The Alien's Ransom: A SciFi Alien Warrior Romance (Drixonian Warriors Book 1)

by Ella Maven

  “You can,” I interrupted.

  Sax flinched. “What?”

  “We are compatible to breed with humans. Tark…” I swallowed. “Tark has a chit.”

  He didn’t move for a moment, and then he lunged at the bars, eyes blazing. “What did you say?”

  I explained how Tark met Anna, and that I’d seen Bazel with my own eyes.

  Sax’s nostrils flared and his chest heaved as he slumped to the floor, eyes wide and unfocused. “No,” he whispered.

  “Yes,” I said back.

  “My only hope was they wouldn’t succeed. That eventually they’d realize it wouldn’t work and just kill me, but…” He grabbed at his chest and clenched his jaw. “They don’t know for sure yet,” he said softly. “But they’ll figure it out, won’t they? It’ll only be a matter of time before they get one of us to impregnate a human in their lab or find a way to harvest our seed. They’d take our offspring and use them for whatever they want.” He gripped the bars until his knuckles were pale blue. “If they knew about Bazel, they’d stop at nothing to get her. If…” His gaze drifted to Fra-kee. “Could she be carrying your chit?”

  I watched my mate slumber in the corner of the cell. She didn’t belong here. She belonged surrounded by her females and my warriors. So much had been going on, I hadn’t let myself think much about what could be growing in her belly, but I was forced to face it now. “Yes,” I said, my voice cracking. “Yes, she could be.”

  “Dazeem,” Sax whispered.

  “She’s so brave,” I said. Her nose twitched in her sleep and she mumbled something. “A Kulk had a solar gun pointed between my eyes, and she distracted him by slamming a sharpened stick into his comrade’s ankle.”

  A grin lit up Sax’s face, and for a moment, he was my brother again—before the wars and the death and the violence. “I would have loved to see that.”

  “Within the first few moments that she met us, we had to take out a squad of Kulks. She saw all that and still managed to trust me. I couldn’t imagine how terrified she was of this planet, of me.” I huffed a laugh. “She yelled at me about saving you. She wouldn’t hear anything else. And this plan would have worked if the Uldani weren’t dirty liars.”

  Sax yawned. “They were always dirty liars.”

  “I know, but I can’t regret coming here. If all else fails, we’ll get her to safety, and at least I’ll have been able to be with my brother one last time.”

  “Since when are you sentimental?” He laughed. “That’s usually my job. You were the grumpy one and Rex was the quiet one.” He tapped his fingers on his knee, and a serene smile crossed his face. “He idolized you.”

  Pain sliced through my chest. “Stop.”

  “He did, and if Rex was going to leave us, then following your orders for the Uprising is how he would have wanted to go.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut as I remembered Rex’s determined face and his last grip on my neck. His forehead had touched mine before he turned and strode off on his last mission. “I said stop, Sax.”

  “He would have been a great uncle. The one who made sure your chit learned his letters, huh? I would’ve been the fun uncle.”

  “You will be the fun uncle,” I murmured, even though the words felt more like a wish than a promise.

  “Yeah,” he sighed. “Yeah, I will be.”

  We both spoke our wishes into existence, and my chest tightened at the thought of Fra-kee pregnant, my chit never knowing his brave Bakut uncles.

  We were quiet for a moment, letting our wishes hang in the air like smoke, knowing as soon as we spoke again, our breaths would whisk them away.

  The only words worthy of taking those wishes were words of Rex, thoughts that had lurked in the dark for so long, only brought to light by Fra-kee’s golden threads. “I miss him,” I whispered into the silence of the cells. “I miss him, and I blame myself every day for his death.”

  Sax’s smile was warm. “He’d want you to miss him. But he wouldn’t want you to blame yourself.”

  “The intel I studied—”

  “Holy Fatas, fleck the intel,” Sax huffed. “Honor him by getting out of this hellhole, protecting your female, and giving Drixonians a future.”

  I let my head fall against the wall with a thud and smiled. “Ah, I missed you Sax.”

  “Missed you too, you big asshole. Now eat the rations the guards gave us. I’m going to get some beauty sleep so I’m sharp and handsome for when we come up with an escape plan.”

  Frankie

  I woke to hands grabbing for me and chaos. I flailed, blinking in the dim light of the cell just as fingers wrapped around my hair and yanked. I screamed as I was dragged from the cell. Two guards stood with Sax, their poles attached to his collar, holding him back as he fought them. His machets flashed brilliantly but ineffectually.

  “Daz!” I screamed as I kicked out, catching my foot on the cell bars. A bolt of pain shot up my leg.

  He was roaring and pulling against the chains, swearing at Trupa as the man stood outside the cell, watching the scene with a sick smile of satisfaction. I tried to get to my feet, but my ankle wouldn’t support my weight.

  I didn’t know where they were taking me, but Sax and Daz struggled, their muscles bulging and machets gleaming. I tried my best, but I was no match for the massive guard. He manhandled me, and I felt a strain on my neck before something popped. I watched in horror as Miranda’s necklace, my good luck charm, sailed to the dirty floor of the cell. The doors clanged shut, the guards took their poles off Sax, and I was dragged down the hallway away from the raging Drixonians who were my only hope.

  With Trupa leading the way, I limped along between two Uldani guards who held my arms. There was no sense in me fighting them. They were seven feet tall and three times as strong as I was. We left the cellblock area, went up a few sets of stairs and through a set of doors that Trupa unlocked with a pass of a ring on his left hand. I noticed the guards had similar rings.

  I tried to keep track of where we were going, because I hadn’t studied this part of the Uldani fortress. We turned down two more hallways. One left and one right before my brain began to get jumbled. What I wouldn’t give for some breadcrumbs now. If my hands were free, I would have torn out strands of hair to mark my way. But for who? Daz and Sax weren’t coming to rescue me.

  We passed through two more doors before we entered what looked like a laboratory. Beyond a large glass wall, the room was full of metal tables and machines and wires and lots of monitors.

  There weren’t many Uldani inside, only one who appeared to be female and a male who looked older, with wrinkled skin. His face stretched into a wide grin of delight when he saw me, but it was the type of grin that plunged my heart down into my feet. It was the sick look of a master proud of his creation.

  I didn’t get a chance to study the room as I’d liked, because the guards led me toward a rather daunting-looking metal table with shackles on either end. My instincts kicked in. “No!” I pulled on the arms holding me, but it was no use. With embarrassingly little effort, the guards shoved me onto the table. Immediately, metal braces locked around my wrists, ankles, and neck. I couldn’t move, and I could barely breathe. As much as I tried to remain calm, panic set in. My heart pounded in my ears so loudly, I could barely focus on what was going on around me.

  “Test her,” Trupa said.

  “How long ago did he mate with her?” Old Uldani said.

  “A few yoras,” Trupa said.

  “It might be too early, but I’ll check her,” he said.

  Check me for what? I wanted to scream, but I didn’t want to let on that I could understand them.

  He pricked my arm with a needle, and I squirmed as much as I could until I realized he was taking blood, not injecting me with something. Still, I watched as my blood, mine, filled a small vial. This asshole was removing something from my body without my permission. With the rush of anger came despair, and I willed myself not to cry, not in front of these pricks. Daz�
��s aura billowed with rage, and I knew he was responding to my emotions. I closed my eyes, inhaled, and tried to slow my racing heart. I didn’t want to make Daz feel my fear and panic any more than he already was.

  Old Uldani removed the needle from my arm and grinned as he held my blood up to the light. He turned away from me, and I slanted my gaze sharply to the side so I could see what he was doing. He sat down in front of a monitor, and after dripping my blood into a small bowl, shoved it into a small door in a square box and flipped a switch.

  The monitor blinked awake and a soft hum filled the room. What were they doing with my blood?

  “How early can you detect pregnancy in humans?” Trupa asked.

  Pregnancy? How I didn’t shout was a mystery to me. That was what they were testing me for?

  “With their own kind, it’s much longer. Seven to fourteen rotations. If I’m right, Drixonian sperm reacts differently and much more quickly with her reproductive system.”

  Oh my God. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God—

  His machine beeped. The screen flashed. Old Uldani gave a whoop of joy that sent my stomach and heart into a tailspin. “She’s pregnant!” he announced, spinning his chair around with a clap of his three-fingered hands.

  I wanted to throw up. A life. Daz’s baby. The future of his species. And I was stuck on this table, a possession of some sick fucks.

  Trupa stepped toward me with his eyes wide. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive,” Old Uldani said. “Her blood carries the hormone her body produces to care for her fetus.”

  “How long will she gestate?”

  “That, I’m not sure of. Normal pregnancies for humans are nine months. Drixonians are twelve, so maybe somewhere in the middle.”

  I was going to pass out. I was having a heart attack and none of them knew. Trupa looked to his guards and gestured to a small cage in the corner. “We can’t take her back to the males. Put her in there until tomorrow, and then we’ll get her set up in her new home for approximately…” He grinned at me, and I glared. “Nine to twelve months.”

  Fuck you, I thought. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.

  I fought the guards as they removed me from the metal table. I fought them as they shoved me inside what was basically a large dog crate. I swore at them and spat at them. They slammed the door shut, and I continued to hiss like a pissed-off cat.

  My heart ached for Daz. This was my fault. All my fucking fault. Would he ever meet his child? Would I ever feel his arms around me again? I placed my hands on my stomach, wondering if the test was right. I’d had sex with Daz for the first time less than a week ago. Was it possible to tell this quickly I was pregnant?

  I had tried to remain strong since we’d been taken, but now, sitting in the small cage with a possible life inside me I would be responsible for, despair set in. Tears dripped from my eyes, and I sobbed as silently as I could as Trupa and the guards left the room. Old Uldani still sat at his computer, oblivious to my sorrow, tapping away happily on his machine. I itched to smash his face right through the screen.

  Eventually, he yawned and stretched. He turned his machines off and approached my cage. I slid to the back corner, and he smiled and crouched down. “The life inside you will be my greatest achievement,” he whispered. I bared my teeth at him like I’d seen Daz do. “Yes,” he murmured. “You are perfect.”

  He reached his fingers through the cage, and I snapped at him like a struck dog. He yanked his hand back with a laugh, and after turning off all but one dim light near his machines, he left me alone in the lab.

  I cried for a while. Even if I could miraculously get out of this dog crate, then where would I go? I couldn’t get through those sealed doors back to Sax and Daz. I didn’t know where I was in this stupid building.

  My mind spun and spun. I wasn’t tired—I’d napped in the cell for a while—but I was hungry. The guards had thrown us a few food bars that had tasted like cardboard and given us a measly bit of qua. I wanted to go home. I wanted Daz. I wanted to be anywhere but here. I’d been so brave back at the hideout, but now, faced with despair, I felt like an imposter. Once a fuckup, always a fuckup—why had I thought otherwise? I’d brought down two great males with my terrible ideas. I dropped my forehead onto my knees and closed my eyes.

  I sat there feeling sorry for myself for a long time. I must have dozed off, because when Daz’s aura entered my body like a second heartbeat, I jerked upright, disoriented.

  What was that? He’d been a raging ball of anger since we’d been captured, but now his aura rolled and crested like a crimson tide, barreling over my sadness, blotting out everything in my mind until all I could feel was an invading army of red energy.

  The energy came closer, and my head seemed to inflate near to bursting. I choked on a relieved sob when two blue faces pressed against the glass window of the lab’s door. The door opened, and they sprinted inside. Daz was free of chains, and Sax no longer wore his collar.

  “Fra-kee,” Daz murmured, sliding to his knees in front of the bars. His jaw clenched. “They have her caged like a flecking welf.” In his hands he clutched Miranda’s necklace, but the wishbone was no longer a wishbone. He’d twisted the wires into two sharp prongs. “What the—?” I began.

  “Lock pick,” he announced as his hands went to work on the cage’s lock as Sax fiddled with something at the machine. “It took what felt like forever, but we were able to use it to free ourselves.”

  “I can’t believe it,” I said. “It really is a good luck charm.”

  “As of now, yes.” His smile became grim. “We’ll know for sure when we get out of here safe and sound.”

  Suddenly Sax straightened and his head whipped around. His eyes connected with mine. On the screen, I saw a jumble of symbols. I didn’t know what they meant, but I was sure Sax did. I shook my head, trying to tell him that I didn’t want Daz to know. Not now. Not yet.

  Sax’s shoulders heaved, and his hands clenched at his sides. He gave me one short nod and then tapped a few keys on the machine. The screen went blank just as Daz finished his task and the lock to my cage popped open.

  Daz hauled me out of the cage and into his arms. He pressed a quick kiss to my lips before touching his forehead to mine. “We’re breaking out of here. Now.”

  Twenty

  Daz

  The clothes they’d stolen from Fra-kee were on a table in the lab. She tore off the shift they’d given her and put on her shirt, pants, and boots.

  “I feel more like myself already,” she said, twisting her hair up into a knot on top of her head using the necklace cord. The mangled charm at the end slid between the strands of her hair. “Let’s do this jailbreak.”

  After she’d left, Sax had found her necklace on the floor and fiddled with it until he managed to take his collar off. After that he’d busted out of his cell, into mine, and finally freed me from my flecking chains. We’d killed the guard who’d been stationed outside the cell block and taken his keyring. Sax hadn’t been sure where Fra-kee had been taken, but he’d guessed she was being seen by an Uldani called Borhan. Sax had said his name with a snarl that had set my teeth on edge. If this Borhan had harmed my mate…

  But even though she’d been locked in a cage like a welf, she was alive and mostly unhurt. With her ankle swollen, Fra-kee couldn’t run and could barely walk. I placed her on my back, so my arms were free, and we followed Sax toward freedom. We ran through the dark hallways of the Alazar fortress, hoping to escape before anyone noticed the dead guard and missing prisoners.

  Sax often liked to play the jokester, but his survival skills were unmatched. He had a knack for technology, and his memory was second to none. I wasn’t surprised he knew the Alazar well. He would have paid attention every time the Uldani moved him, committing the building’s layout to memory. All he’d needed was a keyring and a way out of his collar.

  We sprinted down hallway after hallway, and we’d just ascended a flight of stairs when an alarm blared, and lights fla
shed. A countdown started, the words robotic and monotone over multiple speakers. “Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight…”

  “Fleck,” Sax cursed, running faster, and taking a corner at breakneck speed. “They know we’ve escaped. When the countdown ends, all the doors will seal and only a master key will open them. Only Trupa and the upper-level commanders have them.” He held up our stolen keyring. “This will be useless.”

  “What do we do?” Fra-kee asked, squirming on my back.

  “Keep going,” I panted. “Outrun the countdown. How far are we, Sax?”

  “Close,” he yelled over his shoulder. “This is the last door!”

  “Twenty-one, twenty, nineteen…”

  I heard shouts and the thudding of running boots. They were searching for us. Fra-kee clung to my back as we neared a metal door. Sax opened it with the keyring, and I glanced back, expecting to see a mass of Uldani at the end of the hallway with guns raised, ready to pulverize us into oblivion. But no one was there. We still had time.

  Sax waved us through the door, and I raced past him. Up ahead, the hallway ended with a ladder leading up to another level. Hopefully, freedom.

  As I ran toward it, Fra-kee pounded on my shoulder with her little fists. “Daz!” she shouted. “Sax isn’t following us.”

  I whirled around to see my brother standing in the doorway, an unreadable expression on his face. Was he hurt? “What are you waiting for? We can hear them. Come on!”

  Sax’s body swayed, but he didn’t move. “I’m not coming.” His words were so low, I barely heard him.

  “What?” Fra-kee screeched. In shock, I loosened my grip on her legs, so she slid off my back to her feet. She wobbled on her bad ankle. “What do you mean you’re not coming?”

  We didn’t have time for this. What was he doing? “Don’t be a flecking idiot!” I growled. “Let’s go!”

  “Thirteen, twelve, eleven…”

  Sax shook his head. “Follow this hallway to the end, and then climb up the fire escape shaft. I’m staying. I’ll distract the guards while you get away. It’s the only way to buy you time.”