Trauhn: A SciFi Alien Barbarian Romance (Rakui Warriors Book 1)

by Lena Grey

  Hmm. So Jillian wanted to go another round in the morning, Remmel turned her down and now her feelings are hurt. No wonder she’s defensive about it.

  Oh, God. Is Jillian pregnant, too, and Remmel wants nothing to do with her and the baby? “Um, did your TEASE give you an unsettling message after you had sex with Remmel?”

  “No. All it’s done is repeat the stupid SPECIES SURVIVAL MODE message. Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  “Just curious?” Her eyes narrow. “I don’t think so, Kenzie. What aren’t you telling me? Did your TEASE give you an unsettling message after you fucked Trauhn?”

  “Would you believe me if I said we didn’t have sex and decided to date for a while first?”

  “Not for a minute.” Jillian smiles now and the tension from a moment ago seems gone. “The way the two of you look at each other, I’m surprised you came back to the village at all. It’s obvious that you and Trauhn have some weird cosmic physical connection.”

  She’s not wrong. Trauhn makes me feel things I’ve never felt before. And not just in the big O department. The romantic in me wants to believe we’re in love. “Yeah. It’ll be hard to leave him when the rescue arrives.”

  Jillian’s smile fades. “Jade has an update about that. Before I take you to her and the other girls, though, let me see your TEASE. I can tell it’s giving you a new message that’s freaking you out.”

  I sigh, resigned. She’ll find out soon enough. I take a deep breath and hold out my wrist.

  Chapter 19

  Kenzie

  “What in the actual fuck?!” Jillian’s reaction is similar to mine and she has to re-read my TEASE messages a few times before grasping the gravity of the situation. “You’re pregnant already?”

  I nod. “I don’t know how, but it happened almost instantaneously. I was still riding the high of multiple orgasms when the alerts came through.”

  “Did you tell Trauhn?”

  “Yeah. He’s overjoyed and says that conceiving a kit so fast is a gift from the gods. By the way, a kit isn’t their junk. It’s what they call a baby. Anyway, he doesn’t know that knocking me up on the first try wasn’t the gods’ doing. It was my TEASE.”

  “No wonder you’re freaked out, Kenz.” Jillian squeezes my hand. “You know I’ll help you through this, right?”

  “I know.” Tears sting my eyes. “Hey, can we keep this just between us for now? I’m not ready for the other girls to know.”

  “Don’t you think we should tell them so they know the stakes if they fuck one of these guys?”

  “Maybe it was a fluke. You know, since Remmel didn’t knock you up.”

  “Nope. He sure didn’t.” At the mention fo Remmel, Jillian’s defenses go up again.

  “Give me a little more time to get used to the idea before I tell them, okay?” If the rescue arrives soon, I might not have to tell them at all.

  Jillian nods. “Sure.”

  We start walking again. “Where are we going, anyway?”

  “The South Caves. They’re the farthest from the village center, but the most private. The tribe’s elders wanted us to stay in the North Caves with them because they’re more protected. But the other girls wanted to be as far away from the Rakui males as possible.”

  “They must not be in SPECIES SURVIVAL MODE yet.”

  “Oh, they definitely are. That’s why they wanted some distance.” Jillian rolls her eyes. “They’re hoping that’ll help them resist temptation.”

  “Is it working?”

  Jillian laughs. “So far, yes, but it’s making them all cranky as hell.”

  We approach a blocked cave with a mammoth Rakui warrior standing guard outside. He’s big and buff like Trauhn, but not nearly as handsome. At least, not to me. “What’s in there?” I ask.

  “Remmel called it the Cavern of Memory. He said only Rakuis are allowed inside. There’s always someone guarding the entrance.”

  “Cavern of Memory, huh? Sounds intriguing. I wonder what’s so secret or sacred that it needs to be guarded.”

  “Probably a bunch of stone tablets inscribed with the tribe’s history,” Jillian says.

  I doubt that. The Rakui people weren’t always barbarians. There might be something in there that will help us communicate with the Alliance. “Maybe Trauhn can get me inside.” I smile at the guard but all I get in return was a scowl.

  “That’s Kam. He’s not very friendly.” Jillian tugs at my arm. “C’mon. We’re almost there.”

  She leads me down the path and through a narrow entrance carved into the hillside. I fumble around inside my pack looking for my light. Before I find it, though, we emerge from the short tunnel into a large, open, greatroom area dimly lit by glowing torches.

  Four familiar faces are seated together on furs beside a firepit. Layla, Jade, Emily and Reese. The overall mood in the cave seems somber and sullen.

  “Kenzie!” Layla spots me first. She jumps up and rushes over to me and Jillian. The others are right behind her. Several hugs and a few tears later, we make our way back to the firepit furs. Jade sits away from the main group this time, her nose buried in her tablet, while the rest of us talk.

  “Was it hard to find them?” I ask Jillian.

  “Not for Remmel,” she admits. “I guess tracking is his thing.”

  “Why did you come here before finding the others?” I hate the thought of the other girls being out there alone.

  “Emily and Reese had a rough landing and needed medical attention.”

  “Our pod landed in the trees before crashing to the ground,” Reese says.

  “We were pretty banged up,” Emily adds. “Yola, the Rakui healer, is amazing. She’s one of the few women in the tribe. Almost all the Rakuis are male.”

  “I know. Trauhn said that a big storm and subsequent sickness killed many of their females. I think that was over 10 years ago. Why didn’t you send out a search party for the others?”

  “Remmel wanted to go right away because he’s worried they landed near rogues,” Jillian explains.

  “But the elders said we should wait for you and Trauhn to return in case you found the other girls,” Layla says.

  “There was no sign of them on the route we took. We didn’t see any rogues, either.” That’s the truth, although we weren’t exactly looking for the girls. “Trauhn said a group will leave at daybreak.”

  “Remmel will find them,” Jillian states. “I just hope it’s not too late.”

  “Hey Jade,” I call out. “Don’t you want to join the reunion gabfest?”

  “I’m busy.” She doesn’t look up from her tablet.

  “Doing what, studying for midterms?” I joke. When nobody laughs, an uneasy feeling crawls up my spine.

  Jillian nudges my arm. “Remember when I told you I had to download the entire D: drive to get the database I wanted?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It turns out there was a bunch of encrypted files hidden behind a partition on the drive. Jade copied them to her tablet and has been working on cracking the code.”

  Jade finally looks up from the screen. “Apparently, Jillian grabbed a secret Educator backup archive.”

  “What kind of secret archive?” I ask. “Things like lesson plans and test masters?”

  “Not even close.” Jade crawls over to the rest of us. “Routine things like the ship’s logs and flight plans…and non-routine things like classified Earth Gov documents.”

  “Why would classified government documents be stored on our ship’s local network?”

  “Because A Year of Interstellar Education isn’t really a college program. It’s a top secret military experiment and we’re the guinea pigs.”

  I laugh because she has to be kidding. When five serious-as-a-heart-attack faces stare back at me, I worry she’s not kidding at all.

  “I broke through the encryption on a number of files and am still working on accessing the rest. It was all planned, Kenzie.”

  I stare at Jade, waiting fo
r her to say more. When she doesn’t, I ask, “What was all planned?”

  “Flying into the solar storm before reaching our first destination. Sending our escape pods to UD237. Activating SPECIES SURVIVAL MODE. Everything.”

  “You can’t be serious.” I turn toward Jillian. “She can’t be serious.”

  “She’s serious, Kenz. Hear her out.”

  “Why did they require us to get TEASE implants?” Jade asks. It’s a rhetorical question. We all know why.

  “To better adapt to the planets on our itinerary,” I recite from memory.

  “Sounds logical, right?”

  “Um, sure.” My uneasy feeling rachets up to ten.

  “Without question, we all bought into that explanation. Except the planets we planned to visit are Terran-friendly. Space tourists from Earth visit these planets all the time. Why don’t they need a TEASE for adaptation?”

  Wrapping my brain around what Jade’s saying isn’t easy. “Are you saying our symbiont implants are pointless?”

  “Not exactly. We didn’t need the implants to visit those other planets, but the government needed us to have them on this one. We were put here as part of a biological experiment and our TEASE implants are being used to monitor and, in some cases, control our biology.”

  Control our biology? Like initiating SPECIES SURVIVAL MODE and early ovulation.

  I get up, pacing in the limited cave space. “The database you and Jillian created said UD237 couldn’t sustain humanoid lifeforms. Why would they put us on a planet like that?”

  “Because the ‘scientific’ data available on this planet is intentionally false, probably to keep legitmate space explorers away.” Jillian gets up to join me. Then, all the girls stand up and huddle around me.

  “I still have a lot of files to crack,” Jade says. “But, from what I’ve seen so far, it appears that solar storms are common near UD237 due to the gravitational pull of the planet and flight paths always steer clear of its orbit. Captain Jaynes deliberately flew into the storm knowing our escape pods would be drawn to the planet. Hell, maybe our pods were programmed to land here.”

  I feel sick to my stomach and don’t want to believe what Jade is telling me. “The Educator was destroyed by the storm. I can’t believe the captain, her crew and the professors would give up their lives for a mission like this.”

  “None of them died because the Educator wasn’t destroyed. Here, look at this.” Jade passes me her tablet.

  “What is it?”

  “The full, classified version of Evacuation Protocol Red. The first section is the part we practiced and used to evaculate the ship. Now, scroll down to the bottom where it outlines the the secret counter-measures required to maneuver away from the UD237 orbit. As you can see, the pilot is instructed to initiate those measures immediately following the launch of the escape pods.”

  “They dumped us here, then flew away,” Layla states, her voice seething with anger.

  “Everyone on the ship, except for us, are active Earth Gov military, including the so-called professors.” Jade takes her tablet back. “We’ve been talking and comparing notes. You don’t have any family ties back home, do you Kenzie?”

  “No.” My voice is barely a whisper.

  “None of us do. I found dossiers on all of us. They picked women for this experiment who wouldn’t be missed. Women who could vanish into deep space, never to be seen again, and nobody back on Earth would notice.”

  “Or care,” Jillian adds.

  “Are you sure?”

  Jade nods. “These documents don’t lie, Kenzie.”

  “When the Alliance rescue gets here, we’ll show them what you’ve found and demand asylum on another planet.”

  Jillian’s arm slips around my shoulders. “The Alliance isn’t coming, Kenzie, because we’re not technically missing. Our tracking beacons look operational but Jade says they’re not sending out a signal. Unless we can figure out how to build a spaceship or send a message to the Alliance, we’re stuck here until Earth Gov comes back to get us.”

  “If,” Jade emphasizes. “If Earth Gov comes back to get us.”

  A heavy silence settles over the cave while the others give me time to absorb the brutal truth of our situation.

  My hand drifts to my still-flat abdomen. We’re stranded on a distant, primitive planet and I’m pregnant with an alien’s baby. There’s no hope of rescue, of going home. At least not in the near future. My head is spinning as I swallow the bile that churns up from the pit of my stomach.

  Then, my knees get weak and the world goes black.

  Chapter 20

  Trauhn

  I enter the North Caves and ask Xvar, the guard on duty, to announce my arrival to the elders. Mates Morkon and Cyana govern the tribe with a light and conservative touch, only intervening in matters of serious import. Remmel’s arrival with five rogue females and myself with one more warrants their intervention.

  The North Caves are not more lavish or luxurious than any of the others, although they are more protected. Despite their positions at the head of the tribe, and their wisdom gained from longevity and experience, Morkon and Cyana live as simply as all other Rakuis.

  “Is it true that you have claimed one of the rogue females as your mate?” Xvar asks.

  “It is true,” I confirm. “Now, she is no longer rogue. She is Rakui.”

  “Are the other females eager to take Rakui mates?” His voice is excited, hopeful.

  “This, I do not know. For the sake of our tribe, I pray it is so.”

  “As do I,” Xvar says as he disappear down the corridor.

  Remmel briefed me on his journey with Jill-ee-un and the other Terran females, and voiced his concerns about those who are still missing. He suspects that their flyers landed in rogue territory.

  I told him about the magic fire ball Ken-zee and I encountered just outside the village, which only increases his concern. Even though Remmel does want Jill-ee-un as his mate, he acknowledges that females of any species are a rare treasure. If the rogues are bold enough to approach our village in search of the treasure we brought home, there is no telling what they will do if they find the others before us.

  Thus far, the elders have denied Remmel’s request to search for the remaining females. They wanted to await my arrival before sending a group of warriors into land controlled by rogues.

  Xvar’s return is swift. “The elders will see you now, Trauhn. They are waiting in the ceremonial enclave.”

  Ah, it is an offical visit then, rather than an informal meeting. Nodding to him, I make my way to the enclave, which is adjacent to the elders’ main living quarters. I enter with my head bowed in respect.

  The silver-maned elders sit on their stone thrones at the back of the enclave and Morkon motions for me to approach. “Trauhn, we are pleased to hear that you and the female have safely returned to the village,” he says. “Although not completely unharmed I see.”

  My hand goes to my thigh. Although Rakuis heal fast, some wounds leave scars as a reminder that ours is a dangerous world. “There is no greater honor than being wounded in battle while protecting my mate.”

  “Your mate?” Cyana says, her expression showing surprise.

  “Yes. Ken-zee is my mate,” I declare with great pride. “Our bonding is complete.”

  “Remmel told us of your intent to claim the female, yet we did not fully believe it,” Morkon says.

  “She carries my kit.”

  “Already?” Morkon is incredulous.

  I nod. “A kit was conceived during our first mating. It is a blessing from the gods.”

  “How does the female know she carries your kit?”

  I do not appreciate Morkon questioning my mate’s claim. “I did not ask her and she did not say. Yet I accept her word as truth.”

  Cyana puts her hand on Morkon’s wrist. “Sometimes, a female just knows these things,” she says. “Although we have not witnessed such a fast conception in our lifetime, there are records of
such wonders.”

  Morkon’s gaze grows stern. “It was a dangerous decision to mate with this female in the wild. Explain yourself, Trauhn.”

  “Her allure was not something I could deny.” I place my hand on my chest. “I was compelled to claim her before another male could challenge me. A hunting cave served as adequate shelter to complete our bonding and now she is mine forevermore.”

  “The rogue females that returned with Remmel are unmated,” Morkon states. “Decisions must be made regarding their status in our tribe.”

  “We should not turn them away when so many of our warriors are without mates,” I argue.

  “Remmel says they are small and may not be able to carry Rakui kits to term.”

  “They are small. Yet my mate’s body welcomed my cock and accepted my seed. Surely her womb will adapt to our growing kit.”

  Cyana nods thoughtfully. “The female body is capable of miraculous things.”

  “Despite her small size, my mate has demonstrated courage, wisdom and kindness. In my eyes, she is equal to any female in our tribe.”

  “Those are strong words, Trauhn.”

  “They are truthful words, Morkon. Given time, I am certain the other females will demonstrate similar, admirable characteristics.”

  Morkon and Cyana share a look before he speaks again. “Your mate is accepted into the tribe. However, we must approach the others with caution. We will need to speak to the other tribe members about the situation. Our understanding is that there are still several missing females.”

  “Yes. Remmel and I fear for their safety. We request that a search party be dispatched at first light.”

  “Your request is granted. Cyana and I will choose who to send on the search. Once the other females are retrieved, we will meet with them before making a decision about their status.”

  Accepting Ken-zee into the tribe gives me hope that the elders will accept the other females as well. How could they not when so many of my warrior brothers are without mates?