of holes to fuck. He’d underestimated me. They all had. Every single man in that room.
But he didn’t know me. Wasn’t aware of what I was capable of.
His back slammed down on the concrete hard and he yelled out in pain. I still held his knife-wielding wrist in my palms and I wrenched it backwards, forcing the weapon out of his hands as it clattered to the floor. In a flash, I’d knelt down and grabbed it for my own purposes.
Before he even had the forethought to react, I had the blade to his throat.
My heart pounded in my chest. I pulled in a ragged breath.
Could I actually kill a man? Should I?
The startled look on his face quickly molded into something else.
“Strong little shit, you are. I’d have enjoyed ripping that tight little pussy apart had these assholes here not interrupted us,” he murmured dangerously.
He’d hit me. He’d enjoyed it. He was the reason I was standing here almost naked. He’d threatened to cut my nipple off. The others were dead. Neil has disappeared. All that was left was me and Skinny.
And my revenge.
Fury bathed over me like a sudden rainstorm.
I felt my heartbeat stop. I felt my breath pull in. This was real. It was all real. I made a decision then. This was my kill. Mine. It was already done.
I wrenched the knife across his throat, cruel, deep, and decisive.
Red blood spurted forward, bathing me in its warmth, but I didn’t care. I watched him closely, seeing his eyes burst open in shock, saw his pain and saw the life drain from him as his eyes glassed over.
His life blood flowed down my arm and pooled on the cool concrete beneath us.
I sat back and lifted my head, lifting my hands, staring at the red liquid that dripped down my fingers. I looked at my Vakarrans next.
I expected to see horror. Anger. Hatred. But I saw none of that.
Instead, I saw pride, respect, and something I hadn’t ever anticipated. Love.
Ryder offered his hand to me.
With a sob, I raced forward, and he enveloped me in his arms. Safety and protection in those limbs. Something I’d never taken for granted again. The other three piled around me, holding me tight, despite the dirt and grime all over my skin.
And the blood that splattered my body. Evidence of my decision to murder a man.
“You were fucking incredible,” Morgn murmured.
“I’m so proud of you, Alaina,” Ryder whispered, his usual no-nonsense demeanor breaking for a moment.
“I fucking love you,” Davon growled.
Aarom said nothing, just ran his hands over my face in astonishment. He pulled me into a kiss, his persistence giving away his worry.
My breath returned. My heartbeat began to settle.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” I replied, my voice hoarse once Aarom let me free.
I felt my breath pull in.
Morgn lifted me then and threw me over his shoulder. The five of us tore out of that room with haste.
I was safe.
Chapter Thirteen
Ryder
The moment Alaina’s voice had screamed in my head, I’d known exactly where to go. Our connection gave us a direction and we sped off toward the factories at the edges of the city. We’d grabbed everything we needed, every weapon on board that small little flying ship and ran straight in.
We hadn’t even stopped to evaluate the compound. We tore inside, shooting those in our way while human men scattered everywhere. I didn’t care though. I had to get to Alaina. We had to protect her. Our human. Our breeder. The woman I loved.
I shot any human man who got in my way. I didn’t ask questions, I just moved. Some died, others screamed in pain, and some crashed to the ground. Others ran off and escaped behind us.
I didn’t stop to check. I didn’t care. Alaina was the only one who mattered.
When the four of us had found her, my fury had been practically uncontainable, but then I saw her. Bloodied. Bruised. Hurt.
Scared and in more pain than I’d ever seen her in.
My heart had broken.
My little human. My woman. I was supposed to keep her safe and I had failed.
We moved forward. Davon and Morgn killed the others. One other disappeared. That left only one.
He had a knife to her throat. She’d met my eyes, tears sliding down her cheeks.
She’d given up.
I wanted to scream. Fight. Destroy every last human man who had played a part in it.
The man behind her had released her bonds, using her as a shield as he stood behind her. Then something happened that I hadn’t expected.
She’d been overtaken by calm. A certain strength passed over her features and she stilled. The knife flashed, reminded me that the human that held her captive could snuff away her life at any moment.
I wanted to do something. But I waited. I trusted in her in that moment.
And she fought back. In a maneuver that I wouldn’t have expected out of her in a million years, she flipped the rather large skinny man over her back, slamming him on the ground in front of her. She’d forced the knife from his grasp and took it for herself.
He’d muttered something that I couldn’t make out.
And then she’d sliced his neck so deep it had practically hit bone.
I’d never seen anything like it. Not from a human female. Our species saw them as weak, as breeding stock, but our Alaina was different. She was a fighter. She was a mate worthy of a Vakarran. She was our equal. She was ours.
She’d looked at me then and faltered. Her strength began to wane, and I gave her mine.
She’d taken my hand and I held her. For a long moment, I reveled in the feeling of her and vowed that never again would anyone take her from me. I’d kill them.
I never wanted to feel the loss of my woman, ever.
She was mine. She was ours. Our woman. Our equal. Our warrior.
She’d changed everything.
We fled that hateful place, watching as human men scattered this way and that. We didn’t stop them. As quickly as we could, we fell back to the flying ship and tore off in the direction of the penthouse. Once we landed, my three men took position all around the terrace, waiting, watching and planning for any retaliation the human men might bring to us.
I took Alaina inside and brought her in the shower. I didn’t even take off my clothes, I didn’t care. Roughly, I tore away her panties and turned on the water. She sighed, pressing her thighs together. Her nipples hardened as water cascaded down between us.
Blood ran down her skin in rivulets as I washed the horrors of the past twenty-four hours off her skin. I blinked away tears of anger as the dirt and mud washed away, revealing developing, angry-looking welts and bruises on her body. Her wrists and ankles were especially bad, purple ringed from the metal cuffs they�
�d shackled her with.
But that didn’t compare to her face.
On her left cheek was a shallow groove from the bullet that had ricocheted from that man’s gun. Her right eye was bruised black and her lip split. Her blue eyes met mine and my breath hitched in my throat.
Fuck. Even bruised and bloody, she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
I pressed her up against the wall, my lips finding hers, taking her. I didn’t ask. I didn’t care. I needed her, and she needed me.
She moaned, whimpering as my tongue pushed between her lips. Hers tangled with mine in a dance that only the two of us wanted. Needed.
I wasn’t gentle.
And she opened her legs for me. She tore at my clothes, demanding me to take them off and I did just that. My naked body pushed against hers. Her nipples hardened against my chest.
I kissed her harder and she moaned into my throat.
I wanted her to forget the touch of those humans. I wanted her to know that I and my men were the last men who were ever going to touch her. The only men who had the right to touch her and bring her pleasure for the rest of her life.
I wanted to make her whole again.
My cock ached for her.
Her fingers reached down and took a hold of me. Her fingers felt like silk, rubbing up and down my shaft, driving me wild with need. I groaned low in my throat and felt her shudder in response. She liked pleasuring me then.
My own fingers dove between her legs, finding her needy bud and she arched against me, pressing her breasts into my chest. She was soaked.
She needed to be fucked. And I was just the man to do it.
She continued to rub up and down my cock, drunk with her lust. I speared my two fingers into her cunt, stroking up and down her walls as she clenched around me. Her sounds made me ache with desire to sink my cock deep in her pussy as I wrenched one orgasm from her body after another.
She deserved so much love.
“Please,” she whispered. I curled my fingers, stroking her inner channel and her pussy clenched my fingers tightly, begging and pleading with me for more.
I needed her too.
I wasted no more time. I pulled my fingers from her delectable cunt and lined the head of my cock up to her greedy entrance. I slid inside her with ease, her arousal dripping down my shaft. She gripped at my shoulders, her nails digging furrows in my skin, but I didn’t care. It fucking felt incredible.
Her cunt gripped my cock like a vise.
I growled with ecstasy, it felt so fucking good.
I relaxed the blood flow to my cock. Lengthened it. Allowed my girth to increase larger than she’d ever taken, and she took it all without complaint.
Her pussy shuddered around me, milking me for all it was worth.
I didn’t wait for her to adjust to my massive size. I fucked her hard and she opened for me, spread her legs wider as I gripped her ass and lifted her up into the air. I rocked my hips back and forth, slamming into her, letting her know that she was mine once and for all.
She clamped down around my cock and I slammed into her harder than ever. She rode me, her hips rolling back and forth in an effort to meet my hard thrusts.
She moaned. Her quiet whimpers and sounds of passion did me in. I groaned, capturing her lips with mine, kissing her deeply as I shook with my desire for her.
She felt so good. So goddamn fucking good. Everything else fell away. It was just me and her and our love for each other. She trembled around my cock and gripped my shoulders tight. She arched backwards, holding onto me, letting me take what I wanted.
She gave me everything.
I groaned, passion exploding at the base of my spine as I came. My balls tightened almost painfully, my seed drove up inside her, and she writhed with pleasure in my arms.
I enjoyed every second of it. I felt her cunt spasm around my dick and I pressed on, fucking her hard, driving my cum far up into her channel.
Her eyes rolled as I worked her over, her screams echoing off the tile walls. It was beautiful. So fucking hot. I could watch her come all damn day.
She melted into my embrace, her cheek pressing against my shoulder as she came down from her high. A gentle sigh brushed against my ear and I held her tight, letting her know without a doubt that I would always be there to protect her, whenever she needed it.
We didn’t need the words. We just knew. She knew.
She kissed my cheek.
I don’t know what I’d done to deserve such a prize, but I was never going to let her go.
I let her drop down to the floor gently and continued washing her. Shampooing and conditioning her hair with as much care as I could muster. I soaped up a fine washcloth and drew it across her skin, careful not to press too hard on her injuries.
A few cuts and bruises were dirty though, and I was forced to wash them a little more roughly than I wanted to, but she never complained. She was strong. She knew what needed to be done. I turned her around toward me and kissed her forehead gently.
“You’re the best thing to ever happen to us. Never leave us ever again and we’ll protect you from everything. Anything. Whatever you need,” I told her.
She looked up at me, tears swimming in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
I held her close, the water cascading down our backs.
“It’s okay. I know why you did it. But you need to rest now. You need to heal.” I turned off the water and wrapped her in towels. I lifted her off the floor and brought her into the bedroom. I wasted no time in tucking her underneath the covers.
“Stay here. Rest,” I demanded, and she nodded.
Fighter that she was, she didn’t have the energy to disobey me. She nodded, and her eyes fluttered closed. I waited a few long minutes before venturing out to check on my comrades. All three of them were still at their posts, waiting for the human men to come for her.
“Anything?” I asked, my own gaze searching our surroundings, noting that the sun was beginning to drop in the sky.
“Nothing. But I’ve disabled the electricity in the rest of the building,” Davon answered. “I also trip wired the front entrance, so that any movement would alert us to the intruder’s presence. I also hacked into the body heat sensing system, so that if anything living comes near, we’ll know.”
“I’ve seen humans running between buildings, but none have paused by ours. They seemed more intent on escape,” Morgn answered.
“You know we have to return to the scene,” Aarom whispered.
My heart wrenched in two. I didn’t want to leave her alone, but he was right. We had to move, and we had to move quickly.
“She’s sleeping. We have to move now, before she wakes,” I replied. “If there are any more human females hidden away within that renegade post, we’ll find them.”
I turned back, looking in the direction of our sleeping beauty.
“No one can get in,” Davon assured me.
“If someone so much as touches the front door, they’re gonna fry to pieces,” Aarom added and I grinned.
“Good,” I replied.
Now that our woman was safe and sound, we could concentrate on rescuing other victims of this cruel human faction. We all piled back into our small ship and sailed away, the four of us silent as we contemplated what had to be done.
We completed our mission in less than two hours. The factory had been mostly abandoned, a handful of women left behind. We rescued three, who looked to be too sick or weak to have been given any thought. They were chained to the walls, left to die.
Human cruelty apparently knew no bounds.
We severed their bonds, killed the rest of the men who were still surviving despite their injuries. For the most part, we performed our duties without a fight.
Before long, we were back in our ship and traveling back to the penthouse.
The women whimpered in our grasps, but they weren’t strong enough to fight us. They were delirious, didn’t realize we weren’t out to
hurt them. We were there to save them.
When we arrived back on the terrace, Alaina was there waiting, wrapped in a fluffy blanket. I flinched upon seeing her. Her black eye had grown deeper, more latent bruises blossoming over her pale skin. She met my eyes and smiled, despite everything.
She was so strong. So very strong.
She watched, as we climbed out of the ship, her eyes drifting over the women that we’d rescued.
“Nina,” she breathed out loud.
One of the women lifted her head, her green eyes looking in Alaina’s direction. She started sobbing, blubbering apologies for luring her in, that the men had forced her to trick Alaina. That the men had tortured her.
The poor woman seemed to shatter into a thousand pieces right before me.
Alaina walked forward and took the girl’s hands in hers.
“Shh. I forgive you. I know how the men were,” she said quietly, a small look of faraway horror drifting through her eyes.
She needed her men. She needed all of us.
“Aarom, Davon, take the ladies into one of the guest rooms and see that they have access to food, baths. Whatever they need. Then return to us. Alaina needs to be reminded who are her masters,” I said loudly.
Alaina didn’t shrink back. Instead, she turned away, but before she did, I caught the hint of an excited smile cross over her lips.
Chapter Fourteen
Alaina
Morgn guided me back into the bedroom. Once we entered, he grabbed my hand and pulled me into him. I expected anger and retribution, especially from him, but instead he just held me. His arms curled around my shoulders, his hand pressing my head to his chest.
“Are you going to punish me?” I asked hesitantly.
“Do you need to be punished?” he questioned instead.
He knew me more than I knew myself.
I nodded into his chest. He sighed gently and picked me up in his arms. He strode over to the bed and sat down. Putting me on the bed beside him, he took the blanket away from me. I was naked underneath. His thumb traced my lip and he scowled, taking in all my cuts and bruises.
I needed him though. I needed his forgiveness. I needed everyone’s forgiveness.
