Another monster held up a wicked, curved knife to Laura’s chest. Just as he started to plunge the knife down, a massive man pulled his own knife and swiped it across the monster’s throat. It made a sickening, wet sound, then the monster fell to the ground holding its throat. It gurgled as it breathed through the massive hole in its neck instead of out of the holes in its face. Purple blood spurt out of its neck while it writhed on the floor.
One of the armored men shot at another monster, but missed, causing another explosion of orange sparks before he approached Laura with some sort of kit. She struggled weakly, but another of the huge men came over to hold her down. Were these men here to finish the job the monsters started? The one that grabbed Laura’s hands was a massive man. Kara had never seen such a big man before. His face was terrifying. He held both of Laura’s hands with one of his while his other hand held one of their guns and he shot at the monsters. The noise was deafening. Explosions, demons squealing and huge, mean roaring like furious bears. At first glance they appeared normal, but the more Kara studied them, the more she noticed they were different. They were taller and more muscular than average men. Their eyes shone like polished gold instead of normal eye color. Some of them spoke in a language Kara had never heard before. It sounded more animal than human.
Kara shook herself from the shock and struggled to try and move, to once again pull herself free. She gritted her teeth. Everything hurt. She tried to push past the pain, but its fiery tendrils seared through her, making her cry out. “Leave her alone,” Kara yelled while she clenched her teeth hard and pulled. She could feel the skin ripping off of her hands, but she kept pulling. Maybe if she hit that huge man hard enough she could knock him out. With the monsters and the huge men fighting with one another, maybe she could sneak Laura up the stairs. She could call Tanner when she got home.
Hands gripped her suddenly, making her whimper and thrash even more. Kara closed her eyes, terrified of what grabbed her. She was going to die now, she knew it. She only hoped it was quick. Still, she fought. She kicked her feet, ignoring the searing pain and the feel of blood running down her legs. Kara started to feel lightheaded from it all.
“Kara, my lenora, stop. You are injuring yourself further.” The hands on her were gentle, but firm. She tried to wrench herself away from them and cried out in more pain when the wounds on her legs opened.
“Kara, look at me,” a familiar voice commanded her. She opened her eyes to see Special Agent Joran leaning over her. Confusion hit her. These men were all FBI? They didn’t look like agents. They looked like the Gods of war.
“Special Agent Joran?” Kara whispered in shock. She stared at him for a moment. Something wasn’t right about him. He looked different, but for the moment, she let reality sink in. She was safe, she was not going to be raped and murdered. She tried talking telling him everything that had happened, but she also started sobbing hard. “There are monsters. Laura. Oh God. I can’t. What are they?” Kara could not seem to form a complete sentence. The horror of what had just happened left her thoughts scattered.
“Hush now, lenora. I’ve got you. You are safe,” he told her as he looked over her injuries. One of the huge men with a scarred face and an expression that would easily intimidate by its fierceness took her by her wrists.
“Do not move,” Joran told her and held her very still. “Sunter is going to blast open these cuffs. If you listen and obey me, you will be uninjured.”
“He’s going to what?” Kara squealed, twisting to look at the lethal-looking man. His expression was still foreboding as he adjusted dials on the black-looking gun thing that shot weird lasers.
“Do not move,” he told her in a deadly calm voice that would have had her frozen in place even if she was not already terrified.
The beam shot out and she felt heat. She screamed and jerked out of fear of being hurt more, but Joran’s vise grip on her tightened. He held her completely immobile. “Hurry, Sunter, she is beginning to panic.” Joran continued to hold Kara completely still.
“Almost there,” Sunter growled while he continued to fire.
Kara could feel the heat rising. She was going to be burned. The only thing that kept her from jerking her arms away was the knowledge she would be burned horribly if she moved. At last, the cuffs were suddenly released from around her wrists. Joran pulled her arms down. Pain that felt like a thousand needles stabbing into her skin sliced through her arms as the blood flow returned. Kara gritted her teeth to keep from crying out in pain.
“I know it hurts, I am sorry. Do not move unless I move you,” Joran told her. Kara nodded, then winced at the pain that the tiny movement caused. It even hurt to breathe now. Through the haze of pain, she noticed the sounds of laser fire had stopped and there were no more of those monsters squealing, hissing, or snarling.
She moved her head to the right and saw some of the monsters were dead, lying around on the ground. One of the huge men walked around to every downed monster and was slitting each one of its throats. He sliced one and it jerked and tried to stop the flow of purple blood spurting from its neck. It let out a gurgled type of cry and thrashed around as if it could not breathe. None of the men seemed to care that the monster was not dead before, but was dying now, as the gurgling and struggling both grew weaker.
“There is always at least one of the fuckers that fakes it.” The huge man that freed her from the cuffs spit on one of the dying monsters.
“The Shara are a cowardly race that only goes after helpless women and children,” Joran said with a tone of disgust. “I wish I could kill each of them over again.”
“Sunter, when will the shuttle be here?” Joran asked the frightening man. “Both of these females are badly injured.”
“Kutair was having trouble with the cloak. I believe he got it running and will be here in moments.”
“Shuttle? What shuttle?” Kara asked, feeling more confused. None of these men had the FBI vests she was used to seeing. They were just dark-blue uniforms with some sort of gray armor-looking plastic over their chests. They also had the strangest-looking helmets she had seen. They had a clear visor, but there were TV screens imbedded in them.
“All will be explained to you, later. For now, lie still,” Joran told her in a stern voice. He looked over at Varnis. “Check them. I can sense some of them are awake.”
Varnis’s face smiled, but it was anything but friendly. It was savage and feral.
Joran’s visor was raised. She noticed his eyes were not brown anymore. They were gold, like the others. Something wasn’t right. The basement was still dim, but when the lights attached to their helmets hit their eyes, they were all a gold color.
One of the men went to slice the throat of one of the monsters, but he squealed and tried to roll away.
“He thinks he can run away like a coward. Stand and fight me. Attack me like you did these women,” Varnis, the huge man that had helped hold Laura down, bellowed. He looked too big to be real, like a massive mountain standing there. His face sort of reminded Kara of a hawk. He looked like a hawk stalking its prey. The monster tried crawling away and squealed like a frightened rodent. The man’s face was viciously sadistic. He stroked his knife like it was his lover. “You ready to die now, coward?” he asked with a smile that was savagely inhuman. The man’s bloodlust was so strong Kara could almost see blood dripping from his clean knife.
The monster was backed into a corner. It hissed almost in a pitiful way as it held its gray hands up, as the walking mountain and two other men cornered it.
“You beg like a moontar.” The mountain man spat at its feet. “Filthy Shara. I will kill you like I do rabid moontar on Dareen.”
“Varnis, wait,” Joran said in a tone that was full of authority. “Do not kill him. I need to question him so we can get our mission on this world over with and be done with this planet.”
“Commander,” he acknowledged, turning and looking into Kara’s eyes as she stared at him with wide, frightened eyes, thinking she
was about to see more bloodshed. His knife dropped instantly. “Yes, sir, forgive me. I should have never attacked the Shara piece of shit in front of the human women. I do not have your skills.”
Joran nodded his head in understanding, “I wish to kill them all again myself, but we have a duty to perform and this piece of filth can lead us to the others so we can be done with this planet.”
Kara’s head was spinning and she didn’t think it was from her injuries. They were using words she never heard before, and had names that were not normal.
“Shuttle is here.” Sunter leaned back and kicked the cellar door open. Kara flinched, watching the sturdy oak wood splinter as if it was rotten wood. Kara knew that door was only a few years old. There was no way a man should have been able to kick it open that easily.
“What is going on? Who are you? What are you?” Kara asked as her voice started to break. She could feel herself shaking uncontrollably. None of these men looked normal, they had weapons from a sci-fi movie and there were monsters in here.
“Kara, calm down,” Joran told her and placed his hands on her chest when she tried to sit up, despite the pain.
“No, I want to go home. Let me go,” she demanded, hating the way her voice sounded so frightened.
“I am afraid I cannot do that, my lenora,” Joran told her. He had a look in his eyes that was strangely triumphant, despite the serious tone to his voice.
“No!” Kara shouted, pushing against his arms. Real panic was setting in. This was all too strange. Monsters that…maybe they were not monsters. Perhaps they were something else. No, she did not believe in such things.
It hurt so much to struggle, but adrenaline flooded her system, dulling the pain of her injuries. “Get off of me,” she yelled, pushing at Joran while he tried to restrain her. Something was very wrong. More of the huge men came in through the cellar door Sunter had just kicked in as if it was made of cardboard. They wore gray uniforms with no armor or helmets.
“Calm down or I will order you sedated,” Joran warned her.
Kara instantly stilled and shook her head at Joran. “No. Don’t sedate me. I can’t be here helpless.” A group of the gray-uniformed men surrounded Laura, who was held still by several of the large men in the armored blue uniforms, distracting Kara from her fear of being sedated. “Don’t hurt her. Leave her alone,” Kara yelled at them. She slapped at Joran’s hands while he tried to hold her still. The walking mountain, Varnis, came over and held down her legs. Kara shrieked, fighting all the harder. The scarred man came over to help hold her still. She cried, fearing they were going to hurt her. None of them looked like FBI or law enforcement of any kind. Something was very wrong, and she was scared they would kill her and Laura to keep them silent.
Joran spoke in a language she didn’t understand. Several of the men looked at her, then nodded.
Kara started fighting more in fear than anger. “Don’t hurt me, please. I won’t tell. I promise. I don’t know what you are, but I will never say a word.” Kara sobbed. “I swear, I will go straight home and go to bed, I won’t tell anyone about you. I will just say I was in a fight on the way home with some drunk chick. Please, please don’t hurt me.” Kara was hyperventilating in her panic.
She could feel Joran stroking her cheek and brushing her tears away. He was murmuring in that same strange language the other men used. It almost seemed like he was trying to comfort her.
Varnis at first looked disgusted before his look turned to sympathy. “You have nothing to fear from Dareen warriors. No warrior with any honor would ever harm a female.”
She shook her head at him. He wasn’t making any sense. She glanced over to see them moving Laura to a thin mat with handles. They were taking her away. She had no idea what they would do to her. She was becoming surer that these men were not human. She did not normally believe in aliens, but the evidence was overcoming her disbelief.
“Laura,” Kara cried, gritting her teeth at the pain. “She needs a doctor.”
“They are preparing for her on our warship,” Joran told her as the men in the gray uniforms surrounded her.
“Don’t touch me.” Kara nearly winced at the pleading tone of her voice. She was trying to sound fierce, but it came out too much like begging. She had sworn she would never show fear to a man again, but she didn’t think these were men. Her mind shied away from the possibilities.
Joran, Varnis, and the gray-uniform men were all talking in their strange language. Once again, it struck her that they didn’t act human.
“Let me go.” She tried to sit up but Joran held her in a grip like steel. She tried to kick, but Varnis held her legs in place as if she was not even struggling.
“I need that sedative, now,” Joran barked.
The gray-suited man pulled out a syringe. Kara’s eyes widened in terror. They were going to drug her, and she would be defenseless. The man held up a vial and plugged it into the steel syringe. Then he turned a dial on the syringe. Maybe it was really a weapon. She shook her head frantically. “Please don’t hurt me. I promise to never tell. P–please, please, please just let me go home.” Tears ran down Kara’s face and she barely understood what she begged for.
“Kara, my lenora, It will be okay, I promise,” Joran told her softly then kissed her on the forehead. “Trust me. I will care for you always.”
He gave a firm nod to the gray-suited man. “Go ahead and sedate her, medic.” Hands gripped her head and turned it while another hand moved her hair away from her neck.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I promise I won’t do it again. I will go right home and never tell Tanner or any of the deputies what happened. I swear. Just, please.” Kara cried, barely making sense with her hysterical pleas. She tried to pull her arms free and kick, but more hands joined Varnis and Joran holding her still. Kara cried harder as she felt the cold steel touch her skin. She couldn’t move at all to protect herself and she closed her eyes tightly. Then something stung her in the neck, making her scream. Her eyes flew open at the stinging pain. She saw Joran’s face close to hers. His expression was tender, yet filled with strength.
Joran’s gentle hands stroked her hair softly. “Hush, sweet Lenora.” Joran’s voice was soothingly soft, but loud enough to break through her hysteria. “You will feel much calmer in just a moment.”
Just as he promised, in just moments, all the fear left her body. Her arms and legs felt so heavy, too heavy to move. All the hands let go of her as the men continued to speak in their own language. Kara could not pick up her own head to see what was going on. She lay completely limp and yet she felt at peace. Nothing mattered right now. They could do whatever they wanted to her and she would lie there without moving and let them. She also noticed the roaring pain was tolerable. She felt so heavy, yet Joran seemed to not notice as he picked her up while the gray-suited man held something in his hand and hovered it over her.
They walked up the basement stairs and they were outside. There were men stepping up into thin air and disappearing. She should be frightened, but instead she watched in numb fascination. As they got closer, the air around her seemed to shimmer, like heat waves coming off the pavement in the summer. Joran stepped up one step, then two. All of a sudden they were in a brightly lit room with a lot of noise. The various uniformed men were talking loudly into devices all at once as they surrounded Laura. She was covered in machines that beeped and had weird writing she didn’t understand scrolling over them. The gray-uniformed men watched these machines, pulling out vials of what she assumed were drugs. Her clothes were stripped, and they had put a tube down her throat and were wrapping something around the deep cut in her neck.
Kara was laid on a mat across from Laura. The same machines were put over her. She flinched slightly at the sting of one imbedded in her skin. More men surrounded her and the rest of her clothing was cut off with some laser-looking knife that sliced through her underclothes as if they were thin paper. Somewhere in her mind, she thought she should be horrified
that she was bare-ass naked in a room full of men, but she didn’t care. Pressure was put on her bite wounds and hands gently touched her where she had been kicked and punched. Her head was put in a strange position. A gray-uniformed man started shoving something down her throat, and Kara could feel herself gagging, but she could not move to stop him. Finally, the feeling passed, but he kept shoving the tube farther down her. He hooked it up to another machine. Kara’s lungs filled with air. She did not realize how hard she had been working to breathe until the machine took over. Her lungs finally filling with air caused her ribs to hurt. She tried to move to pull the tube out. Sure, it was nice to have a full breath shoved into her lungs, but it hurt. Kara just could not find the strength to raise her hands. Whatever they gave her kept her too relaxed to move.
“They are trying to help you, don’t fight,” Joran whispered into her ear. “We’re almost there, lenora, our doctors will heal all your wounds.”
Almost where? she wondered when the entire mat she was on was picked up with all the equipment. Joran walked down stairs into a huge dark-gray steel warehouse-looking room. If she could bring herself to look around, she would have been in awe of the size of the room that was full of huge boxes and teardrop-looking primer-gray-colored vehicles of some sort. She saw the windows and the mini staircase into each of them. Some were silver and had a type of wing with what looked like weapons attached to them.
She was on a spaceship, there was no other explanation. If she did not have whatever they had given her flowing in her keeping her calm, she would be screaming. God, she had turned into such a wimp lately.
“I have you, my lenora. Do you feel me holding your hand?” Joran spoke softly to her as they walked through the huge hangar-type room. “Do not be afraid, I promise everything will be okay.”
Starlight [Warriors of Dareen] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 5
