REXOR

STOLEN WARRIORS SERIES

ELLA MAVEN

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2020 by Ella Maven

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.

Copyedited by Del’s Diabolical Editing

Cover design by Natasha Snow

First edition: December 2020

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

An Excerpt from Mikko

Acknowledgments

Also by Ella Maven

About the Author

PROLOGUE

Rexor

The roar of the crowd surged around me, along with the familiar chant which sent a humiliating rush of anger through my veins. “Monster. Monster. Monster.”

I staggered back as a massive fist passed a hair’s breadth from the tip of my nose. I couldn’t feel my left arm, as it hung loosely from my dislocated shoulder socket after the Cipixion had smashed me into the arena wall. Black blood dripped from a gash in my side, one of my eyes was completely swollen shut, and my entire body was one massive throbbing source of agony.

I could barely stand, and I knew if I didn’t do it soon, if I didn’t let go and give in to the chants, I’d die. The Cipixion was injured too, but he knew he had to finish me off before I unleashed the monster inside. He was in a rush, which was why his next blow connected with my cheek. Bones crunched, and pain exploded in my skull.

When I hit the red dirt floor of the arena on my back, for a moment I considered not getting up. But in order to win, I had to lose, and I was tired of the fight. If I survived, Pulixic would give me a few cycles to heal before he shoved me back into the arena to once again battle another slave like me to the cheers and jeers of the crowd.

I could barely hear anything now, probably from the excessive blows to the head. I barely made out the crowd had shifted its allegiance. They no longer wanted my monster. They wanted my death. And I did too.

Above me the sun beat down on my face, and I stretched my neck, seeking its warmth one last time before the Cipixion ended my life. I opened my eyes, expecting to see the face of my opponent, but all that stretched above me was a clear sky, no cloud in sight. I stared right at the golden sun, the same one that somewhere on another planet my brothers might also be looking at.

My cora pounded. My head swam. Despair swamped me because I knew I’d never see them again. I hoped they were healthy and happy. I hoped they remembered me fondly, and I thanked Fatas they would never see me like I was now.

A monster.

The thought of them stirred something within me, a part of me I thought didn’t existed. I was still a Drixonian, born on Corin to a well-respected family as the youngest of three brothers. Even though they couldn’t see me now, dying felt like letting them down. While there was breath left in my body, I wouldn’t give up. Not to a Cipixion warrior in front of a crowd. Not while I bore a collar around my neck. If I’d die, I’d die free. I had to fight. There had to be a reason for all my pain and misery. Fatas would call on me again in the future, and I had to be ready.

The Cipixion, a massive warrior with boulder-sized fists, stepped into my line of sight, saliva dripped from his massive jowls as his matted hair hung in clumps on his scalp. “I end you now, Drix,” he hissed.

Monster. Monster. Monster.

I gave the crowd what they wanted. I let the anger consume me as my world colored itself red. My body swelled. The blades in my forearms, scalp, and back lengthened. This was what the Uldani had made me, and even though they thought I was dispensable, I still had enough Drixonian in me to refuse to concede.

I rolled to the right to avoid the Cipixion’s life-ending stomp, and I screamed as the skin in my back ripped open. I extended my black wings to the roar of the crowd as they renewed their chant, “Monster. Monster. Monster.”

Kill, the monster in me chanted. Kill. Kill. Kill.

With a flap of my wings, I blotted out the sun. And I killed. I sliced the Cipixion to ribbons with my machets. But I didn’t stop there to revel in my victory. The Monster wasn’t satisfied this time. It wanted more. I turned on the Pliken guards standing on the perimeter of the arena. Hacking with my machets, I let my Rage loose in a way I never had before.

Red. So much red. I bathed in it as pain seared through my mind until my skull felt like it cracked in two. My monster leapt into the first row of the crowd. Screams reached my ears, the pounding of feet, but I ignored all of it as long as they stayed out of my path. I had one target. The one who dared to collar me. The one who kept me chained in a cage. Who forced me to kill and dishonor all I was. Who treated me like a monster.

He was old, surrounded by bodyguards I hacked down with my tail, wings, and machets. He was running away from me, staring over his shoulder at me with wide, terrified eyes. But I was faster. I soared over him and grabbed him around the neck with my claws. I flapped my wings as he cried and pleaded.

The open top of the arena was covered in a spiky netting. For me. For my monster. So, I couldn’t leave. Pulixic screamed as I flew closer, and with a roar, I threw him at the netting. A dozen spikes impaled him, and he hung there for a moment, gurgling and whimpering, before his body slowly slipped from the spikes. With a weak cry, he fell to the arena floor. I watched him land with a sick thud. Limbs akimbo, eyes open and unseeing, I confirmed he was dead.

The monster was satisfied. My Rage had found his victim. The arena was quiet now, the stands empty as the crowd had fled. They wanted my monster, and they’d gotten him. As I slowly flapped my way to the ground to settle among the bodies I’d made, I knew I wasn’t done. This planet sought to kill me, and I’d go out on my own terms.

Uncollared.

I folded my wings back under my skin. My head reeled, and I felt a trickle of blood drip from my nose as I staggered to Pulixic’s body. Using his thumbprint, I placed it on the lock of my collar. A click followed, and the last of my former life hit the red sand with a clank.

I stumbled out of the arena into the hot sun, let my wings emerge once again, and took off on my own. The inhabitants of this planet would soon see what happened when they wronged a Drixonian warrior with nothing to lose.

ONE

Daisy

I finally had to admit there was no positive in this situation.

I’d tried to maintain an upbeat attitude when I’d fallen asleep in my bed in South Carolina and woken up on a spaceship. Free vacation!

When I’d been stripped of my clothes and given some sheer white thing straight out of Greek mythology? Ooo, dress up!

When massive aliens with horns, mean eyes, capes, and face tattoos clapped a collar on me and attached a chain to it? New jewelry!

When they dragged me into an arena to witness two other aliens beating the stuffing out of each other for sport while a crowd cheered them on? Entertainment!

That was my thought process until one of the caped aliens yanked on my chain and dragged me in front of an eclectic group of scarred aliens who licked their lips like I was their next meal. We stood on the floor of a round arena while the crowd sat around us in stadium seating. My bare toes sank into red dirt, which covered everything in a fine layer of dust. I didn’t want to think about the blood and other fluids that had mixed with this dirt.

While the caped aliens seemed to be in charge—all the guards looked like the one holding my chain—the dozen or so aliens in front of me consisted of a collection of creatures straight out of Monsters, Inc. If it was mashed with Saw and every monster was out to kill someone. Sure, there was a green, one-eyed guy with long arms, but he also had razor-sharp teeth and a tail that whipped behind him viciously. There was also a large furry blue alien, but he was covered in scars, had foot-long blades for fingers, and I could have sworn he was picking his teeth with a bone.

Every single one looked like he either wanted to eat me or get me naked. Or maybe both. I couldn’t be sure.

Thanks to my fancy new implant translator sitting behind my ear, I could easily make out the words of my captor when he said, “We have a special treat today!” His voice carried out over the din of the crowd, causing their chatter to lower. “As an incentive to the gladiators, we’ll be offering a prize to the final winner of this rotation’s tournament.” He gripped my long hair in one fist and yanked my head back.

I let out a squeal of pain, and I caught one of the gladiators inhale deeply with a euphoric look on his flat face, as if he could smell my fear … and it turned him on.

My captor shoved me forward. “A human female!”

The crowd erupted into cheers when they learned my fate.

I stood there numbly, wondering when I was going to wake up. This wasn’t my life. I waited tables at a barbecue joint for a living and acted in seasonal plays at my local theater. I drove a dependable Civic. I had a Live, Laugh, Love sign in my house for Pete’s sake!

So, that was when I finally began to panic. When I realized my glass-half-full attitude hadn’t even been reduced to glass-half empty. That sucker was completely dry. With a hole in the bottom so it couldn’t be refilled.

In short, I was screwed.

While the crowd continued to chant, and the gladiators watched me with undisguised lust—and maybe hunger—my caped captor shoved me in a small cage off to the side of the arena. I didn’t struggle, because there was no point. He was over seven feet tall, had two massive blades tucked into a sash around his waist, and his mean yellow eyes dared me to give him a reason to hurt me.

No, thank you.

I was good with my facial bones as they were.

I huddled in the cage at the far back corner closest to the bottom of the stadium seating behind me. There as a cover over the top of the cage, which protected me from whatever the crowd currently pelted at my makeshift prison. From the looks of the steadily growing debris around my cage, their choices consisted of rocks and rotting food. The dry heat sucked the saliva from of my mouth and the sand stung my skin as a mild breeze sent it swirling around the arena. The place stunk too, like a locker room, and the distinct iron tang in the air filled me with dread.

I had never felt so alone in my life. On the spaceship, I’d seen other females, but we’d been drugged out of our minds and shackled to tables unable to interact. When we docked at some sort of large metal contraption on this hot, red planet, we’d been escorted off in different directions. I was the only one brought here in some sort of dune buggy machine, my hands bound to the metal caging of the vehicle.

I hugged my knees to my chest and closed my eyes, trying to imagine I was anywhere but here. As a theater kid, I was good at pretending. I thought of all the things that made me happy—a steaming mug of chai. A warm muffin with a pat of butter. A soft cat purring in my lap. But it didn’t work this time, because all I could think about was that I’d never have those again. I wasn’t sure I’d ever eat again. I might be someone’s next meal. I really didn’t know what these aliens planned to do with me. Eat me or … I shuddered. No. Think of the good things, like hot tea. Purring kitties. Carbs.

A thud shook the ground and my eyes popped open to the sight of a gladiator on the ground in front of me. This was the one who’d seemed to delight in the smell of my fear. He was a squat thing with rope-like arms, two fingers on each stump, and spikes covering his entire back like a porcupine.

He was staring at me. I stared back. But he wasn’t blinking. In fact, he wasn’t seeing at all, because I realized with dawning horror that I was making eye contact with his severed head. His body lay a few feet away, yellow blood oozing from his neck.

I screamed. I screamed until my throat burned, but it didn’t matter because the cheering crowd drowned out my own cries in my ears. In the center of the arena stood the furry blue monster with his arms in the air, bladed fingers dripping with yellow blood. He was … grinning? Maybe. Whatever his mouth was doing was probably a grin, but it was hard to tell because his entire face was covered in spikes from the dead alien’s back.

I waited for them to drag me out of the cage and toss me at the blue alien, but he only sneered at me before marching out of the arena through a small tunnel. I waited while some caped aliens came and picked up the dismembered alien. They tossed his head into the stands behind me. Tossed. His. Head. To. The. Crowd. And by the shouts and cheers erupting that must have been a real treat.

When I heard the crunch of bone, I covered my ears and ducked my head. I stayed that way, murmuring nonsense to myself until I heard footsteps enter the arena. I looked up to find two more aliens facing off against each other. One looked like an upright crocodile, standing about six feet. His stubby legs seemed to hinder him from moving very fast. He was up against a smaller alien covered in a dense brown fur which dragged on the ground when he walked, so I really didn’t know if had feet or just … slithered.

One of the caped aliens shouted, and the two went at each other immediately. After a few minutes, the alien with brown fur won. Mostly because he seemed able to spew some sort of toxic substance from holes on the top of his head, which burned the crocodile’s arm right off like acid. Yep, that happened.

That was how the day went on. Fighting. Blood. So much blood. Body parts. I had a toe land in my cage and I’d quickly covered it with dirt while gagging. The drone of the crowd turned to white noise in my ears.

My head pounded, my muscles ached from my crouched position—my friend’s German Shepherd had a bigger cage than this—and my stomach growled. I had no idea when I’d eaten last, and I would have given my arm for a sip of water. I would have licked my sweat if I had enough hydration in my body to produce it. At least the temperature was warm since I wore next to nothing. Eventually, I succumbed to human nature and squatted in the corner of the cage to relieve myself. My urine was very yellow, proving just how badly I was dehydrated.

As the day wore on, I could almost pretend they forgot about me. No one spoke to me or banged my cage. The crowd seemed to all but forget me as no more projectiles were thrown at my cage. The fights were the main attraction.

I had almost dozed off when a booming voice cut through my fatigue. A caped alien stood in the center of the arena. This one wore fancier clothes—his cape bore a shiny corded border and gold tips adorned the ends of his horns. Each hand was covered with jewelry that extended across the top of his hand, like gemstone-encrusted brass knuckles.

“For the final battle today, we have crowd favorite Bu’lara the Bold,” he yelled. The crowd went nuts and the announcer seemed almost gleeful at the response. “He’ll be fighting newcomer Vaziripan the Violent.”

He spread his hands as two warriors emerged from tunnels on opposite ends of the arena. I’d seen one of these gladiators fight earlier in the day, and I’d rooted against him. The one I pegged as Bu’lara was a large grey alien covered in nasty black scars. He was bald with his neck covered in a rough, thick skin that seemed nearly impossible to cut.

One alien had tried. He’d failed and then lost both of his hands before his head. Bu’lara was tall and muscled, wearing nothing but a thin piece of fabric to cover his junk which did nothing to disguise the fact that this guy was packing. And by packing, I meant there were so many bulges, that I was terrified he’d drop his briefs and there’d be a den of penis vipers emerging from his groin.

The green newcomer didn’t look quite as scary, but he was dubbed the Violent so everyone must know something I didn’t. He was smaller than Bu’lara, and he had disproportionately long arms and legs. His tail swished along the ground behind him, the tip spiked and glistening with a green fluid that sizzled as it touched the dirt.

I didn’t want to know what that would do to my skin.

That same liquid glistened from blades jutting from his knuckles. His brow hung low over his eyes, like a bone visor. His skull was elongated behind him, like the creatures in Alien, and covered in a hard, black casing.

The announcer stepped back as the two eyed each other with malice. “Remember, winner gets the human female.” He sniffed the air before landing his yellow eyes on me with a sneer. “And she smells ripe for breeding.”

This time, I didn’t even bother screaming. The crowd did it for me.

Rexor

At the dull roar of the crowd in the distance, I increased my speed. The flashbacks of my time on the receiving end of those cheers only fueled my desire to see the entire place burn.

I leaned over the handlebars of my hover buzzer. It was the closest thing on this flecking dirt planet to our bikes from back home, except the buzzer had a wider base and four hover disks instead of two. It wasn’t quite as fast and had less agility, but it was better than nothing.

Beside me, Fenix rode his own buzzer, black gloves covering his hands and a stoic expression on his face, although I knew he wasn’t looking forward to what was to come. None of us used our mods if we didn’t have to but shutting down Halixic’s gladiator arena—brother to the Pliken who used to own me—was cause for using every weapon we had access to. And thanks to the Uldani, we had a lot.

Behind me, Mikko and Zecri brought up the rear. The four of us were the warriors who did the damage, and the ones who remained back at our home base of Blazen handled the cleanup depending on who we managed to rescue.

I didn’t expect many survivors on this mission. Sometimes I wished someone had set fire to the arena where I’d fought with me in it, but that was in the past. I was alive, and I planned to stay alive now I had the ability to get revenge on as many flecking Plikens as I could.

Vixlicin was a filthy, lawless planet run mostly by the Plikens, a race of tall, strong aliens who destroyed the last planet they inhabited before moving onto Vixlicin. They hadn’t learned their lesson, because after overpowering and enslaving the races who’d previously lived on Vixlicin, they then proceeded to mine the shet out of it, ruining the air quality levels and eroding the once prosperous plant life. What remained habitable of Vixlicin—habitable being generous—was dusty, hot, and covered in craters.

Only in my dreams did I visit my home planet of Corin, with its lush forests and plentiful game. Sometimes I could still feel the warmth of a hot qua spring flowing through my hair and down my back. But then I’d wake up, and I’d once again be lying on a dirty fur on the floor of my makeshift home. At least it was better than the cage I’d live in for tens of cycles, which I’d been allowed to leave only to train and fight.

The problem with our buzzers was they were loud, and since our faces were plastered all over Vixlicin with orders to kill on sight, we had to remain as stealthy as possible. Once we rode as close to Gleven, the settlement around Halixic’s arena, as we dared, we stashed the bikes in a previously arranged spot. The crater was wide enough for all four of our buzzers, and a nearby overhang of rock concealed them from anyone walking by. Not that anyone would be dallying this far outside of Gleven. Mainly because… Well, because all of the inhabitants feared us.

The small settlement of Gleven wasn’t much—a small marketplace, a few drinking and eating establishments, and a four-room inn was the only source of income for the Pliken population of a few thousand who lived in a cluster of small huts. But what they had that other settlements didn’t was the fighting arena, where Halixic pitted various races against each other in battles to the death and charged admission to the surrounding settlements, including the much richer city of Trager.

I didn’t give a fleck what put food in the mouths of the citizens of Gleven. I cared it was provided for in blood. Those fighters weren’t there by choice, just like I hadn’t been when I’d fought.

We gathered on the lip of the crater, where a small ridge on the mostly flat planet would conceal us as we traveled the rest of the distance on foot. I stepped up to Mikko’s side as he glared at the arena. Hands fisted at his sides and his spiked machets vibrating, he remained stiff. Knowing the signs of his reckless anger emerging, I placed a hand on his shoulder and his muscles tensed further beneath my palm.

After a few moments, he let out a harsh sigh and rolled the tension from his neck. Flashing me a bared teeth grin, he shrugged my hand away. “You worried about me, Rex?”

“Worried about you?” Fenix asked, stepping up to our sides with a toss of his fiery orange hair. He shot me a knowing smirk. “Of course not, Mikko. Why would we need to worry about you? You always follow the plan. Every time. You never went off half-cocked and nailed a bunch of dead Plikens to a wall so that their limbs spelled FLECK OFF.”

Mikko rolled his eyes. “I have a little fun one time, and you all can’t stop riding me about it.”

“One time?” I lifted my nubbed brow.

He crossed his arms over his chest and lifted his chin. “I did not pierce the fuel tank of that Pliken cruiser causing it to crash into the loading dock. Also, I did not steal all the gems from that pleasure house and am definitely not hoarding them for no reason.”

It was my turn to roll my eyes.

“Sure, you didn’t.” Fenix patted Mikko’s back with his gloved hand, careful to avoid the protruding spikes running from the top of his head to the base of his tail. We all had machets, including ones on the outside of our forearms, but Mikko’s no longer had the ability to lay flat and concealed under his scales like the rest of us.

Unlike him, we couldn’t shoot them out of our skin like deadly projectiles with pinpoint accuracy either. But then we all had something different about us, thanks to old enemies who thought our bodies existed for them to fleck with.

Fenix lowered his voice and inclined his head toward me. “I am worried about you though.”

It was my turn to go stiff. “I’m fine.”

“Last time—”

“It won’t happen again.” I didn’t want to have this conversation. Not now, not ever. I understood Fenix’s concern, but I didn’t need a reminder of my fractured mind. “This mission is simple.”

“Maybe you should do lookout with Zecri.”

I shook my head. “No, in case something goes wrong, I have to be there to get you to safety.”

“He’ll be all right, Fenix,” Mikko said. “Stop worrying.”

Fenix rounded on our friend with narrowed eyes. “Don’t tell me to stop worrying. You saw what he was like last time. He could barely speak, and his ears were bleeding for fleck’s sake.”

“Enough, Fenix.” I rubbed my eyes.

He let out a low growl. “These missions are important to all of us, but it’s also important that you stay…” he swallowed. “You.”

“Let’s just finish this one, okay? Then we can have a little chat about all our faults.” I looked at him pointedly, and he dropped his gaze with a clenched jaw. None of us had a great long-term prognosis. We intended to fleck up the lives of the Plikens as much as we could before succumbing to our damaged bodies and minds.

I glanced behind me, where Zecri stood quietly, his eyes taking in the path we had yet to travel and the arena in the distance. Mostly silent, scarred, and calculating, Zecri arguably had a worst past than any of us. Fortunately, he’d saved himself and now he was one of us stolen warriors traveling Vixlicin with nothing but revenge and retribution on our minds. At least, I was fairly sure that was what was on his mind. He was hard to read. He was, however, the most observant.

“Everything look okay?” I asked him.

His stared off into the distance for a while with his light purple eyes before finally meeting my gaze. Then he nodded.

Next, I made eye contact with Fenix. “You remember the plan?”

As our earlier communication blew away with the dust, Fenix swallowed with a nod. “You and I scale the walls. Mikko and Zecri remain behind as lookouts. I wait for your signal, and I light up the arena.”

Fenix spent tens of cycles alone in the stinking dark mines of this planet and when we’d initially met up with him, he’d been a little out of his mind from the isolation. We’d been able to slowly bring him back around, but his short-term memory could still be shet. Not to mention he could be groggy from the poison he dropped on his tongue every day so he could function through the chronic pain that riddled his body.

I gave him a nod before crossing my arms at the wrist in front of my neck. “She is All,” I repeated, the creed bittersweet on my tongue when we no longer had any females to fight for. Still, it was the mantra of the Drixonian Warriors. What we did was revenge for the females taken from us.

The three warriors mimicked my gesture and repeated. “She is All.”

With me in the lead, we took off down the path toward the arena. I couldn’t wait to see the flames dancing in the sky.

After leaving Zecri and Mikko to stand guard, Fenix and I easily scaled the walls, which were riddled with cracks for easy hand and footholds. A thin fabric shade extended over the seats of the arena, where Pliken attendees reveled in the bloodshed of the final fight. Once we reached the top of the wall, we ducked behind some of the support structures for the covering and studied the two warriors going at it.

I recognized Bu’lara, and although I’d never fought him, I’d seen him destroy many fighters over the cycles I’d been a gladiator. He hacked at a Bavil I’d never seen before, who spat a liquid at him that hit the dirt at their feet with a sizzle. I’d been on the receiving end of the Bavil venom more than I wanted to and had a few scars to prove it. They were nasty, quick, and hard to kill. This one looked younger, and was larger than any I’d seen, which made me think Bu’lara didn’t have a chance at winning.

As the Bavil cracked his knuckle blades across Bu’lara’s cheek, the skin immediately burst open and bubbled at the edges as the venom went to work. Bu’lara’s movements were weaker now, and while I knew Bu’lara had been forced into this life as I had, I also knew he enjoyed killing. He also enjoyed the prizes.

Fenix took off his glove and flexed his fingers, which were tight with burnt scales. He might have had the ability to spark flames in his fists and lob fireballs, but his mod wasn’t without consequence. His hands were ruined with limited dexterity in his fingers and wrist.

That was the thing about the changes the Uldani had inflicted on our bodies—none of us had turned out the way they wanted. We were experiments gone wrong, and I had the tail, tongue, and personality to match. Oh, and then there were the new appendages soldered to my spine.

My eyes strayed to a small cage along the wall. Prizes weren’t unheard of in rotation-long tournaments like this one. Bu’lara, in addition to enjoying the fighting, very much appreciated his prizes, and I’d often heard the screams and cries of the unfortunate wretch who’d been given to Bu’lara after his win.

After abusing it with his mangled cocks, he’d eat it limb-by-limb. I shuddered, wondering what beastie the Plikens had captured this time. I’d only seen one other Bavil earn a prize, and the horror inflicted on that creature was even worse than Bu’lara’s torture.

“After the final death blow?” Fenix asked.

I nodded, distracted by what was in the cage. The top was covered, but I could have sworn I caught the sight of a pale, flesh-covered foot. No, my mind was playing tricks on me. It did that often. Except it had been a while since my last Rage, and I’d actually felt fairly clear-headed the last few rotations.

Suddenly, the Bavil ducked and shot upward, catching Bu’lara in the chin with its hard skull. Bu’lara, knocked off his feet, flailed in the air. He hit the ground on his back with a thud, and before he could get up again, the Bavil slammed his venomous knuckles into Bu’lara’s throat. It smashed beneath his fist, and after that, Bu’lara’s chest didn’t move.

The Bavil stood tall and spat one last blob on Bu’lara’s face where the acid rendered him unrecognizable. As Halixic entered the ring to declare the winner, the Bavil’s head turned, and he stared right into the cage.

A cry reached my ears, one I wasn’t familiar with. Usually the prizes of fights were some sort of big game or a half-dead prisoner from the Pit. But this cry was soft, absolutely terrified and … feminine? My body went tight as Fenix lifted his hand. “Burn it all,” he muttered as a flame flickered to life in his palm.

And that was when a Pliken guard opened the cage and dragged out the prize. Sunlight caught on golden hair. Fabric draped over soft, pale curves. A face lifted up to the sky. And the familiar haze of my Rage dropped its red veil over my eyes.

TWO

Daisy

The situation had gone from dire to straight hopeless. The caped guard dragged me out of the cage by the chain attached to my collar and I blinked into the bright sun. By now, the heavy collar had dug into my clavicles, rubbing the skin raw, and I whimpered as the alien’s tug caused the collar to dig further into my wounds. My feet scrabbled on the baked red dirt as I fought to get them under me while he pulled me toward the victor of the fight.

I didn’t even remember what they called him other than the Violent, and that was apt. He towered over me as blood and green acid dripped from his limbs. I couldn’t even look at Bu’lara, whose entire face had been burned off.

I was struggling, but the guard’s grip was like iron. I couldn’t stop shaking, and my throat was too raw from screaming to shout in protest. How had this happened? How had I gone from Daisy Blackwell, part-time waitress and aspiring actress, to the next meal for this creature?

The guard tossed me on the ground at the Violent’s feet.

The alien flicked his fingers and a drop of green goo landed on the back of my hand.

Immediately, burning pain shot up my arm, like I’d touched a hot pan, and I cried out hoarsely.

A rumbling sound came from the alien, and I had the distinct idea it was laughter as he reached for me with those acid hands. Panic lit up my insides. One tiny drop of that liquid and my entire limb felt like it was on fire. What would happen if he actually touched me? Spit on me? Bu’lara’s ruined face taunted me.

Sobs of fear wracked my entire body, and I scrambled away on my hands and feet. The alien victor took a step toward me when a flapping sound caught his attention. He looked up just as a large, winged shadow crossed over the ground. The crowd went silent before shouts arose from the guards lining the arena.

I glanced up, but all I saw was a dark figure with massive wings backlit by the blazing sun. Red eyes bore into mine, and I screamed just as a figure landed in a crouch, wings flapping around a body.

The figure rose, and I stared dumbstruck. He was almost seven feet tall with scales in various shades of blue, black horns which corkscrewed out of the side of his head, and long white hair that blew around his bare chest. He wore a pair of pants and extending from the back was a long tail that forked at the end. He was absolutely massive, with bulging muscles which seemed almost swollen, bunching up around his shoulders like an alien Hulk. Blue-scaled skin stretched over high, sharp cheekbones, and fangs glistened in his mouth.

The gladiator victor advanced on him with a snarl, and the winged alien went into motion. Long, wicked black blades rose from beneath the scales on his forearms, as well as the top of his head and down his back. He kicked the Violent with a blow to the chest, and he stumbled back, tripping over Bu’lara’s body.

The caped guard withdrew a long blade from his waist and slashed it through the air at the winged alien’s face. He bent over backward to avoid the slice before rising back up. With a vicious thrash of his tail, he swiped the guard off his feet. As he fell to his back, the blade slipped from his hands. The winged alien caught it in mid-air and plunged it through the caped guard’s chest. The guard gurgled and sputtered blood, but he was stuck to the ground, the blade buried into his ribcage to the hilt.

A voice in the back of my head told me to get up. To run. This was my chance. These aliens were all distracted and maybe I could escape… but where? Where the heck would I run to?

A hand landed in the dirt next to me and I screamed as I shuffled away from it. The hand belonged to the gladiator winner, and he let out a horrid high-pitched screech like a fire alarm. I clapped my hands over my ears, convinced he’d blown out my eardrums right before the winged creature raked his forearms blades across the gladiator’s throat, cutting off his siren screech.

The winged alien ducked out of the way of the green acid spraying from the dying alien’s body. The Violent staggered, stumbled, and then collapsed to the dirt floor in a heap.

Shouts erupted around us as more caped guards sprinted to join the fray. But the winged alien ignored them. He turned those red eyes on me, and all coherent thoughts flew from my head. His crimson gaze rendered me immobile with fear and shock.

Before I could snap out of it and flee, he scooped me into his thick arms. With a giant flap of his massive wings, he took flight before I could even utter a scream.

Someone barked orders below us, and I spotted the caped guards aiming gun-like objects at us. From the tips shot laser beams, and I screamed as I felt the burning heat of one singe my calf.

Another blew a hole through the red-eyed alien’s wing, but he didn’t even make a sound of pain. He continued to fly, flapping hard now just as a massive fireball flew past us—from the direction we were heading—to explode on the dirt floor below us.

I shrieked, thinking we were being attacked, but the winged alien didn’t seem concerned. More fireballs flew past us, and the screams of the crowd went from delight to terror as flames rained down on the seats.

What was going on? I squinted my watering eyes against the rushing air to see a blue figure standing along the top of the arena wall, his fists and forearms nothing but balls of flames as he sent one fireball after another into the stadium.

When the winged man flew over him, he ducked out of sight. As we took off over the walls of the arena, I glanced down to see utter chaos. The entire structure was on fire. My cage was a mass of melted metal, and the exits were clogged with bodies seeking to escape the flames. I didn’t spare much sympathy for them. They’d been cheering for my pain and death.

But that led me to my next dilemma. I might not have a future filled with acid burns, but I was now in the clutches of a red-eyed winged alien. I couldn’t get away from him now as we soared one hundred feet in the air.

Struggling would only succeed in sending me falling to the ground to land as a pancake. So, I went lax in his grip as he held me tight against his chest with both arms around my waist.

We soared over a large road lined with black rocks, the dirt rutted with wheel tracks. A small hilly range sat to our right, and the winged man slowly banked that direction until we sailed over the top and then down a smaller road, this one more like a footpath.

I spotted two figures on the ground, and the winged alien began to descend. Trepidation filled me as we got closer. These seemed like the same species as the winged man who held me, blue with horns, expect they were smaller and their eyes while dark, glowed a vivid purple. Both had black hair—one short and one long. And I didn’t see wings on either of them.

Just as we reached the ground, a fourth figure emerged down the footpath on a run, and I recognized him as the one who was lobbing fireballs. He had fiery orange hair—fitting—and a dazed expression in his big purple eyes.

As soon as my feet touched the ground, I wrenched out of the winged alien’s hold to plaster my back against a nearby boulder. This way, all the aliens were in my line of sight. I didn’t like any of them at my back where I couldn’t see what they were doing.

The winged alien staggered away from me, his face pinched with pain, before he dropped to a crouch on the balls of his feet. His back heaved as he braced himself with one hand on the ground. Before my eyes, he seemed to shrink. His muscles contracted beneath his skin, and with a low moan, his wings folded into slits in his back. The gashes in his skin where his wings were tucked remained open and raw, and he seemed to be bleeding profusely, a black liquid that dripped from his wounds to darken the red dirt. He panted, back heaving, his body swaying slightly like he could barely remain upright.

The three other aliens watched me with mixed emotions. The one with short black hair with black blades jutting from his forearms and back glared suspiciously. Another one, heavily scarred at his neck and wrists, observed me like I was an interesting experiment, and the alien with fiery orange hair and black gloves seemed to be trying to offer me a tentative smile.

When I didn’t return his smile, he dropped his gaze to the winged alien, who remained on the ground with his face twisted into a grimace of pain. Fire alien knelt at his side but didn’t touch him. He spoked quietly until the winged alien rose to his feet. His face was a little pale, but what was most startling were his eyes were no longer red, but instead a deep purple. While still tall and muscled, he wasn’t as large as he’d been when he’d swept me from the arena. He still terrified me, though, as I’d seen what he was capable of, so when he took a step toward me, I acted on instinct. I held out a hand with a shout. “Don’t!”

He stopped abruptly, and his gaze dropped to my hand. His jaw clenched, and his eyes blazed, and my knees nearly buckled as anger flashed over his expression like a storm cloud.

The fire alien said a few words, but it wasn’t one my translator recognized, because everything sounded like gibberish. Desperation rose in my throat, threatening to choke me, but I shoved it down with a thick swallow. I licked my dry lips, thinking I’d do just about anything for some water.

The winged alien watched me carefully, almost like he resented my presence. Which didn’t make sense. I hadn’t asked him to take me from the arena. What were his intentions with me? I stared back at his purple eyes, wanting so badly to believe he wanted to rescue me and take me home. That he wouldn’t harm me. He hadn’t done so yet, and he seemed to respect my personal space even if it angered him. And most of all, I so desperately wanted to believe I saw a spark of humanity and goodness in his purple eyes.

All my life I’d wanted to believe the good in people, even when they let me down time and time again. There was my former best friend and roommate who stole money from me, even though I would have given her the shirt off my back if she asked.

My ex-boyfriend who’d fallen out of love with me years ago, but I’d ignored every red flag because I’d wanted so badly to believe we hadn’t grown apart.

My boss at my sales job in college had been giving me extra shifts and I’d been so grateful, until he cornered me in the stock room and asked for payment on my knees.

Time and time again I’d been let down, but yet I still stared at this alien and wanted badly to believe he wouldn’t hurt me.

So, when he reached for me again with his thick claws extended and an angry look on his face, I closed my eyes and held onto the hope I stubbornly refused to give up.

Rexor

I’d never seen a creature like her in my life. I couldn’t tear my eyes off her. She wore a nearly sheer dress that clung to her body. Her rounded breasts heaved as she watched us warily and the curve of her hips leading to the V between her legs beckoned to me. I would have given anything to dip my tongue there and taste her, even as deformed as it was.

She still bore the crude collar the Plikens had locked around her neck, and the rough edges dug into her soft, thin skin. The flesh had split in places and drops of crimson blood stained the top of her white dress. The chain attached rattled every time she moved. The sight of her injuries nearly made me wish I could bring the Pliken guards back to life just to kill them again.

When I reached for her, she closed her eyes with a tremble of her chin. I wrapped my fingers around the collar, careful not to touch her skin with my claws. I’d worn a collar for many cycles, and mine had been indestructible without my owner’s thumbprint. But the Plikens didn’t bother with a strong lock on a human female. With a yank, I snapped the collar, and it fell to the ground with a clank.

Opening her eyes on a gasp, the female lifted a hand to her raw skin. The relief and trust I saw in her eyes nearly broke me. She’d been treated like shet on this planet, and the fact that she saw me in my Rage and still believed there was something good in me was admirable. The Plikens had been planning to give this creature away like trash. The fleckers. I flicked my split tail in irritation, and she jerked at the movement before resuming her careful study of me.

“A human,” Zecri said in his low, soft voice. “She’s a human female.”

I’d heard of humans, but I’d never seen one before. So delicate and so similar to a Drixonian female except much smaller. I longed to feel her hair which fell around her shoulders and down her back in a golden sheet. Some blew into her face and she brushed it out of her eyes, which were a light brown color.

“That’s great, but what the fleck are we going to do with her?” Mikko barked. “Rex went into his Rage, stole a human, and now we’re flecked. They saw you, and since you’re the only winged Drixonian on this whole planet, they’ll be sending an army on our tails in no time.” He stomped off to the crater where we stored our buzzers while muttering and punching things angrily.

Mikko loved to complain, but he was right on this one. I hadn’t thought it through. I’d heard her cry, seen her face and … the Rage had taken over in a way that never happened before. I usually was able to resist it, but this time I’d had zero control. Fenix had covered me despite my screw up, and Mikko and Zecri had returned to where we stashed our buzzers.

“I’ll keep her,” I said, the words leaving my mouth before I even understood what that meant. “She’s my responsibility. I won’t let this decision hurt you all.”

“Keep her?” Fenix stepped to my side to study her. “She’s not a pet.”

“You saw what the Plikens had in store for her.” I growled. “I can’t let them have her. I won’t.”

Fenix sighed and ran a frustrated hand through his hair.

“She has an implant.” Zecri gestured to the lump behind her ear. “Does anyone have an updater in their buzzer bags?”

“I got one,” Mikko called from the crater. I shook my head to hide my smile. Even angry as he was, Mikko wouldn’t leave us. Cynical and reckless, yes, but he was also the most loyal to our small crew. While I knew in his heart he believed what I’d done was the right thing, his concern always manifested in anger. Rescuing the human female was absolutely a threat to our survival.

After some fumbling around and a few curse words, he strode from the crater holding the implant updater gun. He handed it to me, and I took the opportunity to grasp him around the back of his neck. Bringing our foreheads together, I waited for his tense body to relax before I talked. “I’m sorry, Mik. I know this complicates everything, but I had to save her.”

His jaw clenched rhythmically a few times. “I know you had to. I would have done the same thing, but I’m worried about what this means for you.” He hesitated before continuing. “It happened in there. When you saw her. What does that mean for you?”

I didn’t let on that at the sight of her, the Rage had swept over me like a tidal wave, snapping my control like a twig in a way that had never happened before. Even now, my head pounded fiercely, and my vision remained blurry. If they knew, I predicted they’d take over care of the female. And I rebelled at the idea. While she’d never be mine, her safety was my responsibility. I knew that with very beat of my cora. I gripped his chin and looked into his eyes. “I’ll be okay. But this was the right decision. She is All.”

His long lashes fluttered before he heaved a breath. I had a soft spot for all my brothers, but Mikko most of all, mainly because he didn’t often let himself truly feel anything but anger. Fenix was easy to read, as he didn’t hide his feelings, and Zecri… well he’d cauterized himself long ago.

Mikko needed an outlet sometimes, a firm hand on the back of his neck with permission to be something other than angry. I let go of his chin and he cracked his knuckles while casting a less angry glance at the female. “She is All,” he repeated softly.

The updater in hand, I turned to the female. Her facial features were similar to ours, but she was much more expressive. So much shone in her brown eyes, and I could have sworn there was a bit of hope there. But as I lifted the object which looked similar to a laser gun, she gasped, and her round eyes shone with wetness. She shook her head frantically, waving her hands in the hair and saying that word again. “Doned. Pleez doned shewt.”

I turned back to Zecri, who was the most observant out of all of us. “What do you think she’s saying?”

His gaze on her was steady, assessing. “She’s scared of the updater, I think.”

“Oh, for fleck’s sake.” Mikko stalked toward her with a tight jaw. “I’ll hold her arms. You update her implant. We can’t waste time here.”

As Mikko approached her, she went into a full-fledged meltdown. Limbs flailing as she sought to escape him, she looked at me, her hands clasped together. “Pleez. Pleez doned herd meh.” He reached for her anyway with a roll of his eyes, like he was dealing with a trantruming chit. But this was serious. She gasped for breath, her body shaking as she stumbled away from him.

“Mikko!” I shouted at him.

He stopped abruptly and glanced at me over his shoulder with a snarl. He wanted to get this over with, and I did too, but this human was fragile. Would she die from stress? My brother, Sax, had caged a brigger once and the thing had died without the freedom to fly, no matter how much we fed him.

I opened my mouth to explain to Mikko but didn’t get a word out before his eyes went wide. “Get down!” he shouted

I dropped to a crouch. The heat of a laser shot sailed over my head and pinged off the rock near the female’s hand. She screamed and collapsed on the ground in a ball as more laser shots peppered the dirt at our feet.

I turned to find a squad of Plikens bearing down on us. My vision tinged red, and I fought back the Rage. Twice in one day would cause too much damage. I had to keep my head. But they’d nearly injured my female, and they’d all die for it.

With a roar, Mikko raised his arms and ejected his machets from his forearms. They flew through the air and embedded in the chests of the two Plikens leading the charge. While Mikko’s spikes regenerated—which took mere seeks—Fenix ripped off his gloves and finished them off with two balls of fire.

While Mikko fought loudly with grunts and shouts and roars, Zecri was a silent assassin, entering the squad of Plikens with deadly accuracy as he chopped them down with his forearm machets. His back and head spikes had long been removed, but he didn’t need them. The scar tissue at his back was a mass of dead, toughened scales, affording him more or less a flesh shield.

Unleashing my machets, I leaped over the two motionless bodies still on fire to dispatch the remaining Plikens. They’d sent a squad of a dozen warriors, which was nothing for four Drixonians, and chit’s play for the four of us with mods.

Blood seeped into the dirt from Mikko’s machets. While his projectile machets were effective weapons, dispensing them caused him extreme pain, like ripping out his claws one by one. I knew the feeling. My entire back remained in agony after using my wings to rescue the female.

Fenix fought at my side, taunting and talking to himself as he always did. “You want this? Yeah, come meet my fire fists, you ugly mother flecker. Did you think this was going to be easy? You know better than that. Sweet dreams, you piece of shet.”

Plikens weren’t always easy to kill, but these were basic Vat soldiers—the rank and file of the Pliken army—and not very experienced. When the last body dropped to the dirt, the dismembered head rolling away, I rolled my shoulders back and hollered in triumph at the hazy sky. Zecri stood nearby, carefully swiping the blood from his body while Fenix once again pulled on his gloves. Mikko walked among the bodies, unnecessarily stabbing a few and growling as he whacked some with his tail.

I turned to find the female with her hand on her chest, face red as she panted and stared at the bodies surrounding us in shock.

“We have to get her back to Blazen.” I shoved the updater in the waistband of my pants. “It won’t be long before they send more Vats.”

I approached the female, and although she let out a weak sound of distress, I grabbed her. Just like when I’d held her in my arms as I’d flown out of the arena, her body was warm and soft against mine. But now she trembled so badly her teeth chattered. With the tip of my claw, I lifted her upper lip, but she had no fangs, only blunt teeth that seemed a little useless. She didn’t bother trying to bite me, as now she’d gone stiff in my arms, wetness streaming down her cheeks.

I wiped away the drops and tried to calm her, but soothing words were no longer in my vocabulary. “I won’t hurt you,” was all I managed to say before hauling her in my arms and following my brothers into the crater to retrieve our buzzers. There was no time to delay, as I could already hear the thundering bootsteps of another squad of Vats.

THREE

Daisy

This alien planet had wheel-less ATVs. Who knew? They hovered a few feet above the ground due to large circular disks on the bottom blowing powerful streams of air. And they were fast, so fast I had to clench my lips together so the wind didn’t rush into my cheeks and make them flap like a dog’s jowls.

That was what I was thinking as I sat in front of the winged alien while we roared across a red desert, his friends just behind us. I pictured a happy dog with his head out the window, because the last thing I wanted to focus on was the carnage that had been the battle just moments ago.

Oh crap. Now I was thinking about it. The screams of the two aliens on fire, the sight of disembodied limbs flying. Blood, so much blood. And the four-some of blue aliens fighting with practiced ease.

The mean one had actually shot his spikes from his skin. But I got the sense that was painful for him, as he’d roared in pain while blood poured from the ejection sites. It reminded me of the large wounds on the winged alien’s back. The scales on the fire alien’s hands and arms were melted and ruined. The back of the alien with long black hair was covered in scar tissue, like he’d been whipped. Who and what were these aliens? And what the heck had they been through?

I hadn’t been able to observe much of this planet yet, as I’d been transported from the spaceship to a buggy which had delivered me right to the arena, like a human trafficking version of Amazon Prime. Free one-day delivery! While the planet wasn’t pretty, it was certainly otherworldly compared to Earth. The sandy dirt was a rich red, and while the land was mostly flat and dry, there were patches of rock formations, some majestic and tall, others squat and craggy. Dust flew around us as we sped through a tunnel of thick arches, the overhead rock pitted with holes so sunlight streamed through to dot the ground.

We rode for what felt like hours, until I was so tired, I could barely stay upright. If it weren’t for the winged alien’s arm around my waist, I would have fallen off the ATV. My stomach felt like it was eating itself, and I was so dehydrated my brain was foggy and my vision fuzzy. Did these aliens mean to save me? Because if so, they might want to feed and water me or I’d die anyway. When had I peed last? I couldn’t remember. Sometime in that cage, and it’d hadn’t been much. That couldn’t be good.

Just when I felt like I was going to pass out, the ATVs slowed. We rode up what looked like a large sandhill, and I expected to see nothing but more stretches of red dirt when we crested the edge and dropped straight down.

On the other side of the hill was a massive metal door, maybe three stories high. The ATVs came to rest on a flat parcel of sand in front of the metal door. The area looked non-descript, but as the aliens turned off the rumbling engines of the ATVs, several plates shifted in the door, opening like a camera shutter to reveal a hallway leading inside and down. My brain couldn’t make sense of the structure and how it fit into the landscape of this planet. Had they built it and covered it with dirt?

The winged alien behind me dismounted. I sought to climb down off the bike, but my legs, numb from straddling the seat and weak from exhaustion, buckled beneath me. I hit the ground in a heap. I didn’t get back up because my legs simply wouldn’t work. The sun beat down on my baked skin. Even my eyeballs felt dry. I coughed weakly.

Deep voices chattered above me, but they sounded far away, like we were all underwater. Then an arm banded around me, hauling me upright against a strong chest. A leather pouch was shoved into my face, a nozzle at my lips. I didn’t think about how they could be poisoning me or drugging me. I was half-dead anyway. I smelled something refreshing, and so I gripped the pouch and tilted it upright. Cool, crisp liquid poured into my mouth. I sputtered at first, and a hand lowered the pouch so I wasn’t upending it on my face. I drank greedily, gulping down mouthfuls until I’d had my fill of the cool drink with a slight vinegary taste.

I lowered the pouch and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Taking stock of my position I realized I was practically sitting in the lap of the winged alien. The other three stood around us quietly, watching.

“Thank you,” I murmured in a raspy voice. My throat ached, and I coughed again. The scarred alien spoke a few words, and the chest rumbled behind me in response. He was so massive. I wasn’t a tall woman, but I’d never felt as small as I did now. I turned around to take in his face and got caught up in his purple eyes and stern expression. That was why I didn’t notice he’d raised that gun thing to the side of my head, near my translator.

Panicking, I tried to squirm out of his arms, but he had me locked into position. A short beep sounded in my ears and I nearly wept. Why would they give me water only to kill me? A sharp pain slammed into my skull, like claws digging into the bone. I screamed as my brain seemed to swell. When I struggled out of his arms, this time he let me, and I plopped on my butt as I gripped my head in both hands. But just as quickly as the pain swamped me, it faded. Just like that.

I checked my limbs—they were all there—and pressed my hand over my heart—it still beat. I was alive. So, what the heck had that been?

His hand cupped my face, those deadly claws now receding back into his fingers so only black nubs remained. “Can you understand me?” a deep voice rumbled.

The sound took a minute to register, and for a moment I thought I was hearing things until I realized that the winged alien had spoken those words, and my implant had translated it. Was that what that gun thing had been for? I licked my lips and nodded before saying, “Yes.”

His eyes were on the gun-thing. “What’s your language?” he asked while flipping through the small screen on the top.

“E-English. From Earth.”

He tapped at a screen on the updater and held it up to the side of his head, where I noticed he had an implant as well. It beeped, and he didn’t even flinch before handing it off to his friends. Three more beeps followed. Only the one with spikes grimaced with a grumble.

The winged alien remained crouched in front of me on the balls of his feet, purple eyes intent on mine. “What’s your name, human?”

I swallowed. “Daisy.”

“Daisy,” he repeated. “I’m Rexor.” He introduced the other aliens quickly. Spiked guy was Mikko, fire guy was Fenix, and the scarred quiet one was Zecri. I liked that I knew their names because referring to them by their physical traits made me feel icky. They were aliens, but they clearly were sentient and intelligent. While Mikko didn’t have a wide range of emotions, he exhibited irritation and impatience. Fenix watched me with curiosity and a small smile, like he wanted to reassure me of my safety. Zecri remained hard to read, his expression not unkind but not altogether trusting either.

But my eyes were continually drawn to Rexor, who seemed like a different person now than the red-eyed killer who’d rescued me from the arena. Did he only have two forms? Could he turn into a dragon or a werewolf too?

I wrapped my arms around myself as a breeze kicked up dust around us. “Wh-what are you going to do with me?”

Rexor considered me for a moment as a gust of wind picked up and tossed his hair around his head like a Beyonce wind machine. I was transfixed by the fluttering white strands as he tilted his face up to the sky. Then he jerked his thumb behind him at the metal structure. “We need to get inside.”

That wasn’t an answer, but it wasn’t like I could demand one since he scooped me into his arms without another word and marched toward the open door. His friends fell into step behind him, and as we approached the door, four small aliens with greenish skin and stumpy legs dashed outside. After a quick nod and a greeting, they went right to the ATVs. I heard a rumbling as they turned them on, and then they soared over our heads to enter ahead of us.

As soon as we passed through the shutter-like entrance, the plates closed, sealing us inside, as well as the four aliens now working on cleaning the ATVs in a small alcove to the left like little mechanics. There were numerous other vehicles there as well, lined up neatly in pristine condition.

Once inside, Rexor set me down, allowing me to gain my balance before letting me go. The metal floor was cool on my bare feet, and the boots of the aliens thunked on the surface as we walked further down a cylindrical hallway. I looked around as I walked at Rexor’s side, mystified at the structure. “This is Blazen,” Rexor explained. “It’s a crashed warship, and we stay here since the location is remote and unknown to the Plikens. It’s nearly undetectable unless you know what you’re looking for.”

I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed being talked to like a real person. “Who are the Plikens?”

“The ones who held you captive.”

“The mean ones with the capes?”

“Yes.”

I chewed my lip not eager to be reminded of the horrors I’d witnessed a few short hours ago. Had I really been caged in a gladiator arena? Had that really happened? I glanced down at my now filthy white dress, spotted with blood from the raw skin around my neck. Yes, that had actually happened. “So, why am I here?”

Rexor blinked at me, and his brow, covered in a row of hard nubs under the blue flesh, lowered. “Because we want to keep you safe.”

He said it like it was obvious, like I hadn’t seen him turn into a red-eyed creature and mow down a dozen creatures by himself, like he wouldn’t hurt a fly. But I had seen all those things, and no matter how badly I wanted him to be good and safe, I wasn’t that naive. I didn’t know what their culture was like, what was expected of me. Was I trading one collar for another?

My heart beat its fists against my chest, and I focused on putting one foot in front of the other. There was nothing I could do now. Even if I found my way out of here, I would be on a strange desert planet all alone without food and water. As it was, I could barely walk straight.

Be smart, Daisy. I was a decent actress. I could play whatever part they wanted me to play. Just as long as they didn’t hurt me. I had a low pain tolerance. And it seemed to me like all these aliens knew was pain.

I concentrated on my surroundings. Now that I knew we were in a crashed spaceship, it all made a lot more sense. The craft hit the ground at an angle, so most of it was buried in the sand. The door we entered must have been a back entrance that remained jutting out of the ground.

We continued past several large spaces where I noticed gatherings of other aliens—all varying species but none that looked like Rexor. They all gawked at us, many craning their necks to get a look at me and talking amongst themselves. Rexor scowled at most of them while Fenix waved and greeted a few. He stopped after Mikko snarked at him.

We stopped outside a wide door, and I stared at it with trepidation. Rexor turned to his companions. “Fenix, gather a variety of food and bring it to me.”

Was that food for me? Oh, please, please, I hope it’s for me.

Fenix’s slid a look at Z before inhaling deeply. “Are you sure you’re all right—?”

Rex tensed, and he ground his teeth before cutting off Fenix with a sharp, “I’m fine.”

While I wanted to cower at Rexor’s glare and tone, Fenix didn’t back down. His eyes narrowed as he leaned forward. “You aren’t fine. What if—?”

“I’m. Fine.” This time his words were punctuated with angry slaps of his tail.

Fenix growled deep in his throat and threw up his hands. “I give up. I’ll go get the food.” He gave me an exasperated look before walking away.

Rexor ignored the outburst and spoke to Zecri as if nothing had happened. “Let Baki know we have a human on board and to research whatever he needs to. I’ll want him to check her over later.” Zecri only nodded and went to perform his duty without another look at me.

Only Mikko remained, who still scared me a little. He wore a permanent scowl, and his whole body seemed to constantly vibrate. Before Rexor could say a word, Mikko spoke. “I’ll stand guard.”

Rexor’s brow lifted. “I don’t need you to do that. Go rest.”

“I’m fine,” Mikko shifted his weight from foot to foot. “You might trust everyone in Blazen, but I don’t trust anyone but you, Z, and Fenix. So, I’ll stand guard outside your door as long as the female is inside.”

So, I was going in there, and I had a feeling while Mikko was also guarding anyone from coming in, he would also be preventing me from leaving. Which… Well, maybe that was a good thing. I wasn’t about to wander around this ship. I saw some those other aliens and understood why Mikko didn’t trust them all. I decided to acknowledge his volunteer effort. “Thanks, Mikko.”

He startled, like he forgot I could talk. His purple eyes shifted to me and held for a moment. Inhaling sharply, he dropped his chin in a curt nod. “Rex is right. You’re safe here.” He let out a dry laugh and flexed his forearms. “You think anyone wants to mess with me?”

I shook my head with a gulp. I’d seen what he could do. With a lopsided smile that improved his countenance by one thousand percent, he tapped my temple. “Smart human.” Then without another word, he turned around, crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned against the wall.

Rex—I liked the shortened version of his name—eyed Mikko for a moment before sighing. Then he laid his palm on a sensor by the doors, and the two panels slid open to reveal a large room. He gestured for me to go ahead of him, and with no other real choice, I took a step inside.

The room might have once been grand, but it’d definitely fallen into disrepair, probably from the crash. The entire spacecraft was tipped where it had sunk in the ground—the hallway we’d just walked on had been on a steady descent—so the floor was angled up to the right. A giant tapestry hung in shreds on the left-hand wall, and my bare feet disturbed a layer of dust and grit. A pile of bedding sat in front of me, which seemed to be the cleanest area of the room, and the only part that anyone had used.

A hiss and thunk came from behind me and I whirled around to see Rex had stepped into the room with me, closing the doors behind him. For a moment, we did nothing but stare at each other.

I was alone with him, and I was equal parts relieved and terrified. He could hurt me, but then he was also the one who rescued me, gave me water, updated my implant, and who told me he brought me here to keep me safe. When my sister met people, she immediately assumed the worst until proven otherwise. She would have been screaming her head off if she were here now. But me… despite the many times it’d backfired on me, I liked to think everyone was good until they proved they weren’t.

So far, Rex hadn’t shown me anything but kindness. I just hoped his definition of safe was in line with mine. Would he expect… payment? I only had one thing to offer, and I wasn’t ready for that. I didn’t think I’d ever be ready for that.

“The cleanser is here,” he said abruptly as he walked up the floor to the right side of the room and pressed a button on the wall. When a door slid open, he beckoned me closer.

I slowly made my way toward him, watching carefully where I stepped with my bare feet. The floor was littered in debris. When I stepped on something sharp and whimpered, he surged forward so suddenly I cried out. He ignored my protest and stomped his way toward the cleanser.

He’d carried me before but now that we were alone, I was much more aware of the heat of his body and the feel of his arms around me. He was so, so warm, and I could feel the steady beat of his heart from his chest. His scales were softer than I would have imagined and felt almost velvety. I’d seen what he could do with his strength, but with me he was gentle.

I was struck at how safe I felt with him. Was this just my naivety talking? Was I losing it? I even found him attractive, with his strong jaw and high cheekbones. Yeah, maybe I was losing it.

He set me inside what looked like a stand-up tanning booth—a mistake from my twenties from which I had an allergic reaction. When his eyes coasted down my body, the heat of his gaze raised goosebumps on my arms. I’d never been looked at with such a lustful reverence. I felt my nipples tighten and crossed my arms over my chest so he couldn’t see through the sheer fabric. How did his gaze manage to elicit such a strong reaction from my body?

“I will get you other clothes,” he swallowed, and his gaze flickered down and away. “Although nothing we have will fit you well.”

“I’ll take anything that’s not sheer,” I said with a forced laugh.

He didn’t return my laugh. In fact, he looked downright pissed off. His eyes clouded over, and on instinct, I shifted away from him toward the back of the stall. Through gritted teeth, he gave me the instructions on how the cleanser worked. “When I close the door, you can remove your clothing. Then press this button here. A strong current of air will rush down from that nozzle there.”

“Air?”

“Air.”

“So, no … water?”

He cocked his head in question.

“Uh, liquid?”

“No,” he said. “Our cleansers use purified charged air. It will clean you.”

I bit my lip, unsure how that would work. “Okay.”

“I’m going to close the door now and retrieve some clothes for you.”

“I’ll just… take my air shower then.”

He shot me another confused look before pressing the button on the wall near his hand. The cleanser door closed, I heard steps retreating, and then came the hiss and thunk of the outside door. After that—silence. I was all alone for the first time in days.

FOUR

Rex

My room was filthy. I was used to it, because I only used the space for the occasional cleansing and to sleep. That was it, but when I’d led Daisy inside, I’d been ashamed. Dirt covered the floor. My furs were rumpled and hadn’t been cleansed in… way too long. I had no table to eat on. Not even a chair. Nothing.

When I made my return with a bundle of clean clothes, furs, and a jug of qua in my arms, I heard Mikko’s angry voice. I picked up the pace and turned the corner of the hallway to find him facing off with two Nookas. They were a strange race, thin and wiry with no hair and massive paws. They walked on four legs, and were frequently used by the Plikens as miners, since they were terrible fighters and even worse pleasure slaves. They also were self-serving.

“We know you have—”

“—a human.” They spoke in a series of grunts and squeaks as the finished each other’s sentences.

“Good for you, now fleck off,” Mikko growled.

They eyed his spikes warily but didn’t scatter. “We want—”

“—to see.”

Mikko laughed, and I cringed immediately, because it was the laugh he often made right before he took someone’s head off. We were a safe place here at Blazen, but this planet had a way of shifting loyalties and turning good warriors into bad ones. I trusted everyone on this ship not to give away our location, as that would be detrimental for everyone. But I didn’t trust anyone more than that except for Mikko, Fenix, and Zecri.

“Go find something to do,” I barked at them. The four of us Drixonians started this haven, and that meant we were at the top of the hierarchy.

The Nookas finally shifted away. While Mikko scared them because of his abilities, I terrified them because of my Rage. They’d seen me tear Plikens into shreds and they weren’t about to test my tipping point.

They continued their muttered protests as they walked away, glancing back over their hunched backs at us until they turned a corner and were out of sight. Mikko turned narrowed eyes on me. He jerked a clawed thumb at the door behind him. “We need to talk about her.”

I sighed. “I know. Let me give her these clothes, and then we’ll meet in your room.”

“Why mine?”

“Because Zecri doesn’t let anyone in his space, and Fenix can never remember where he put his chairs.”

Mikko rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Do what you need to do with your human and then hurry back out. After the visit from those two small brains I’m not about to leave my post.”

I had to admit I liked knowing Mikko was outside my door. Daisy had a way of distracting me. I opened my door and closed it behind me. When I turned and found Daisy standing in the center of the room holding her dress up to hide her naked body, I nearly dropped all the clean garments in my arms on the filthy floor. She stood right outside the cleanser door on a small patch of mostly clean flooring while clutching the nearly sheer fabric at the base of her neck. It fell to about mid-thigh down the front of her body and revealed an enticing amount of soft flesh on her rounded hips. My cock kicked in my pants, and my mouth went dry.

“I’m sorry, I—” she swallowed. “I felt a little klossdrafobik in there.”

Her word didn’t translate for me. “What’s klossdrafobik?”

“Um, fear of being trapped in a small space.”

I thought of her being locked in that cage and felt the rising surge of my anger. When a red tinge settled over my vision, I used every ounce of my willpower to force it back. This was dangerous. Every thought of her in pain or in danger made the Rage emerge. I’d never had this much trouble maintaining control. I couldn’t lose myself now. I didn’t want Daisy to doubt me or think I wasn’t safe. I trusted myself not to hurt her in my Rage, as of now. If my mind began to deteriorate further… I wasn’t so sure.

She took a step forward, her eyes watching me intently. “What does that mean?”

I went stiff. “What?”

“Your eyes… they turn red sometimes. And your muscles seem to swell. You did it back at the arena. Is that what happens when you’re angry?”

That was a simple way to put it without me needing to provide more explanation. “Yes.”

“Do your eyes show any other emotion? Sadness? Happiness?” She gave me a reassuring, almost hopeful smile.

I wanted more than anything to tell her that yes, I radiated sunshine just like her when I was happy, but the problem was that since my mods, I didn’t know what happiness was. I either felt rage or an empty numbness. So instead, I only shook my head.

Her face fell, but she quickly covered it. “Okay. Is there anything I can do to help? You sometimes get angry at things I say…” she winced and looked down at her feet. She wiggled her toes, which were tipped with blunt purple claws. Her finger claws were the same color.

“I don’t get angry at you,” I forced myself to explain. “I get angry when I’m reminded of how badly you were treated.”

She immediately straightened and a broad smile spread across her face. Fleck, like this, she was brighter than the sun. “Oh well if that’s all, then you don’t have to be angry about it. I’m okay now, thanks to you.” She glanced around, and I cringed at the dirty space, but she only kept that blinding smile on her face. “In fact, things are looking up, I would say. I was able to get clean, you have clothes for me, and is that water in your hands?” Her eyes went wide as she reached out one hand toward me. The motion caused the fabric covering her body to move, revealing the side swell of her breasts.

My gaze darted to it like a magnet, and I couldn’t look away from the pale skin she’d revealed. What would it feel like in my palm? Did her skin change color when she became aroused? What sounds would she make?

“Rex?” Her voice came softly, and I immediately snapped back to focus. Her smile was still there, but it now looked forced. Fake. She’d probably caught me staring.

I shook myself and handed her the jug first. “This is qua.”

She took it and peered through the clear container. “This is for drinking?” After I nodded, she upended jug so quickly that some qua spilled down her cheeks and into her clean hair resting on her shoulders and chest. Her throat bobbed as she gulped. When she was nearly finished, she lowered the jug and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. I watched the qua droplets drip off her jawline to settle onto the top of her creamy breasts. Realizing I was staring again, I looked down at the bundle in my arms. “I have some clothes for you, as well as a pair of boots. I’ll also lay down some fresh furs so you can get some rest.”

I grabbed a soiled fur from my bedding and laid it on the dirty floor. Placing the clothes on top, I stepped back. “I’ll change the bedding. You can get dressed while my back is turned.”

She stared at me a moment before nodding. “Okay.”

As I turned, I caught a glimpse of the top of her chest just as she dropped her dress to the floor. The image stayed in my mind as I worked to prepare her new bedding. I was just finishing up when there was a knock at the door. I stood and froze, not wanting to turn around if Daisy was not yet clothed.

“I’m decent,” she called out.

“You’re what?”

“I’m dressed. Covered. You can turn around now.”

I did to see she was in fact dressed. The clothes were not her size, but she’d managed to cuff the long pants as well as knot the large shirt at her waist. The fabric upper of the boots conformed to her tiny feet, although the sole was a bit large. But what mattered the most was that she was smiling. “Thank you. I feel almost human again. You can get the door now. Thanks for waiting.”

I opened the door to reveal Fenix holding a tray. “I come bearing sustenance,” he announced. His gaze trailed over my shoulder to Daisy and then a smile stretched over his face. “You look much happier now, human Daisy.”

“I am.” Her footsteps drew closer until I felt her brush my arm. “Is that food?”

“It’s not anything fancy. We haven’t gotten the solar greenhouse up and running yet. But it’s better than nothing.”

I took the tray from Fenix. “Thank you.”

“Sure, I—”

“See you in Mikko’s room in a yora.”

“Wait—”

I shut the door on him. When I turned to Daisy, a little wrinkle had appeared between her brows. “That wasn’t very nice.”

“Fenix will talk for many yoras if you let him.”

“Do you ever let him?”

“I used to after—” I stopped talking. Fenix’s story wasn’t mine to tell. “I used to. But now I have heard his same stories so many times I could tell them myself.”

She laughed. “My family says I do that. So, every time I tell a story they’ve heard before, they hold up their fingers to symbolize the number of times I’ve told it. Some of my stories have earned five fingers, which I personally thought was an exaggeration, but whatever.”

I loved this story about her family, but then it angered me all over again that she was here on this flecking planet, in this shethole of a crashed spaceship instead of safe with them. “I am sorry you’re not with them.”

She ducked her head, so I couldn’t see her expression. “Yeah it sucks.” Brushing her hair over her shoulder, she eyed me with wet eyes. “I’m not getting back, am I?”

“I would take you back if I could.” I shook my head. “But I can’t. Only one species has the ability to travel to Earth, and they don’t make return trips.”

She chewed on her lip. “Are you stuck here just like me?”

I chose my words carefully. “I was stolen and brought here. Just like you.”

Her little face scrunched up, and she sniffed. After her eyes leaked a few drops, she swiped at her cheeks. She’d been so happy a moment ago, but now her shoulders slumped, and the weariness of the rotation seemed to settle on her head. “I think… I think I need some food. Then rest. And then… then you can tell me what’s going on.”

As she sank down on the now-clean furs, I set the food tray beside her. The pickings were slim—a powdered drink with no taste, a few tein bars, and some dried and flaked tuber. She drank half the powder, gnawed on the tein bar, and munched on the flaked tuber, which she said tasted like something called Baked Lays.

As she ate, her eyelids drooped, and soon her chewing slowed until she nearly toppled over. Placing the tray beside the furs, I watched as she kicked off her boots. Settling into the bedding with a fur over her, she drew it up to her chin so only her pale face and hair were visible. Now that she’d eaten and had something to drink, her color was different with a pink tinge to her cheeks that I liked.

“I need to meet with my brothers,” I explained. “I’ll keep a guard at your door who I trust.”

“Mm, ‘kay,” she mumbled with a smack of her lips. She was so small, like a Drixonian chit.

“Rest well, human Daisy.”

“Thank you, alien Rex,” she whispered, her eyes now closed.

Feeling comfortable now she was fed and getting rest, I left the room.

Other than my brothers, there was one other warrior on the ship I trusted, a Gorzic who had arrived at Blazen one day all alone and gravely injured. After we helped Jutaro heal, he became very dependable. He didn’t speak much, but he rarely needed to. We often used him as a guard because he was stealthy and focused.

I waited outside my door until he arrived with Mikko, who I’d sent to find him. He strode down the hallway, his greenish skin nearly glowing in the dim light of the hallway. His dark markings on his chest and arms rippled over his taut muscles.

“Jutaro,” I nodded at him. He gave me a chin jerk back. “I need you to guard this door. While I’m the only one who can get in, we all know the systems here are faulty. No one goes in but me. The human inside isn’t allowed to leave for her own safety.”

His gaze traveled to the door, and he studied it for a moment before meeting my eyes. “Hu—min?”

The Gorzic were from a fairly isolated planet. Jutaro had likely never heard of a human. “We rescued a human female, originally from planet Earth.” When he didn’t react, I added, “She’s very precious.”

That got his attention. Jutaro straightened to his full height and pushed his shoulders back, clearly proud we’d asked him to help. “I will stand guard.”

After thanking him, Mikko and I walked side-by-side on the way to his room. My mind was on Daisy and how she looked while sleeping. I also couldn’t shake the image of her in that arena. Caged. I hadn’t realized I could hate the Plikens more than I already did.

“How is she?” Mikko asked carefully while picking at his claws.

I lifted one side of my brow. “You care?”

“No. I’m just being polite,” he growled. “Forget it. I don’t give a fleck.” He stomped ahead of me, throwing what constituted as a Mikko Tantrum. They’d been more frequent lately.

I shook my head with a sigh. I shouldn’t have picked on him, but sometimes he was too easy. “Mikko,” I called.

He didn’t answer, but his stomps lessened in intensity. His head tilted ever so slightly, so I knew he was listening to me.

“She’s fine,” I offered. “And she appreciated you standing guard.”

His gait returned to normal. I waited for him to snap at me, but instead I heard him mutter. “I don’t trust any of these fleckers. Jutaro is okay, I guess. For a Gorzic.”

When we reached his room, Fenix and Zecri were already inside. For once, Fenix wasn’t talking. With his orange hair flopped over his eyes, he sat with his head bowed, rubbing his gloved hands together. Zecri lay on Mikko’s furs on his back with his hands clasped behind his head while staring at the ceiling as he lazily kicked his legs.

Fenix straightened when we walked into the room, concern etched on his expressive features. “You sure you don’t need to rest?”

Earlier, I’d been embarrassed he brought it up in front of Daisy, even though I knew he spoke from a good place. “I’m okay. I’ve learned the longer I’m in the Rage, the worst it is. This was fairly quick, fortunately.” My vision had returned to normal, and while my head still ached, it was manageable. I’d need to rest soon. For now, I grabbed a mixed powder drink from a tray of food set on the floor and began to drink.

“Your back?” Fenix queried.

The skin was tight, but I could move without the wounds breaking open. “Sore, but healing.”

“Anyone else have injuries?” he asked. “Mikko? Zecri?”

Both shook their heads. After finishing my drink, I gnawed on a tein bar as I sank down in a chair next to Fenix. Mikko leaned against the wall near his bedding with his arms crossed over his chest, wearing his ever-present scowl. “Some flecking Nookas already came sniffing around Rex’s room.”

Fenix wrinkled his nose. I stared at my hands clasped between my knees. What I had to say next wouldn’t go over well, but I knew they’d come around to my way of thinking. Eventually. “Which proves my point that I was going to make. She can’t stay here.”

The room went quiet. I didn’t even hear breathing. Mikko stared at his boots, Z still found the ceiling interesting, and Fenix blinked at me like I’d just taken away his favorite food. His chair scraped the floor as he readjusted and scooted closer to me. “Do you mean she can’t stay on Blazen or on this planet?” he asked carefully.

I glanced up at Mikko. He didn’t meet my gaze. Neither did Z. They knew I was right, even if they didn’t like it.

“This is no place for her to live,” I explained to a very devastated Fenix. “Fleck, it’s no place for us to live either. But she didn’t choose this.”

“We didn’t choose this either,” Mikko spat.

“But we have chosen to stay.” I smacked my palm on my thigh for emphasis. “We’ve chosen missions with dangers we all agreed on. We all know Blazen could be discovered at any time, and if the Plikens attacked with their entire force, we’d be overpowered. She’d be taken. They were going to give her to a Bavil, for fleck’s sake.”

The room fell silent again. Fenix scratched at his scales, the pain constantly lurking in his eyes now prominent. He needed a hit of Kixx and was likely waiting until he could be alone. Even though we all knew he depended on the pain killer, he refused to take it in front of us, ashamed of his addiction. “So, what are you going to do?” he asked.

“We don’t have the ability to take her back to Earth,” Mikko kicked a nearby table. “Where in the Rinian galaxy would she even be safe?”

It would be a daunting task to get her off this planet, let alone find a place where she’d be safe and protected.

“Home.” The one word sounded so foreign that for a moment I thought I imagined it until I realized who had spoken. Zecri slowly rose to a sitting position and turned his head. Our eyes met. Held. He inclined his head when he spoke again. “You take her home.”

My cora pounded in my ears, nearly drowning out his voice. “Z.” My voice went hoarse. “I can’t go home.”

“I know.” He spoke only those two words, but they held so much weight and meaning that I felt them strike me like fists. “But this wouldn’t be about you. This would be for her.”

A heavy weight descended on my chest, and I struggled to breathe. Faces I hadn’t let myself imagine for tens of cycles flashed in my mind. Proud Drixonian warriors I once called brothers. But now… I wasn’t sure we even shared the same blood anymore. Mine was tainted, wicked, and filthy. Damaged beyond repair.

“He’s right.” Mikko slumped on the furs next to Z. “Take her to Torin. Find Dazeem and Saxus. They’ll care for her—”

I lifted a hand to ward him off as the burning in my blood made my head reel. Sometimes the Rage wasn’t brought on by my anger, but instead by a deep-seated pain of injustice that made me mindless with the need to destroy. I could feel it rising up my throat, threatening to choke me, as a searing pain speared through my temples.

Fenix’s voice cut through the fire like an ice shard. He knew I was close, and he refused to let the Rage take me, not twice in one day. A hand rested on my shoulder, grounding me. Words filtered through the crimson haze. “You’re safe, Rex. Right here with us. Just me, Mikko, and Zecri. You have a female to depend on you now too. A pretty human. You can’t lose it. Not now. Come on. Come back.”

Every time, the Rage got harder to hold back. But with Fenix’s words in my ear, I opened my eyes to the clear vision of Mikko crouched in front of me, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Rex? You back?”

“Sorry,” I rasped. A jug of qua appeared in front of my face. I took it from Zecri, who stood behind Mikko, sympathy lurking in his eyes. Around these three I felt safe and free of judgement. It was why the thought of returning home filled me with overwhelming dread. There were ways off this planet. They were dangerous, but doable. None of us had tried.

In fact, we’d never had the discussion because there were reasons each of us preferred to remain on Vixlicin. I didn’t want my blood brothers to see me like this, a deformed version of the warrior I’d been, and I thought my remaining life was better spent flecking up some Plikens. Fenix was insecure about his memory loss and dependency on Kixx. Mikko was biding his time until he could destroy the Pit. And Zecri… well his reasons were the saddest of all of us.

None of us were proud of what we’d been turned into: Experiments of the Uldani who sought to turn us into super soldiers—and in Zecri’s case, a super breeder—and instead, turned us into defects.

But Zecri was right, and as I gazed at the faces of my friends; I knew they agreed with him. Daisy would be safe with my brothers and the backing of hundreds of Drixonian warriors. She’d be cared for. Maybe she’d even find a mate...

My nails extended and dug into my leg at the thought of her with a male. A male who wasn’t me. The pain grounded me, and I took a few breaths before dropping the qua jug at my feet with a thunk. “You’re right, Z.”

Fenix slumped forward and placed his head in his hands. He scrubbed his face before meeting my eyes with a resigned nod. After getting similar nods from Mikko and Zecri, I leaned back in my chair and placed my palms on my thighs. “That’s settled then.” My voice sounded hollow. “I guess I’m going home.”

FIVE

Daisy

The alien standing in front of me was a healer, according to Rex. He waddled into the room on squat legs carrying a tray on his four arms. He wore a dress-type article of clothing over his bulbous body and stretched his thin lips at me into what I assumed was a smile.

“I’m Baki,” he said in a warbling voice my translator implant didn’t seem to like. “And you are a human,” he said with glee, his tongue skimming the back of his blunt, black teeth. “I haven’t seen one in many cycles.”

“My name is Daisy.” I sat cross-legged on the bed, loathe to get out of the furs. I’d woken up alone, but after using the expeller and munching on some leftover food, I’d been joined by Rex and his healer.

Baki ignored me and slathered the cuts on my neck with a cream before wrapping a clean bandage around them. Then he picked up an instrument which he proceeded to poke at the bruise on my arm. “This is an injury.”

Rex, standing stiff beside the bed, immediately bent and placed two massive fists near my thigh to stare intently at the bruise. “Will it heal? What does she need?”

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “It’s just a bruise.”

He didn’t look at me and instead stared at Baki. “What do you know of bruises?”

Baki looked at me. “She needs rest.”

“I don’t need rest for bruises—”

“How long? We need to travel soon.”

“A few yoras and her bruising should be minor.”

“Okay, hold up,” I slapped my palm on the furs, which made an ineffectual sound that ruined my dramatic moment. “First of all, where are we traveling? And second of all, bruises take weeks to heal, but—”

“Weeks!” Rex looked positively enraged.

Okay, this was going downhill fast. I turned to Baki. “Hi, hello, Mr. Baki. Um, can you leave me and Rex for a moment?”

“Leave you?”

“Yeah, just… go. Out.” I made a shooing motion at which Baki fluttered his lips. He made no motion to leave.

“Go,” Rex barked at him, the sound startling me.

Baki picked up his tray in a hurry and waddled back to the door. After a quick hiss, the doors opened and shut, leaving Rex and I alone. He paced with his hands fisted at his side, hair flowing behind him in a way that was utterly distracting. I waved a hand to get his attention. “Rex?”

“I’m sorry you are injured.” He didn’t stop pacing. “I had no idea you’d take that long to heal—”

“Rex, babe, can I talk here?”

He stopped so abruptly that he almost fell over. “Babe? What is this word?”

I hadn’t even meant to say it. It just slipped out. But now I had to explain, and I couldn’t lie to him. I fidgeted as I spelled it out for him, feeling my cheeks heating. “No, I, um, it’s what human women call a hot guy.”

His frowned fiercely. “A hot… what? Sickness hot?” He puffed out his chest and pounded it with a fist. “But I’m well.”

“No, no,” I rushed to say. “I mean hot as in attractive. An attractive guy, er, male.”

At this, he went very still, so still that his chest didn’t even move. “I am an attractive male?”

Now this was getting ridiculous. If he were any guy at home, I’d think he just needed an ego stroke, but Rex clearly looked extremely confused. How did they measure beauty standards in his culture? Because he was gorgeous—big purple eyes, high cheekbones, and a square jaw. This body was… well, he was straight out of a Men’s Health magazine. Muscled chest with abs on abs on abs. “Um, yes, babe. You are an attractive male.” I twirled my fingers. “Look, we can revisit that later. Can we rewind to the whole bruising thing?”

He still looked confused, but he didn’t say anything, so I kept talking. “Okay, so Baki seems nice, but I don’t think he knows much about human anatomy. I’ve lived with this body for thirty-three years so I’m pretty keen on knowing what’s going on. First of all, bruises are normal. Heck, I got a bruise in the cleanser because I knocked my knee against the wall.”

His angry gaze darted to the cleanser like he intended to incinerate it for daring to exist.

I soldiered on. “They will slowly fade but it can take a while. And that’s okay. Nothing’s broken. What’s most important is that I eat and drink water… or qua. And get rest. Other than that, I’m okay.”

His gaze had returned to me, but he still didn’t speak.

“D-do you understand?”

He jerked his chin in a nod. “I do.”

“So… can you tell me more about this traveling thing? Where are we going? How will we get there? Can we take any sightseeing detours? Are there snacks?”

He sat down on the edge of the furs with his back to me and braced his forearms on his bent knees. “I have to take you to my home.”

I was glad to hear this was not his home. I’d been trying to be positive, but this place was kind of a dump. “Oh, so … that’s good.” When he didn’t answer, I leaned around to see his face. “Right?”

His expression was shuttered. “I need to explain some things about who I am and where I’m from.”

I shifted until I was sitting closer to him with my knees touching the outside of his thigh. This way, I could see his face when he talked rather than the back of his head. “Okay, I’m listening.” I clasped my hands in my lap and waited.

He stared at his palms as he rubbed them together. “I’m a Drixonian Warrior from planet Corin,” he began. “We were prosperous as the females of our race ran our councils while the males defended us from invaders. At an early age, males are trained in battle, and we were highly successful in protecting our way of life because of that. Except we weren’t trained to fight an airborne enemy. A virus struck us down, killing all our female and most of our elder males. We were left with nothing… our entire civilization was in chaos. With no females we had… no hope for the future.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, my heart aching at the pain dripping from his words.

“The Uldani from our sister planet Torin offered some stability for the remaining young warriors who were left alive. We traveled to their planet where we worked as bodyguards and soldiers. We always intended to return home until we realized the Uldani had destroyed our ships and trapped us there—and that they were stealing warriors to experiment on in order to breed us.”

My mouth dropped open. “Wait, experimenting… like how?”

“At the time we found out about the experiments, we thought the end result was the deaths of our warriors. We didn’t know they were also experimenting in other ways. Not until we started the Uprising to free ourselves from the Uldani. During one battle, I was gravely injured. When I woke up, I was an Uldani prisoner and I was not … myself.”

My gaze drifted to the healing wounds on his back where his wings had emerged. And I began to feel sick. “How so?”

He lifted his head, and the myriad emotions swirling in his purple gaze sent my heart racing and my stomach churning. “They tried to turn us into super soldiers. I was given wings, a split tail and…” he stuck his tongue out and I gasped.

I hadn’t noticed his tongue before. Maybe because he talked so quietly and didn’t open his mouth wide. But now I could clearly see he had a split tongue. He wiggled both ends, which moved independently, and I had the wildly inappropriate thought he could easily tie a cherry stem into a knot. But God, for this to be done to him without his consent? I wanted to throw up. “Rex…” I whispered.

“But I’m not a successful experiment. It’s very painful to use my wings. My skin splits open every time and then reheals until I need to use them again. I—” he fell silent, his teeth clicking together. He looked like he wanted to say more, but only shook his head. “When they realized I wasn’t what they had in mind, they sold me to the Plikens. I was collared and caged, forced to fight in an arena just like that one for many cycles, until I killed my owner and escaped.”

As I sat stunned, he went on to explain that Mikko, Fenix, and Zecri were all failed experiments of these Uldani people—who sounded like absolutely monsters—who were then sold as disposable to the Plikens. Now that they’d all escaped from under Pliken rule, they lived here, with other former property of the Plikens.

“I can’t keep you safe here forever,” he explained. “So, I have no other choice but to take you home where rest of the living Drixonian warriors will protect you.”

“I don’t understand.” I shifted closer and touched the back of his hand. His gaze dropped there immediately. “Why would they protect me?”

His eyes met mine. “We are Drixonian warriors. Our creed is She is All. Females are meant to be protected and cherished.”

I winced. “But I’m not Drixonian…”

“It doesn’t matter.”

So, he was being kind to me out of duty. That made more sense even if it did send an odd pang through my heart. “And why … why aren’t you home then?” I gestured around the room. “Instead of here.”

“I have reasons to stay here. Missions to accomplish. I will take you home, but I will not stay.”

That made my heart kick up. “You’re going to leave me?” I couldn’t help the elevated pitch in my voice.

“You will be safe with my brothers, Daisy.”

In such a short time, he’d come to mean safety to me. I couldn’t imagine living in this galaxy without him. “But I feel safest with you. You saved me from that awful place. You’ve taken care of me.” Didn’t he see I wanted him, not his brothers or his creed? Tears pricked at my eyes.

His expression, normally stoic and reserved slipped a moment to gentle, the hard lines around his mouth softening. He leaned closer, and the corners of his lips tilted up ever so slightly into the beginnings of a smile. His calloused hand drifted down my cheek. “I won’t leave you until I know you feel safe. How’s that?”

I grazed the back of his fingers with my own. I didn’t like the idea, not at all, and all I could do was nod. I’d latch onto his leg if he tried to leave. They’d have to pry me off.

His fingers curled around mine and our clasped hands dropped to the furs between us. “I wish I could take you to your home.”

I couldn’t think about my family right now. I’d mourn them over time. “Me too.”

“Did you sleep well? Do you need more food?”

“I’m fine. Did you eat? Did you sleep?”

His lips tilted up further, and his eyes glowed. “Are you worried about me?”

“Yes.”

“I’m fine.” He blinked at me and then blurted out. “Babe.” Surprised at the term, I laughed, and the sudden sound made him jump. He frowned. “Did I just call you an attractive male?”

I shook my head and patted his thigh. “No, it’s a universal term. Gender non-conforming. I can be a babe too.”

Seemingly satisfied with himself, he nodded definitively. “You are a babe then.”

Rex

I wanted to do nothing but sit in the furs and watch Daisy speak. I loved the sound of her voice as it rose and fell with different pitches. She rushed some words and others she spoke slowly. Her features twisted and shifted to display all her emotions. Clean and fed, she was radiant, brightening up my dingy room.

As I ate, she chattered about her life on Earth. She fretted over the health of her mother’s aging pet—something she called a goldendoodle. She talked about her brother and sister, who she missed very much. But instead of the sad leaking from her eyes—which she called tears—she spoke of them happily, saying while she was sad she wouldn’t get to see them again, she was glad she’d grown up with caring siblings.

I didn’t think of things that way. I’d spent most of my life angry about the virus, which had struck shortly after I was born. I was the youngest of the Bakut brothers, and I didn’t remember my parents, who Dazeem and Saxus talked about fondly.

Then I’d been angry about what the Uldani had done to us. I’d fought during the Uprising proudly under the direction of my oldest brother, Dazeem. Until I’d been taken, altered, and cast off like trash.

“What are your brothers like?” Her voice cut into my thoughts and the tein bar in my mouth, which already tasted stale, turned to ash on my tongue. I swallowed the lump of flavorless food and glanced up at Daisy.

She had spread a fur on the ground and was doing some sort of stretching, which she called yoga. Right now, she stood on one leg, her other foot tucked flat on her inner thigh, and her hands folded together in front of her chest. She said the slanted floor only made the exercise harder, but she was determined to try.

I avoided even thinking about my brothers, so her question caught me off guard. I didn’t have my usual mental defenses in place, and before I could throw them up, a flood of images flashed behind my eyes. Dazeem, barely older than a chit himself, holding my hand as we walked onto the Uldani transport to take us to Torin. My other brother Sax, usually full of jokes and laughter, somber as he held a tiny, just born Drixonian male whose mother passed away right after his birth. She’d named him Hap before the virus took her.

Dazeem protected me while teaching me the honorable ways of a Drixonian warrior. He’d refused to let our customs fade, and he’d been the one at my side when I’d received my first piercings. The balls in my tongue had been ripped out by the Uldani, but the other—in my nostrils and on my cock—remained as the sign of my coming of age as a warrior. I’d endured the pain, and my brother had been proud. I’d only ever wanted to make Daz proud.

I spoke, despite my sore throat and my deformed tongue thick and foreign in my mouth. “Dazeem is a good leader. Wise and strong. He’s my oldest brother, and he acts as though all Drix are his brothers. We are all family to him. Saxus is…” he’d been my best friend. We were close in age, and Daz said while I was a serious chit, Sax could always get me to lighten up. “Sax likes to have fun. He can make anyone laugh.”

Daisy had switched positions, and now she stood with her feet braced apart, knees bent, arms out straight at her sides. “They are kind like you?”

At the question, I lifted my head. “They are better than me.”

She slowly straightened to stand with her hands hanging loosely at her sides. “Well, I guess I’ll be the judge of that.” Dropping to her knees, she then bent over, arms flat on the floor stretched out in front of her with her head facing the floor. She arched her back, and I stared, unable to look away from the enticing curves of her hips and backside. I imagined kneeling in back of her, stripping her pants down to her ankles, and licking her sweet cunt until she screamed.

Shame rose inside of me, swift and choking, and I looked away. Even if Daisy ever granted me permission to touch her, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. My ruined tongue couldn’t bring her pleasure, not without the piercings and flat surface. I wouldn’t touch her with the evidence of my deformities.

Daisy wasn’t for me. She would be safe with Drixonians who were whole with minds that weren’t cracking under pressure. That was another reason for us to leave as soon as possible. The longer we waited, the greater the risk of the Rage taking over. I didn’t trust myself around her like that. While I’d rescued her under the Rage, there’d still been a bit of me left. But if I were completely consumed, would I hurt her? Every time I slipped under the haze of Rage, I came back less and less myself.

“Rex?” I glanced up to see Daisy standing in front of me. Very close. A drop of liquid slid down her temple, and I caught it with my finger. Bringing it to my mouth, I licked it. Salty. It tasted like the freshas back home, and for a moment, I could hear the waves crashing. “Are these tears?” I asked.

She wrinkled her nose. “Ew, did you just taste my sweat?”

“Sweat?”

“Do you not sweat?”

“I don’t know this word.”

She flopped down on the furs next to me. “Humans sweat to regulate our body temperature. I was hot from the yoga, so my body released some moisture.”

“Our scales lift to vent, so we don’t overheat.”

She touched my biceps with a finger, running it over my scales. “And the blades that come from beneath your skin?”

“Our machets.”

“Do all Drixonian have those?”

I nodded. “Only Mikko can eject them from his skin as weapons. He also cannot hide them under his scales like the rest of us.” I let my machets lift up briefly before settling them back under my scales.

Her pretty brown eyes lifted to mine as the corners of her mouth turned down. “The Uldani did that to him?”

“Yes. It is very painful for him to eject his machets.”

Her lips parted on a small gasp. “I wondered about that. When he fought the Plikens… he was bleeding.”

“He was.”

“Fenix can create fire and lob fireballs. What about Zecri?”

“His mods are not battle related.”

She frowned. “What does that mean?”

I hesitated before answering. “I’ll let him tell you if he chooses.”

She shook her head. “That’s okay. He’s allowed his privacy.” She ducked her head and bit her lip. “I’m really sorry all of this happened to you.”

I didn’t like hearing the sadness in her voice. “Without the wings, I might not have been able to save you.”

Her head lifted, and a smile spread across her face. “There you go. That’s a glass half-full attitude.” She lifted her hand up with her palm out. “High five, babe.”

“High ... five?”

She pointed to her palm. “Slap my hand with yours. It’s like… a sign you’re agreeing with me.”

I lifted my hand and smacked our palms together. The thwack echoed around the room, and Daisy yelped before shaking her hand. “Did I hurt you?” I reached for her wrist immediately. “I’m sorry.”

She began laughing as I rubbed her reddened palm. “I’m fine. You just surprised me.”

“What is a glass-half full attitude?”

She blinked at me, and then looked around the room. Spotting something she wanted, she leaned over my lap. Her breasts touched my thighs and I sucked in a breath at the clean smell of her sweat and hair while the warmth of her rounded curves touched me. When she leaned back, I covered the bulge in my pants with my hands.

She held up a jug of qua. “Look at the level of qua in here. You could say it’s half-empty. Or you could say it’s half-full. It’s an Earth expression. Saying a glass is half-full means you’re finding the good in a situation. You’re being positive.” She placed the jug of qua back. “So, while I wish the Uldani never touched you, your wings served a good purpose today.”

They did. They led me to rescuing this ethereal creature who talked of high-fives, smelled like the salty freshas from home, and smiled brighter than the sun.

SIX

Daisy

I felt like I was back in high school, eating lunch in the cafeteria that was separated into cliques, like the football players in one corner and the debate team in the other. Except this cafeteria was full of aliens. All different colors and shapes. Some left a trail of ooze as they walked, and others clomped on hooves.

I was the new kid, the one who spoke a different language and didn’t fit in. Although, the more I looked around, the more I realized no one fit in. That didn’t stop the entire dining area from staring at the newcomer. To them, I was the alien.

Rex led me inside with a hand collared on the back of my neck. If anyone else would have done that, I would have asked them to politely let me go, but I kind of liked Rex’s possessive touch. It meant safety, which was clear as every alien in the room gawked at me until they received a caustic glare from Rex. The room was quiet except for the occasional sound of slurping and a utensil scraping a bowl.

“I don’t like this,” Rex grumbled.

“Everyone already knows she’s here,” Fenix said. He’d been my ally in convincing Rex to let me leave the room. I was going crazy in there with no windows and just four walls with a dirty floor. “Let them see her and fulfill their curiosity.” He lowered his voice. “You’ll be gone tomorrow anyway.”

Tomorrow didn’t actually mean anything to me because I had zero idea of the time of day. All I knew was I’d get to snuggle in the furs another time and that sounded appealing. I was a little scared of leaving, and Rex hadn’t told me much about it, other than he was working on the plans with Fenix, Mikko, and Zecri.

The dining area consisted of several rows of tables with benches on either side all bolted to the floor. Along a far wall, trays were lined up on another table, all the same with colorless food plopped on the top. I could see a few aliens working in a small kitchen behind the table, stirring massive vats and cutting squares from a tray of tein bars.

When I grabbed my tray, the first word that came to mind was gruel. A crude bowl held what looked like a gray porridge. It jiggled when I carried it, like a mass of moldy Jell-O. I held in a gag as we headed to an empty table.

On the bench, Rex and Fenix sandwiched me between them, while Mikko and Zecri took the seats across from us. I stared at my porridge. I didn’t want to insult the guys, but I didn’t think there was any way I could eat it. Was that an eyeball in there? I placed my palm over my mouth and breathed deep as I began to sweat. The warriors didn’t even notice, as they all dug into their meals, shoveling the porridge into their mouths with a spoonula-type utensil.

“Guara,” Mikko muttered. “What I wouldn’t give to bite into one right now.”

They all nodded, like they’d had this conversation before.

“Spirits,” Rex grunted. “Remember Xavy’s home brew?”

“Nothing like it,” Mikko pushed away his empty bowl.

“Any food on Earth you miss?” Zecri asked me. His direct question caught me off guard, as he didn’t talk much, and rarely to me.

“Um,” I stammered. There was so much I wasn’t even sure where to start. “Anything. Everything.” They all stared at me expectantly, so I said the first thing that came to mind. “Pizza.”

“What is pizza?” Rex asked.

“Uh, it’s like… a fruit pie.” That was kind of a stretch, but tomatoes were totally a fruit, and no one was here to argue with me about it. “It’d delicious. My family and I used to have pizza night every Friday… a day of the week. It was a long-standing tradition. I miss that.”

Rex’s eyes darkened, and he stared down at his empty bowl before angrily stabbing at a porridge chunk until it was mush.

“Fizz.” Fenix leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed. “I haven’t had something sweet in so long.”

“Here we go,” Mikko murmured.

“I used to go hunting for fitzee burrows with Sax. Remember? And one time—” Suddenly he stopped and frowned at Rex. “Why are you holding up five fingers?”

I turned to find Rex holding up his hand, all five fingers displayed. “Daisy taught me a new thing.”

Oh no. No, no, no. I didn’t want to be responsible for this. I waved my hands frantically, slicing a thumb across my throat in a universal cut gesture. “Rex, no—”

“She said her people hold up fingers based on how many times they’d heard each other repeat stories. I’m being generous only holding up five.”

I tried again. “Rex—”

“Extremely generous,” Mikko added.

Fenix’s eyes went wide, and his expression froze for a split second before he threw back his head and positively howled with laughter. The rest of the guys joined in, even Mikko laughing loudly, while Rex chuckled, and Zecri broke into an amused grin.

“Rex has found humor again!” Fenix cried, holding his stomach as his shoulders shook. “Amazing.” He met my gaze, his purple eyes liquid and pleased. I’d been so panicked he’d take offense, but instead he beamed at me. “Good job, human Daisy.”

“Well, I—” I cleared my throat and ducked my head, so my hair hid my face as heat bloomed across my cheeks. “Sure. You’re welcome.”

Fenix took a few good-natured jabs at his friends, calling them mother fleckers, and shoving Mikko from across the table.

“But Fenix,” I said, gaining my courage.

He smiled at me warmly. “Yes, human Daisy?”

“I didn’t hear this story about fitzee burrows.”

Fenix’s eyes lit up, and Mikko groaned as he covered his face with his hands. “Just when I was starting to like you, Daisy.”

Rex let out a bark of laughter as Fenix happily launched into his story. “So, this one time…”

Maybe an hour later, I’d been regaled with a story that seemed wholly implausible and based on the reactions of the rest of the Drixonians, ridiculously embellished. I didn’t care. I learned all about an insect on their home planet that gathered the nectar from flowers and lined their burrows with it. After so long, it crystallized into a sweet treat the Drix called fizz. Fenix’s story consisted of near-death experiences where he saved the day numerous times all with a broken leg and head wound before retrieving said treat and delivering a bundle back to his friends.

I didn’t care if Fenix’s story was true or not. It was grand, and he told it with such excitement that for a while, I forgot all about where I was and how my life had changed. I was immersed in the tall tale of Fenix’s heroism.

I knew I’d be forever grateful to him for giving me a mental escape when I so desperately needed one.

When we returned to the room a little while later, Rex let me know it was time to get some rest. My internal clock was all kinds of messed up, but I couldn’t stop yawning, so I wasn’t going to argue about sleeping.

He’d told me he rested a little since we’d returned, and that he didn’t require much sleep, but fatigue rode hard in the creases of his eyes. While the food hadn’t been very appetizing, I was full, and I snuggled under the furs as he created a makeshift bed on the floor beside me.

“You can sleep here with me,” I offered. “There’s plenty of room.”

He paused his movements at the sound of my voice but didn’t look up as he resumed fixing a set of clean furs. “I’m fine here.”

“But—”

“Daisy, I slept bare on a dirt floor for thirty cycles. This feels like a luxury to me.”

When he talked about this time in captivity, my heart cracked. He was so strong, almost larger than life, and to think of him existing as property chilled me to the core. He’d come out the other side, still able to care for another vulnerable creature like me.

After he settled into the furs, he dimmed the lantern light and set it beside his head, so I could see the small flames flickering across his face. Laying on his back with his hands clasped behind his head, he stared at the ceiling. I closed my eyes before he caught me staring.

I was almost asleep when his deep, raspy voice cut through the silence. “Thank you for what you did for Fenix today.”

I blinked my eyes open. “What? What did I do?”

Rex inhaled deeply before answering. “You listened to him.”

“He seemed like he just wanted someone to listen.” I frowned. “Do you not listen to him?”

“We do. But he’s not the only one with troubles and sometimes… we can’t give him what he needs.”

“I’m always available to listen to him tell stories.”

Rex shot me a smirk, which made him seem years younger in the soft light of the lantern. “No matter how much he makes up?”

I smiled. “Even then.”

He nodded before returning his gaze to the ceiling. “That’s good.”

“Why does it mean so much for someone to listen to him?”

Rex remained silent for a long time as his purple eyes glowed. Finally, he swallowed and released a sad sigh. “Because for about thirty cycles, Fenix had only himself to talk to.”

“Thirty—?”

“We can’t change what happened to him, but tonight, you made him happier than I’ve seen him… maybe ever. He’s my friend, my brother, and that means a lot to me.” Purple eyes nailed me to where I lay. “You have a big cora, Daisy. You knew what he needed, and you gave it to him.”

My stomach went funny at the compliment. “And what do you need, Rex?”

A shudder ran through his body, and his eyes closed. Rolling onto his side, he gave me his back, and suddenly the room dropped twenty degrees.

“Rex?”

“Go to sleep, Daisy.”

Feeling rejected but also wanting to respect his privacy, I closed my eyes. Sleep took me within minutes.

I woke to a series of thumps and pained grunts, like a fight. A crash followed, and I scrambled out of my fur cocoon to what looked like chaos. Rex’s makeshift bed was in a tornado of activity. I caught the sight of fists flying. His tail came within inches of knocking the lantern over.

Just when I thought he was being attacked, the top fur cover went flying off, and Rex’s naked body arched on a pained cry.

“No,” he howled, and the one word, so full of agony and sorrow, chilled me to the bone. He was asleep with his eyes screwed shut. The colors of his skin shifted rapidly all over his body, and his machets rippled under his skin like a glitched video game character. It reminded me of that video I saw where an octopus changed color and shapes as she dreamed.

“No!” he cried again, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I refused to let him spend another minute in whatever nightmare this was. I kicked off the covers and scrambled out of bed. Rex continued to thrash on his back, his limbs flailing and his tail whipping about like a live electrical wire.

“Rex!” I shouted, getting as close to him as I dared. My voice didn’t seem to make an impact. His hand clawed at his chest, digging into his scales deep enough that black blood beaded to the surface. He was going to hurt himself if I didn’t stop this. I was aware I could be hurt too but standing by and doing nothing felt cruel.

I waited for my opening, and the next time he went stiff on a cry, I dove onto his chest. Wrapping my arms and legs around him like a monkey, I held on as a grunt left his body from the impact. His chest heaved, and I placed my hand on the back of his neck like I’d seen him do with the other Drix. “Rex,” I spoke clearly. “Wake up. Please.” His chest heaved, and I rose and fell with the movement. His eyes were still closed. “Rex?” I tried again. “Wake up, babe. Please.”

The tension slowly leached from his body until his muscles went lax beneath me, and the cords in his neck softened. Finally, on a deep gasp, his eyes opened. First, he only blinked at the ceiling before he lowered his gaze to stare at me with flat, dead eyes. For a moment, he didn’t seem to comprehend what he was seeing, and then slowly life came to his purple orbs. He blinked again, and the Rex I knew returned to his gaze. “D-Daisy?”

I untangled my limbs from around him and slowly straightened to straddle his lower stomach. “Rex?”

He ran a hand through his tangled hair. “What happened?”

“You were having a nightmare.”

“Sorry I woke you,” he murmured.

“I don’t care about that. You were yelling and thrashing. You sounded like you were in pain—”

“Just a dream,” he scrubbed his hands over his face.

That was more than just a dream. “Do you have those often?”

He finally met my eyes. “I do.”

“Rex—”

“I’m used to them. I barely remember when I wake up.”

His hands settled on my bare thighs. I only wore a large shirt and a piece of fabric I’d fashioned into underwear. I also remembered belatedly that he was naked. And a quick glance over my shoulder confirmed he was packing—a thick, blue dick with a ring pierced through the tip that made my inner walls clench. His anatomy was quite human-like expect for a curious node that rested at the top base of his cock.

“How long do you plan to stare at my cock, Daisy?” I whirled around to find him smiling at me, his eyes sparkling. “Maybe the nightmares are worth it if I get to wake up with your skin touching mine.”

My hands rested on his ridged abs, and only a small scrap of fabric separated us. I shifted nervously, feeling wetness begin to grow between my legs. His fingers dug into my thighs for a brief moment before he seemed to force himself to let me go. Sadness tinged his smile. “You can go back to sleep now.”

Mortified, I ducked my head and climbed off of him. I shuffled my way back to my furs but the heat of his body, and the feel of him beneath my palms stayed with me. He was just so… real.

I crawled into bed, and now it was my turn to give him my back, mostly because I didn’t know what to say. Maybe I should have stayed in my bed, because now my head swam with his presence.

“Thank you from saving me from my nightmares.” His sincere voice cut through my fretting and warmed my blood. “Babe.”

I fell asleep smiling.

Rex

After Daisy fell back asleep, I used the cleanser and pulled on a pair of pants, fastening the belt over the top of my tail. My cock remained hard, and I grimaced as I struggled to get comfortable in clothing. I could still feel the heat of her cunt on my groin. Just a slight movement, and I would have ripped that fabric covering her and plunged into her sweet heat.

I’d never wanted anything as badly as I wanted Daisy. Despite how I ached to mate her, I knew I could never do it. How would my mind handle the release of my seed? Would the Rage take over? Would I hurt her?

I knew what my nightmares were like, and even Mikko disliked rousing me when I was in the throes of one. I’d whacked him good in the face once, and his eye had swollen shut. She could have been seriously hurt, but she’d thrown her fragile little body on me in order to save me from the images of my past that haunted me in my sleep.

My human slept peacefully with her lips slightly parted and her cheeks a pretty pink in the lantern light. Such a big cora, so much like the Drixonian females, most of whom I didn’t remember. But my brothers made sure I knew how special our mother was—she was selfless and smart with a sense of humor. So much like Daisy.

I let her sleep and left the room, happy to find Jutaro guarding the door. I left him there and made my way through Blazen to Mikko’s room. I found him awake drinking a mug of qua with Zecri while Fenix told an animated story. He glanced up as I walked inside. “Is Daisy all right?”

“She’s fine. Sleeping.”

Mikko lounged on a chair, his legs stretched out in front of him. “How do you feel about tomorrow?”

We’d been working on plans the last few rotations, and while I was confident in them, there were still many variables that could cause problems—namely, my Rage. “I feel optimistic.” I sank into a chair next to him and poured myself some qua from the jug. I wished it were some of Xavy’s spirits.

“Never thought all those czens we stole over the cycles would be put to use,” Fenix said.

On Vixlicin, currency didn’t matter much to us. We weren’t considered inhabitants who could stroll into a market and purchase anything. We stole what food we needed or made it ourselves. So, we had a stockpile of czens that we’d collected over time, and now we’d finally get some use out of it.

“You remember where to go on Rinian II?” Zecri asked.

I nodded. “The saluma section.” Daisy and I wouldn’t have proper traveling documents, which was required to board any spacecraft leaving the station. We had to find those who were willing to sneak us on board… for the right price.

“Be prepared to have to pay in something other than czens,” he said.

I hoped offering physical labor would be enough. I could load cargo, make spacecraft repairs. I’d do just about anything to ensure safe travel for me and Daisy. “I know.”

Fenix rose from his chair and retrieved a bag from the corner of the room. The clanking inside sent a chill down my spine, and I knew I wasn’t the only one. Mikko glared daggers at the bag, and Zecri’s stoic expression shifted to a pained wince before he turned away.

Placing the bag on my lap, Fenix sat back on his chair. “I hope this will suffice.”

I untied the string and peered inside. The glint of metal made sick, and just the thought of placing such an object around Daisy’s neck had my vision reddening. I swallowed and retied the string before the anger had a chance to take hold. “It will. Thank you. I know this wasn’t what you wanted to make.”

He shrugged, but his shoulders were stiff. “I’m sorry it’s necessary. But we all know a human will already draw attention on Rinian II, let alone an uncollared one.”

I’d have to play the part of her owner, and she’d have to be… my property. I hadn’t discussed this with her yet, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. I hoped she trusted me.

I shot my friends a look. “Will you miss me?”

“Not at all,” Mikko scoffed.

Zecri rolled his eyes at Mik but gave me a chin lift. Fenix stared at his gloved hands. “Of course, brother.”

“I’ll be back soon,” I assured him. “You won’t even realize I’m gone.”

Fenix lifted his eyes to me, and something in them sent a sliver of dread down my spine. He quickly covered it up with a smile. “You’re right. And when you return, we will celebrate your accomplishments as an honorable Drixonian warrior.”

His words, meant to encourage, fell a little flat as I stared at my clawed hands. I knew I’d do anything for Daisy’s safety, but was everything I could do enough?

SEVEN

Daisy

As we stood outside Blazen, the red sand stinging my bare arms as the wind swirled it around us, I considered telling Rex again that staying at Blazen was all right with me. We’d already had this discussion, and he’d shut me down. Fast. While he’d been open to listening to me about my own body, my opinions on our future plans were not to be considered.

I took slight offense, but then I’d only had a slight taste of all this red planet had to offer and it’d been a nightmare. Rex knew more about what else could happen to me here the longer I stayed. So his plan it was, which required us to traipse across a deadly planet, sneak aboard a spacecraft, dock at a space station, and then barter passage on another craft to take us to the remainder of the Drixonian race.

Yes, that was the plan. It was a doozy.

Well, I was being a little hard on him. He’d listened quietly to my suggestion to stay, but it was clear his mind was made up. He thought about everything I said, because I could see him working it out behind those expressive purple eyes. They were the only expressive thing on his face, as most of the time he kept his expression carefully neutral, as if he feared one little muscle slip would drop the mask of stoicism. But he’d informed me of all the reasons it wouldn’t work and I knew I just… had to trust him.

We stood near a hover ATV he called a buzzer, which he’d loaded with supplies. All around me, as far as I could see, was nothing but red sand. Not a building or tree in sight. Just a desolate wasteland of redness. I shuddered.

“I can come with you,” Mikko was saying, as he stood in front of us along with Fenix and Zecri. “Just until you reach the dock.”

Rex shook his head. “This is my mission. She’s my responsibility.”

Something like guilt passed over Mikko’s face as his gaze flicked to me then back to Rex before he murmured, “I care about her safety too.”

“I know,” Rex acknowledged. “But I can handle getting to the dock myself. One buzzer won’t draw too much attention. And you, my brother, always manage to draw lots of attention.”

He smirked. “It’s my pretty face.”

“No, it’s your loudmouth.” Fenix rolled his eyes.

“Keep them from killing each other while I’m gone,” Rex said to Zecri.

The quiet alien’s eyes crinkled. “I’ll do my best.”

“Did you grab the med bag?” Fenix asked. “I saw it sitting near the cleanser before we left.”

Rex turned and dug in the buzzer compartment with a frown. “I don’t see it. I’ll run inside and get it.” He turned to me hesitantly as if he didn’t like the thought of leaving me.

“I’ll be fine,” I assured him. “Your friends will fight any big bads who try to snatch me in the next five minutes.”

With a frown on his face, he hurried into the open doors of Blazen. Immediately, the three Drixonians turned on me with determination on their faces. Well, on Fenix’s and Mikko’s. Zecri’s expression didn’t change much, just focused on me with his intense purple eyes. Fenix spoke hurriedly. “We need to tell you something about Rex—”

“It’s important,” Mikko rushed out.

“The things is—”

“Don’t be scared though.”

“Shut up and let me tell her!” Fenix growled. The two shoved at each other like middle schoolers before Zecri pushed them apart. He spoke over them as they fell silent at being chastised. “Rex has a split tongue, tail, and personality.”

I sucked in a breath. I knew he had a split tail and tongue but… personality? His hulking fighting form came to mind, and my stomach twisted as Zecri continued in low, even tones. “He is not well, and this likely will be his last mission. He knows this and we know this, even if we all pretend it’s not true.”

His last mission? I cocked my head. “You mean you don’t think he’ll return? He’ll stay with me?” I heard the hope in my voice, and so did the Drixonians because Fenix let out a loud sigh as he scrubbed his gloved hands together in obvious agitation.

“No,” Mikko said with a tight jaw. “We mean his last mission he’ll ever complete, because he’s dying,”

Dying? White noise roared in my ears. “I don’t understand…”

“The Rage took over when he rescued you. You know, the red eyes. The increased size. Killing instinct.” Fenix blinked his orange hair out of his eyes. “But every time he lets the Rage take control, he has a hard time bringing himself back. And when he’s in the Rage…” he glanced at his brothers, “he can be unpredictable. He’s not himself.”

My head spun. Rage? Pulling himself back? What did they mean? “How … how’s he dying?”

Zecri reaching into a slim front pocket of his pants and withdrew a small white envelope. “If he lets the Rage take control, and loses himself to it permanently, then please get this powder anywhere near him. He just has to taste it or inhale it.”

Fenix glanced over his shoulder at Blazen before leaning in closer to me. “Promise us. He won’t want to live if he’s controlled by the Rage. And he would rather die than hurt you.”

I stood dumbstruck as Zecri pressed the envelope into my limp hand. I still didn’t understand fully. “What is this?” I tilted the envelope and listened to the powder shift inside.

Fenix’s eyes were dark and devastated. “Please, human Daisy. He’s a good warrior. The best. He doesn’t deserve what was done to him.”

I swallowed. “None of you do.”

Mikko huffed and looked away, his jaw muscle twitching. His machets vibrated, and I took a hesitant step back until he walked a few paces away, staring into the distance with his back to us.

“No,” Zecri said softly, his gaze on his friend’s spiked spine. “We don’t.”

Rex emerged from Blazen, holding a small satchel, and the three warriors completely changed posture and blanked their expressions. Fenix stepped back while Mikko returned to stand in front with us, his arms crossed over his chest and his gaze downcast.

The tension in the air was thick. I figured there was no way Rex wouldn’t notice and my suspicions were confirmed when his eyes narrowed immediately under his nubbed brows. He studied me closely as he stepped into my personal space “Are you okay?”

I lost all my acting skills in the face of an unprecedented situation. “Fine,” I squeaked.

He turned to Fenix who seemed the easiest target. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Fenix answered casually, apparently a better actor than me. He nodded at the bundle in Rex’s hands. “Did you find the med pack?”

Rex didn’t seem to buy his answer as he watched him suspiciously, but he let the topic drop and shoved the med pack inside the buzzer compartment. “Yes, we’re ready now.”

The breeze blew through his long hair as he stood in front of his friends. For a moment, no one spoke, but an odd mix of emotions hung in the air like mist. Sadness. Regret. Pride. I felt like an outsider. I couldn’t imagine the bond between these four warriors who had been through so much together.

Rex reached for Fenix, and at first, I thought they’d embrace, but instead they clasped the back of each other’s necks and touched foreheads. They remained like that for a while, talking quietly to each other. I didn’t hear their words, and when they broke apart, Fenix kept his head down with his shoulders rounded forward. Next was Zecri, and while he and Rex didn’t exchange words, they stared into each other’s eyes with a silent communication.

Last was Mikko, who seemed to struggle with the gesture. But when he gave in and clamped his hand on the back of Rex’s neck, his fingers dug in, holding strong to his friend. They really thought they wouldn’t see each other again, and that only made my head spin as the minor weight of the envelope in my pocket felt like fifty pounds.

I didn’t want to be the reason for these outcasts to be separated. But my protest died on my lips when Mikko said in a strong rasp, “This is an honorable mission for a Drixonian warrior. Your brothers will be proud.”

Rex shook his head at the words and broke from Mikko’s strong hold. He then held his arms in front of him crossed at the wrist like I’d seen him do before battling the Plikens. “She is All.” He spoke in a reverent tone, and the three warriors standing in front of him immediately snapped to attention with straightened spines as they made the same gesture in response. “She is All.”

Rex dropped his arms. “Be safe, brothers. If Fatas sees fit, we’ll meet again.” After that, he directed me to sit behind him on the buzzer. He flipped a switch, and the vehicle rumbled below us before rising in the air, sending billows of red sand around us. Then we were off, and I glanced back until the three warriors were nothing but blue dots among a sea of crimson.

Rex had told me the plan. Of course, I’d understood about twenty-five percent of it. We were to sneak aboard an aircraft heading to the Rinian II space station. From there, we’d barter passage to a planet called Torin where we’d then meet up with Rex’s brothers.

I’d asked Rex why all this was necessary, and he’d told me over and over again that this planet would never be safe for me. The ship where they lived was constantly under threat of being discovered and invaded, and he didn’t trust anyone there not to sell me out. Apparently, a human, even one who’d been gladiator fodder, was worth too much to keep quiet.

With my arms wrapped around Rex’s thick waist, I tilted my face toward the sun. The warmth felt nice on my skin, especially as the rushing air had cooled me considerably. I had just felt myself relax when a thin, fast shadow passed over us. I couldn’t recognize the shape, but a moment later, something wrapped around me, constricting my arms to my chest. I opened my mouth to call out to Rex when a vicious yank from behind propelled me backward off the bike. The air left my lungs in a rush, preventing me from screaming. Rex and the buzzer continued on ahead, and for a moment I hung in the air. But then just as suddenly, I dropped. My back hit the ground first, jarring my entire body as my spine lit up with pain. I gasped as my head slammed into the red dirt. My vision blacked out for a moment.

I glanced down, blinking through my blurry vision to see that my arms were cinched to my body with rope. I craned my neck back to see a squad of Plikens racing away from me. Why were they running? And then with dawning horror, I realized the Pliken in the rear held the other end of my rope. The rope, which had been slack on the sand, went taut and what little air I’d been able to inhale was gone as the rope tightened around my arms right before I was dragged helplessly through the sand.

Barely able to breathe, I tried to scream. Where was Rex? White-hot pain flared down my back as my shirt rode up, exposing my skin to the harsh sand. This was my worst nightmare. Didn’t they know this could kill me? Sand filled my mouth, my nose, and my eyes. I coughed and gagged, desperately heaving for oxygen but all I got was a mouthful of sand.

Even my ears were clogged because I couldn’t hear anything over my own harsh breaths. Not until I detected a faint buzzing over my raspy cries. The sound grew louder and louder and then a roaring howl of anger lit up the dessert, piercing through the fog of my own misery. I peered through the grit in my eyes to see a dark shadow pass over me. A familiar one. I’d seen it before when it rescued me from the arena.

Wings flapped. The taut rope around my chest went slack, and I came to a rest in the sand. I immediately rolled onto all fours and spit out mouthfuls of sand, gasping for all the breath I could inhale into my lungs. Screams and cries reached my ears. I lifted my head, still panting, to take in the scene before me.

It was carnage.

Rex was in full Rage mode. His eyes glowed a demon red as he hacked at the Pliken squad with his forearm blades and gored them with the spikes on his head and spine. His tail was another extension of him, punishing the aliens with vicious whips. Metal barbs on the split ends tore into flesh, darkening the sand with blood.

I shrugged myself out of the rope and found the end laying a few feet away, sliced cleanly. The alien who’d held the other end now lay headless and handless in the sand, eyes starring sightlessly up at the sky.

Rex finished off the last Pliken, but he wasn’t finished, his back heaving and his spikes dripping with blood as he leaned back and roared a victory cry into the sky. I stumbled toward him, careful not to step on bodies. As I drew a few feet away, he whirled around with bared teeth.

I went solid at the sight of him. Rex wasn’t there. Not in those red eyes. They swirled with rage and pain. His fangs were elongated, dripping with saliva as his lips curled back like a lion.

Fear plunged my heart into ice on a steaming hiss. I swallowed as Rex stalked toward me, one massive foot in the other, his clawed hands curled and dripping with blood. “Rex,” I whispered as he drew close, those massive black wings still extended and blotting out the sun. Without the heat, without Rex, I was so very cold.

Nothing in those eyes showed recognition at his name. My mind spun with what his friends had told me. This couldn’t be it, could it? He’d been himself just a moment ago. He had to come back. He just… had to.

His clawed hand reached for my throat, and I went completely still, staring into his eyes as I willed them to turn purple. “Rex,” I called again, my voice weakened with fear. I cleared my throat and tried again, louder, and stronger this time. “Rex! It’s me, Daisy.”

Nothing, not as those thick fingers wrapped around my throat and the claws dug into my skin. Any more pressure and he’d slice into my flesh, my veins. I’d bleed out on this sand just like the Plikens around us.

“Rex,” I pleaded as tears burned my eyes. “Please, babe. It’s me.”

The curl of his fingers stopped, and he froze solid. He didn’t blink. Or breathe. Just when I thought I was going to break down from the uncertainty, a drop of black blood beaded in the corner of his left eye and slid down his nose. His eyes went white a moment before they flashed to purple. His legs buckled, and he fell to the sand on one knee, catching himself with a fist planted in the sand.

Heaving, he folded his wings into his back, where large gashes in his scales remained and blood dripped down his ribcage. His body swayed, and I didn’t know if I should make a move or not. I slowly reached out a tentative hand and placed it on his shoulder. At my touch, his body shuddered, and he lifted his head. Purple irises met mine.

This time, my legs gave out from under me, and I hit the sand with a thud, relief turning my muscles to goo. Rex reached for me, but all I could see was his unsheathed claws, which had seconds ago been around my neck. I flinched away on instinct, and he went still and pale.

“Why—?” Suddenly his purple eyes went wide as his gaze dropped to my neck. I lifted a hand to my throat, and the skin felt hot. Indents from his claws ran the length of the sides. His breath hitched and he swallowed heavily. “Did I—?” With a keening cry, he slumped over, cradling his head in his hands.

The sound cut through me like nails on a chalkboard. I hadn’t meant to flinch, but I couldn’t help it. “Rex, it’s okay. I’m fine. You were…” I let my voice trail off. What had he been? I didn’t know what to say. In the arena, he hadn’t heard me, he’d saved me, but this time… his Rage had been something worse, something lost. I trusted this Rex, the one with purple eyes and compassion and remorse. I didn’t trust that red-eyed creature who had almost snapped my neck.

I laid a tentative hand on Rex’s back, but he jerked away from my touch, his hand out to ward me off. “Don’t,” he gasped. “I hurt you, didn’t I? Those marks on your neck … are from me?”

I thought for a moment about lying, but this moment seemed too big. He needed to know the truth. So, I nodded, and he made that awful sound again, this time rearing his head back to send the cry skyward. I let him get it out, to scream at the universe that had done this to him. What was he like before the wings and the red eyes?

There weren’t words to say. For once, I was speechless. I couldn’t make a joke about this. The reality of the situation and the truth of the other Drixonians’s words weighed heavily on my shoulders. The envelope in my pocket burned. Would I really be able to take his life when I knew this wasn’t the life he wanted?

EIGHT

Daisy

Rex pulled a dusty red length of fabric from the buzzer compartment. With a twirl, he unfurled it to reveal a hooded coat that reached the sole of his boots. He fastened it around his neck, and then dressed me in a similar garment. While mine wasn’t as large as it, it was still much too big for me, extending past my hands and dragging on the ground. The color of the rough leather was the same as the sand.

Rex pulled up his hood to hide his white hair. With most of his face in shadow, he could have been mistaken from a distance for a Pliken. He looked positively extra-terrestrial badass, while I probably looked like a kid playing dress up. I wanted to look badass too.

After he’d recovered from the fight—more like massacre—of the Plikens, he’d led me back to the buzzer without a word. He usually kept a hand on me, either on the back of my neck or my arm, but he studiously avoided touching me, and when he directed me to sit in front of him on the buzzer this time, he sat with distance between us.

I felt like I was being punished, even though I knew that wasn’t the case. He was punishing himself, and I knew that no matter what I said, it wouldn’t make a difference how he felt. I had half-heartedly suggested we abandon the mission, and he’d shut that down fast.

I rolled up the sleeves on my too-big coat as Rex pulled a backpack made with the same materials as the coats and loaded it with our supplies. After strapping it to his back under his cape, he adjusted my hood around my face, tucking my hair out of the way. “Your golden strands are a dead giveaway you’re a human.”

He’d called them golden strands, which made my heart skip a beat. I let him fuss over me, and his split tongue peaked out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated. Now he looked like a cute badass. I didn’t think he’d want me to tell him that. When he was like this, I could almost forget about the red-eyed creature he’d been when he’d wrapped his claws around my throat. Because this Rex was caring and protective.

While what parts of the planet I’d seen were overall flat, the land here was pitted with hills and valleys as well as some rocky ridges. Leaving the buzzer behind, we skirted one particular rocky ridge, plodding along at a steady pace—with Rex taking smaller than usual strides so I could keep up—until a structure appeared, plotting out the skyline. Metal ramps and platforms extended up from the ground, and all along it hummed different shapes and sizes of UFO-looking spacecrafts.

“This is Vix 4,” Rex said as we took a qua break behind a particularly tall rock. “It’s where the Plikens receive supplies, so there are often different races and species coming and going. It’s the best place for us to sneak onto a spacecraft.”

“Which one are we going to board?” I asked.

He pointed to a mid-size craft that was docked toward the back rear of the station. “That one. Owned by Tritters. They are a working class race that ferries supplies and passengers all around the Rinian Galaxy. They will have the least amount of security.”

He made it sound so easy. “And how are we getting there again?”

Rex pointed to a few Plikens pushing large carts. “I’m going to hide you in one of those. They are loads of quazal from the mines that the Tritters take to Rinian II to sell for the Plikens. I’ll take it into the Tritter craft to load it, except we won’t be coming back out.”

I squinted at him. “How confident are you in this plan? On a scale from one to ten?”

He took a long sip from the qua jug, his thick throat working. He lowered the jug and said with zero change in his expression. “About a six.”

“I guess I can handle sixty percent,” I muttered.

Immediately his hand grasped mine, and his rough fingers squeezed. His purple eyes bore into mine. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“I believe you,” I whispered, trapped by his gaze. Because I did. He flew into a damn arena and sliced into bodies to rescue me. He took on a dozen Plikens with his friends to defend me. And now he was willing to take on the dangers of leaving this planet to rescue me. I trusted this Rex. And he was the one with me now.

I thought his lips twitched into a smile, but then it was gone, and we were moving toward the aliens with the carts. All thoughts left my mind except listening to Rex’s orders and staying alive.

We closed the distance to Vix 4 quickly, and Rex had me hid behind a nearby boulder while he stood nearby pretending to take a piss. One of the caped workers noticed him. “Get back to work!” he called, and Rex hopped to, immediately, ducking his head as he reached for a nearby cart.

He filled it with a pile of quazal, covered it with the tarp like all the other workers, and wheeled it toward me. After a quick glance to make sure no one was looking, he dumped the load of quazal behind the boulder. I slipped over the edge and tumbled inside. The tarp covered me and then we were moving.

I huddled inside the dark, dirty cart, convinced any minute someone would notice Rex’s blue skin and purple eyes. When I peeked at him from a tear in the cart, his eyes were mere slits, and his skin had seemed to dull to a blue-ish gray. His identifying white hair was completely hidden under his cape.

The cart hit something solid, and I gritted my teeth as we rumbled up an incline. Voices grumbled and conversed, but Rex didn’t join in the conversation. Through the tear in the tarp, I could only see a metal ceiling studded with rivets.

I remained quiet, barely breathing, as sweat dripped down my temples and pooled at my lower back. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if we got caught. Rex would fight, but we were outnumbered. Maybe we should have had Mikko come with us…

Suddenly the tarp was ripped off, and I let out a short yelp before I realized it was Rex who loomed over me. He lifted me out of the cart and pushed me into a small closet-like space. He shut the door without another word just as I saw another worker enter the room with his own cart.

A small light on the wall shed a blue-tinged light on the space where I hid. There was nothing in here except a few odd tools that looked to be used for spacecraft repair. The floor was bare, but it wasn’t much larger than a mid-sized walk-in closet. I huddled in the corner with my knees drawn up to my chest.

A deep voice filtered through the door, as well as thunking sounds as quazal was unloaded from the carts. I couldn’t make out the words, and I didn’t hear Rex’s voice. A cart rumbled away from my hiding space. Silence followed. Then a flurry of thunks and slides and thumps. Suddenly the door was flung open and Rex rushed inside. He shut the doors behind him just as the rumbling of another cart could be heard entering the room.

I held my breath. He stood so motionless that I didn’t think he was even breathing. He waited until the cart rumbled away before he dropped to the floor beside me. “I hid the cart under the quazal piles.” He took off his pack and placed it on the ground in front of us. “Are you okay?”

“S-sure,” I swallowed around my dry throat. “We made it this far. Someone must be watching out for us.” He twitched and I glanced up to see a pained expression on his face. “Are you okay?”

He sat down with his back against the wall and drew me against him. “I don’t think Fatas has watched out for me for a long time. I have long wondered what I did to anger her.”

I rested my head on his chest. “Who’s Fatas?”

“She blesses us for good deeds and punishes us for bad ones.”

“Sounds like ‘what goes around comes around.’”

“Is that what you believe in?”

“Yeah,” I answered honestly. “My friends say I’m naive and that there isn’t a balance to the universe in which good deeds get rewarded and bad deeds get punished. I know sometimes the good guys lose, but I have to believe in balance. I don’t need to be rewarded for being kind, but I have to think it means I get lucky sometimes when I need it the most.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Do you think the universe ever gets it wrong?”

His voice held the tiniest wisp of vulnerability and beneath my cheek, his heart pounded. It hit me then. He thought he was being punished, that the actions of the ones who’d altered his body were a direct result of something he did.

I didn’t see it like that. “I do think the universe gets it wrong sometimes. But Rex, what happened to you wasn’t about balance. Bad men did bad things to you. They’ll get theirs for what they did. Just like you’ll get yours for what you suffered.” A yawn caught me off guard, and my jaw cracked as it stretched. “I don’t think me being here is meant to punish me for something I did. I think mean aliens did a mean thing. Meeting you is probably the result of every single bit of goodness I accumulated on Earth. I’m probably close to my allotted amount, so I hope it holds out until we get somewhere safe.” I closed my eyes and leaned further into Rex.

His hand combed through my hair, and I was half asleep when I heard him murmur, “I haven’t had hope in a long time, but you’re proof Fatas hasn’t abandoned me.”

Rex

Daisy fell asleep leaning against me. Distantly, I heard the sounds of the crew of Tritters preparing the spacecraft for takeoff. There was a possibility we would be discovered, but once in flight, there wasn’t much the Tritters could if they found us as stowaways. They couldn’t return us to Vixlicin and delay their delivery, but they could get us arrested at Rinian II. In order to conduct any business on Rinian 4, all species were required to carry identifying documents. If the Tritters found us on board, they’d alert the authorities upon our arrival. Daisy would be taken from me, and I’d be jailed.

Authorities needed a cause to check out documents: deboarding and boarding a spacecraft was one of them. It was why I had to find a way off the station illegally, which posed its own challenges. But I’d find a way. We’d come this far. I wouldn’t let our journey end on a space station.

Shame filled me as I recalled when the Rage had overtaken me before we left. I’d felt her body leave the buzzer and heard a soft gasp. When I’d turned to see her small body dragged through the sand by a squad of Plikens, I’d lost it.

The red haze had descended and all I could think about was killing. Usually I had a little more awareness during the Rage, but that time I’d been lost. I still wasn’t sure what I’d done, but when I’d come to and saw the marks on Daisy’s neck, I’d never felt more shame in my life. My suspicions were confirmed that the Rage couldn’t be trusted. It would hurt discriminately, including Daisy. I had to maintain control until I got her to safety. After that… I could let go. I’d have served my purpose.

Her deep even breaths calmed me, and I focused on the fact that she was safe now. I selfishly reveled in this time with Daisy. In sleep, she was ethereal with her full pink lips parted and her hair spread around her like a golden cloud. Her curves called to me, but I didn’t dare touch her other than to brush her hair off her face when her little nose twitched.

Her hands were folded near her head where it rested on my thigh. I wasn’t used to my cock being hard, and with her scent surrounding me, I couldn’t tell it to soften.

About a yora passed and I ate a bit of cured meat while she slept. When the spacecraft rumbled to life and made the sounds that signaled it was detaching from the dock, Daisy stirred and blinked open her sleepy eyes. “I didn’t mean to nap,” she mumbled on a yawn.

“It’s always good to rest when your body tells you it needs it.”

She smiled at me as she sat up. “I like that attitude.”

“Are you hungry?”

She shook her head. “I’m okay.”

The floor tilted and she reached for me with a squeak. “We’re moving!”

“We’ll be leaving the planet’s atmosphere soon.”

“And we’re safe in this closet?”

“I’ll hold on to you.”

It wasn’t long before the space craft gained speed. While the Tritter cargo ship was stable and slow, there was still some shaking and turbulence as we broke into space. I clutched Daisy to my chest, and she wrapped herself around me with her hands locked behind my neck and her legs straddling my waist. My cock took even more notice of her proximity, and I pleaded to Fatas that she wouldn’t feel it. I didn’t want to scare her.

It’d been bad enough when she’d woken me from my nightmare, barely clothed with her sweet cunt almost touching the head of my cock. All the pain of my dream had been forgotten, as just the smell of Daisy grounded me.

I was just about to dig out some qua for her when we heard a sound outside our door. Daisy froze, still clinging to me. Her cora pounded against my chest, and her sweet breath coasted across my cheek. The sounds soon drifted away, and the hiss of a door shutting had me exhaling in relief. “It’s okay.” I ran a palm up and down her back. “Even if they find us, they wouldn’t take us back.”

“So, we don’t have to hide?”

“We still have to hide. They would report us to the Plikens and station authorities. Without documents we would be arrested.”

Her eyes went wide with fear, and I cursed myself for saying too much. “I have a plan. We won’t be caught.”

“Okay.” She bit her lip, and concern settled in the small grooves of her face, but she made no motion to move from my lap. I tried to think of anything other than her soft skin, but my palm, now resting on the upper part of her buttocks, refused to move like it had a mind of its own.

“When we get to Rinian II, how will we barter passage on another aircraft?” she asked, thankfully drawing my attention away from her body.

“Most likely I can provide labor in exchange for passage for both you and I. I also have a healthy stash of czens.”

“Czens?”

“Payment.”

“Ah like money.” She tapped her fingers. “I can do something to earn passage too.”

An ember of anger sparked inside of me at the thought of what she’d be asked to do on Rinian II. “Absolutely not.”

She frowned and leaned away from me. “I know I’m not as strong as you, but I can clean—”

“No one will be asking a human female to clean on Rinian,” I growled.

“What would—?” Suddenly her eyes went wide and her mouth rounded into an “O.” Her face fell and she looked down at her where her hands rested on my shoulders.

I gentled my voice. “Human females are very desirable in the Rinian galaxy.”

“I understand,” she said softly.

“I’ll have to pretend like I own you. That is the only way I’ll be able to protect you.”

She winced. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry, Daisy.”

She offered me a weak smile. “Don’t apologize. I trust you know what’s best.”

“It’s the last thing I want to do,” I swallowed as memories pounded in the back of my mind with angry fists. “I know what it feels like to be owned.”

She ran her fingers over a scar on my chest. “You were forced to fight?”

“I was. Drixonians are legendary defenders. With my mods, I was a highly valuable gladiator to the Plikens.” Killing without purpose wasn’t honorable, and every time I caused another’s cora to stop beating, a part of me died too. “I wondered many times why I didn’t let my opponents spill all my blood into the red sand, but that wasn’t the Drixonian way. We don’t give up. My training wouldn’t let me. So, I fought and hated every moment. Every kill felt like it took a chunk out of me.” I fisted a hand over my chest. “A piece of who I was.”

“Rex,” she whispered with a hand to my cheek.

“I didn’t understand my purpose until I saw you in that arena. I think you’re the reason Fatas kept me alive.”

“No,” she said gently, her arm hand caressing my face. “I can’t possibly understand why so many terrible things happened to you, but you have greater things coming. Maybe your purpose was always to be reunited with your brothers.”

I shook my head. “It’s you.”

She smiled and said gently, “Okay, you can think that for now.”

I felt as if she was placating me, but that was okay, especially as she drew closer and touched her forehead to mine briefly. “I saw you do this to your friends. What does this mean?”

“It’s our greeting. A signal of our loyalty to each other.”

She studied me for a moment. “Have you ever had a wife? Or a partner? I’m not sure what word you use for that.” She scrunched her lips to the side and muttered, “I also shouldn’t assume your preferences—”

I interrupted her. “A mate?”

She nodded. “Yeah, a mate. Male. Female. Other.”

“Male mates are not unheard of among Drixonians, but I am attracted to females.” I was attracted to her, actually. When our females died, so did our libidos, and I’d only been a chit. Daisy was the first female to stir my blood and harden my cock. I was sure she’d be the only one. “I have never had a mate. I was young when all our females died, then I worked for the Uldani, and then… I was sold here. There aren’t many females on this planet, and those that are aren’t here willingly. I would never…” I swallowed. “I would never touch a female who didn’t want it.”

She shifted closer, and the heat from her core brushed the tip of my cock. I knew she felt it, because surprise flickered over her face for just a moment before she carefully smoothed it over.

“I’m sorry.” Flame flared in my face. “I cannot control it around you.”

“Do you know what a kiss is?”

“I do. All Drixonian males have been trained to provide female pleasure.”

This time, she didn’t hide the shock on her face. Her mouth dropped open. “You have?”

I nodded. “Our elders taught us.”

She bit her lip. “Have you ever been kissed, Rexor?”

I loved the way my full name fell from her lips. The others often said it with an aggressive growl, but Daisy rolled it on her tongue like she was savoring a treat.

“No, Daisy,” I whispered. “I have not.”

She blinked, and her golden lashes brushed the top of her cheeks. “Can I be your first?”

Her question caught me off guard, and for a moment, I could do nothing but stare at her. Daisy? Kissing me? My mind screamed no, that I couldn’t. I was no longer a warrior fit for a mate. I wouldn’t shackle another to me, not with my future so uncertain. But my body had other ideas. My cock jerked at her words, and my head moved up and down in a nod before I could open my mouth to protest.

And then it was too late to speak. Her small hands grasped my face and drew it toward her. Our lips touched, and my body reacted. Grasping her around the waist, I tugged her against me, and she let out a small moan that made me want to tear her clothes off. What sounds would she make if I licked her sweet cunt? What would she say if I plunged my cock inside of her?

She rocked her hips against me, sliding her heat over my shaft. My body had a mind of its own as her lips opened and I swept my tongue into her mouth. She tasted like sun and the morning mist dripping from the leaves of a moke tree. She tasted like home.

When our tongues collided, I curled the split end of mine around hers. Her body jerked when I made contact, and she let out a small gasp. Not of pleasure, but of surprise. Of… hesitation.

Reality crashed into me. I was touching her with my vile tongue, what once was a source of pride as a virile Drixonian warrior and was now cursed. She’d said she’d be my first kiss, but that hadn’t meant she’d wanted my tongue down her throat. She didn’t. She couldn’t. I didn’t even want the flecking thing in my own mouth. I immediately pulled away from her, slid her from my lap hurriedly, and leapt to my feet.

“Wha—?” She brushed her hair off her face and stared up at me from where she knelt on the floor.

I couldn’t look at her, not knowing I’d touched her when she hadn’t asked, that I’d had the audacity to stick my tongue in her mouth. I turned toward the door.

“Rex,” she hissed after me, anger replacing the surprise in her tone. “What’s wrong? Where are you going?”

“I need to check on the location of the craft to make sure we’re still on course.”

“Right now?” Her face was red, and her eyes were wet. “What happened? Did I do something wrong?”

I couldn’t look there anymore. Instead I stared at the back of the door. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I did. You’re lying,” she sniffed, and I closed my eyes as my cora cracked. “I’m sorry,” she whispered brokenly. “I overstepped. I just wanted to… I thought you wanted…” she let out a shaky breath and I heard a rustling sound as she seemed to draw closer. “Why won’t you talk to me?” When I didn’t answer, she called out a plea. “Rex? I said I’m sorry, but you can’t shut me out. You’re all I have here and—”

I whirled around and gritted my teeth to keep from shouting. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” At my words, she jolted, and her eyes went wide.

I pointed a finger at my mouth. “I can’t touch you with this. I’m an abomination. I hate what I am and what I’ve become. If I met you fifty cycles ago, before the Uldani turned me into this, then I would have done everything I could to make you mine. But I’m not that Rexor anymore. I don’t know who I am, but I’m certainly not a warrior who deserves to touch you.”

Her chest heaved and she rasped out my name on a whispered plea. “Rex.”

“I will protect you and get you to safety, Daisy, but I am not anyone’s mate. Maybe Fatas has cursed me after all, for taunting me with you, who I want more than anything, but who I absolutely cannot have.”

I opened the doors and stepped outside, crunching the pieces of my broken cora beneath my boots.

NINE

Daisy

I had known Rex was angry about what was done to him. Anyone would be. I’d seen enough X-Men movies to know Wolverine wasn’t delighted about being injected with adamantium.

What I hadn’t considered was that Rex would be insecure and ashamed of his body. The others’ warning to me resurfaced in my mind. Rex wasn’t only dealing with physical changes, but mental ones as well if his friends were to be believed.

I wanted to rush after him, to make him stay and talk to me, but I also knew I must respect he needed space. I brushed my fingers across my lips as I lay curled up on the floor with my head resting on our pack as a makeshift pillow. That kiss had been too short. I hadn’t even meant to touch our lips, but when I heard him talk about how he’d never been kissed and never been touched by a partner with love and care, I couldn’t take it. I wanted him to know how it felt to be wanted and desired.

It wasn’t like I didn’t think he wanted it. I could feel how badly he wanted me. His hard shaft surged against the thick leather of his pants, and his breath had hitched as I’d drawn closer. Those purple eyes of his were a dead giveaway, so vibrant and full of lust I’d wanted to tackle him. I’d never felt that desired in my life.

I’d only been with one man, my high school sweetheart who’d treated me well enough until we eventually grew apart. I’d held on for a long time, convinced and in denial we weren’t right for each other, until he’d made the decision for me by taking a job halfway across the country and breaking up with me. It’d been for the best, and I’d appreciated no longer needing to keep his beer stocked in my fridge. I needed the space to keep all the lettuce I bought with the intentions of eating healthy and instead let wilt until it was necessary to throw out. I told my hips it was the thought that counted.

Carter had never, not once, looked at me the way Rex did, like I was precious. I hated that he hurt, and it killed me to know I was only making things worse, that my presence alone was a taunt to him.

My initial feeling was hurt at his rejection, but after his words, I’d understood he’d only been rejecting himself. I couldn’t let that stand. While we were on an escape across the galaxy, I was determined to prove to him he shouldn’t feel shame or embarrassment for who he was.

Maybe he was no longer the same Rexor he’d been, but he was still kind, valiant, and sweet. I’d seen the violence he could do with his hands, but with me he was nothing but gentle, stroking my hair and squeezing my hand whenever he could tell I needed to be reassured. That wasn’t the actions of a monster, which he clearly thought he was.

I didn’t know how much I’d accomplish, but I refused to give up on him. I saw the good in him, and maybe it was my naivety talking, or maybe, just maybe, Fatas hadn’t given me Rex so I could be rescued, but maybe Rex had been given me to show him he was so much more than what had been done to him.

I was nibbling on what tasted like a stale cracker when the door slid open. I sat up immediately, bracing myself for an enemy only to relax when Rex’s familiar broad shoulders stepped into view, and his purple eyes cast a studying glance down the length of my body.

Then, as soon as he had assured himself I was all right, he closed the doors behind him and sank down on the floor. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

That was it. That was his return entrance.

I sat with my legs crossed and stared at him, willing him to speak to me, but he remained frustratingly silent.

“Rex?” I queried.

His chest hitched as he opened his eyes a crack to spear me with a look. “Yes?”

“Well, what’s the 411?”

His eyes opened further. “411?”

“What’s the news? Are we heading where we want to go? Or did we enter a wormhole and it’s actually the year 3000?”

He blinked at me before shaking his head. “The things you say…” he muttered before clearing his throat. “We will be at Rinian II soon.”

“Did anyone see you?”

He lifted a nubbed brow, and my insides turned warm at the small smirk that tilted his lips. “You think I’m new at this?”

“Right, this probably isn’t your first rodeo.”

“Rodeo?”

I waved a hand. “It’s an Earth expression. It basically means you know what you’re doing.”

He puffed out his chest slightly. “I do.”

He at least wasn’t lacking in confidence of his abilities to protect me, which gave me hope. I never thought I’d take it upon myself to raise the self-confidence of an alien, but I’d had worse jobs—I’d been a Victoria’s Secret consultant at the height of their popularity for a disastrous Black Friday. The word panties still gave me the shakes.

I shifted closer to him, and he watched me warily. “I’m a little cold,” I lied as I snuggled up against his side.

Like the amazing soul he was, he immediately put his arm around me and rubbed my arms. “Human skin is too thin,” he grumbled, as if he intended to directly take on evolution single-handedly.

Heat radiated from his thick scales as I took the opportunity to lean my head on his shoulder. He smelled like leather and salt. Maybe he focused on all the humanity he’d lost, but I couldn’t help but be impressed with how much he’d retained. “How did you do it?”

“How did I do what?”

“How did you continue to fight when it was killing you inside?”

He was silent for a long time. “I hoped I was meant for a higher purpose. Maybe to put an end to the forced fighting.”

“You said you killed your owner… was the revenge sweet?”

His eyes closed and he let out a long breath. “My owner only fed me just enough I could fight. He made me train. He chained me to my cell at night and forced me to wear a brace which prevented me from using my wings. It was only removed during fights. All the arenas were covered with spiked netting so I couldn’t leave. I was his prized gladiator solely because he liked owning a Drixonian. When I killed him, it was only to end my suffering. I didn’t feel vindication. I felt nothing but tired.”

His dark gaze was fixed unseeing on the wall in front of us, and I couldn’t imagine all the images and memories that were flitting through his brain. I cursed myself for bringing up the topic, and I double cursed his owner. I wished I could bring him back to life just to give him a swift kick in the nuts. If Plikens had nuts. Why was I thinking about their genitals?

Rex’s head rolled to the side, and his expression gentled as he lifted a hand and lightly brushed the side of my face. “I could barely believe when I saw you emerge from the cage. A human female as a gladiator prize.” He shook his head. “How did that happen? Were there other females?”

“Yes, I was on a ship with other women, who I wasn’t able to talk to, or really even get a good look at. The Plikens separated all of us when we landed on this planet.” My eyes went wide as I realized these women could have been gladiator prize fodder elsewhere on this planet like me. How could I have been so selfish as to forget about them? Except… how the heck could I have saved anyone? Rex and his friends had already risked so much. I bit my lip as I remembered catching glimpses of frightened, tear-streaked faces as we were led from the spacecraft onto a planet of red sand.

Rex’s hand squeezed mine. “They could be anywhere on the planet. The others will keep their eyes open for anymore females. I promise you.”

I still felt sick to my stomach. I nodded as tears pricked my eyes. “Okay.”

He jostled my hand and when I glanced up, he had a small smile on his face. “Tell me a story. Something that makes Daisy happy.”

“Aren’t I supposed to be the one making you happy after you told me the horrors of what you’ve been through?”

“Seeing you happy makes me happy.”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes with a laugh. “Sure.”

He adopted a pout I hadn’t thought he was capable of but was in fact endearing as all get out. “I’m offended you’d think I’d lie. Tell me a happy Daisy story. Were you a cheeky chit?”

“Chit?”

“Young human.”

“Well I’m a cheeky adult, so I was of course a cheeky chit.” He looked so content, that I had to keep talking. “Okay so when I was a kid, I was into theater. Which is… acting. As in, me and a bunch of others pretended to be made-up people, and we had to memorize lines and act out a story.” I slumped a bit. “I probably explained that terribly.”

He was listening so intently that his entire focus was on me. I could tell he was slightly confused by the furrow of his nubbed brow. “Show me what you mean.”

“Show you?”

“I want to understand. So, show me. Pretend to be a made-up people, as you say.”

It didn’t really matter that we were in a closet lit only by a dim blue light, or on a risky mission to save me from enslavement or death. I hopped to my feet and shook out my limbs. Rex watched me silently with a bemused look on my face. I did some mouth exercises, because I was extra, but if Rex wanted to see a performance, then I was going to give him one.

I thought about doing something fun and light, but I wasn’t sure how much Rex would understand English humor. So, I went with something I’d practiced for an audition from Game of Thrones. The theme of morality and conflict were so prevalent in the books and the show, and none were quite as captivating as Sir Jaime Lannister’s storyline.

So, I began the monologue where he talked about how he broke his oath to his king and killed him, because the king had gone mad and planned to kill thousands of innocent men, women, and children. He sacrificed his reputation, killing one to save many, but no one knew the truth, so he had to live with that stain on his name as a king slayer and oath breaker for the rest of his life.

I felt Jaime’s story deeply, and even though the show drove his storyline into the ground, I read plenty of fan fiction that gave him proper justice. As I spoke his words, I put my all into it, pleading my case as Jaime Lannister to Rex.

When I finished, I was out of breath and near tears. I panted as I stood in front of a still seated Rex. He gazed up at me with those otherworldly purple eyes, seemingly transfixed on me.

“That is another’s story?” he asked softly.

I nodded. “It’s made up. Fiction.”

He swallowed and slowly lifted a hand until it rested over his heart. “But I felt it so deeply.”

I went to my knees in front of him and placed my hand over his. “I know.”

Beneath my palm, Rex’s body vibrated. “He didn’t want to kill the king. That weighed heavily on him.”

“Yes,” I whispered.

Finally, Rex’s eyes dropped. “I understand that,” he whispered. “To know you don’t have a choice to take a life.”

“I’m sorry, Rex.” I cupped his cheek, but he refused to look at me. So, I leaned in and pressed a kiss to his forehead, right over the nubs on his brow. At my touch, he let out a shuddering sigh. I wrapped my arms around him and began to crawl into his lap when the entire spacecraft jerked. I yelped and Rex’s head shot up, his expression once again a mask of stoic determination.

“We are approaching Rinian II,” he said. “It is time.”

I couldn’t stop the tremble when Rex snapped a collar around my neck. He’d explained that it was important. Without the assumption Rex owned me, I could easily be claimed by someone else.

Even with the collar around my neck and Rex’s firm grip on the chain attached, I was in danger of being stolen. Humans were a hot commodity in the Rinian galaxy. The thought made me shudder. This collar was much lighter than my last one—thanks to some metalworking by Fenix—and slimmer, so it didn’t irritate the wounds I received from the last one.

Rex stared at the collar with a tight jaw and when his eyes lifted to mine, I saw pain there. “I promise you I will remove this as soon as I can.”

“I believe you,” I answered him.

“I wish there was another way.”

I placed a hand on his arm. “It’s okay. At least it’s you holding the chain, and not one of those Plikens.”

His nostrils flared, and he spun around to face the door of our hiding spot. The spacecraft had docked, and we’d stayed silent as the Tritters had unpacked the quazal from the room outside.

All was quiet now. “It’s time to make our escape,” Rex said. “I scouted an escape route earlier, so I’m confident we can leave without being detected.”

“What if one of them sees us?”

“They can’t do anything about it now, but I’d like to avoid a scene.”

Which meant he didn’t want to have to kill anyone in a way that drew attention. “Roger that.”

“What?”

“I meant I understand.”

He slid the door open a crack and peered into the room. Then he threw the door open the rest of the way and sped through, me on his heels. We ran out into the hallway, and just as I heard footsteps approaching, Rex pushed me through a small tunnel in the side of the hall.

With a yelp, I realized it was a decline, like a large playground slide. I sat safe in Rex’s lap, and we slid down. At the bottom, all I could make out was a metal grated platform. Rex’s long legs hit it first. He placed me gently on my feet, and I had a moment to glance around. We seemed to be on some lower level of the massive structure of the Rinian II space station.

Holding my hand, Rex led me up a ramp and we exited a glass door where we merged into a crowd of aliens of all shapes and sizes. Some were talking to each other, or on phone-shaped devices, and I felt for a moment like I was in an outer space form of New York. No one paid us any attention as we blended in.

I cast a look over my shoulder at the spacecraft we’d left, and I met the black eyes of a Tritter. He stared right at us. A body passed in front of us, blocking him from my site, and when it passed, the Tritter was no longer there. I tried to find him again, but he was gone. I knew I hadn’t imagined him, but he couldn’t have known we came from his spacecraft, right? There was no way.

I didn’t have time to dwell. The crowd was pushing us forward down the metal grate, and strange creatures bumped into me. A slime appendage brushed my arm, and I jerked away from a tall alien with jelly-like dreads sprouting from the top of its head.

The creature inhaled deeply and then stretched its lips to reveal a series of barbed teeth and a three-prong tongue. “Human,” it said gleefully.

Suddenly, Rex was there, the spikes of his arm pressed against the alien’s throat. Despite the alien being taller than Rex, stark fear passed over its face before it swallowed and said on a hiss, “Drix.”

“She belongs to me, Triholt,” Rex’s lips pulled back in a snarl.

People rushed by us, seemingly more annoyed that we were stopped than that we were two seconds away from a full-on brawl.

“You better hold on to her,” the Triholt sneered. With a toss of his head and a flick of his jelly hair, he sauntered away.

“Fleck,” Rex muttered as he urged me forward again. “I need to get you out of this crowd.”

I wasn’t a fan of this crowd either. My claustrophobia reared its head, pressing down on all sides of me until I wanted to scream. I shuffled close to his back, reassured by the heat of his body and the feel of his scales. This was safety. As long as Rex was with me, everything would work out. “I’m okay,” I said.

“Yeah, well I’m not.” His eyes were dark, a little too dark for my liking, and the warning of his friends returned.

I gripped his arm and squeezed. “Rex.” His head came down, and his eyes met mine. I saw the anger there and could tell he was gearing up to lose it. His shoulders had swelled, and aliens around us seemed to know, giving us a wide berth. “It’s okay. I trust you. Let’s just get out of this crowd.” I gave him a smile, and another squeeze.

His eyes lightened some, and I could see the way his shoulders dropped as some tension leaked out. With a swallow, he gave me a grim smile. “Yes. Smart human Daisy.”

Focused on his mission, he speared through the crowd like a motorboat in a lake. The space station was massive, and we seemed to be on some sort of thoroughfare. Beside us were rows and rows of differently shaped spacecraft all docked in a massive glass-like bubble. In here, the air quality was controlled, but just beyond I could gaze out to see nothing but star-studded black space.

There were many walkways like this, extending out from a large hub, like spokes on a wheel, and the spacecrafts were docked on several tiers. Ours was the bottom one, and I could see more walkways above us, all headed to a center sphere.

I saw a few other species with collars and chains, but no humans in sight. Not that I wanted another human to be in my situation, but that also didn’t bode well for my chances here at flying under the radar.

Rex had explained there were rules here on Rinian II that were heavily enforced. A collared individual was protected like any other property, and Rinian II had its own law enforcement service. But Rinian II also had a robust criminal underworld, Rex had said, which made me shiver. The Plikens were bad enough, but now we also had to contend with an alien mafia?

I tried not to let my panic show. I kept my head down, the red coat still hiding my hair as well as the shape of my body. While anyone looking at my face would be able to see I was human, I hoped I didn’t stick out.

Eventually, we entered the hub through a massive open doorway and the crowd began to thin as we were no longer confined by a small walkway. I gazed up, but there was no ceiling, just a glass dome high above our heads and beyond that—space. The hub reminded me of a marketplace. Buildings lined a grated street, and aliens of all types bustled about.

Small booths lined a thoroughfare with aliens selling all kinds of wares. Smells hit me, unfamiliar, yet enticing, as we passed by a series of booths selling food. Rex tossed some square coins on a table and grabbed a stick with blackened meat on one end. “Pivar. Tough but seasoned well.”

I didn’t even care. I was so hungry for something cooked I tore into it. The meat was stringy and tough, as Rex had said, but it had a good flavor. He also bought one for himself. He stuck the entire stick in his mouth, clamped his teeth on it, and stripped the meat off in one go. He barely chewed before he swallowed.

As we walked, the crowd changed. Wealth was easy to spot, even in space, and so was poverty. The clothes of the aliens grew less extravagant and injuries were more common as the buildings decreased in quality. I spotted eye patches and a few bionic arms. Rex kept me close, nearly encasing me in his massive cape.

I knew we reached out destination when his steps slowed and he peered up at a lighted sign that only portrayed a triangle with curled horns emerging from the peak. In the middle of the triangle was a cluster of tear-drop shapes.

Rex leaned down to speak quietly in my ear. “The triangle means it’s a public place. The horns mean all species are welcome. And the bubbles in the middle mean it’s a drinking establishment.”

With that, he swung open a massive metal planked door and we stepped inside. The rectangular room was fairly crowded, and most of the scratched metal tables were occupied with a variety of aliens. Some bore collars like me, and either carried trays of food, or knelt at their owner’s side. A dented gray metal bar lined one wall, and a large yellow alien with a bald head and four arms slung mugs of a fizzy liquid to the patrons sitting on stools.

Most of the aliens were rough around the edges. Weathered and scarred. One caught my attention. Half of his face was a melted mass of flesh so only one black eye coasted down my body. I felt the gaze like a physical touch and fought not to shudder. As we passed him, a gnarled hand reached out for my hood. I jerked, and the rattle of my chain caught Rex’s attention.

With a rumbling growl that sent a chill down my spine, Rex lashed out with his tail and upended the chair, so it crashed to the floor. The scarred alien rolled to get up, but he didn’t get far, as Rex placed a booted foot on his chest. The alien struggled, but he didn’t have the strength to dislodge a furious Rex. With dark eyes, he leaned in the scarred alien’s face. “Don’t. Touch. My. Property.”

The alien’s one good nostril flared, and he let out a squeak before nodding vigorously. Rex straightened and stomped on the alien’s stomach before turning away. Coughing, the scarred alien curled into a ball while cradling his stomach. Another alien at his table muttered as he took a swig from his mug, “That’s what you get for flecking with a Drixonian. You’re lucky he didn’t slice your head off, Gorcho.”

And now we’d drawn attention. No one made direct eye contact with us as we headed toward the bar, but many stole glances from behind their mugs of drink.

“I thought we were trying to maintain a low profile,” I murmured.

Rex was angrier than I thought. Breathing fast, his dark eyes darted around the room as if enemies would ambush us at any moment. “I must show strength and the ability to fight for what’s mine.” He stopped abruptly and gripped my chin, so I was forced to look at him. “You belong to me.”

He didn’t talk quietly. His voice was loud. And although it was possible he spoke this way for the benefit of anyone listening, his sincerity was a tangible thing, wrapping around me like a forcefield. I could only nod, and only then did his eyes lighten a fraction. He dropped my chin and with long strides, approached an empty section of the bar.

The four-armed bartender strolled down to meet us, his gaze on Rex as if he were sizing up his weapons. “Can I get you anything?”

“I’m looking for anyone who’d have room for passengers to Torin.”

The bartender, eyes white except for a pinprick pupil, cocked his head. His gaze finally left Rex to scan the room before settling on me. “Two?”

“Two,” Rex confirmed.

With a jerk of his head, the bartender gestured to the corner of the room. “The Rogastix in the corner. His name is Vazreel.”

Rex tossed a coin on the bar and turned without another word. I followed him into the dark corner of the bar, where a dark green alien with a head of white hair sat alone. His clawed fingers clicked the table as he watched us approach with yellow eyes set deep beneath a heavy brow. He wore thick gold rings in his long ear lobes, and his hair was pulled back in a braid, revealing a wicked scar extending along the side of his neck.

He straightened his gold-braided jacket as Rex drew to a stop at the table. “I’d like to discuss travel to Torin. The Gix at the bar said you might be able to provide us passage on your cargo ship.”

Vazreel inclined his head in the direction of the empty chair across from him. Rex sank down in it and then pointed to a frayed cushion on the floor. Pushing down the humiliation, I sank down onto my knees dutifully and lowered my eyes.

“Just you and your human property?” Vazreel asked. His low voice was rough, like his words were run over a cheese grater. I winced at the unpleasant sound.

“Yes,” Rex answered.

I stole a glance at Vazreel, expecting him to be watching me, but instead his gaze roamed Rex, taking in his shoulders and bulk. I stiffened, disliking the objectifying look in Vazreel’s mean, yellowed gaze. Surprised at my possessive feelings toward Rex, I clenched my fists to keep from saying a word.

“How do you plan to pay me for the passage?” Vazreel asked.

“I have more than enough czens to pay our way.”

Vazreel made a divisive sound. “I’m not interested in czens.”

Rex’s eyes narrowed. “Are you able to provide us passage or not? I don’t have time to fleck around.”

“I’m able to provide passage in exchange for one thing.” Vazreel’s thin lips curled into an evil smile and then he finally turned that gaze on me. “I want the human.”

TEN

Rex

My blood ran cold. I should have known it wouldn’t be a simple matter of handing over a shet load of czens in exchange for departing the station. My vision reddened at the edges, and I fought back the Rage from laying this entire bar to waste.

“Not to keep,” Vazreel was saying, oblivious to the fact I was moments away from ripping out his tongue. “Just for two rotations. Then, I will relinquish her back to you and let you board.”

My claws lengthened. Her body trembling, Daisy pressed against my thigh. Did she really think I’d agree to this deal? I’d rather hide out on Rinian II for the rest of my life.

“No,” I gritted out from a clenched jaw.

“What does it matter? You’ll get your property back.”

“No,” I repeated.

He tapped his claws on the table. “There are very few on this station who would even consider letting you board with documents. Punishment for providing illegal passage is life in the Pit.”

I felt like the walls were closing in on me. I wanted to extend my wings, grab Daisy, and take off far away from anyone and anything who would hurt her. But I couldn’t do this for long. I was already living on borrowed time. I had no idea which Rage would be my last. “Name. Another. Price.”

He scrubbed his bristled chin and then clasped his hands in front of him. In a low voice with a wicked smirk, he said, “I know who you are.”

I flinched and then went still in an effort not to react, but his small smile let me know even my small jerk had been detected.

“No Drixonians have left Torin for seventy-five cycles, but I’ve heard plenty about the white-haired gladiator on Vixlicin with wings and a killing rage.” He was still smiling, and I wanted to slice open his face as he leaned in closer. “Monster,” he whispered, and the one word squeezed the air from my lungs in a rush. “Isn’t that what they chant at you until you let yourself go? Until you show your true nature and do exactly what you were born to do—fight and kill?”

I felt movement at my knee just as Daisy tossed back her hood, a defiant look on her face as her hair shone in the dim light. “That’s not his true nature,” she spat, her pretty face twisted with anger. “He’s not a monster.”

Surprise passed over Vazreel’s face for a brief moment before his lips twisted in amusement. “She defends you?”

I ignored his question. “What do you want, Vazreel?”

“Fight for me.” His eyes sparkled with delight as my stomach plummeted to the gritty floor. “Tomorrow. My fighter lost a vital limb a few rotations ago, and I need someone to take his place.”

I knew exactly what he wanted me to do, an illegal fight to the death surrounded by a jeering crowd all betting on which fighter’s cora would stop first. Flashbacks of my time as a gladiator bombarded my mind, sending my vision wonky. “If it’s the czens you’re worried about losing, I’ll cover it.”

He shook his head. “It’s not just the czens. It’s my reputation. I can’t be seen as unreliable at providing fighters.”

Daisy’s small hand squeezed my knee, and I risked a glance at her. Big brown eyes stared up at me pleadingly. “No,” she whispered. “Don’t fight. Please. We’ll find another way.”

I knew she was worried about the same thing I was—I’d have to fight without the Rage. I wasn’t naive. I was about one more away from losing my mind completely. Losing myself to the Rage before I could ensure her safety was a death sentence for both of us.

But we wouldn’t find another way. The longer we stayed here, the greater our odds of being caught by the authorities. In order for me to skirt the law, I had to deal with the dregs of the galaxy. Rogastix were a powerful race, who either used their cunning for good or bad. I’d known what I was getting into as soon as I’d seen a scarred Rogastix sitting in the corner of a dirty bar.

The thought of fighting in front of a crowd again filled me a choking dread, but at least I wouldn’t have a collar. I’d be fighting for something, rather than fighting for the sake of not dying. I’d be fighting for Daisy. For her safety and freedom. For her never to wear a collar again. I would have to resist letting the Rage take over. If I lost myself, Daisy would be vulnerable. I’d have to fight like a proper Drixonian warrior and ignore the taunts and chants of Monster.

I met Vazreel’s eyes. “I’ll do it.”

Daisy gasped, and the Rogastix chuckled smugly. He had known all along I’d say yes. What alternative did I have? I had almost no power here except for what I could smash with my fists. After giving me a few brief instructions and the location of the fight, Vazreel scooted his chair back, the screech making me wince.

“Rest up tonight, Monster. Enjoy your human.” Vazreel drained the last of his drink and stood. “Because if you lose, your property goes to me.” He wiggled his tongue at Daisy, and then walked away.

Daisy and I didn’t speak as we left the bar and remained silent as we continued walking in the slums of the space station. I found the owner of a few rooms who was willing to ignore our lack of documents for a hundred extra czens. Finally alone, I tore the collar off Daisy as she sank down on the bedding in our dingy room, and it crushed me to watch as she let tears stream down her face.

I knelt in front of her and held her hands in mine. “I will win,” I assured her. “That Rogastix will never get his hands on you. No one will.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” she whispered, raising wet eyes to me. “I’m worried about how much it will cost you.”

“No matter who they make me fight, I will end it with enough strength left to still defend you—”

“That’s not what I mean, Rex!” she interrupted on a shout before shaking her head. Voice trembling, she explained, “I’m worried about you.” Her finger tapped my temple. “And what’s up here.”

I went still at her words, and a dread like I’d never felt before welled up in my throat, nearly blocking the next words. I managed to croak out, “What do you mean?”

She held my face in her small, soft hands. “Your friends told me this might be your last mission. They said you were dying. What did they mean? Do I have a reason to be worried?”

I bowed my head, cursing my friends in my mind. “They shouldn’t have said anything to you. I can control the Rage.”

“But what did they mean? And why did your Rage rescue me in the arena but didn’t recognize me in the dessert…?” She swallowed, and I knew she didn’t want to bring that up, but she had a point. The Rage was getting worse, and each time I let it take control, it grew stronger.

I didn’t want to explain this to her. If I had my way, she never would have known. I shook my head, hating that this hung between us. Her hand sifted through my hair on top of my head, and I closed my eyes at the gentle tugging on my scalp.

“Rex, I only want to know. We’re a team now, right? You and me. If I have more information, maybe I can help—”

“There’s no way to help.”

Her hand paused before resuming the finger combing of my hair. I continued to stare at our hands linked together in her lap. “Is there anything I can do? I want to be able to help if you lose yourself while fighting.”

“I won’t.”

Her small foot kicked out and caught me on the shin. I jerked in surprise to find her glaring at me, a little wrinkle between her eyes which she probably thought was scary, but I found cute. “Stop it, Rex. You’re not invincible, and I won’t think lesser of you if you admit a flaw.” Suddenly her eyes went wide, and she squeezed my hands. “I’ll go first. I’ll admit a flaw or failing I have, and then you go.” She scrunched her lips to the side. “That might get depressing so then we each get a brag session for ourselves too.”

When she talked like this, fast and excited, I often had a hard time understanding what she meant, as the translator didn’t catch all her words.

“So,” she kept talking. “A flaw I have is I’m too trusting. I want to believe the good in everyone, so I don’t pay attention to the warning signs when someone means me harm.”

I bristled, my back straightening as a slow ride of anger rose in me. “Someone has harmed you in the past?”

She smiled sadly and patted my hands. “Nothing terrible. It’s all in the past. And I didn’t really learn from it either because I still trust people.”

“Did you trust me?”

“When we first met, yes. Even with wings, arm blades, and red eyes, I somehow did. I felt like you were rescuing me. So, when you took out that gun thing and held it to my head, I thought you were going to kill me. I was thinking, there you go again, Daisy, trusting the wrong one. I felt disappointment that you’d let me down.”

“But I was only updating your translator implant.”

She nodded with a smile. “Yes, and I can’t tell you how relieved I was when I realized the truth.” Her elbow nudged me in the shoulder. “Now your turn. Tell me a flaw. And make it a good one.” She blinked at me expectantly, and despite the sick feeling swirling in my gut, I knew I had to tell her. She’d admitted a fault. I could do the same.

“The Rage is…” even speaking the words made me sick. “When the Uldani altered me, they had made me… more. My split tongue and tail are side effects of splicing me with a winged creature. Except it affected my brain. In a way… that’s split too. There’s me and then there’s… the Rage. Every time I let the Rage take over, I lose a little more of me. That is what my brothers meant when they said I was dying.” I patted my chest over my cora. “Because the Rage is killing who I am. When I first met you, my Rage recognized you as something to protect, so I was hopeful. But in the dessert…” I shook my head. “It didn’t. So, I will not lose myself when I fight for Vazreel. I cannot because I don’t trust the Rage anymore. I only trust myself. Once I know you’re safe, it won’t matter who I am.”

Her eyes leaked globs of tears. She sniffed and pressed her lips together while shaking her head. “No, I won’t believe it. What happened in the dessert was an anomaly. I was able to pull you back then. I can do it again.”

“Daisy...”

“I can!” she shouted on a sob. “I know I can.”

I gathered her in my arms and let her cry on my shoulder. My cora ached too, as I would have given anything to be whole for her for the rest of our lives. But it wasn’t meant to be. Fatas had chosen me as Daisy’s safe passage, not her future.

When her sobs quieted, she scrubbed at her eyes and then palmed my face. “This is too much to think about right now. I want to pretend you don’t have to fight tomorrow, and that your Rage isn’t hanging over our heads.”

I brushed her hair off her forehead, the strands wet with her tears. “We can do that.” Her gaze dropped to my mouth, and the intensity in her eyes instantly made me stiff beneath her. “Daisy?”

“Kiss me again,” she whispered. “Please.”

“But my tongue…”

“I accept you as you are, Rex. Last time we kissed, I reacted to our tongues touching because it surprised me.” She smiled. “I’ve never kissed a man with a split tongue, is all.”

I narrowed my eyes as I felt an odd burning in my chest. “You have kissed many men?”

She let out a light laugh. “Not that many. Lots of frogs. No princes. And only one Drixonian.”

And that was what spurred me on to press our lips together. I wanted to be the only Drixonian she ever kissed. The last male in the entire galaxy, in galaxies beyond. I wanted my taste to be the last she knew.

She sank into my kiss with a sigh that hardened my cock. I swept my tongue inside her parted lips, getting used to the feeling of the two ends as they moved around her mouth. When I tangled her tongue with mine, she moaned softly, and I pushed forward to settle her on her back in the furs. I rose above her, careful to keep my weight off her small body.

Her flavor was intoxicating, and I drank her down, barely able to believe she accepted my touch. My fingers danced over her delicate throat and the soft skin at the top of her rounded breasts. Her hips rolled against mine, and I knew she felt the length of my shaft when she let out a gasp into my mouth.

I lost myself a little after that, rutting against her as her heated core coated my shaft through my pants. Her small hands gripped my face, holding me to her, and I reveled in the smell of her filling my nostrils. I would have given anything to never leave these furs or this moment.

“Your tongue is so long,” she murmured as she pressed kisses to my cheeks and the corner of my lips.

“We are proud of our tongues. They can provide utmost pleasure to females.” I lapped at her chin, wiggling the tips around the salty skin there.

She giggled. “I kind of like the split tongue.” Her warm brown eyes shone pure honesty that seared me like a brand.

Taken aback, I watched her expression carefully. “You do?”

She nodded and bit her lip. Her hips shifted again, and the smell of her ripe cunt made me dizzy.

My blood heated. “I want to show you what else my tongue is capable of.”

Her cheeks reddened. “I—uh... Yeah.”

I slid down her body, and she let out a small squeak when I drew her shirt up to expose the soft skin of her stomach. I dipped my tongue into her bellybutton and swirled it around her flesh as she made small whimpers above me. Her belly moved with her heaving breaths and when I glanced up, dazed brown eyes watched me. “Is that—”

“I’m only getting started. My tongue will be buried in your sweet cunt soon, Daisy.”

“My— Oh my.” She spread her legs, and I pressed my palm there to feel the heat of her through her pants.

“Do you want that, sweet Daisy?” I pressed my thumb over her clit and her hips bucked.

“I… I do,” she whispered, lips glistening.

I tore her pants down her legs and gazed at the bush of golden curls between her legs. With two fingers, I spread her delicate flesh, and her breath hitched as the cool air of the room hit her wet folds. I rubbed a thumb there, studying her so I knew right where to make her scream. While I wanted more than anything to taste, this was about her and making her feel total ecstasy.

“Rex…” she whispered.

“Beautiful,” I murmured as I found her clit and flicked it.

A cry left her mouth as her back arched and I didn’t give her a chance to recover before bending down and placing my mouth on her cunt.

ELEVEN

Daisy

The feel of his lips on me was incredible, and I didn’t have a moment to process before his tongue lapped at my entrance before sliding up to swirl at my clit. The two ends worked in tandem to pluck and suck at the hard bud until I was a writhing mess on the furs. He worked me until my mind was fuzzy and limbs shook, all the while doing nothing to curb the obscene sounds in the room.

When he pulled back with glowing purple eyes and stretched his tongue all the way to his chin, I swore I saw God. Then he speared me with that thick muscle. To send me over the edge, he started a rumbling deep in his chest that carried up his throat to vibrate his tongue. Inside me. Like my own personal toy.

I screamed without warning, the feeling so surprising and overwhelming. It was almost too much, and I wanted it to stop, but also continue forever.

Rex was enjoying this as much as me. His eyes squeezed shut as he moaned and fucked me with his tongue like a professional. When his thick fingers squeezed my clit, my orgasm fired through my body like a rocket.

I gasped out his name and a few curse words as my body shook and shivered. My hips bucked up into his face, smearing his lower jaw with my juices. When I collapsed onto the furs, still trembling with the aftershocks of my orgasm, only then did he withdraw his tongue and clean his entire face with that long appendage. I watched him with hazy vision, my brain still in pieces as he’d blown it apart.

“Rex,” I whispered.

“My Daisy’s cunt tastes even better than I imagined.” His raspy voice and dirty words made my inner walls clench.

“That was… incredible.”

The smile that stretched across his face was beautiful. He hadn’t smiled like that since I’d met him, not once, but now I saw the deep grooved dimples on both of his cheeks. His eyes crinkled, and even his nose scrunched. He was so very handsome like this, and I wished he had a chance to smile more.

I reached for him, my arms like noodles, and he settled beside me, pulling me onto his chest. His hard cock was trapped between us, and after what he’d done for me, I craved him. It wasn’t just about returning the favor. I wanted to see him lose himself to pleasure rather than Rage for once. If something happened in the fight tomorrow, I wanted this memory somewhere in his mind. For him. For me. For us.

Unclasping his pants wasn’t easy. They fastened over his tail like a backwards belt, but once he realized what I was doing, he let me maneuver him until I was able to draw his pants down his legs. He lay flat on his back completely nude. That thick cock I’d only seen once in the near dark hung down his leg with intimidating girth. I’d intended to stroke him with my hand but seeing that ring pierced through the tip gave me other ideas.

This was a whole new galaxy, and I was a whole new Daisy. I wanted to feel him inside me. I wanted that part of him, and I wanted to give him something of me. I wrapped my fingers around his shaft, and he let out a long low moan as his cock jerked in my hands. A slick fluid leaked copiously from the tip, and I used it to coat his shaft as I stroked him. His balls hung full and heavy beneath his cock, massive just like the rest of him.

His thick lashes fluttered over purple irises languid with heat and lust. “Daisy,” he whispered, and I loved the way my name sounded on his tongue, so reverent and special. He felt impossibly hard and thick in my hand. When I rose up on my knees over him and positioned him at my entrance, his eyes went wide, and he made to sit up. “No Daisy, I—”

But I was too fast for him. With a groan, I sank down on his shaft.

“Oh fleck,” he moaned, low and raspy as he collapsed to the furs on his back. His cock filled me completely, and the ring on the tip rubbed along my slick inner walls deliciously.

Bracing my hands on his chest, I circled my hips experimentally and he arched his neck while squeezing my thighs with his big hands. “Never felt anything like this,” he whispered. “This gift you give me… the best rotation of my life.”

What woman didn’t want to hear that? I began to ride his shaft, slowly at first as I was stretched to the limit around his girth, but soon I was able to pick up the pace, loving the way he felt inside of me and thanking whoever pierced his cock.

His hips moved too as he found a rhythm that matched mine. We moved in tandem, and as he picked up speed, his eyes deepened in color, growing richer than I thought possible. With a rumbling growl that sent a vibration straight through me, he grabbed me around the waist and rolled me to my back. That vibration continued as he rose above me and took over. I could do nothing but hold onto his shoulders as he fucked into me like he was possessed. Eyes locked on mine, lips peeled back in an almost painful snarl, he pounded me until I didn’t know where I ended and he began.

When I felt a suction on my clit, I yelped and looked down our bodies. That node at the base of his cock was latched onto my clit and driving me wild with each pleasurable sucking pull. I wrapped my legs around his hips and held on as he nuzzled into my neck, nipping at the thin skin with his fangs.

“Beautiful Daisy,” he whispered in my ear. “Tried to resist you, but this cunt sucked me in and won’t let go.” His lips skimmed across my forehead. “Don’t let go. Keep me inside. Never let go.”

“Never,” I whispered just as I felt my orgasm begin to ripple out from my core.

His hips stuttered, and he came on a shout just as I cried out. My body bucked, his jerked above me, and we came together in a crash. I hugged him to me as he shook, his thick cock still pulsing inside me while my legs turned to mush for the second time that day. Rex panted on top of me, his body trembling, and I ran my fingers through his white hair, scratching at his scalp.

A long time passed in post-coital silence until he rolled to the side, eyes once again soft and lazy. His fingers brushed over my lips, down my neck, and across my chest. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“I thought…” he swallowed. “I worried I could never mate, that the Rage wouldn’t let me. But when you took me inside of you, it was the first time I ever felt like I could think clearly.”

I hadn’t known he’d been worried about that, and it meant everything to me he’d had a moment of peace when we’d joined. “How do you feel now?”

He made a contented humming sound. “I feel like I could sleep for a million cycles.”

“You have…” I glanced around, but there was no clock. “One day.”

He grinned, the expression almost childlike, as if he’d been given a reprieve from the weight of his past. I knew this wouldn’t last. Tomorrow he had to fight and be strong and continue to control his Rage. But for now, his grin gave me hope. Maybe a foolish hope. But at least if the unthinkable happened, we had this moment. No one would erase this or take it away.

His finger pressed between my eyes. “You are thinking, Daisy.”

I grabbed his finger and kissed the tip. “I am thinking.”

“About?”

“About how handsome you are.”

He laughed with a deep rumble that made me want to dance in celebration. Where was the champagne? I wanted to pop it. “I’m not the beauty in this room.”

“Well, agree to disagree.” I kissed his lips. Everything about this moment felt almost normal, and it was easy to forget who we were and where we were for just a night, even as we rotated slowly through space in a galaxy so very far from home.

With slow movements, we used the expeller and small cleanser in the room to strip the travel and grime from our bodies. We ate a small meal we had bought on the way to our room, but I found I wasn’t very hungry. We then climbed into the furs together, him naked, and me wearing only a large shirt.

“Sleep, babe,” he murmured, rolling onto his back, and pulling me onto his chest. “Tomorrow will come whether we will it to or not.”

I wanted to stay awake and bask in his presence, but he needed the rest. Heck, I needed it too if I was going to keep my wits about me. So, I closed my eyes and listened to the steady beat of his heart. I prayed tomorrow at this time, it’d still be beating, because if not, I wasn’t sure I wanted mine to beat either.

The collar chafed my neck as Rex led me into a lower level of the station, down a grate where unknown fluids dripped from above. Trash crinkled beneath my boots. I had never considered what an underground fight club would look like on a space station in a neighboring galaxy, but this all seemed very appropriate.

Rex hadn’t spoken much this morning. When I’d awoke, I expected to be cradled in big strong arms. Maybe spend a little time cuddling. But the furs were cold. Rex was awake, exercising in the corner of the small room and throwing shadow punches. He was all business today, and since our lives were riding on it, I didn’t protest at the lack of dawn romance.

We ate, used the cleanser, and then got ready to leave. Rex explained that Rinian II, as a whole, never slept. There were too many species with different sleep cycles and resting needs. So, it was like the New York of the Rinian galaxy. When I thought of it that way, everything made sense. They lacked good pizza and bagels here, though. That meat we’d had yesterday wasn’t too bad, and Rex had given me a pastry-like sweet bread in the morning which had been delicious.

I grimaced at the smell the lower we traveled in the station. We weren’t flying under the radar now. A large Drixonian with a chained human was something to gawk at. I had to admit, Rex was impressive compared to the other races I’d seen. Sure, many were muscled with visible natural weapons like claws, teeth, and spikes, but none had the presence of Rex. His reputation preceded him too, and I heard many whispered words in different languages I couldn’t translate. But a few I could pick out, and I knew they all meant one thing—monster.

I wanted to shout at them all that he wasn’t a monster. He was caring, feeling, and a sentient being moved by a Game of Thrones monologue about honor and duty. A loving man who knew how to play my body like a harp.

When we reached the bottom of the walkway, we entered a room which rose up all around us like a bowl. As we strode toward an elevated platform encased in a steel cage, my legs threatened to give out. This was real. In moments, he’d be fighting something in there. I knew what damage he could do. So, what would his opponent be like? Vazreel hadn’t told us. That bothered me, but Rex said he could kill anything thrown at him. I appreciated his confidence but didn’t trust Vazreel or anyone would play fair.

And my main concern was that he wouldn’t be able to hold the Rage back. He assured me he could, but what if something triggered him? There were so many things that could go wrong, which was terrifying when we really needed everything to go right. He had to fight well, not Rage, and defeat his opponent. And that was still only part of our journey. The thought of boarding another spacecraft and heading to a planet that was already war torn was incredibly daunting.

But I had to quit going down that thought path. One step at a time. And the next step was to put on a brave face for Rex.

As we neared the corner of the cage, a small area was blocked off with crude fencing, and Vazreel stood just outside with a smarmy grin on his face. His eyes lit up in a way that sent a chill down my spine when he spotted Rex. “Drix. You showed.”

“I said I would,” Rex said with an effortless leap over the top rail of the fencing. He reached over and lifted me inside with him. Vazreel opened his mouth to talk, but Rex turned his back on him. The Rogastix narrowed his eyes at Rex’s back, and his nostrils flared at being snubbed. I pretended not to notice.

Rex’s steely gaze was on the platform, while I was distracted by the crowd. It was standing room only, with the crowd pressing in around the cage platform, while the gently sloped sides of the “bowl” of the room were less packed. I spotted a few vendors with trays of food and drink milling about. Near a far entrance, a few aliens manned a desk where they seemed to be handling currency, and I assumed they were either charging admission or taking bets. Maybe both. The seediness of this place settled on my skin like a layer or dirt.

“Do you want to hear about your opponent?” Vazreel said.

Without looking over his shoulder, Rex said. “No.”

“I have a report on an old injury that might be of help to you—”

“I’ll know what he favors as soon as I see him.”

Through my hair, I saw Vazreel’s jaw clench. He wanted to be in charge and treat Rex like a throwaway body, but Rex wasn’t here for that. He was here for me and him, not money or the glory of a fight. I knew he hated this, and it pained me he had to do the one thing he swore he never would again in order to get us off this station.

A roar rose at the far end of the bowl, and a small group entered through the opposite entrance. I took in each one, trying to guess which was the fighter, but as they drew closer, they parted to reveal who I could only assume was Rex’s opponent. I nearly collapsed when his massive yellow eyes with vertical slanted pupils took us in.

He walked similar to a gorilla as he rose to bipedal a few times before hunching forward on long arms and massive knuckles. His haunches were massive, and I imagined he could squash my entire body like a grape between his thighs. His back was covered in sharp quills, and thick horns like a ram’s curled around the side of his head. He had a massive underbite with jagged teeth visible, and his jowls dripped with saliva.

This was some sort of beast alien, and when he rose onto his two legs and took in Rex, he shouted what sounded like gibberish to me. Some of the crowd understood it though, as they began cheering and hollering.

I turned to Rex as the crowd’s noise grew, but he was quiet, taking in his opponent thoughtfully like he was studying an interesting puzzle.

“Rex,” I whispered.

His eyes slanted to me. “A horzian. I’ve fought one before.”

I didn’t have to ask him if he’d won. Him standing beside me was the proof. “Can you … beat this one?”

Rex hadn’t taken his eyes off the posturing horzian who was currently beating his chest and riling up the crowd. “Most likely.”

Most likely. That was what he gave me. I wanted to throw up my delicious pastry, which now sat in my stomach like lead. “Rex,” I whispered, feeling like I was about to lose it. I hated this. I wanted to be strong for Rex, but I was seconds away from melting down in panic.

Finally, he looked away from the horzian and gripped my face in his massive palms. His expression was calm, almost serene. “Don’t worry, Daisy,” he said softly. “No one in this entire galaxy has more to fight for than I do.”

And now I wanted to melt for a whole other reason.

A deep voice boomed over the din of the crowd, and Rex’s expression immediately shifted to a stoic determination. In the center of the platform stood a Rogastix. He was bald, with a massive gold ring pierced through the center of his lower lip. His fingers were littered with jeweled rings, and his coat, while similar to Vazreel’s, was in better shape and covered in adornments.

“Welcome to the Cage, where many enter, but few leave.” He grinned, and the crowd cheered. “This fight will be talked about for many rotations, maybe even cycles. To my left is Buvrael, a horzian who certainly loves to kill in inventive ways.” More crowd cheering as the horzian mentioned clacked his razor teeth together in Rex’s direction. “To my right, we have a special treat for you, a last-minute addition who hasn’t been heard from in many cycles, but who has agreed to fight today. I present to you, the Drixonian Monster!”

My heart dropped into my heels. The horzian at least got a name, but Rex was nothing but a monster. For a moment, I almost told him to go ahead and slip into a Rage and slice into that Rogastix emcee, but I held my tongue.

Rex didn’t flinch at the name. His gaze remained steady on his opponent, sizing him up with an emotionless expression. I ducked my head, breathing deep before I lost my mind and screamed.

“Fighters, enter!” The emcee hollered.

Rex’s hand slipped from mine, and I nearly went into panic mode. He turned to me and handed me the chain to my collar. He let his mask slip for just a moment to lean down to peer at me through my curtain of hair. “I will return to you the victor, Daisy.”

And that was it. He leapt up a few stairs and pushed open a small door in the cage. When it closed behind him, a small purple alien locked it from the outside. I gulped and peered up. The top of the cage was open, and Rex could easily soar over it, but he had no reason to escape. He had to fight and win, or we were both doomed.

The emcee talked some more, but I tuned him out, focusing on Rex’s back. He wore only a pair of pants and thick boots. His tail swished lazily along the floor, the split tip flicking back and forth. Neither fighter was allowed outside weapons, so he had to relinquish the metal barbs he normally wore on his tail.

Buvrael’s tail lashed viciously, smacking the leather-covered platform with loud cracks. His saliva dripped from his jowls, and his beady eyes stared hungrily at Rex. Both fighters were required to stand on crude X’s slashed into the leather until the emcee left through a door in the cage.

As soon as he shut it behind him and the lock clicked, a hush fell over the crowd. Buvrael swayed side to side, his knuckles dragging on the platform. Rex unleashed his machets slowly and then raised his arms, crossing them at the wrist in front of his neck. He lowered his brow and peered through his slitted eyes from between his fists.

The emcee’s voice boomed over the silence. “Fight!”

And the crowd went crazy.

Buvrael made the first move as he leapt into the air like a panther. In response, Rex spun, smacking Buvrael in the side with his tail before he hit the ground. Buvrael grunted and hit the ground on a slight stumble.

Rex lashed out with his forearms machets, but Buvrael dodged them easily. He punched out with his fist, catching Rex on the chin before he whipped his tail at Rex’s side. The flesh split open on his ribs, and black liquid fell from between his scales. With a sick dread, I watched the single drop hit the platform as if in slow-motion.

At the sight of first blood, the crowd went into a frenzy. The chant for monster had started already. I was unable to move, frozen in horror as the fight continued. Rex didn’t look fazed at the injury, and a few seconds later, he gored Buvrael in the thigh with his head spikes when the horzian tried to pounce again.

Jelly-like blobs of blue blood oozed from Buvrael’s thigh, and while he tried to hide it, he limped slightly as he crashed into the cage near my head. It was then I noticed a very, very faint scar on his thigh, right by the new injury. Had Rex targeted that area on purpose?

Distracted, I wasn’t paying attention to what Buvrael was doing. I felt the heat of his breath and smelled the stink of his body seconds before he turned and hissed at me through the cage. I stumbled back, blasted by the stench of rot. Rex rushed him in a growl of fury, but the Buvrael was ready. Using Rex’s momentum, he ducked low, catching him in the stomach and tossing him over his shoulder. Rex hit the cage in the air on his back and the metal clanked and shook above him. He hit the ground a split second before Buvrael whirled on him, mouth open, and sank his teeth into Rex’s shoulder.

I screamed and screamed and screamed as Rex howled with anger and pain while his black blood darkened the stained platform.

TWELVE

Rex

Pain burned through my shoulder as the horzian’s powerful jaws tore through muscle and clamped down in an effort to snap the bone. If I didn’t get out of his grip soon, I was going to lose the use of my left shoulder, and then I’d be flecked.

Through the agony coursing through my body, I heard the chants, and I fought back the haze of red which clouded the edges of my vision. The pain settled into the cracks of my mind and pried them open further in an effort to let out the Rage. Any injury was a warning to the monster inside of me because the Rage’s main motivation was not to be defeated. My body was its host, and it needed me alive.

I struggled against the horzian as he began to shake his head, further tearing into my shoulder. The Rage rose up my throat, clogging words as my muscles swelled. My mind warped and shuddered. There was a reason I couldn’t let out the Rage… What was that reason? I couldn’t remember, and I was so tired. The Rage would end this fight. Release the Rage. Stop the pain. Just let it all go…

Then I heard one sound over the chants and the growling of the horzian. A scream. A pleading voice. “Rex,” it said. “Please fight. Fight for us. Babe, please.”

I focused and craned my neck back to meet wet, soft brown eyes. Pink lips moved and the voice came again. Small fingers clutched the links of the cage as she pressed her face to the metal. I’d kissed those lips. I’d heard my name slip between them in pleasure. They belong to my female. My mate. My Daisy. I had to win for her.

With a roar, I gripped the horzian around the neck and squeezed. Around my flesh in his mouth, he wheezed. I curled my claws and dug in, relishing the feel of warm liquid spilling out over my knuckles.

With a wounded cry, he loosened his jaws, and I moved fast. I wrenched my shoulder from his grip, pain searing through me as flesh tore. Buvrael sought to flee but I was too fast for him, too motivated with Daisy’s voice in my ear and the memory of her touch on my flesh.

I sent a boot into his side, and bones crunched. He howled as his tail whipped at me, catching me in the thigh. I lost my balance and fell to the platform as he staggered to his feet and sought to bite into me again. I knew if he got his jaws into me one more time, he wouldn’t let go.

I rolled to the side and his jaws snapped at air. Leaping to my feet, I brought my machets down on the back of his already bleeding neck, and he collapsed onto his stomach. I thought I heard a crack of bone, but I knew I couldn’t let up until I was sure he was dead.

The crowd was chanting something else now, and I ignored them as I kicked Buvrael over onto his back. He stared up at me, gasping, his eyes filled with pain.

This was always the moment where I hesitated, where I wondered if he was being forced to fight just like me, if he had no other choice.

But then his lips pulled back into a snarl, and I didn’t wait to see what filth he planned to spew. It was either him or me who would leave this.

I plunged my claws into his neck, wrapped my fingers around his throat, and tore it out.

His body bucked; blood sprayed in an arc into the crowd. And the horzian lay beneath me, eyes staring unseeing, as his chest went still. I stumbled away from him, still holding flesh and bone in my fist. I dropped it with disgust, the pain once again soaring to the surface as I caught sight of my mangled shoulder out of the corner of my eye.

I turned to find Daisy standing right where I’d left her, face completely drained of color and her eyes streaming with tears. Her entire body trembled as the crowd surged around the fencing, the only thing separating her from them. A clawed hand reached out and brushed her hair. She screamed and plastered her back to the edge of the cage, as far away from the crowd as possible. Vazreel was nowhere to be seen amid the chaos.

I didn’t bother to wait for anyone to let me out of the cage. Daisy was in danger of being crushed or stolen. When I threw my body against the door of the cage, the lock snapped, and I burst through the opening to snatch Daisy to my chest. She curled her arms around my neck, and I pushed through the crowd. If anyone got in my way, I swept them aside with my tail. Nothing would stop me from getting Daisy to safety.

I reached the ramp leading out of the arena on a sprint. At this point, the crowd scrambled out of my way, as they’d seen the damage my tail could do. Covered in blood, I knew I would attract attention. I found the nearest room rental, plunked down a pile of czens, and shut ourselves away in a room.

I dropped Daisy on the furs and spun around, looking for the cleanser. I had to get clean and rinse this blood off me, as most of mine had mingled with the horzians. The feel and smell of it made me sick. Red still tinged my vision as the Rage sought to punish anyone and everyone for the pain. I stumbled, my body in shock, and my vision doubling. Where was the flecking cleanser? Panic rose in my chest a split second before a soft hand slid into mine.

Calm descended on me long enough to focus. With careful movements, Daisy led me to a small alcove in the corner of the room where we stepped in together. With slow, gentle movements, she helped me step out of my boots and slip my pants down my legs. I felt uncoordinated, but she had patience for me.

I panted, my machets still out as the threat to me and Daisy still felt pressing and imminent. I couldn’t force my cora to stop pounding, not until Daisy stripped off her clothes and revealed her beautiful body. Some of her pale flesh was streaked with blood from my hands, and the black marks drew my gaze.

“It’s okay,” she said softly. “You won. Just like you said you would. It’s behind us now.”

She turned on the cleanser, and I tilted my head back as the powerful air washed over me, stripping me of the blood and grime. The sound drowned out the echoing chants in my ears. When the cleanser turned off, I remained in the same position with my eyes closed. The silence stretched on, and I reveled in the absence of the crowd’s roar.

Slim fingers tangled with mine, and I glanced down to see Daisy’s brow furrowed in concern. Her chest heaved, and her pretty breasts, tipped with hard pink nipples, begged for my mouth. Her clean scent surrounded me, and the adrenaline from the fight tipped over from violence to lust. This was what I’d fought for.

I heard myself say in a low voice filled with want. “I need you.”

Her big eyes blinked up at me. “Take me.”

I hauled her to me with my uninjured arm and smashed our lips together. Immediately, I sank my tongue into her mouth, fucking into her as my cock sought her heated core. She gasped against me, but this time it wasn’t an inhale of lust, but a sinking release into pleasure.

“Rex,” she murmured against my lips. “My hero.”

I rushed out of the cleanser and spread her out on the furs in the small room. She lay beneath me, now flushed pink with arousal, and her legs parted to reveal her wet folds. I dove between them, eager to taste her again. I wanted her flavor on my tongue every day. Sweet, fresh, and intoxicating.

She cried out, arching her back into me, and gripped my horns as she bucked into my mouth. I thrust my tongue inside of her and began to prush—the vibration that started in my chest and rose up my throat and onto my tongue. She came quickly, screaming my name, and while she still trembled, I rolled her onto her stomach, pulled her onto all fours, and plunged my cock into her.

Her cries continued as she thrust back against me. I held onto her hips and relentlessly pounded into her sweet body. I plucked at her hard nipples as I buried my face into her golden hair. “My Daisy,” I growled, possession filling in the cracks of my mind until the Rage was a distant memory. “You take my cock like you were made for it.”

“I was.” She arched her pretty neck, and I skated my teeth over the vein there. As I plumbed her clit with my fingers, she let out a long low moan. “I was made for you, Rexor.”

I came on a roar, filling her with my seed as her inner walls clenched around me. She gripped my horns, gasping out her pleasure as we found our release together. I remained inside of her until I was drained dry, until she went slack in my arms and her eyelids fell shut. When I laid her on the bed, a small smile curled her pretty lips.

I kissed her there, once again savoring her flavor, as I curled my body around her.

THIRTEEN

Daisy

Fighting made Rex insatiable. He woke me with his tongue between my legs. Then he let me show him what a blow job was, and then he came inside me two more times before I told him if he didn’t get me some food, I was going to perish.

He left and returned quickly with an armful of food he laid out on the bed in a buffet. We both ate ravenously until Rex gave me a look and fucked me after smearing my nipples with a sticky syrup. After that, we used the cleanser again before I put a moratorium on penetrative sex since I was so sore I could barely walk. He felt bad about that and then proceeded to rub my feet.

Eventually he rested his head near my hip. I ran my fingers through his hair, feeling content for the first time in a long time. I never would have imagined my life would turn out like this, where I’d have a great day getting screwed into the mattress by an alien with a split tongue.

“The horzian knew,” he said, peering up at me with languid purple eyes.

“Knew what?”

“What you mean to me. He engaged you to anger me. And it worked because I made a mistake.”

Shockingly, his shoulder had already begun to heal. While he still favored it, he’d gained almost full use of the appendage, and the scales had knitted back together. “Yeah but you didn’t let the Rage take over.”

“It was close,” he murmured, his fingers caressing the inside of my thigh. “Until I heard your voice.”

“Did my voice hold the Rage back?”

“It did. Sometimes Fenix talking to me would help, but not always.”

“Rex what about…” I hesitated to bring this up, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Now that we’d physically connected, I couldn’t imagine life without him. “What about when we reach Torin? Do you still plan to leave?”

He didn’t speak for a long time. “Daisy, we talked about this.”

I sat up. “But that was before.”

He lifted onto an elbow and studied me. “Before what?”

I bugged my eyes out at him. “Uh, before this.” I gestured to the bed.

His face fell. “For as long as I live, I’ll treasure what you gave me—”

“No,” I was already shaking my head while anger bubbled in my gut. “Don’t give me that thanks for the memory crap. I don’t want to be alone on this planet.”

“You won’t be alone.”

“I will be alone if you’re not with me!”

He jerked at my shout, and his brows lowered as he plucked at a rip in the furs. “I don’t trust myself not to hurt you.”

“I trust you not to hurt me.”

“But on Vixlicin, I did hurt you.”

“I was able to bring you back.”

“Until you can’t. Until I’m lost to the Rage, and then you have to decide to end me. Is that what you want for your life, Daisy?”

I felt helpless. “Rex…”

“You are mine, Daisy. My mate. What is left of me, you own.” His hand slid up my stomach to rest over my heart. “But the Rage owns the rest, and he takes more and more of me each rotation.”

Tears spilled over my bottom lashes, and I sniffed. “Please.”

“I’ll stay as long as I can,” he promised, but I saw the hesitation in his eyes. There was no point in arguing. I knew Rex enough now to know that his honor to keep me safe would override everything. I nodded, unable to speak further. “Please don’t be sad Daisy,” he said, rising over me and kissing the tears from my cheeks.

“Aren’t you sad?” I whispered.

He paused a moment and met my gaze. “I’m not. This time with you has been the best of my life. As a chit, I dreamed of finding a female mate, and as a prisoner, I mourned the end of that dream. But now that I’ve met you, you’re better than anything my mind could imagine. You make me laugh, and you see the qua half full—"

I choked out a laugh through my tears. “—glass half full.”

“—glass half full, and you make me feel.” He pounded his chest. “I haven’t felt in so long. I wasn’t sure I could anymore.”

“You feel so much, Rex.” I cupped his face. “I’ve never met a man as courageous as you, You still manage to care for others when you haven’t been shown much care in your whole life.”

“It’s the memory of my family that would never die. Only during the Rage do I forget them, and it is the one thing that scares me the most. When I cease to remember them, then I’m no longer the Drixonian warrior Rexor Bakut.”

I gripped his face and shook it. “I won’t let the Rage take you, Rex.”

He didn’t believe me. I could see it in his eyes. “We’ll see, Daisy. We will see.”

Vazreel had told Rex a time and location for us to meet him to depart Rinian II. After another meal, we left our room and headed to a lower level dock to Vazreel’s spacecraft. Rex had explained to me that most passenger aircrafts required documents to board, and if the passengers failed to produce them, then authorities would be called. We, of course, had no documents, and had to rely on Vazreel.

As we reached the bottom of a grated ramp, Tritters carrying cargo walked by us on the way to a large spaceship which sat alone at the end of the dock. Vazreel stood outside, directing the Tritters on where to stack the crates and locked metal boxes. As we approached, he turned. His one eye widened, as if he was surprised to see us, and that grin of his I hated spread across his face. Rex went stiff at my side.

“You came!” Vazreel said.

“I nearly lost my arm in that fight just for passage on your craft. Of course, I came.”

Vazreel’s expression didn’t change. “Well, I wasn’t sure. Plans often change on Rinian II, don’t they? A better offer can always come along.”

I didn’t like standing exposed on the ramp. Rex hadn’t bothered with my collar, instead choosing to cover me with the long red cape. I fidgeted beneath it as some Tritters stole glances at us.

Rex was studying Vazreel carefully, and I wondered if he had the heebie-jeebies as much as me. “I didn’t seek other offers. We’d like to board now.”

Rex took a step toward the craft, but Vazreel stepped in front of us, blocking our way. “See, I did.” His eye gleamed. “I sought other offers.” Rex immediately shifted his weight, and I could feel the tension vibrate in his muscles. My knees shook. “Turns out the Plikens knew of a Drixonian and a human on Rinian II. A Tritter spotted you sneaking off their ship, and a deal with the Plikens is worth more to me than a deal with you.”

“You mother flecker,” Rex hissed through clenched teeth as he wrapped his arms around me and began to back away, gaze furtively scanning the dock.

Vazreel continued to grin. “Not only do I get a partnership with the Plikens hauling quazal, but I get…” his gaze shifted to me. “Her.”

He reached for me, but Rex was faster. He hauled me into his arms and took off at lightning speed down the dock. Footsteps pounded above us, and as we approached the ramp, a squad of Plikens thundered down toward us, capes flying as they brandished weapons.

“We need them both alive!” a Pliken commander shouted from the back of the squad. Rex whirled around, but another squad of Plikens were heading from the opposite direction. We were trapped on a metal grate in a massive bubble of a space station. There was nowhere to go. Claustrophobia hit me like a ton of bricks, and I gasped for breath as Rex’s chest heaved against me. Despair swamped me as he gently placed me on the ground.

With a cacophony of shouts, the Plikens charged.

Rex, machets unleashed, fought like hell. He launched himself into the squad of Plikens like a one-alien battering arm, slashing with his arms, head, and tail. Hands grabbed me and I fought like an animal, but I was no match for Vazeel’s strength. He hauled me over his shoulder, and I screamed. I heard Rex’s answering growl, but he was buried beneath Pliken warriors, fighting his way to me in a wake of blood and death.

“Rex!” I hollered and beat my fists against Vazreel’s back. That was when I spotted the sheathed knife in his belt. I gripped the handle and tugged. As soon as the blade was loose, I plunged it into his lower back. On a pained howl, he dropped me. I hit the metal grate on my hip, and the knife clattered out of my hand. I scrambled for it on my hands and knees. Just when my fingers closed around the handle, a large boot stomped on my hand. I screamed as pain shot up my wrist. Vazreel crouched in front of me as I cradled my hand against my stomach. “Now you’ll learn what it’s like to really be owned, pretty human.”

“You’ll never own me.” I spat in his face and received a vicious backhand in response. Pain exploded in my cheek, and I felt blood pool in my mouth.

A roar reached my ears, and I craned my neck to find a writhing pile of Plikens, fists pummeling down. Through the fray of limbs, I caught sight of blue skin struggling beneath maybe a dozen Pliken fighters. “Rex!” I called hoarsely as Vazreel dragged me to my feet. “Rex!”

The pile of bodies moved as one in a pulse, and then like a bomb going off from within, they detonated. Plikens went flying, some falling off the grated dock to crash to their deaths below and a massive winged creature emerged on a howl of fury. I’d seen Rex in his Rage before, but this was something else. He was bigger than I’d ever seen him, with his midnight-black wings unfurling like massive sails and his muscles vibrating with anger.

“Shet,” Vazreel muttered, craning his neck over his shoulder to take in the massive Drixonian as he continued to haul me toward his spacecraft.

My focus was a red-eyed Rex who swept through the Plikens like a torpedo in my direction. Vazreel hauled me over his shoulder and ran faster, but a mighty snap of wings sounded from behind us right before Rex soared overhead and landed in a crouch in front of us. White hair settled around his shoulders like a cape, and when he lifted his head, his red-eyed gaze locked onto Vazreel.

Vazreel dropped me like I was on fire and turned to run, but Rex was on him. He leapt onto Vazreel’s back, claws digging into the skin as he lowered his head and shredded his neck with his head spikes and horns. In seconds, Vazreel was nothing but a bloodied body, and Rex tossed him off the grated walkway.

“Rex,” I rasped as I struggled to my feet, my throat sore from screaming. He turned to me, chest heaving, his eyes a demon red. There was no recognition there, but I didn’t panic yet. “Hey. It’s me.” He swayed on his feet and his wings flapped. “Rex, babe.” I called. “It’s me. Daisy. You’re okay. You can come back now.”

His lips curled back in a snarl and he took a step toward me just as marching sounded from above us. I turned to find two more squads of Plikens pounding down the ramps. How many had they sent for us? Would this ever end? Rex roared again, but this time, the Plikens weren’t messing around. Laser fire pinged all around us, and Rex screeched in pain as a shot tore through his wings.

“Stop!” I screamed. “Don’t kill him!”

This was it. I was going to lose him. I could see it all happening in real time, and this was more painful than I ever could have imagined. If only I got a chance to look into Rex’s purple eyes one more time, to get a few kind words, but instead I’d see him lose like this. They’d either kill him or capture him in his Rage. Would he ever be able to come back without something familiar?

Tears streamed down my face as I watched Rex fight. He was injured now, his body covered in blood, and as hands hauled me upright, I barely had the strength to fight. He was losing. I was losing. Everything was fucking lost.

Suddenly, a burning pain streaked through my wrists. I glanced down at them to find two black lines about two inches apart slowly begin to run the circumference of my wrists, as if etched by an invisible tattoo artist. “What—?”

I glanced up to see Rex holding his wrists in front of him as laser fire blew by his head. His wrists held the same markings. Our eyes met—his red, mine brown—and pain slammed into my skull. Fire streaked through my mind like a flame thrower, singing every nerve in its path.

I gripped the sides of my head as a scream of frustration began to rise up my throat. More footsteps pounded above me, and I let a sob of defeat slip free. Rex was overpowered as more Plikens piled on him to subdue him even as he raged through his injuries.

The arms holding me suddenly let go, and then three words filtered over the sounds of the fight like vapor. A chant. A decree. She is All. She is All.

I looked up through my tangled hair to see a wall of blue bearing down on us. I’d never seen anything like it. In the front strode a massive Drixonian, taller than Rex, with dark hair and a pierced septum. His purple eyes were like thunder and fanning out behind him in an inverted triangle were more Drixonians all wearing red armbands. Every one of them was jacked, fierce, and pissed.

I’d never seen anything like it.

They swept through the Plikens like a tidal wave, slashing with machets and tails. A thick Drixonian with a scarred face growled and roared as he swept through the masses with biceps the size of my torso. Another Drixonian with a black mohawk hacked at Plikens with a barbed tail and whooped and hollered with glee while another with a long braid leapt and gored with a grin.

It didn’t matter how many Plikens arrived. The Drixonians swept through them like butter. I searched frantically for Rex, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. A writhing mass of Plikens moved, and suddenly a blue hand shot from below, reaching out for the sky.

The Drixonian leader with the septum piercing spotted Rex’s hand and made one gesture to his warriors. As one unit, they advanced on the last squad of Plikens. One by one, they picked off the bodies, sending them flying to their deaths in a flurry of limbs.

With a roar, Rex emerged, soaked in blood so his white hair hung matted to his skull. Wings torn, leg ripped open above his knee, and his chest pulsing blood, he appeared half-dead. The Drixonian leader reared back, his face paling to nearly white as he took in the stumbling creature in front of him.

“Don’t hurt him!” I hollered, staggering to my feet. “Please, he’s one of you. He’s a Drixonian!”

The leader’s head turned to me, and when I tripped on a fallen Pliken body, he lunged for me before I hit the grate. Rex growled and sought to advance on the Drix leader, except his leg gave out beneath him and he hit the platform hard. He continued to snarl at the Drixonians, and his lack of ability to detect his own race cracked open my heart. The fire in my mind flared hotter and brighter.

“Who is he?” The Drixonian asked.

“He’s one of you.” I pleaded. “He saved me.”

The Drixonian with the braid stepped up next to the leader, and both of them turned their gaze onto the snarling, feral warrior in front of them.

“What’s his name?” the leader asked haltingly.

“Rex,” I gasped out. “His name is Rexor.”

As soon as I said his name, the Drixonian sucked in a breath. His purple eyes went dark, and his features tightened before he gritted out in a heartbroken tone. “My name is Dazeem Bakut. Rex is my brother.”

FOURTEEN

THE MONSTER

I burned hotter, spitting flames through the cracks in my mind, widening them as I sought to lay waste to all of it. The world would be better when I killed. When I hurt. When I sought vengeance for what was done to me.

Pain was everywhere. Enemies were closing in. As my wrists burned, I stared at the unfamiliar markings. Between the two parallel black lines, a jagged pattern appeared, mixed with a contrasting swirl. They glowed white before dulling to a soft gold on my blue skin.

What were these? I felt drawn to look up, and I spotted a small figure covered in pale flesh. Her head was topped with gold. Was she an enemy? No, some deep recess in my mind called. I protect her. But why? She was surrounded by others. I didn’t know them, but they had to be enemies. Everyone hurt me.

I took a step toward her, and then my pain slammed into my skull. Nearly crippling me. I fell to one knee, clutching my head. The fire raged on, widening the cracks in my mind. Yes, this was what I wanted. Get rid of the weakness. Only be strong.

And then the pain released like a valve, and the rush of qua roared in my ears. The cool liquid flowed in the red-hot cracks in my mind and hit the first flames with a hissing sizzle. This was her doing. She sought to put out the Rage. I must not let this happen. I took a stumbling step toward her, and then her lips moved as she spoke in a soft voice that stopped me in my tracks. “Come back to me, Rex. Come back.”

The qua flowed. My mind filled with smoke, thick and choking as the fire fought back. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see.

The red faded to black, and then there was nothing.

FIFTEEN

Daisy

“We’re taking you home.”

Those words rattled around in my brain from the time I boarded a massive spacecraft that Dazeem referred to as a Drixonian warship to now as we hurtled through space. I didn’t have a home anymore. Returning to Earth seemed unfathomable. I wasn’t the same Daisy I’d been when I left. But another planet with these strange Drixonians… was that home?

Rex remained comatose. While his wings had folded into his back and his size had returned to normal, he didn’t wake. I laid with him in Daz’s private quarters, which he’d given up for us. I listened to Rex’s heartbeat and watched while his many wounds slowly began to heal.

The room reminded me of Rex’s back on Blazen, except this one was well cared for. A massive bed of furs took up the center of the room. The cleanser—which I’d already used—could fit three full-grown Drixonians, and a massive table bolted into the floor was littered with papers and several tablets.

A large canvas hanging on the wall drew my attention, as the painting was of a human woman—she had long brown hair, a bright smile, and held a baby with blue skin and nubbed horns. I wanted to know more about her. Was that baby both human and Drixonian?

My head throbbed, and my skull felt too full. I didn’t know what to make of that, or these matching patterns that had appeared on mine and Rex’s wrists. So much had happened in such a short amount of time. A beeping from the door drew my attention, and Daz stepped through, followed by the Drix with a long braid down his back. His gaze passed over me quickly to take in Rex, and he swallowed thickly, his large purple eyes full of sorrow.

Daz remained stiff, his muscles tight as he took a seat on a chair at the end of the bed. “This is Saxus,” he pointed to the Drix with a braid. “He is the middle Bakut brother.”

Sax nodded at me, a small smile on his face. “It’s an honor to meet my brother’s cora-eternal.”

The term caught me off guard. “Cora-what?”

Daz pointed to my wrists. “Those markings show that Fatas has chosen you as Rex’s cora-eternal. It happens when your mate kills the one who drew your blood.”

“Drew my blood?” I remembered then, that when Vazreel struck me, my teeth cut the inside of my mouth. I’d tasted blood. And then… Rex had killed him. My implant roughly translated that cora-eternal to forever heart, which made me clasp my hand over my own as it beat rapidly. “But I don’t understand. Why?”

“Drixonians have always chosen mates, but sometimes, on rare occasions, Fatas chooses for us if she sees a perfect match.” He unsnapped leather cuffs around his wrists to reveal markings in a different pattern. “These are called loks. And I have my own human female cora-eternal. Fra-kee. She was stolen from Earth by others, as I assume you were.” He pointed to the artwork behind him. “That is her holding our son, Corthin.”

Saxus held up his own marked wrists. “I also have a cora-eternal. Her name is Val. She’s a healer here. On Earth, she was a nurse.”

All our patterns were different, like fingerprints. “Rex and I… I would have chosen him for my mate without these loks.”

Daz bobbed his head. “Fatas chooses well. My Fra-kee is my everything.” He reached out and lightly touched Rex’s foot. I’d taken his boots off before we’d departed the station. “Please tell me how you met my brother.”

I started from the beginning, speaking in halting tones as I wished Rex were there to help me explain. I didn’t tell them all of Rex’s past, as that didn’t seem my place, but I told them how he rescued me and what his plan was to get me to safety. “He said he planned to take me to Torin to give me to his brothers who’d keep me safe.”

“We no longer live on Torin,” Daz said. “We defeated the Uldani and returned to our home planet of Corin to raise our families. You will both be safe there.”

I swallowed. “Rex said he didn’t plan to stay.”

“What?” Sax jerked to his feet. The chair behind him flew back and crashed to the floor. I startled at the sound.

Daz’s eyes sliced to his brother. “Settle.”

Sax’s arm flung out. “She said he doesn’t plan to stay!”

“Let’s focus on getting him healed first. I don’t know how he will be when he wakes up.” Daz growled. “You saw what he was like when we arrived. He was….” He pressed his lips together and bowed his head. A shudder shook his head shoulders.

“He’s not a monster,” I insisted.

Daz’s head jerked up.

“He can’t always control himself.” I was getting heated now. I needed them to understand he was still Rex. “The Uldani… they did this to him. You know that, right? They did this to him, just like they changed Mikko, Fenix, and Zecri. But they’re still Drixonians. Rex spoke of honor all the time and—” Tears streamed down my face as I clasped his lifeless hand. “He’s good and caring and I love him. Where he goes, that’s where I’ll be. Always. No matter what he’s like when he wakes up.”

Both Drixonians stared at me for a long time. Daz finally spoke, a respectful tinge to his tone. “And he’s our brother. Always.”

I let the breath release from my lungs in a relieved rush. “Okay.”

“His home is on Corin, no matter what he says.” Daz gave Rex’s ankle a squeeze. “And your home is there too.”

And maybe that was my naivety talking, but I found myself believing him. I’d give this home a shot, because as long as Rex was with me, I could adapt to anything.

Corin was a complete contrast to the desert planet of Vixlicin. My feet sank in soft, green dirt, and blue grass swayed in a breeze while lush trees dotted the skyline. The only thing that would have made it better was if Rex were awake to enjoy it with me. Despite his reluctance to come home, I knew he missed it more than anything.

When we landed on Corin, we disembarked the warship to find a row of gleaming motorcycle-looking vehicles waiting for us. I soon learned that while Rex had hover-ATVs, the Drixonians here had hover motorcycles. They loaded Rex’s body on an enclosed sled and hitched it to the back of one of the bikes. I sat on the bike with Daz, my back to his front, and while the shape of him was familiar, he wasn’t Rex. He didn’t feel like him or smell like him.

We rose into the air, and Daz headed the way across a large open plain. In the distance, I could see some derelict several-story buildings with scaffolding erected along the side, and small blue dots of laborers could be seen repairing them. We drove past, and Daz murmured in my ear they were rebuilding the once-prosperous city of Granit. We drove further into a dense jungle and eventually emerged to the bustle of a small village. A large tree sat in the center, and surrounding it were small huts.

A group of human women were huddled on benches around the tree, and as soon as we rode toward a garage, one rose to her feet and sprinted toward us. Tears pricking my eyes, I hadn’t realized just how much I missed seeing humans until now.

Daz touched down, and in seconds she was there, her eyes wide and her long brown hair swirling around her shoulders. I recognized her as Daz’s Fra-kee from the painting in his room. Straps crossed over her chest and when she turned slightly, I caught sight of a little dark-haired head peeking out of a wrap on her back.

“A human!” she cried, her hands immediately reaching for me and helping me off the bike. “My name is Frankie and this is Corinth on my back—Ouch!“ her head jerked and she reached behind her, where I caught a little blue hand holding a fistful of brown hair. She carefully extricated it from his clutches with a gentle chide. “What did I say about pulling Mommy’s hair?” Flushed, she focused back on me. “Sorry, what’s your name?”

“Daisy,” I whispered, trying hard to hold back my tears at the warm welcome.

“I don’t get a greeting, my cora-eternal?” Daz rumbled from behind me.

Frankie flicked a hand at him. “Yeah, yeah, hello, glad you’re alive, love you. Now take your sleep-striking son and let me get her settled.”

Daz lifted their son out of the wrap, the child appearing tiny in his massive hands. He hoisted him up to his chest and nuzzled their foreheads together. “You’ll sleep for your sire, won’t you?”

The little thing yawned, displaying an impressive set of fangs.

Frankie threw up her hands. “Are you kidding me? Now he yawns?”

Daz ignored her and then looked over his shoulder where Sax stood near the sled holding Rex. “Place him and Daisy in the empty hut. Arrange food and make sure Val pays them a visit.”

“Already on it, brother.” Sax picked up one end of the sled while the massive Drix with scars picked up the other. “Let’s go, Gar.”

“Who’s in there?” Frankie asked, craning her neck to see inside the vent holes.

“It’s Rex,” Daz answered before I could. His expression was somber, and his son picked up on it, as his little lip began to tremble. Frankie sucked in a sharp breath and laid her hand on Daz’s arm. “Oh no. Is he…?”

“He’s alive,” Daz answered. His eyes met mine and he sighed deeply. “I’ll explain soon, mate. For now, he’s alive.” He gestured to me with his chin. “And Daisy is his cora-eternal.”

Frankie’s eyes went even wider as her gaze went straight to my wrists. “What? I didn’t… Oh my God.” She reached for me before hesitating. “Can I… hug you?”

And at the moment, I couldn’t have wanted anything more. I’d been on a constant edge of worry since I woke up on that spacecraft. I was sure I was dead many times over. But now I was here among safe aliens and human women, most who looked happy and healthy. I never thought I’d get this again. Relief crashed over me like a wave until I felt like I was drowning. All I could do was nod and blurt on a sob, “Please.”

“Oh sweetie.” She gathered me in her slender arms, and I cried my heart out on her shoulder.

Suddenly more arms were around me, and I realized the rest of the women had joined us. There were six. Maybe seven. I couldn’t count. All I knew was that they were the only thing keeping me upright. Words of encouragement filtered through, light jokes about aliens, and soon I was alternating between laughing and crying in a therapeutic way.

They led me over to the benches under the tree where I met them one by one. There was Val, Sax’s mate, who was also one of the settlement’s healers, as she was a nurse on Earth. She held a small baby in her arms. Miranda was a tall black woman with braids, while Tabitha was a bubbly college-aged woman with purple hair and a sexy smile. Reba held a newborn in her arms, a little boy who stared solemnly out from under a thick nubbed brow. In the distance, Anna chased her seven-year-old daughter, Bazel. Naomi, a tiny thing with a massive pregnant belly leaned against a thin woman with dark hair who studied me carefully. I began to get a little worried about what was in the qua here. There were a lot of babies.

I didn’t want to talk—too overwhelmed and a little heartbroken about Rex—so Frankie had them all tell stories of how they met their mates. Val and Sax had been imprisoned together by the Uldani to be used as a breeder couple, while Miranda had found an amnesiac Drak in the dense jungle before slowly coaxing him back to rejoin his race.

I was happy for these women, who talked of their mates with love. I knew that feeling, but Rex wasn’t here, and I didn’t know if he would be okay. I tried to remain positive, but my well was close to dry. Luck had been on our side so many times. When would it run out? When would my positive attitude do nothing but disappoint me? But I refused to give up on Rex, so eventually I explained I wanted to visit him.

Frankie took my hand and led me toward a hut at the end of the camp. “Did you get to know Rex well before the loks?”

I rubbed my wrists, but the markings didn’t change my skin texture. “Yes.”

Frankie took a few steps before she prodded. “And?”

“And he’s wonderful. Good and kind. He’s serious, but he laughs sometimes. And he feels so very deeply about things. It’s beautiful.”

Frankie let out an audible sigh. “Oh Daisy, he’ll get better. The loks give you and him enhanced healing abilities. We’ve seen it happen before. Val certainly would have died if it weren’t for her loks.”

Hope bloomed in my chest. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Except…” we reached the door of Rex’s room, and I bit my lip. “Rex isn’t… There are things…” Where did I start?

“We heard stories,” Frankie said. “That the Uldani experimented on some of them before selling them to the Plikens. Was Rex one of them?”

I nodded, and Frankie’s eyes filled. “Shit. Daz is… he’s going to take this so hard. He feels responsible for what happened to Rex.”

“How? Rex doesn’t blame Daz for anything. He spoke very highly of Daz and Sax.”

“Yeah?” Frankie gave me a sad smile. “That’s good to hear at least.”

The door opened and Daz filled the doorway. I straightened. “Is he okay?”

“No change,” Daz said gruffly. Fatigue deepened the creases around his eyes. “Corinth is sleeping, and Hap is watching him.”

Frankie placed a soft hand on his cheek. “That’s fine.” She tugged on my arm. “Let’s go see Rex.”

He lay on the furs, and the position of his body let me know he’d been placed with care. As we stepped into the hut, Sax rose from a seat by the bed, his hand slipping from where he’d been holding Rex’s. He swallowed and gave me a nod.

Leaving Frankie’s side, I went right to the furs and climbed to Rex’s side. His chest rose and fell, and when I placed my hand over his heart, I smiled at the familiar beating rhythm. His expression bothered me. It wasn’t stoic or calm. It was pained. His brow was furrowed, and his lips were thin. It made me wonder if he was stuck in some sort of Rage in his mind. I couldn’t imagine Rex never waking up.

“Fenix gave me a powder,” I said into the quiet room as I pulled the envelope from my pocket. “He told me if Rex couldn’t come back from his Rage, if he was lost to it, that he wouldn’t want to live like that. And I should give him this powder so he could…” I sniffed as I tossed the powder packet on the top of the furs. “Pass in peace.”

I glanced up at Daz, who stood with his arm around Frankie’s shoulders while Sax stood at his other side. They all eyed the envelope with trepidation. “I don’t know what to do. His mind can be a scary place. What if he’s scared and in pain? What if I have the ability to stop that and I instead hold on for selfish reasons?”

Frankie stepped forward and knelt by the bed. “What’s he like in your aura?”

I cocked my head. “My aura?”

She tapped her temple. “When you connect with your cora-eternal through your loks, you also become linked in your minds. I can feel Daz’s emotions and he can feel mine. We call it our auras. In my mind, Daz is a red haze that shifts with how he feels.”

“And Fra-kee is a warm light,” Daz added.

“I don’t…” I felt my forehead. “Is that why I’ve had a splitting headache? I thought I was just dehydrated or tired. But my skull feels… full.”

“That’s it. So, what does it feel like?” Frankie nodded. “What is Rex’s aura in your mind? You can tell how he’s feeling.”

I had been avoiding thinking about the pain in my head, but now I closed my eyes and focused. Retreating into my own head was an exercise I often did for acting, so it didn’t take long for me to bury myself in my mind. And now I understood why I’d had a headache, as my mind swirled with the aftermath of what looked like war. Distantly, I heard the sound of running water, and a slight hissing. But I couldn’t see anything except thick gray smoke, like wet wood thrown on a fire. “I only see smoke. So much smoke.” I clutched my chest and opened my eyes. “It feels like it’s hard to breathe.” I immediately placed my ear to Rex’s chest in a panic. “Is he having trouble breathing? What if he’s gasping?”

“He’s not gasping.” A hand lightly brushed my hair and I glanced up to see Sax had once again taken a seat near Rex’s head. “You’re doing good, Daisy. What else can you see? Remember, you’re here with us. You’re safe.”

“I know it’s scary,” Frankie said. “And I might be wrong, but I think you could possibly heal him with your aura.”

“Rex said sometimes when he was lost in his Rage, that Fenix could call him back with his voice, but Rex can’t seem to hear anything right now.” A realization hit me. “But I can communicate through our auras. Right?”

“Possibly,” Frankie said, her eyes bright. “I’m going to get you some food. You’ll need some strength. We make a drink that’s not coffee, but damn close.”

“Yes, please.” My stomach growled. I’d eaten and rested on the ship, but I needed substance if I were going to work to bring Rex back. I went from feeling helpless to invigorated. Rex had done the unthinkable for me. I wouldn’t rest until he was awake. I’d see his smile again. I’d hear his laugh. I’d feel his touch. I just knew it. No one could tell me no—not even his Rage. “Take that powder away,” I added. “I’m not going to need it.”

I was glass-half-full Daisy, and this was my mission now.

SIXTEEN

THE MONSTER

The smoke thinned, and for the first time in what felt like forever, I could breathe. I inhaled deeply, but my lungs were damaged, and I coughed as I felt around for where I was. The gray haze still limited my vision, but I could make out cracked, dry land stretched before me.

Some cracks were so wide I had to leap over them, and others were narrow enough I could walk over them as I explored. Flames flickered between some cracks, and the heat beckoned me. I was cold, so cold. I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered as I stumbled over to a flaming tear in the ground.

Except, as soon as I drew close, qua flowed into the crack, putting out the fire on a hiss. I waved the smoke away, coughing.

Flames called to me from various cracks. I wanted to sink down into them, let the fire consume me. Something about the heat felt familiar and comfortable. But every time I drew closer, qua would extinguish the flame. I finally dipped my face into a puddle and drank deeply. I expected it to be gritty and dirty, but the qua was fresh. Life giving. I gulped it down as I moved on.

Ahead, I spotted a wide valley glowing a bright orange from within. I took off for it, wanting the heat. My cora raced, my claws extended. A voice beckoned. Come, Monster. Come to me.

I reached the cliff. My toes curled over the edge and I peered down into a raging fire that crackled, sputtered, and hissed. That was it. The end of everything. All I had to do was dive over the edge and there’d be no more battle. Let me take over. We will fly free and leave blood in our wake.

I let my body sway forward. Do it, Monster.

But something held me back. I hesitated. I glanced down at my wrists and rubbed my fingers over the markings there. I had another name. Another purpose.

Suddenly the sound of rushing qua roared in my ears. I turned to find a wall of water rushing through the valley. It plowed through the fire, silencing the voice that had beckoned me to leap. The qua ran clear and fresh, filling my nostrils with an unmistakable scent of … home.

I whirled around, panicking. Where was I? How did I get home? Then, just as suddenly as it came, the water vanished. In its place was a blackened valley. The ground trembled beneath my feet, and I nearly fell over the edge before stumbling back to land hard on my back. I scrambled backward on my hands and feet just as the ground moved. The plates of land shifted beneath me and the valley grew narrow. The cracks around me knitted back together, sealing the ground so when I stood, this time it was on firm, packed dirt.

The trembling came to a sudden stop, and that was when I heard the voice, soft at first but gaining in volume. “Rex,” the voice called. “Come back to me. Come home, babe. Come home.”

I opened my eyes.

SEVENTEEN

Rex

The first face I saw was home. Her brown eyes were liquid and large tears fell from them to splash onto my cheeks. Her hair hung in a golden sheet around me as she clutched my face.

“Rex,” she said on a broken sob. “Is it you? Are you with me?”

I blinked and attempted to reach for her, but my arms felt like lead. I swallowed around a dry throat. “Always,” I rasped. “I’m always with you, Daisy.”

She let out another sob and collapsed onto my chest, hugging me tightly. I peered over her head to find we weren’t alone. Two Drixonians stood side-by-side along with a small human female. I met the larger one’s eyes. They were so familiar, and so very much like my own. I hadn’t expected to ever see them again. I swallowed and licked my dry lips before greeting him. “Hello, big brother.”

Daz’s large body swayed, and then he took one step toward me before his knees buckled and he hit the ground with a thud. He grasped my hand and brought it to his face. “Brother,” he said hoarsely. “I never thought I’d get the chance to see you again. Your cora-eternal brought you back.”

I managed to lift a hand and place it on Daisy’s blonde head as she gazed up my body with wet eyes. “My… what? What happened?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Daisy straightened and swiped at her eyes.

“I remember killing Vazreel, and then…” I rubbed my forehead. “After that… fighting. I fought Plikens. And then I was losing. You were screaming…” Glimpses of my brothers’ faces flashed through my mind, and my cora skipped a beat. “No,” I whispered furiously as I struggled to sit up. “No, you saw me when I was—”

“Calm, brother,” Sax, my best friend for half my life, settled a hand on my shoulder. “We brought you here because we want you here. This is your home, Rexor. With us.”

I shook my head. “I’m not that Rexor anymore—”

“And you think I’m the same Saxus?” he said with a head tilt. “I was held in an Uldani prison while they shot me full of drugs to turn me into a mindless breeder. We have seen loss, brother. Loss and pain. None of us are the same. But we’re still Drixonians.”

“I’m not—”

“If you say you’re not a Drixonian warrior, I’ll fight you, wounded or not,” Daz growled. “Daisy told us what you did to rescue her. You risked everything to get her to safety and are the epitome of an honorable Drix. Don’t you dare tell me that because the Uldani flecked with your body and mind that you’re not a Drixonian. You are.” He pounded his fist on the bed for emphasis. “And this is where you belong. We have built a home here with human females we rescued. You’re an uncle. Twice over. Daz and I both have sons. You have a mate who has spent two entire cycles with barely any rest working to bring you back to us through your connected auras.”

Daisy’s small hand slipped into mine, and I rotated our wrists to admire the marks. I had heard of cora-eternals. They were legends. Rare. But the matching loks were unmistakable. I glanced at Sax and Daz, who also had loks in varying patterns. The other female in the room must have been Daz’s mate, as her loks matched his. I sat up, bringing Daisy with me, and nodded at her. “You are Daz’s mate?”

“I’m Frankie,” she said with a smile and wave. “I’m so glad you’re back. Your brothers talked about you often.”

“We thought you were dead,” Daz explained. “We didn’t learn until recently when we defeated the Uldani that you were alive, but… changed.”

“You defeated the Uldani?”

“We are on Corin, Rex.” Pride tilted his lips into a small smile. “They were never going to stop exploiting us. We overthrew them, made peace with the remaining council, and came home to Corin. We’ve been looking for you and the other stolen warriors ever since.”

“How did you find us on Rinian II?” I asked.

“We heard of a fighting Drixonian. We had no idea it was you until Daisy said your name was Rex.”

I couldn’t stop the hot flash of shame. “I was… not myself.”

“We’ll talk about that later,” Daz said. “We’ll let you and Daisy rest now. She’s been awake for too many human hours.”

I took in Daisy and noticed that dark circles marred the pale skin under her eyes and her lips were bitten and chapped. I swiped a thumb over them. “Babe.”

She smiled. “It was worth it. You’re back.”

Frankie pointed to a tray of food on a table near where I lay. “Please eat. You have to be starving.” To Daisy she said softly. “You’re okay?”

“I’m great,” my mate said with a smile.

Daz reached out and grabbed the back of my neck, bringing our foreheads together. The gesture overwhelmed me. There was nothing like a Drixonian greeting from Daz. His strong hand at the back of my neck calmed me, and his purple eyes bore into mine. The feeling of rightness and belonging settled on me like second skin. He remained still for long moments before whispering hoarsely. “Our family is finally complete again, brother.”

When he let me go, Sax stepped in, and I finally saw a bit of the brother I knew when he shot me a cheeky grin and a soft punch on the shoulder. “Heard you won that fight on Rinian II against a horzian. We all know where you learned those skills from.”

“Yeah, Xavy,” I quipped.

Daz threw back his head in a roar of laughter and Sax placed a hand dramatically over his heart and stumbled back with a mock gasp. “The disrespect!”

After they walked out and closed the door behind them, I grabbed the food tray and placed it on my lap. Fresh fruits and vegetables were nestled beside a bowl with a warm, porridge like grain. “I haven’t had guara in … too long.” I murmured, sinking my teeth into the fruit’s flesh. The flavor exploded on my tongue, and I moaned. Daisy’s hand snuck over, stealing a few berries. “Please, eat more,” I urged her.

“I just ate. That’s all yours.” She settled down in the furs while I inhaled the food at a record rate.

When I was stuffed, I let the tray drop to the floor and lay down beside her, our noses nearly touching. “How did you do it?” I asked. “How did you bring me back?”

“Do you feel me in there?” she asked, tapping my head. “Frankie said we share auras, so we know each other’s emotions.”

My head had been spinning since I woke up, but now that I focused, I realized everything was different. I’d always felt as if I walked a thin edge between falling off a cliff into the Rage or staying in control on firm ground. But now… the ground was smooth. No cracks. And a gentle rain spotted the dirt. The air smelled clean and fresh. No smoke or fire. Just… “that was you,” I whispered. “The qua put out the fire and then you—”

“I closed the cracks,” she said softly, smoothing my hair off my forehead. “Do you still feel the Rage waiting?”

I searched for it, but the anger that fueled him was no longer there. “I… no.” I gripped her neck and pressed our foreheads together as a euphoria washed over me. “Daisy, I don’t sense the Rage at all.”

She let a muffled sob slip from her lips as she smiled. “I didn’t know what I was doing, but Frankie told me to try. I couldn’t lose you, Rex. I wouldn’t lose you. I knew I could bring you back.”

“Your hope is what kept me alive and brought me back. Thank you for not giving up.”

“Never,” she whispered. “I love you, Rex. My home is you. And your home is here. Your brothers… they didn’t give up on you either.”

Shame soured my gut. “They saw me, Daisy.”

“They did, but to them you will always be Rex. We beat the Rage, and even if it comes back somehow, I’m confident I can beat it again. We can have this life here, Rex. I’ve seen it. There are babies, and pets, and good food. Family. Friends. Laughter. You deserve it. I deserve it. And we’re going to have it.”

“Sleep, my cora-eternal,” I whispered. “Sleep, and we’ll get all that for you and more.”

I walked with my brothers through Granit. I barely remembered it, as I’d been only a few cycles old when we left. Now, scaffolding was erected on a few buildings and many Drixonian warriors milled about, making repairs so the buildings were livable again.

“Our dream is to populate the city,” Daz said. He held his son in the crook of his arm. Sax had left his son behind, as Val had been very adamant that this was his nap time, and she wouldn’t let Sax mess it up. I liked Val—she stood up to my brother’s antics, and it was clear he was utterly devoted to her.

“I think you’re well on your way,” I said, admiring the work that had already been done. It’d been a few rotations since I’d woken up, and every day I tested the ground of my mind for cracks, and every day I found them filled in.

As we walked, Daz explained what life had been like since I’d been presumed dead. They led the first Uprising against the Uldani and won. The Drixonian warriors separated into groups, each led by their own appointed leader. Daz, of course, had been nominated to lead his. After it they found the Uldani were shipping human females to the planet in an effort to breed Drixonian servants, they led a final battle against the Uldani, in which they won. That was when they’d found out that the Uldani had experimented on some of the warriors, leaving them altered before selling them to the Plikens.

Sax and I took a seat on a crumbling bench while Daz stood in front of us, swaying side to side as his son dozed. “I have tried to give you time, but if you are ready to talk, we’d love to hear what happened to you.”

They had been patient with me, which I appreciated, but it was time. I no longer felt shame, because my brothers and everyone in the village treated me with kindness. There were no odd looks, no whispers about my mods. To them, I was just Rex.

It was still painful to talk about my past, but my brothers needed to know. “The Uldani tried to turn us into super soldiers. Enhanced warriors. But the experiments were flawed. None of us turned out how they wanted. They had to splice me with another species so that I could use my wings, but it backfired. My mind…” I shook my head. “It cracked. If I grew too angry, I’d go into a Rage. I was stronger and faster, but I also had no control. I killed indiscriminately.” I rubbed my hands together as I stared at the dirt between my boots. “I feel so much shame when I think about my actions.”

A hand settled on the back of my neck. “You cannot hold on to that forever. You did what you had to do to stay alive.”

“When I was sold to the Plikens, I was a gladiator for many, many cycles. The crowd would chant for my Monster, and usually, I’d give in. It was easier to kill that way. There were many times I tried to resist, when I thought it’d be better if I died, but then I remembered you both.” I glanced up at them. “My brothers. And my Drix pride wouldn’t let me give up. Eventually I killed my owner and escaped.”

“And you didn’t return home?” Daz asked, a slight reprimand to his tone.

I wasn’t sure they’d ever understand why I was so determined not to come home. “I didn’t try. I spent my time freeing what slaves I could. I felt like I had a purpose on Vixlicin.”

“Daisy is your purpose,” Sax said. “Fatas kept you there for her.”

“She is.” I sighed. “And I also never wanted you both to see me like that, in my Rage. I didn’t want you to see what I’d become.”

“What you’d become?” Daz deep voice rumbled, and Corinth fussed in his arms. “What you’d become? I see a Drixonian warrior who rose above what was done to him, who maintained his core values, and above all, remembered our creed. You brought Daisy home. And Fatas rewarded you for it. She is All. That’s what I see.” Daz sniffed and looked away. “I’m proud you’re my brother.”

Warmth flooded my chest as I gazed at my hero, the warrior I’d looked up to from the start. Sax beamed at me, and I returned his smile. “Well I’m proud to be a Bakut. Look at what you two have done. You’ve returned us to Corin. We can start again, with females and families.”

Daz shook his head as he ran a large palm over his baby’s soft head. “There were many times I didn’t think we’d make it. But my Fra-kee motivates me. And the other males. We know there are other females out there as well. Val arrived on a ship with others who we haven’t found yet.”

“Daisy too,” I said. “As far as I know, those females are still on Vixlicin.”

“What about the others?” Sax asked. “Mikko, Fenix, and Zecri. I remember Fenix the most. He had been close with Hap. We have to bring them home.”

Thinking back, I believed they knew I would never return. I’d either stay with Daisy or die. And they supported me. The four of us all had our own battles we had to overcome because of what was done to us. As much as I longed to see my friends again, I knew they wouldn’t want to return until they were ready.

I shook my head. “We all knew if we wanted to get home, we could find a way. But they each have their reasons for remaining on Vixlicin.”

Sax frowned. “I don’t like that. We don’t leave brothers behind.”

“None of us felt left behind. I have to ask you to trust me on this, Sax.”

He sighed heavily but finally nodded in acknowledgement.

“I need to know,” Daz said. “They will behave as you if they find human females?”

I straightened my spine. “Of course. They are all honorable warriors.” I rubbed my forehead. “I miss them. They were my only friends. We thought we’d die together.”

“If Fatas chooses, they will join us here on their own time,” Daz said.

We fell silent, all but Corinth’s baby snores.

“Daisy is a great mate.” Sax broke the silence. “Val likes her.”

“She is … amazing. I used to dream of a mate, but she’s beyond anything my mind could have imagined.”

“We are happy for you, brother,” Daz said. “She will have a lot of support here. The females are close.”

“Too close sometimes,” Sax muttered. “They share everything. Because of that, I know things about Xavy’s cock I never needed to know.”

I burst out laughing. Mohawked Xavy was always quick with a smile and a joke and brewed excellent spirits. His mate, Tabitha, was something Daisy called “a hoot.”

“Fra-kee tells me the males gossip just as much as the females,” Daz said with a smile.

“I don’t gossip!” Sax protested.

“You told me just the other day Drak and Miranda were trying to conceive.”

Sax clamped his jaw shut and shrugged. “I might have heard through Miranda who told Naomi who told Gar who told Ward who told Reba who told Val. And then she told me.”

Daz gave him a pointed look.

Sax crossed his arms over his chest. “Whatever.”

We walked back through Granit on the way to the bikes. I settled on mine and turned on the engine, loving the feel of the purr between my legs as the bike ascended into the air. As we rode back to the village, I relished in the breeze flowing through my hair and the calmness in my mind. I’d grown so used to chaos and anger I’d forgotten what it was like to just…exist.

When we rode into the clearing and I spotted a familiar golden head sitting near the center moke tree, I smiled. Her head was tilted back as she let the sun warm her face. I flashed back to when I first saw her. She’d been making the same motion. Also looking for warmth, for light, for hope. That was my Daisy.

And it was why I’d always come back for her, no matter what. Always.

Thank you so much for reading the first book in my Stolen Warriors series! If you want a FREE book in the series, check out TRAWN. It can be read before, during, or after any books in this series!

Curious about Daz, Frankie, and the rest of the Drixonian Crew on Corin? Check out my complete Drixonian Warrior series!

Want to know what happens to the other Stolen Warriors? MIKKO is next!

Hide and seek is a lot less fun in an alien prison where the winner gets… me.

Rian: I’m not a stranger to being behind bars, but this prison leaves a lot to be desired. There are zero communal showers, minimal locking cells, and the other prisoners are extremely hostile. That could be because they are aliens and this is a prison in another galaxy. Add in the fact that I’m a human female, and my life span has just dropped some serious time.

I’m about to go down fighting when a scary blue alien with spikes decides he’s my rescuer. Except he doesn’t seem happy about my presence and, well, join the club, buddy.

Mikko: After spending a third of my life in the Pit, I returned for some payback but instead find a human female fighting for her life. She’s small, snarly, and irritatingly beautiful.

When a coveted reward is offered to the prisoners for our capture, the game changes. My enemies thought I was unpredictable with anger issues before? They haven’t seen anything yet. I’ll escape again with my female, and then the real payback begins.

Mikko is a SciFi Alien Warrior Romance featuring a prickly, snarky hero with a heart of gold and a heroine who loves as hard as she fights.

Read on for a sneak peak!

AN EXCERPT FROM MIKKO

Rian

This felt less like a prison and more like a trash dump for living things. The metal arm extended me over a massive pit in the ground. The sides of were coated in a shiny, smooth material, and I assumed it was to prevent anything from climbing out.

As I looked down, I could just make out some shapes moving in dim light below. I gripped the steel blade in my hand, testing the weight. I slashed a few practice moves in the air, but felt a little silly. I was five-five and weighed one-forty. If any of the prisoners were even close to the size of the Plikens, I was screwed. Would they make it quick? Would I have to turn this blade onto myself? I gulped. No way. I’d fight and take out as many as I could. I never knew when it quit, even when it was clear I was losing.

The cage began its descent, and I was grateful that it wasn’t achingly slow. My stomach fluttered as it dropped, and the forms below grew larger until I realized I was being dropped into a literal pit of monsters. I’d never seen anything like what awaited me. My owner with four eyes seemed like the better choice now, as scarred faces, mean eyes, and snarling mouths came into view.

I trembled so badly that my teeth chattered. I clenched them together as I fought to get myself under control, but my body was in flight mode. I was trapped in a cage to be left for dead among terrifying creatures. As I passed the first floor below ground, aliens shouted at me from within door-less cells. I counted three floors of them, and the creatures milled around along the walkways.

Below, in the bottom of the pit, was a cesspool of bodies, and the aliens there looked ill-fed and crazed. Not that the ones in the cells seemed welcoming, but they at least seemed less like a pit of snakes waiting for a rat.

Frozen in place, I watched as the crowd gathered around a platform along a wall of the pit, just below the bottom cell floor. They were waiting for me, nearly salivating, and it was then I realized that was where my cage was heading. A beeping sound came overhead, and I looked up to see a flashing yellow light. In a moment, I’d be on that platform, my cage doors would open, and I’d be at the mercy of whatever these aliens wanted to do to me.

I didn’t see one human. I saw aliens with missing limbs and infected flesh wounds. The overpowering smell of death made me gag. Claws reached for me. Blackened teeth gnashed.

Suddenly the beeping went silent, and the cage came to a jolting halt as it swung back and forth in air about ten feet from the platform. The crowd erupted in a thunderous roar, and then my stomach soared up into my throat as the cage dropped in a free fall. The cage hit the platform with a crash, and I slammed into the bottom on my hands and knees.

My knife fell from my hand with a clatter and I scrambled for it just as the light above me flashed a bright green. My fingers closed around the hilt seconds before there was a loud rusty click, and the door of my cage sprang open.

Preorder MIKKO now!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

With every book, I think, I won’t write an acknowledgement, but then I get to the end and I’m just so thankful for my readers and everyone who is making this possible that I realize I have to write something!

Thank you to Natasha Snow who really brought Rexor to life with this cover. You create amazing art and I don’t know what I’d do without you!

Thank you to Del, who edited this book over a holiday because I missed my deadline like three times. Eff Covid!

And thank you to my readers, especially those in my Haven, who make this job the best job in the world. I hope my books give you a real world escape for a while. <3

ALSO BY ELLA MAVEN

Drixonian Warrior Series

Daz and Frankie: The Alien’s Ransom

Sax and Valerie: The Alien’s Escape.

Ward and Reba: The Alien’s Undoing

Miranda and Drak: The Alien’s Revenge

Gar and Naomi: The Alien’s Savior

Xavy and Tabitha: The Alien’s Challenge

Nero and Justine: The Alien’s Equal

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ella Maven is the pen name for a multi-published USA Today Bestselling author who decided to finally unleash the alien world that had been living in her head for years. (Is that weird? Probably). Her books feature dominant, possessive aliens who are absolutely devoted to their humans.

She lives on the East Coast with her completely normal husband and two spawn who sure seem alien some days.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

An Excerpt from Mikko

Acknowledgments

Also by Ella Maven

About the Author