Taken By The Alpha Warlord (Warlords 0f Farian Book 2)

by Bailey Dark

  Six

  Jase

  I unwound the bandage Vania had tied around her leg and looked at the gash in her finely muscled, lightly tanned high. I grimaced. It was a gnarly slash, jagged, long, and deep. I wasn’t even sure what had made it, but the crash had been brutal and fast. I was impressed she had been able to do as much as she had with this bad of an injury. I hadn’t been giving her enough credit…

  Vania shifted around and moaned in pain as I scrubbed out the injury with some antiseptic, but she didn't wake up. She was out from shock and pain. I had placed my cloak beneath her head, so she had a more gentle place to slam her admittedly sweaty and stricken, but still beautiful, head up and back down again when she did—which she was occasionally doing in her desperate, pained stupor.

  After cleaning and re-bandaging the wound, I pulled the ring back out of my inner pocket. I looked from it, back down at the Earthling girl. That spark… that felt a lot more like what Kajo said happened nearly every time he and Daphne touched. How in the world had Vania been able to even hold this ring? It was my family ring, blessed with ancient magics that I didn’t understand. The same type of magic that enabled telekinesis and telepathy made the kind of connection to the inner world that this ring contained, and it had some particular protections on it that usually scarred those who touched it in such a way that they were poisoned, the magic growing into a festering wound in their hand, then up their arm, to their heart, and touching their soul. It would kill them within minutes. Yet, Vania was still alive.

  Plus, she had protected it for me and given it back to me.

  And I had thought about leaving her… a pang of guilt wove into my heart, and I hissed through my teeth… It certainly would have been easier…

  What is happening outside? Have the speeders left? Have Aimer and the others gotten away? Have they been captured? Killed? Why is no one speaking to me?

  I stood up and paced in the dimly lit cave. The bat guano did glitter like stars, and the slight shifting of the dormant bats made the guano glitter like stars, as it hid them from sight occasionally, but her delusional ramblings were just due to blood loss. Her pulse was strong, but her pants were ruined. They were stiffening up from the drying of her blood, but I wondered how much she had lost. Probably not enough to need a transfusion, but if she didn’t wake up naturally in the next thirty minutes or so, I was going to have to pinch her a bit to wake her.

  I dug around in my pack and got out a patch of gauze. I soaked it in a pain reliever salve and applied it to her forehead. She let out an immediate sigh of relief. I looked at her a moment longer, brow furrowed, and bit my lip. Which made me think of biting her lip… which made me think of biting her other places…

  Dammit… why couldn’t I stop thinking about her in that way? She was a soldier in my army, that was it.

  I rubbed my fingers where they had touched hers and the ring. They still tingled. That zing, those sparks, that had been awe-inspiring.

  And she was so goddamned gorgeous… I brushed her hair back behind her ears and made sure the gauze was secure to her head. I poked her shoulder and grinned where my name was printed in the red blood of the spy we had been interrogating from where Cassala had punched Vania in the shoulder. It stood out starkly on her light brown tunic. Hilarious…

  A sudden rustling in the tunnel made me sink back into the shadows, away from the geode light rock, and my dagger was immediately in my hands, Vania’s knives unsheathing and untethering themselves with my telekinetic powers, pointing straight down the tunnel’s mouth.

  A Bordash soldier appeared in the dim light, a shield held before his body as he inspected the dimly lit cavern. There was no other rustling from within the tunnel.

  I tiptoed behind him as he slipped up beside Vania. He stood over her, sword raised to bash down into her sleeping skull. I slipped around him, bracing one arm across his chest and slicing his jugular cleanly with my dagger, once from side to side, and then clean up through the neck under the chin to pierce through his mouth into his nasal cavity and into his brain. He dropped his sword and grabbed at my arms, pawing at the escaping blood, falling to the ground, gurgling in the bubbles of his own death.

  The dagger made a sucking sound as I pushed him out and away, arterial blood spraying out over Vania. I caught every drop before it could fall on her and redirected it with a telekinetic shield and slid his body magically over to the other side of the cavern.

  I wondered if this soldier had other men or women waiting outside the cave for him to return. I had better go find out…

  I crawled forward through the tunnel, finding my way in the dark, afraid to use the geode stone, and waited at the end of the tunnel for my eyes to adjust to the night on the outside. We had been in the caves for a few hours since the crash. It was likely close to midnight. My worry was starting to claw in my chest like a mad animal, not having heard anything from reinforcements, from my Crew, from my Trio, even from my enemies.

  There didn’t appear to be any Bordash at the foot of the mountains. I could see our transport in the distance, still smoldering, and there was the glow of a few lights dancing off the rolling hills not too far away: Tarsine’s camps? I would have to go inspect that. But not until Vania awoke.

  I sat down on the mountain and breathed in deeply, rooting myself to the world around, sending my mind out to branch into the telepathy around me… Suddenly, my mind was assailed with messages.

  “Alpha Jase, please respond. We have been trying to contact you for five hours now. This is a Code Blue. Alpha Jase, please respond to your Trio. Alpha Jase, This is a Code Blue. Please respond to your Trio. Please respond. Alpha Jase, We have been trying to contact you for five hours now… This is a Code Blue…”

  The message repeated itself. Just a lower soldier, assigned to send out the telepathic message, over and over.

  I looked at the mountain and scooped up a handful of the dirt. I held it close to my face. I smelled it. I tasted the dirt. It tasted faintly of salt. It must be an even higher content salt the deeper we got into the mountain.

  Dammit… We had shielded ourselves unknowingly from telepathic communication. With the Tarsine camp right there, it was unsafe for me to respond, they would be able to know I was close. They would likely have a Reader waiting for me to make contact telepathically with my troops. I would have to think on the right code to compose for my Trio to decipher, according to Code Blue, which meant Aimer was taking control and safe in command of the military. Thank the Worlds she was safe.

  They knew, at least, that the plan had been to head for these mountains. We hadn’t, at the time, known they were salt deposits. But, they would hopefully try to find us here, anyway. I could trust Aimer and my Commanders.

  I fingered the ring in my pocket. And I could always use this, too.

  But, only if I was really in a lot of trouble…

  So far, my biggest trouble was going to be the way this Earthling was pulling at my heart. I was frankly afraid that she might be awake if I went back in there, because I wasn’t sure how I was going to act if she was…

  Best be gruff and mean to her, I decided. There was no time to venture into anything other than that.

  We were at war, after all.

  No time for distraction. No time for whatever the ring was telling me to want.

  A flare went up in the distance.

  Tarsine’s troops had found something. I hoped it wasn’t one of my soldiers lost from the transport crash. My reinforcements would be on the way. They would find us.

  To the south, lightning cracked in the sky.

  There it was. The storms we had prayed for. The Bordash were superstitious about being outside during lightning storms, but not the Curans. We thrived on it. We unleashed our power in the storms. I would be able to sneak down to their camp and find a way out of here for me and the Earthling.

  The distant thunder echoed in my soul, and I thought about the first meeting I had had with Vania, just the day before, the rain hav
ing slicked her training shirt slick to her heaving breasts, her indignant anger in her eyes, those strong fists that I was sure could be gentle, firm, demanding, commanding, and oh, so delightful on my skin…

  I clambered back into the tunnel and crawled through toward the cavern.

  “Did you leave me?”

  Vania's telepathic message was tentative, vulnerable, a touch scared, and I wasn't sure if all of that was because she was still exhausted and weak from the injury, from waking up in the dark without me thereafter I had threatened to leave her a few hours before, or if it was because it was one of her first times ever trying telepathy, but my resolve to be mean to her faltered in that moment, and I wasn't sure I would ever find that resolve again.

  “I’m in the tunnel on my way back to you…” I wondered that we were able to communicate mentally once inside the mountain. The salts must be mainly on the surface and not thickly within the soils. It would make the cave a good interrogation location…

  Vania was sitting up when I got there, holding the fallen Bordash’s sword in her hands, looking at it, confused, unable to see his body in the dark corner I had thrown it to. Her hair was wild and swooshed to one side. Her lips quivered a little, pale and pinched.

  “I thought for sure you had decided again to leave me,” she said, “and I wouldn’t blame you.”

  “No. You’re part of my team, Earthling.”

  “I haven’t proven myself, yet.”

  I held the ring up to her. Its seven rings of carbon twisted around and glowed in the dim light. “Yes, you have.”

  She nodded and shrugged at the same time, a clearly Earthling gesture. “It was not mine to keep.”

  I took a deep breath and bent down to one knee beside her. I held the ring up before her eyes. Their green were dark pools in the cave’s dimness, and they seemed hazed over from pain and sleep, but there was that spark that was intoxicating… “I would like you to do me the honor of wearing it for now. It will heal you, if it doesn’t kill you, which it doesn’t seem likely to. Since I have lost its protective box, I am afraid it is going to slip out of my pocket, but it appears to fit your finger perfectly. Would you wear it for me, please, Earthling?”

  “Yes, Alpha, of course. I am at your service.”

  I took her hand in mine. As I slid the ring onto her finger, the electric shock split apart the room again, lightning pulsing from the ring, lighting up the entire cavern, making the mineral mysteries glow and spark in delight, a fizzling crack startling all the bats into a rage as they rushed up the tunnel and out of the cave. Sparkles descended around us as the tingling lit up our fingers, shaking our entire bodies and the tremble reached into my entire body and shook my heart. Even my lips shivered, and I knew at that moment that the only way to stop the shaking was to kiss her. Her mouth had dropped open slightly, and her lips were shivering, too. Her fingers were entwined with mine, and I was surprised they were not shaking, but they did seem to be radiating heat, sizzling as if there was extreme energy coursing through them.

  “Are you tingling?” she gasped. “Is this part of Curan magic? Are you making that happen?”

  “I don’t know what’s happening…” I whispered back. I leaned in close to her, pressing my lips gently into her forehead. Her hair smelled sweet. Slightly of sweat and dust and transport ship exhaust, too, but sweet like summer melons and honey. Her hand squeezed mine as my lips pressed into her skin and I took that as a signal that I could continue. Her breath was hot on my neck as I moved a little down and kissed one of her cheeks and then the other. I was not surprised to taste the salt of tears. I had noticed her crying from the pain in her leg, but, in my experience, women warriors didn’t want their tears to be commented on any more than men did. It was fine to cry when you were in pain, and it was fine to be consoled: it was also fine to deal with it on your own. That was what I would want.

  It was why I didn’t have a Queen yet. I preferred to be alone.

  But, right now… I wanted to be with her… with this Earthling. I couldn’t believe how fast my heart was beating. I could feel her heartbeat in her wrist pressed against my wrist, thudding in time with mine: rapid and thrilling. Her breath came in sharp gasps each time I kissed her. I smoothed back her hair with my other free hand and then moved down to her chin to pull her head up to look at me. I was kneeling over her entirely now, and her other hand was kneading into my lower back, tentative but strong, appealing, demanding, the way I had somehow known it would be.

  “You know, I’ve never kissed an Earthling.”

  “Well, I’ve never kissed anyone who wasn’t an Earthling.”

  “How many Alpha Warlords have you been with?”

  “Oh, tons.”

  I looked at her sharply, trying to distinguish the seriousness of her remark. Her eyes held steady in the dim green glow from the geode. Then they started to sparkle. I breathed more easily, surprised that I had felt a spark of jealousy thinking she was telling the truth. Why did I want to be her only Alpha Warlord?

  "You'll be my first there, too, Alpha Jase." She brushed her fingertips along my jawline again and ran her hand through my hair. Sparks sprang from the contact as if there was static electricity between us igniting in the dry air between her touch and the blonde fire on my head. “If you ever get around to actually kissing me, of course.”

  “You don’t like being teased?” I said with a short laugh.

  “I prefer to do the teasing.” As she said it, she sat up sharply to lean in close to my mouth, whispered her lips against mine, just so they barely touched, and as I grabbed her arms to pull her in tighter, desire flaring in my chest, she moved quickly back and ducked away, rolling under me and out to stand and scoot a few yards to the other side of the cavern. I was stunned at how quickly she had moved with her leg still injured. I was left almost falling over, thinking her lips were going to be right there to kiss, my hands bracing against the empty floor beneath me, my heart beating, my stomach dropping, my desire growing.

  “Tricky, tricky…” I said, licking my lips and standing up slowly. Grinning at her, I brushed my hair back. I pushed my sleeves up, my mythological tattoos glowing with magical ink in the geode light. I put my hands on my hips. “Guess my ring is making your leg feel better.”

  “It does feel a lot better.” She grinned back, rubbing the bandage. “Thank you for taking care of me.” She took two steps back again as I stepped toward her. “Do you think you’ve earned…” She swooned suddenly, nearly falling, her hand reaching up to catch her head as it ducked down, as if she were going to faint.

  In an instant, I was telekinetically pulling her toward me, into my arms, and kneeling down to the ground with her. She squeezed her eyes shut, her face pale, lips white in the dimness, a red flare of blood showing through on the bandage that needed to be re-wrapped.

  I moved to lay her back down on the bedroll, but she wrapped her hands around my neck, buried her face into my chest, and pulled herself tightly into me. “Please don’t let me go…”

  I tilted her chin up to me again and this time, sank my lips into hers. They were soft, full, luscious, sweet, and returned the kiss after a moment with a delicious pressure and the eagerness of someone who had also thought of this moment more than once.

  Her fingers clung to my neck and wound themselves into my hair. Tears streamed quietly and slowly from her eyes, trading themselves to my cheeks as we kissed, slowly and deeply, testing each other’s tongues, wrapping the tips together, biting at each other’s lips, and then I pulled back on her hair to release the embrace and dotted her jawline with a dainty stream of kisses that tasted salty from her tears.

  She nuzzled into me as I laid her back down on the bedroll.

  "You need to rest a little while longer. Aimer is in control of the army, and they will be searching for us already. We are in a salt mountain and can't communicate telepathically with them. I will compose a code and release it from the top of the mountain. You need to let my family's ring heal you, okay?"


  “Okay, Alpha.”

  “Okay, Earthling." I smoothed her hair, and she moaned a little happy smile and breathed deeply. She rubbed her leg, and I remembered the bandage needed changing. I placed more of the pain reliever salve on the bandage and the cloth on her forehead and she was soon asleep again, so soundly that I wondered if I had imagined all that had just transpired between us, and, yet, I still felt the tingling in my body, the lusciousness of her lips, and the bewilderment in my brain…

  I wondered if she was going to remember any of it at all, or if she would think she had just been dreaming…?

  I looked at her in the dim light after setting her bandage and then moved to a side of the cave to compose the code for Aimer. She looked peaceful and pretty… except for the occasional spike of pain and sharp movement of agony. I reprimanded myself for the moment of insecurity, but still had the worrying thought: if she did think our kiss was a dream, would she think it was a good one?

  Seven

  Aimer

  I knew Cassala and LeiLei hoped he would just leave the Earthling behind. Something told me she was stronger than they gave her credit for. I sensed a true power in her, and I had seen it in Queen Daphne. It wasn’t just King Kajo and Alpha Jase’s trust in these Earthling women, my intuition resonated with them: there was something special about them. And, besides, the Curan magic spoke true… Queen Daphne was the Beast King’s Destin. Maybe Vania was something special, too.

  Not for Jase, of course. He would be a lone wolf, forever. I did not doubt that. There was no woman good enough for him.

  But, right now, what was important was finding him so I could maybe someday test a woman that would be good enough for him. I had to find my leader. I had to find my Alpha. I had to find my friend.