Chapter 1
1
Warlord Maxus, Underground Fight Club, Florida, Planet Earth
Human blood coated the floor of the fighting cage, sticky beneath my bare feet. Two human males faced me, watching. Waiting. I recognized fear, and these two reeked of it.
Guess they weren’t as stupid as they appeared.
“Go, Rico. f*****g hit him.”
The male issuing the order was called Python John. He stood to the side, behind his friend, Rico. Rico’s broken nose leaked twin red trails of blood onto his lips, where he licked each drop away, grinning as if he enjoyed the taste. “Like blood? Eh, Wolf?”
Wolf. That was the name Snook, the fight club’s owner, had given me after seeing my strangely striped hair. My black and silver streaks were compliments of the Hive Integration Units and Nexus Six. The t*****e. Pain. Experiments. Years of experiments.
Now that I was free, only two things mattered to me. One, finding my mate, and two, eliminating the never-ending stream of Hive Trackers who hunted me. The Hive were relentless. Nexus Six wanted me back under his control. His monster. His killer.
I’d rather be dead.
I didn’t care what the humans called me. Snook paid me to fight and didn’t ask questions. I didn’t want any of these humans asking questions. I wasn’t supposed to be here, on Earth. I was an alien, an Atlan warlord and contaminated Hive Soldier, presumed dead. For now that was exactly the way I wanted it.
“Go ahead. Hit me.” I taunted the humans, knew they were exhausted whereas I was bored, my beast irritated by the distraction from the only thing that mattered—finding her. Our mate.
“Shut up, dog boy.” Python John liked to run his mouth more than he wanted to use his fists.
I smiled at him, which made him grit his teeth and glare. Still, he did not attack.
Python John circled to stand shoulder to shoulder with Rico, both males staring at me, working up their courage.
“You first,” Rico ordered. “You go in and I’ll follow.”
“Get on with it.” I held my arms out to my sides, exposing my bare chest and ribs. My fighting shorts clung, snug against my a*s and thighs.
Rico held his fists in front of his face and swung his leg out wide, in an arcing kick. I swatted him away, annoyed, and stepped forward. “Fight, you cowards. I don’t have all f*****g day.”
Rico snarled at me and spit on the mat that covered the floor of the fighting cage, his blood bright red. “f**k you, you big motherfucker.”
Oh yes, I’d been around these humans long enough to participate in what they called talking trash. “If I’d f****d your mother, you wouldn’t be so small and weak.”
The two males moved to surround me, one on each side. I could pound them into dust within minutes, but that did not please the spectators. Snook wanted his customers happy and drunk and spending money on alcohol, drugs, and placing bets.
As if my thoughts of him had manifested him in the flesh, Snook appeared, walking toward the edge of the cage. He spoke to all three of us.
“Take your time, gentlemen. The betting is just getting started.” Snook looked up at me, catching my eye, and tapped his cheek, a symbol that he wanted me to allow one or both of these fools to strike me a few times. He paid extra for each hit I allowed the humans to land. Annoying, but every human dollar helped me expand my search for my mate. Small price to pay.
I dipped my chin so Snook would know I understood. He grinned and wandered away.
My beast growled, the sound escaping my throat before I could contain it. We wanted to kill that human. Protect the females of this planet. Males like him should be dead already.
Fucking humans. No clue what was important, sacred.
“Come on, wolf man,” Rico goaded me, and I returned my attention to the two men waiting for me to injure them. I took a slow, deep breath and processed a thousand different scents…and froze.
My beast roared inside my skull, fighting for freedom. Insane. Enraged.
That scent, the barest hint of a female.
MATE.
I fell to my knees, the beast so strong that I wrapped my arms around my head and prayed to the gods, to all gods, that my beast would retreat. Revealing myself to these humans would be a disaster. They would hunt me. Call their authorities. Those idiots would do the only thing they could to protect their people. They would call the Interstellar Brides Processing Center and send the Atlan guards and Prillon warriors there to retrieve me. My mating fever would rage. I’d be transported to Atlan and executed within hours.
NO! Mate!
I held the images in my mind. Atlan prison. Human police. The beast grumbled but retreated, the Hive integrations once more communicating with the more primitive side of me, keeping me sane far longer than any other warlord with Mating Fever that I’d ever heard of.
“What the f**k?” Python John walked around me and launched a kick at my head. His foot connected with my temple. My head jerked to the side. Jumping back, he bounced on the balls of his feet and struck again. His second kick landed on my jaw. My beast growled. If I didn’t stop this asshole, my beast would.
Focus.
Impossible. She was real. I had found her. My mate.
Someone in this shithole of a fight club, among this scum of humanity, carried my mate’s scent on him. His clothes? His skin?
I groaned and allowed the muscles in my shoulders to twitch. The crowd was screaming, losing their minds now that I appeared to be at a loss. Python John kicked me in the back. I did not move.
Not wishing to take a third blow to the head, I stood and focused on my opponents even as I analyzed my situation. I had not considered that my mate, once I found her, would already belong to another. My beast raged at the thought, fighting to break free. I pounded on my chest like an animal, taunted the two humans in the cage across from me.
Python John and Rico watched me, concern in their eyes. Two kicks to the head, and yet, I ignored them. They were beneath my notice, especially now.
She was close, nearby but not here. Her scent was a whisper to my enhanced senses, barely there. Not inside the fight club. Where was she? Where the f**k was she?
I pulled air into my lungs, searching for the smallest trace of her.
There! Faint, so faint. Flowers and honey and…blood? Metal?
What the f**k?
The strange combination went straight to my c**k. My body hardened at the thought of her, even as I nearly convinced myself it was all in my head. A dream. Wishful thinking. Perhaps I was finally losing my mind.
MATE! My beast insisted. He sensed her as well. And she was close. So f*****g close.
“Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!” A handful of young, overeager males stood near the cage and began the chant. The crowd took up their cry until at least a hundred human males were chanting the name of the animal Snook had insisted I take as my symbol.
“Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!”
Perhaps my female would be close enough to hear their chant, to wonder at the prowess of the male who inspired such fervor. Perhaps she listened now, her p***y growing wet and eager. Her n*****s peaked. Her breasts ripe and round and so sensitive I could make her come by sucking their hard tips into my mouth.
“Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!”
Every person in the area seemed to be cursing or encouraging one or all three of us fighters. They cursed one another, the spectators shouting commands with excitement and rage in equal measure.
I watched them all. I waited. I looked at every face in the area, scanned the voices I could hear with my Hive implants. Filtered the noise with senses both Atlan and Hive.
She was not here. Not in this fight club, not with these humans. The knowledge was both agony and relief.
My beast was getting stronger. More insistent. Even with the added control the Hive implants afforded, I was running out of time. I couldn’t afford to blow this fight, not if I wanted to stay on Earth. But my beast would not wait much longer to hunt our female.
“Come on!” I bellowed the word at my two opponents, hoping to goad them into action so I could end this. I cracked my knuckles and grinned at the two humans.
Both males launched at once. I allowed their strikes, a handful, as the crowd became insane, screaming for more blood. I counted ten strikes. Two small cuts began to bleed on my cheek. That would mean an extra month’s rent, less fighting, more private time with my female.
“Is that it?” I asked, once the flurry of eager punching had ceased.
“f**k. You!” Rico’s nose still bled. If I had to guess, I would say the last elbow I threw had cracked his cheekbone. Added insult to injury. I was toying with them, and they f*****g knew it.
Python John leaped onto my back. “You are a big fucker. You asshole. Now what you gonna do, huh?” The male wrapped his arms around my neck in an attempt to close off my airway. His legs wrapped around my waist, ankles locked.
Rico charged me. I moved at full speed, punching him in the nose just hard enough to send him stumbling backward.
The crowd screamed with bloodlust and I obliged. Reaching behind me, I lifted Python John up over my head like he weighed no more than a small child, and threw him down on the mat, his back hitting with a loud thud.
Both males climbed to their feet, and I had to give them credit for persistence if not intelligence.
They charged. I pummeled both with my fists. Not too hard, I was careful not to kill them. Blood flew through the air; the cage became soaked with the scent. Human skin was so fragile, so very easy to tear.
“Fuck.” Python John spit blood from his mouth to land on the mat near the metal fencing. A piece of his tooth went with it. “Snook don’t pay me enough for this shit.”
John was large for a human. As was Rico. Both well over average for a male from this planet, which meant the tops of their heads nearly reached my chin. Well-muscled. Street fighters. Cruel.
There were no rules in the cage. Anything was allowed short of killing a man.
I’d done enough killing to last several lifetimes.
Rico paced to one side of the cage, moving to my left as he spoke to Python John. “If you’d stop snorting all your money up your nose, you wouldn’t have to fight.”
“f**k you, Rico.” Python John moved opposite Rico, coming around me on my right. He wiped the blood dripping into his right eye away with the back of his wrist.
“You know what to do.” Rico glanced at Python John for confirmation. When his partner dipped his chin in agreement, I almost shouted encouragement. Finally. I could end this and track down that scent. Find her. My mate. The human female who could save me.
Grinning now, eager, I waited for them to make their move.
Both males walked away from me toward the edge of the cage.
What the f**k?
Two of Snook’s lackeys were waiting to slide long, wicked-looking daggers through the cage’s openings. Both men wrapped their hands around the blade hilts and turned to face me.
Seemed Snook intended to force my hand, give me no choice but to kill.
The crowd’s roar increased in volume as my two opponents lifted the daggers and showed them to the gathered humans. Frantic to place their wagers, the humans outside the cage scurried like starving rats to give money to those who registered their bets.
“Put the blades down. I do not wish to kill you.” I had to warn them. I was an Atlan warlord who fought with honor. If they persisted on this course of action, they would die.
“You’re the one who’s going to do the dying, pretty wolf man.” Python John had a huge smile on his face, his front tooth ragged and uneven. I assumed the other half of that tooth was already on the cage floor.
I held up both hands, palms facing out in the universal sign of appeal. “Do not force me to kill you. Please. Put down the weapons.”
“Enough of this bullshit,” Rico muttered. He and John paced the edge of the cage, stalling. My suspicions were confirmed when I spotted Snook seated at an elevated table near the exit. He caught Rico’s gaze and dipped his chin, giving the two males fighting me the signal to continue.
I did not bother to shout over the din of the roaring humans, all so very eager to see blood spilled. I held Rico’s gaze. He did not smile as Python John did, but there was death in Rico’s eyes. A love of killing. A clawing need for power. I had seen the look before. Too many times. Too many fights. Of the two, Rico was more dangerous, and I would not make the mistake of turning my back on him.
I held Rico’s gaze. “Get on with it. I tire of this game.”
“This ain’t no f*****g game,” Rico shouted as he shifted the blade from hand to hand.
“We’re going to kill you, motherfucker!” Python John was red-faced, eyes glazed with excitement. And fear.
“Put them down. You will not collect p*****t from Snook if you are dead.”
With synchronized shouts, Rico and Python John rushed me from both sides. They each attempted to capture one of my wrists with their free hand and stab my exposed side with the other.
I moved with blurring speed, utilizing the Hive implants that pulsed with power just beneath my skin. I was not human, nor was I Atlan. I was more. And less. I was contaminated. A beast.
A predator with a barely controlled monster inside me. My beast recognized the threat and demanded to taste their blood. He pushed at the edges of my control, his rage complete. Total. Consuming.
Fuck.
They slashed at my sides, each one scoring a thin slice through skin where they’d hoped to stab deep.
The crowd screamed with excitement as my blood dripped to the floor of the cage for the first time. Red, just like a human’s. The sight appeared to cause mayhem. Chaos. A frenzy.
Animals. Humans were animals.
The cuts were shallow, mere annoyances. I would not bleed to death, but I would require the use of a ReGen wand after this fight. I’d paid well to have one of the Atlan guards at the Interstellar Brides Processing Center smuggle the device to me, along with a pair of mating cuffs. I would not have opportunity to use either if I lost focus and allowed these two fools to kill me.
Rico and Python John regrouped on the opposite side of the cage as the rest of the humans screamed for more. More blood. More pain. More. More. More.
“Put the blades down and you have my word I will not kill you.”
“f**k you, Wolf. You aren’t in any position to make deals,” Python John snarled.
I sighed. Python John had no idea exactly how wrong he was.
The two men rushed me again. With a roar, I moved like lightning to wrap a hand around each of my opponents’ necks. Grip harsh, I squeezed until both men’s faces turned red, then purple. They swung their limbs wildly, trying to reach me with fists and feet.
They looked ridiculous, like children swinging at a statue.
The crowd went eerily silent, waiting to see what I would do.
The quiet didn’t last long as one loud voice yelled from somewhere in the crowd. “Kill them!”
Chaos erupted as every human in the club seemed to lose control of their emotions, their minds. They screamed and shoved like wild animals fighting over a carcass.
Disgusted, I lifted both men a bit higher, onto the tips of their toes and found Snook in his seat, watching. Waiting.
Bastard. f*****g, c**k-sucking bastard.
When he met my gaze, he was smiling in triumph. I had refused to fight to the death. He had ensured I must. f*****g asshole. I was like a dog in the pit now. Nothing more than an animal to him. An investment. Fight or die.
Fury ripped through me. I was a warlord, a male of honor. I would not kill at the behest of this monstrous human. My beast, however, did not mind in the least. He was hungry for blood. For victory. For any kind of release. We had not seen true battle in months. Nor f****d a female.
Disgusted, I threw the two humans to the far side of the cage where they both rolled onto their hands and knees.
“Stay down!” I bellowed at the two fighters.
Light reflected off metal. I turned, prepared to face another attack of some kind. But the flash was not from a weapon, but from a naming badge an older male wore on his shirt as he walked the edge of the fighting cage. Watching us.
The other humans seemed to know who he was, for they moved back without instruction, making way for him to pass.
Who was he? And what the f**k was he doing?
Distracted, I focused my attention on him, read his name from the badge. Wayne. He wore a uniform, not for battle, more like what I had seen human firefighters wear. His hair was completely gray, his face lined. But his eyes were sharp. Assessing.
And he smelled like…her.
My beast exploded into my mind like a separate entity, pushing and clawing to reach the human male. Heat burned through my gaze and I closed my eyes, afraid they would glow and give me away. Reveal that I was not human.
The thud of two feet pounding on the cage’s mat floor had me turning. I opened my eyes. Python John was charging me, knife held low.
I allowed him to get close. Closer.
With a bellow I hoped sounded human, I lifted him over my head and tossed his body like a sack of grain, up and over the top of the cage.
He fell, his torso crashing into the few spectators too slow, or too drunk, to get out of the f*****g way.
Wayne, the human I needed to follow, raised his brow, and looked up at me.
I stared back. He knew where she was. My mate.
With a sideways glance at Python John, who was staggering to his feet with the help of a few men, Wayne watched until Python John was upright then looked back to me. The elder human shook his head like a disapproving father and turned to walk away.
Fuck. I didn’t have time for this s**t.
Where was Rico?
As if on cue, Rico appeared before me. He tossed his knife between his palms. Was that supposed to intimidate me?
“End this,” I ordered.
Rico didn’t need further encouragement.
I threw him even farther than his friend.
The crowd was frantic. Screaming. Chanting my name.
I scanned for Wayne, found him just as he disappeared through the locked metal door that was a shortcut to the parking area.
Fuck.
I didn’t wait for Snook’s people to unlock the fighting cage. I climbed up and over, jumping to land on the ground next to where Python John had smashed into the spectators.
Wayne was getting away.
Mate!
My beast had a one track f*****g mind, as did I.
I took three steps toward the door before Snook stood in my path.
“Get the f**k out of my way.”
“You should have killed them.”
Completely out of patience, I lifted the human by his shoulders and set him aside. My beast had even less patience than I and there was only one thing he cared about at the moment.
Mate. Mine.