Alien Knight Steals the Bride: Lumerian Knights, Book 2

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Vilitos Warship; Space Dock 626 – 12 Billion Light-years from Earth

The giant reptilian guard’s lifeless body slumped to the ground, his large head slanted at an odd angle, his soulless eyes staring vacantly.

Sirens blared in warning. There was no room for mistakes. Time was of the essence. Ignoring his many wounds, naked and feverish, Torrin Llahsab roughly stripped the dead guard of his heat regulating suit, donning the overly large garment with urgency in every movement, adrenaline pumping sluggishly through his weakened system. Far too big for Torrin, he used precious moments waiting for the suit to adjust to his size. After months of captivity, they’d finally made a mistake. The first guard to come alone to Torrin’s cell had paid for the mistake with his life. Torrin hadn’t hesitated to kill three more of the giant reptilian guards as he made his way toward the docking bay. Toward freedom.

Torrin had planned, mentally rehearsed this moment since his capture. He was a Lumerian Knight. A protector. A warrior without equal. A king’s assassin. He killed without mercy, without remorse, when duty demanded it. He trained longer. Fought harder. He’d survived months of unspeakable torture. Endured. Resisted.

Stepping over the guard’s limp form, Torrin made his way out of the darkened storage room, evading the other guards as they ran past, desperately searching for the escaped prisoner. For him. Slowly, stealthily, he made his way toward the docking bay and the dozens of small spacecraft in various stages of readiness.

At last, his target was in sight. Only years of training kept him from rushing toward the small ship, freedom a few short steps away. His first choice would have been to steal his own ship right out from under their noses, but guards were already surrounding it. While damaged, the small craft was still faster than anything else in the docking bay. His cloaking capability had been damaged, unbeknownst to him, which was how he’d been detected and captured, thinking himself safely hidden in the midst of his enemy. Instead, he’d been well and truly trapped by the time he realized they could see him.

He’d disabled all of his ship’s systems before they took him. Any tampering now without his command code, in conjunction with his biometric scans, would initiate the self-destruct sequence. The Vilitos had tortured him for the code as well as for information about Lumerian survivors, but he refused to give in. Refused to betray the Lumerian Knights, his friends, his family.

Broken bones, chemical burns, a raging fever, still he gave them nothing. He hurt. Every muscle screamed in pain, every breath labored and crackled. Torrin’s thoughts fragmented as pain lanced through this head, the floor spinning beneath him. Precious moments were lost as he waited for the room to stop moving, using the wall for support. He relied on a lifetime of training to see him through the next few minutes. Clenching his jaw, he used his iron will to focus. I will get out of here. I will survive. I will not dishonor the Lumerian Knights. I will not die today.

Scuffling noises followed by sounds of a struggle, a fist thudding against tender flesh, and angry protests behind a cargo ship intruded on his inner thoughts. Straightening once more, Torrin inched forward. Lifting the visor of his heat regulating suit so that he could hear better, he focused on his other senses.

Sounds like a female. Hallucinations again or real this time? Fresh scent, like springtime in the fields on Caldor after a long rain. Contentment swept through him with the reminder of home. All too soon questions raced through his mind, brutally ripping him from his moment of peace and contentment. He clenched his fists. Freedom was so close. If he leaned out, if he looked for the source of the protests and fresh scent, he had a feeling he’d never see home again. His chance at escape would be over.

He sighed, his fate already decided, for he could not betray his honor. His sense of justice. He needed to help whoever was behind that ship. Inching around the craft, he scanned the area, looking for whatever creature was giving the guards such a hard time. Near the corner stood a cluster of three giant Vilitos. He couldn’t see what was in the center, but perhaps if he could hear what they were saying, he could figure out what was going on. Raising the volume of his translator in his ear, he listened intently. What he heard chilled his blood.

“…has issued a bounty for the capture of any Earth female now that the Caldorian King, the one from the western sector, has transformed a human into some kind of Lumerian hybrid,” one guard spat with hatred. “Prime Leader wants to breed them with the prisoner down below. We collected her right off of her own little planet. Now that we know what they can do, Prime Leader wants them all. We’ll get what we need one way or the other.”

“What they can do?” Torrin whispered to himself, genuine confusion furrowing his brow. He growled; the sound almost too low to hear. He knew King Dagan. Knew, also, that his beloved king had never been to Earth, or expressed any interest in visiting the tiny planet in the two years since Caldor had been assigned its protection. What the hell was going on?

Not wanting to believe the Vilitos scum, yet not quite able to discount the guard’s ridiculous assertions, Torrin slowly changed his position to see what the guards had surrounded. A young human woman stood between them. Her clothing was a bit dirty and ragged, but intact. She was in chains. Bruised. Bleeding from a cut on her forehead. Next to her stood an eight-foot-tall, hairy blue Targo. Fear for the small human female churned in his stomach. Targos were dangerous. Very dangerous. What the guards thought they were doing putting one of those creatures near a defenseless human, he could never guess. It was a miracle she was still alive.

Torrin eased closer, focusing on the human, yet still alert to his surroundings. She shivered from head to toe, either from the cold or fear, he wasn’t sure. Probably both. Her nostrils flared, her breathing far too fast and ragged. A gag was shoved into her mouth, tied behind long blue-black hair. Her eyes, gray with gold flecks near the center, burned with intelligence. Determination. Rage. Fear. Their eyes locked. Torrin’s sense of time and space shifted. He felt as if he’d been punched. All the air left his body.

She was fire and ice. So beautiful, it almost hurt to see her in such a filthy place. Wrong, somehow. Next to the Vilitos, she appeared small and helpless. Vulnerable. Her cheeks flushed with heightened emotions as she struggled defiantly, pulling on the chains. At last, he inhaled as deeply as his broken ribs would allow, taking in the scents around him. It was her. I was smelling her. Not the end. Not home. Her. Something flickered in his wounded soul. Adrenaline pumped sluggishly through his weakened system. He had to help her. Needed to do it.

Torrin crept closer, almost within touching distance of the nearest guard, his pain-wracked body protesting every movement. His breath escaped in shallow, arduous puffs; a sign of weakness he was unable to control as his ribs dug into his lungs. Pain lanced through him. It would have been so much easier to give in to death, to allow himself an end to the agony, but he’d held on day after agonizing day. Now he had to do more than hold on, vowing not to leave her in this place.

The woman pulled uselessly on the shackles around her wrists. Attached to a two-foot length of chain secured at the guard’s waist, she bravely kicked the second guard on her left who was easily three times her size. The guard swung his hand and cuffed her on the cheek. She went sprawling to the floor, only kept from crashing into the wall behind her by the sudden tension in the chain. With an evil laugh and a hard yank on the chain, the brutish guard dragged the woman forward again. Torrin could see that a fresh bruise was already discoloring her swelling eye and cheekbone. Anger at her mistreatment hardened his resolve as nothing else could. Torrin eyed the guard who had struck her. The evil bastard was going to pay for every bruise he inflicted. Every tear she shed.

The Blue Targo screamed eerily, causing the guards to laugh even harder. They turned their attention to the Targo, enjoying poking and prodding the hairy blue giant until the woman kicked the guard closest to the Targo in the groin. He could have told her that wouldn’t do any good, but he gave her credit for sheer bravado. The Targo could have ended the reptilian guard with one poisoned bite, so what was holding the creature back? Torrin hesitated. What was he missing? Why hadn’t the Targo attacked?

Amused by the female’s struggles, the guards chortled and yanked on her chain again. As she slid across the floor a third time, Torrin used the distraction to his advantage. He could no longer afford to wait. Surprise was everything. He only hoped whatever was keeping the Targo from attacking the small human would keep the giant from trying to kill him as well.

He was a killer. A Lumerian Knight. King Dagan’s secret weapon: assassin and spy. He went where others feared to go. He’d done what was needed to protect his king, his people, and those he loved. He paid a high price; the lines of right and wrong blurring as he completed mission after mission, until honor and duty were all that remained of his youthful ideals. He didn’t hurt women. He didn’t harm the innocent. The undeserving. He lived by that simple code. She was all of those things. Rage bubbled and simmered to life in his wounded soul until it burned hotter than the sun.

With deadly precision, using the stolen laser knife from the guard he’d killed only minutes earlier, he burst from his hiding place, executing the first guard before the giant reptile had time to react. The remaining guards turned from the woman at the sound. They were big and fast, but Torrin was faster. With lightning quick strokes, he plunged the laser through the second guard’s eye, killing him instantly. The third guard dropped the woman’s chains, ready to fight. Without slowing, Torrin yelled to her, “Run!”

Before Torrin could kill the third guard, the eight-foot blue Targo, who’d been watching silently, opened its mouth, razor sharp teeth dripping with poisonous saliva, and tore the head from the third guard. They eyed one another, predator to predator. Torrin was the first to speak. “Freedom first.”

The Targo nodded, the guard’s blood dripping from its mouth. As one, they turned toward the running human and took off after her, dispatching a dozen more Vilitos on their way to the ship. The time for stealth was long gone. This was a race for their lives.

They were almost to the cargo ship the woman was racing toward when she stumbled over a pile of repair parts and fell. Torrin clenched his jaw to hold back a moan of pain as he scooped her up and carried her the remainder of the way. He strained to climb the loading ramp, the wound on his side bleeding profusely. She weighed next to nothing, but in his condition, even the slightest pressure or movement forced him to relive every vivid moment of his previous encounters with the brutal guards. The room spun and he swayed dangerously far to the side before catching his balance, hanging on to consciousness by a thread. He staggered through the entrance of the cargo ship, the Targo hot on his heels.

The Targo screamed in pain as it jumped into the craft. The stench of burning fur and flesh hung heavily in the air. A Vilitos guard fired continuously as the door slid closed. Torrin shoved the human to the side, out of harm’s way, taking the blast meant for her.

Agony ripped through every cell in his body. He fell to one knee. I’ll be damned if she dies in here, too. He stiffened his spine, battling to stay alert when all his body wanted to do was lie down and rest. The small ship shook as the guards continued to blast the outside, determined not to let them escape. Torrin struggled for breath, his vision tunneling. “Navigation,” he croaked, “Emergency override. Engage auto takeoff.”

“Oh my god!” The woman reached for him with shaking hands as the ship tilted and lifted. “Juliette. I’m Juliette Rosen. I’m a nurse. Where are you hit?”

His took her hands in his to stop her from trying to do the impossible, which was to save him. Comforting. Soothing. Reassuring her even as he prepared himself for the end. “I’m Torrin. We’re out of time,” he wheezed. “You,” he rasped, slowly losing the battle for consciousness, “must pilot. A.I…. navigation online…”

Before Juliette could respond, the blue Targo dropped to the floor next to them. “Oh no!” Juliette cried out.