Chilled: Elemental Warriors (A Sci-Fi Alien Warrior Paranormal Romance)

by Ashley West

  It was nice, she thought, that there were times when she could forget about what was happening around them and just enjoy herself.

  And then, of course, she had to go home. Her share of what they had found was tucked away in her bag, and she kept her eyes open and sharp as she made her way back to her house. It wouldn't do to be caught off guard out here, either by an alien or by some opportunistic human who thought she was easy pickings.

  Honestly it made her sick that there were people who would prey on their own kind at a time like this. Who else did the humans have but other humans to keep them safe and look after them? Turning against each other was so stupid, and it made her angry just to think about it.

  But anyway. Going home. She had to do it. And part of her really didn't want to, and the other part felt really guilty that she didn't want to.

  Jasmine was her best friend, had been for years, and she'd been through something terrible. And it was selfish and wrong that Sadie wanted to stay out longer so she wouldn't have to deal with her.

  It was just that Jasmine was like a lost puppy these days. Every time Sadie left the house, she tried to tell her she shouldn't. Every time Sadie insisted that she wasn't going to be a prisoner in her own house, no matter what was happening outside and that if she didn't get some fresh air she'd go crazy, Jasmine looked like she was going to cry.

  Sadie was convinced that Jasmine stood near the door the entire time she was gone, waiting for her to come back like a dog that missed its owner while they were at work.

  She came through the door, and there was Jasmine, looking at her with that deer in the headlights look she got sometimes these days.

  "You were gone for a while," she said.

  "Yeah," Sadie agreed because there was no point in beating around the bush, really. "Heard about this abandoned store a little ways out, so we went there. Had a pretty good haul, too. I brought back some goodies."

  Jasmine didn't seem to care about the goodies, so Sadie moved into the kitchen to unload her spoils into the cupboards. Would have been nice to get some fresh fruit, not the strange, dried papaya stuff Marshall had found, but she would make do.

  "I heard something while you were gone," Jasmine said, following her. "Sounded like thunder."

  Sadie frowned, trying to remember if she'd seen rain clouds on her way back. "It could have just been thunder," she said.

  "No." Jasmine shook her head. "There's no rain or anything in the forecast. It was rumbling and it was close."

  Ordinarily, Sadie would dismiss something like that as nothing to worry about, but you could never be too sure these days. Probably the people who ended up missing and dead had thought there was nothing to worry about, too, and look where that had gotten them.

  "Okay," she said. "Okay. Don't panic, alright? Let's think about this logically."

  Jasmine nodded, but she was wringing her hands together nervously. "Logically. Okay."

  "It could have been something flying overhead."

  "You think it was something overhead and you don't want me to panic?!"

  "Flying overhead is better than landing!" Sadie pointed out. "They could have been going somewhere else. I mean, it's no use pretending they aren't here, right? We know they're here, and we know they're dangerous, so it makes sense that we'd see them. The important thing is that nothing happened."

  "Yet," Jasmine muttered.

  "If they wanted to hurt someone here, they would have done it already. They don't seem like the types to hold themselves back when it comes to that."

  Jasmine was forced to admit that she had a point then, and Sadie installed her in the comfortable armchair in the living room and went to make a pot of tea. Getting Jasmine to calm down was the first order of business and then she would put on the news and see what they had to say about the day. Surely if there had been some sightings of their unwelcome planet guests nearby, then the news would be reporting on it.

  Flopping onto the couch to watch the news was nothing like it used to be, of course, but it was still something Sadie was in the habit of. Jasmine sat down beside her, eating a bowl of cereal and looking nervous.

  The news had a very specific formula these days. Instead of it being broken up into sections with breaking news and the weather and whatever feel good piece they wanted to put in to detract from all the time the anchors spent talking about how horrible things were, there were just reports of what was happening with the aliens and then the weather and then if there was more time, they'd talk about crime or something.

  So Sadie knew they wouldn't have long to wait to find out if they were in danger or not. Which was actually pretty comforting now that she thought about it.

  They opened with a comment about how the aliens were on the move, and Jasmine reached over to clutch Sadie's hand tightly. Sadie let her, practically holding her breath until the list of places where the creatures had been spotted was announced.

  Their neighborhood was not one of them, and she let her breath out in a rush.

  "Okay," she said. "They were probably just moving to another place and had to fly over to get there. That's not so bad." Sadie considered for a moment. "Well, it's bad for the people in wherever they were going to, but it's good for us."

  Jasmine just nodded, looking dazed. At the bottom of the screen was the usual scrolling ticker with the names of the people who were missing on it. It always started with the newest names first, since the people who had been missing for a while were already known to be missing and if they'd been found it would have been breaking news and not something that would scroll at the bottom of the screen like a school closing.

  "Sadie," Jasmine said softly, gripping her hand tighter. "Isn't that Jamie?"

  Sadie frowned and watched the name as it scrolled by. And yep, that was him. James Fortenbaugh. The last boyfriend she'd had before this whole mess had started.

  He was on the missing list, and Sadie felt a pang for him and his family. They were tight knit, closer than her family had ever been, and she knew they'd miss him.

  "I wonder how they got him," she murmured.

  "How do they get anyone?" Jasmine replied. "They just...get them."

  Sadie knew she was thinking about her parents, who she'd never see again, and she changed the subject to something lighter. She was about to change the channel in general when something strange happened.

  The anchorman who was talking suddenly cut himself off and frowned into the camera. "What?" he asked, looking at someone behind the camera. "What is that supposed to mean?" There was a murmured answer that no one could hear properly, and then the man's eyes widened. "You're not serious." But apparently whoever he was talking to was very serious because the man paled and turned his attention back to the camera and the viewers. "It's come to our attention that there is one more special bulletin for the night," he said. "A message sent to us from...from the leader of the creatures who have been inhabiting our planet. We'll play it now."

  There was a moment of silence where nothing happened and then the picture cut out for a bit, only to be replaced by a close up on one of the ugliest faces Sadie had ever seen.

  The camera panned out on the creature, and she was able to get a better view of it. He, because it seemed like it was a man, had thick, gnarled grey skin, deeply set with scars and scrapes. His eyes (or rather, his eye, because one was covered by a black patch) were watery and an electric shade of green that seemed to warn people to stay the hell away from him. His mouth was great and sagging, wide like a frog's, and there was spit in the corners. Aside from being ugly, he had the look of someone who was cruel for the fun of it, something like malice clear on his face.

  "Hello, vermin," he said carefully, as if speaking English wasn't easy for him and he wanted to make sure they understood every word he said. "I am K'varot. Your new overlord."

  He paused, seemingly for dramatic effect, to let that sink in.

  "Someone's full of themselves," Sadie muttered.

  "He's horrifying."

&n
bsp; She couldn't argue with that.

  "My mercenaries and I have invaded your dismal planet, as you've noticed, and we will not be leaving. Earth will be used as a base of operations for us, a place where we can train and grow and harvest your resources. Most of you will die in the process, but those who manage to cling to your miserable lives will be used for labor. Or target practice. Your armies cannot stop me. Nothing can stop me. You will have no other recourse but to obey. I suggest you start now."

  And it cut off there. For a long moment the screen was blank, and then the newsroom came back into view, the same anchor sitting behind the desk looking stunned.

  Someone off screen cleared their throat, and he snapped out of his daze and blinked rapidly. "Well, folks, you heard it here, first," he said. "We're under attack from the mercenaries of some manner of creature from another planet calling himself K'varot. We've been informed that this same message has been played around the world, and we have every reason to believe that this thing is serious. Without word from the President and those who have been put on the task of figuring out what to do in this situation, it's hard to say what our course of action will be. As always, we urge you to stay safe out there. If you don't need to leave your homes, stay put. If you see one of these creatures, do not engage. We'll bring you more information as it comes in. Until then, goodnight."

  Sadie and Jasmine sat in silence as the program faded out and into a commercial for pet care. Neither of them seemed to know what to say about what they'd just seen, and they were both stunned.

  "We're all going to die," Jasmine said finally, her voice tremulous and soft.

  "No, we're not," Sadie replied. She was firm about that. Things seemed bad, but she wasn't one to just lay down and die. She never had been, and she didn't plan on starting now. "We're going to be fine."

  "How can you say that?" Jasmine demanded. "You heard that creature. He's going to take over, and we can't fight back."

  "How do you know we can't? We're not defenseless."

  "We may as well be! It's not like the military knows how to fight aliens of all things. There's no plan for this! They're going to kill us."

  Hearing her sound so defeated was horrible, and Sadie didn't want to deal with it. She was just as worried as Jasmine was, but a defeatist attitude never got anyone anywhere. "I don't care what you say," Sadie remarked, getting to her feet. "I'm not giving up. I'm not just going to lay down and die. If they want to kill me, I'm at least going to make it difficult."

  Chapter Two: Briefing

  Pain.

  Cullen couldn’t say he wasn’t used to it. Being a warrior meant that he got his fair share of injuries, being a good warrior meant that they weren’t as bad as they could have been. Still, sometimes when battles were done, he had to haul himself to the clinic to get treated by the medic.

  She was a stern, older woman, so he tried not to let it happen too often.

  “Using your powers on this is a bad idea,” she said now as she loomed above him, working on sealing a gash in his side. A sword had ripped through his thick armor and into his skin, causing blood to soak through the heavy fabric and splash on the ground.

  “It’s worse than it looks,” Cullen assured her.

  “Hush,” she snapped, and Cullen let his mouth snap closed.

  Everyone knew that a team of warriors were only as good as the people they had to patch them up afterwards, and Silla was one of the best medics on the planet. She hardly ever smiled, and everyone was sure that she really hated them and thought they were idiots.

  "There he is!"

  The call cut through the otherwise quiet clinic, and Silla sighed and turned to walk back to the sink where she was going to sterilize her hands.

  Two of his fellow warriors came rushing into the clinic, grins on their faces. It was funny, actually, that outsiders thought the Ithilir were emotionless, as cold as ice, when they were actually as warm and feeling as any other race. It wasn't a bad thing for their opponents to think, though, so they let the rumors persist.

  Cullen smothered his grin with his hand as he looked at his fellows. "You've been looking for me?"

  "Listen to him," said Overon, one of the newest members of their number. "Of course we were looking for you. You were on some other level in this last battle."

  "I was just doing my job," Cullen said.

  "Shut up," Caelum replied, stepping closer. "You killed forty of them. On your own."

  "It wasn't forty."

  "Fifty, then."

  "Caelum!"

  The pair of them laughed, and Silla made an annoyed noise. "You're going to make her kick me out before she gets done patching me up," Cullen said.

  "She won't," Overon said. "Will you, Silla? Cullen here's a hero. He took down so many of those ugly things, freezing them and slicing them and making them wish they'd never even seen our walls. He saved us."

  "I didn't," Cullen insisted. "They never would have gotten through the walls. Even if I wasn't there."

  “You’re too modest,” Overon insisted. “The Prince is gonna take notice of you, you know. He’s gonna have something to say about this.”

  “Maybe you’ll get a promotion,” Silla said, and everyone stopped talking to stare at her. She huffed, putting her hands on her hips and rolling her eyes. “And then you’ll gain some common sense and stop freezing your injuries.”

  “It’s the quickest way to get back into battle,” Caelum opined.

  Silla didn’t seem impressed with his logic, whether it was true or not. “The quickest is not always the best. Do not do it again.”

  He promised that he wouldn’t even though he was sure that everyone in the room knew it was just a platitude to calm Silla down. How many warriors had made her that same promise? How many did she have to continue to treat?

  She loved her job, though, at least that’s what they all assumed, because she hadn’t walked out, and despite the lectures she gave them all, she still spent time patching them up.

  Cullen was about to point that out when someone came rushing into the clinic. He sat up as much as he could, sprawled out on Silla’s worktop as he was, and saw that it was one of the Prince’s messengers. She was out of breath, and looked like she was sweating in her heavy cloak.

  “The Prince…” she panted, swallowing hard. “Wishes to see you.”

  They exchanged glances. “See who?” Overon asked.

  “All of you,” the messenger replied. “All of his warriors have been called to the palace at the Prince’s behest. As soon as possible.”

  “Here,” Silla said before the messenger could dash off again. “Have some water.”

  The young woman took the proffered cup gratefully and drank deeply, quenching her thirst.

  "He's called all of the warriors to him?" Overon asked, frowning. He was the most skeptical of the three of them, and Cullen could already see the gears in his head turning, trying to figure out what the Prince could possibly want with all of them. It was a good question, too.

  The Prince was a busy man, a scholar and a leader. He was essentially the head of the warriors he commanded, but he so rarely spent time with them. The warriors were able to exist and function on their own, and they didn't need their leader breathing down their necks in order to get things done. They went on their missions and defended the Walled City with no guidance, working in squadrons that they had assigned themselves to keep the peace.

  For the Prince to be calling them together now meant something big was going on. There was no other explanation.

  The messenger had a very wide eyed look about her as she nodded in response to the question. She passed her cup back to Silla with a murmured thank you and then drew herself up. "Yes. Prince Kalias will see you in his meeting chambers at your earliest convenience. He understands that some of you are wounded." She nodded to Cullen, who gave her a bewildered look.

  "How does he know about that?"

  She returned his look with one that was just the slightest bit flat and unamus
ed. "The Prince knows everything."

  "Thanks," Overon said. "That clears things right up."

  Caelum laid a calming hand on Overon's shoulder, high up as it was, and then nodded to the messenger girl. "We'll be there as soon as Cullen here is cleared to leave," he said.

  She nodded back, seemingly pleased that someone in the clinic had some professionalism about them. With that, she took her leave, probably to go inform more of the warriors that they were being summoned.

  Once she was gone, Overon broke his silence. "Okay, you two are as baffled by this as I am, right?" he asked. "This isn't something that happens every day."

  "I know," Caelum replied. "It hardly ever happens, but don't take it out on the messengers."

  Overon rolled his eyes and folded his arms, unamused and unimpressed. "I just want to know what's happening here."

  "Don't we all?" Cullen murmured. "How much longer, Silla?"

  Usually she would have snapped at him that it would take as long as it took, but even she seemed to understand the importance and strangeness of them all being called to the palace for an audience with the Prince. "Not much longer," she said. "Your wound is clean, I just need to seal it."

  Cullen could sit still long enough for that to happen, even if his mind was whirling with ideas for why they might have been summoned.

  Prince Kalias wasn't like the rest of the Ithilir. At least, he wasn't like the ones who served as warriors. There was a theory that the Ithilir had originally been two races or that they came from two different ancestors, which would explain the differences in some of their number.

  The warriors were all massively tall, built on solid, muscular lines. They were built for fighting, built to withstand the cold and brutal lives that they had to live sometimes in the name of protecting their home.

  Prince Kalias, like many of the others who called Fora and the Walled City home, was shorter and more slender than the warriors. He had that straight backed posture that mostly only the nobility could boast. His hair was long and white, falling past his shoulders and held back by a sparkling silver circlet that nearly got lost in the pale falls of his hair. Icy blue eyes were sharp and intelligent, and he held himself with a confidence that bordered on arrogance. Just like a noble.