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  Fallen

  Untamed Warriors of Vanthae

  Book 1

  Ivy Cross

  © 2020 Ivy Cross

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  Fallen

  We were abducted by alien slavers, which is bad enough, right? But then they decided to dump us on a primitive planet like yesterday’s garbage…

  We came down two to a pod, and I immediately got separated from my only lifeline back to humanity. My friend was taken by feral beasts, and I was rescued by an alien warrior who is no less beastly… but a lot nicer to look at.

  Only, he thinks I’m something I’m not, and I have to play along. What choice do I have? There’s no way I can go after my friends all alone on a hostile alien planet. I couldn’t get three steps away from my escape pod without almost becoming a snack for some of the natives.

  But the lying is starting to really get to me—Dekkar is willing to die for me because of what he thinks I am. I can see it every time I look into his eyes. So the choice is between telling him the truth and going it alone on this unfamiliar planet, or stringing him along and dealing with the consequences later. I literally don’t know if I can live with either of those choices.

  I think I might have liked it better on the alien slaver’s spaceship…

  About the Author

  Ivy Cross has been in love with science fiction since she was old enough to hold her head up through an entire episode of Doctor Who. She is a passionate reader, gamer (both board and video), and adventuress. Addictions include, but are not limited to: strong coffee, sweet wine, and sweeter desserts.

  Table of Contents

  Fallen

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 – Talia

  Chapter 2 – Dekkar

  Chapter 3 – Talia

  Chapter 4 – Dekkar

  Chapter 5 – Talia

  Chapter 6 – Dekkar

  Chapter 7 – Talia

  Chapter 8 – Dekkar

  Chapter 9 – Talia

  Chapter 10 – Dekkar

  Chapter 11 – Talia

  Chapter 12 – Dekkar

  Chapter 13 – Talia

  Chapter 14 – Talia

  Chapter 15 – Dekkar

  Chapter 16 – Dekkar

  Chapter 17 – Talia

  Chapter 18 – Dekkar

  Chapter 19 – Talia

  Chapter 20 – Dekkar

  Chapter 21 – Dekkar

  Chapter 22 – Talia

  Chapter 23 – Talia

  Chapter 24 – Dekkar

  Epilogue – Talia

  Pursued

  Prologue – Bailey

  Chapter 1 – Atrae

  Have a moment?

  Prologue

  The commander’s clawed fist snaps my head to the side and forces me to stagger back a step. A sour tang of blood fills my mouth, but I hold my ground and the larger man’s gaze. To do anything less would mean my death.

  “This news does not please me,” Commander Ilth says, turning his back on me and pacing across the deck of his large cabin.

  “No, sir,” I agree. I had no part in causing this particular bit of bad news, but it is the plight of the messenger to bear responsibility.

  “Lig and Essic are ill also?”

  “Dead, sir.”

  “Fuck!” The commander’s fist smashes against the metallic top of his desk, buckling the piece of furniture straight down the middle.

  Better the desk than my skull.

  “How many of my men does that make now, Lisic?”

  “Seven dead and four more fast on their way to the beyond,” I answer at once.

  “This cargo was supposed to make me rich…” The middle of Commander Ilth’s three eyes blinks slowly, indicating his extreme frustration. He runs his hand across the scales of his brow, and I notice for the first time how much he is perspiring.

  The first telltale sign of the blight.

  “We should drop them somewhere, sir. Before this thing spreads through the entire crew like a fire. Riches are of no use to the dead.” I prepare for the commander’s next blow, but it does not come.

  “All of this effort for nothing…” Ilth’s voice smolders with anger. He studies his hands for a long moment, as though he thinks maybe they hold some answer to this predicament.

  When the man looks up at me again, the coldness in his eyes makes me flinch back even more than his physical blow did.

  “I will not waste anymore of my time or resources on dropping them somewhere,” he spits. “Blow those fucking females out of the airlock.”

  Chapter 1 – Talia

  It’s been the same dream every night.

  I walk through the door into my crummy little apartment, my back aching from a ten-hour shift at the warehouse. The job isn’t anything more than a way to pay the bills until I get through my final year of college, but I relish the ache that comes from a hard day’s work, nonetheless.

  I clack my keys and cell down on the grimy faux-granite kitchenette counter, pop a frozen dinner in the microwave, and then beeline for the recliner in the living room.

  The recliner looks like something from the fifties—overstuffed and olive green—and it came with the apartment. Hell, if the laws of physics would allow such a thing, I’d say it was probably here before the apartment building was. But my god is it comfortable…

  My ass barely touches the well-indented seat and then it’s lights out.

  In what seems like two seconds later, the loud obnoxious buzz of my microwave pulls me from my comfortable bliss. Only, my microwave usually makes a sound like a bell when it’s done.

  It takes some effort to peel open my sleep-crusted eyelids and when I do, I can’t see any more than I could when they were closed.

  Great, the electricity is out again.

  “This place is a friggin’ deathtrap,” I mutter to myself, trying to find the lever on the side of the chair.

  My hand continues to flail against the cold hard surface of the chair until I slowly realize the side of the chair shouldn’t be cold or hard…

  A bright spotlight pops on and stabs into my eyes, replacing my confusion with a rush of utter terror.

  “What the fuck!?”

  A dark figure moves out from the gloom and partially obstructs the light. At first, I can’t make out any details about the figure, other than the guy seems huge. But as my eyes slowly begin to adjust to the weird lighting, details begin to snap into my mind one by one.

  Details like dark, shiny scales, dagger-like claws, and too many eyes.

  The shrill sounds of my own screams only intensify my terror.

  A thunderous roar warbles out of the creature above me, then its clawed hand presses something ice-cold against the tender flesh of my neck. One bright, painful pinch later, and the creature’s thunderous warble begins to change.

  Into words.

  “Stop your screeching, female, or I will sever your tongue.”

  “What… where am I?” Asking such a normal question of a monster in my nightmare almost seems more absurd than anything else going on.

  “You belong to the Kaeth. Speak to me again only if you desire pain.”

  ***

  I jolt awake and sit up. The dream always ends in the same place. Unfortunately, it’s when I wake up that the real nightmare starts up again.

  “Bad dreams again?” Bailey is already sitting up with her back against the curved wall of our cell.

  “Yeah, nothing new there,” I say, scanning the dark room. Most of the other women appear to be sleeping or pretending to, at least. And judging from the little sobbing there is to
be heard, it must be fairly late into the night.

  “At least I got a little more rest this time,” I say. “How about you?”

  “I didn’t even bother trying,” she says. “There’s been a lot of activity out there tonight, and I want to be awake to see it.”

  Bailey’s story is the same as mine. The same as everyone else’s in this room. Ten women snatched from their lives like fish from a pond. Each of us went to sleep in our old lives and woke up in a jail with nightmare creatures as the wardens.

  As disorienting and mind-shatteringly terrifying as those first few days were, it was quickly apparent what we were dealing with. Aliens. There was no other explanation for it unless all our childhood nightmares just happened to spring to life.

  “What are the things up to now?” I ask.

  Bailey tucks a strand of light brown hair behind her ear, then she leans in conspiratorially, pitching her voice low. “I think something’s wrong with them.”

  “Wrong with who?” Alex asks, padding over to join us.

  Depending on how you look at it, Alex was one of the least lucky abductees. We were all taken in our sleep, and in whatever clothing we happened to have on while we were sleeping. I lucked out, having passed out with my work clothes on, but Alex was only wearing an oversized and threadbare t-shirt. Most of the text on the shirt has been worn away, but I’m pretty sure it used to say I pity the fool!

  She’s tall and shaped like a supermodel, so I guess if anyone could pull off an outfit like that, she can.

  “The lizard freaks,” Bailey hisses in reply as Alex plops down onto the floor beside us. “Twice I saw them carrying what looked like their own dead through the corridor.”

  I follow her gaze to the slatted metal door of our cell. The light on the other side is dim, but it’s not all that hard to see when the uglies are close enough.

  “They have been acting strange. Er, stranger,” I correct. “And they didn’t even feed us today.”

  We’ve been in this cell together for about a week. I think. Time is a little fuzzy when you’re scared shitless. And every day since we have been here, one of the aliens has brought a long trough of food for us to eat from. The food comes in the form of crunchy little pellets, and most of us are convinced it’s actually cat food the aliens picked up in bulk when they were on Earth nabbing us. But after a few days with nothing else, we were all eating the crap by the handful. Well, most of us were. If it hadn’t been for Bailey practically force-feeding me, I might have just let hunger take me—those first days were bleak.

  But there was no delivery today.

  “Trust me, I noticed,” Alex says, rubbing her stomach. “I really miss our daily ration of Meow Mix.”

  “You guys shouldn’t be doing that.” A hushed, squeaky voice causes me to turn back from the cell door. Crouched behind me are two figures who are both wearing footy pajamas, one in light blue and one in yellow. Mel and Veronica.

  Of all of the abductees, Mel and Veronica are the only two that knew each other before we were brought together in this strange cell. They were roommates sharing an apartment in New York, and I guess the aliens saw it as a two for one kind of opportunity.

  But who the hell knows really? Our group is a mix of shapes and sizes, ethnicities, and even ages up to a point. Other than Mel and Veronica, most of us weren’t even from the same city. The aliens’ criteria for picking us seem completely random and maybe that is exactly the point. Whatever it is they have planned for us, it seems variety is a selling point.

  “Come on!” Mel hisses again. Or is it Veronica? The footy PJs are a little confusing. “If they see us all over here gawking, they might not like it. We should just try to pretend to sleep or whatever or they might—”

  “Might what?” Alex asks, not at all matching Mel’s whispered tone. “Kidnap us all from our planet and throw us into a rank, shitty cell with no hope of escape? No, wait, they’ve already done that, haven’t they?”

  “Shh!” Bailey crawls closer to the door on her hands and knees. “I hear something.”

  Mel shoots us all one last exasperated look before she scurries off with Veronica in tow. They plop quickly down to the deck and assume sleeping positions, apparently wanting to show our captors what model prisoners they are.

  For a minute, I think Bailey is nuts. I listen to the limits of my hearing, and all I can make out is just the usual whirs and ticks from the ship around us. But slowly I become aware of the sound of boots against the floor. It’s subtle at first, almost like a vibration in the back of my head, but it builds until heavy steps seem to come from everywhere at once. She must have ears like a dog to have heard it so soon.

  All at once, a dark figure blots out the light from the other side, then the metal door crashes open with a clang.

  Bailey skitters away from the open door and crowds in with Alex and me as fast as humanly possible. This is not the usual routine. We get a visitor who dispenses food in the daytime, but no one has ever shown up in the middle of our sleep period.

  I very much doubt this is a good sign.

  The creature just stares at us for a moment, as though unsure of what he wants to do next. He looks pretty much like all the others—roughly seven feet tall with dark scales covering his entire body. The three obsidian eyes set across the top of his face and the elongated, muzzle-like mouth, make him look like a cross between a lizard and an insect.

  But, even with the similarities to the rest of his kind, I know immediately that he’s not one of the usual grunts that brings us our food. His uniform gives him the look of someone of importance. As does the way he holds himself.

  His three beady eyes lock onto mine, and I immediately regret studying him so intently.

  “Gather the other females,” he barks at me. “And follow me immediately.”

  I just stare at him with my mouth hanging open. Aside from that first moment when I was brought on board and had whatever it was shot into the side of my neck, I haven’t even had one of the creatures speak to me.

  The alien takes a quick step toward me. I recoil and squeeze my eyes shut when his clawed hand whips down in my direction.

  When the pain doesn’t come, I open my eyes to see his hand still extended toward me. If there is an expression on his face, I don’t know how to read it.

  “Take it,” he says in a harsh whisper. “My name is Lisic. And if you value your life, you will do exactly as I say.”

  Chapter 2 – Dekkar

  I scent the wind as a gust blows out from the trees to the north. It carries the salt smell of Cold Sea. An ill portent, certainly, but the hunt must proceed.

  “Onward,” I bark, catching the eye of our party’s First. He hesitates for a moment and then nods permission, jostling his thick mass of tangled black hair, and the four of us move as a unit out of the clearing.

  After only a few steps, I feel a barbed spike of a spear tip press against the bare flesh of my side. I spin, roaring challenge, to find the First’s shining black eyes staring into mine.

  “Position!” he shouts, thrusting the butt of his spear into my ribs.

  I fall back, giving him point as his status demands, but I do not let the challenge and defiance leave my eyes. Regar may be First of our party, and leader of our tribe for that matter, but his ways are on the way out, and he knows it well.

  His father’s cruelty and brutality led to a period of prosperity for our people, but that cruelty has only festered in his sons. And it is something I would take great pleasure in ripping out by the root.

  Regar’s fist shoots into the air and the party glides to a silent stop. I can sense Nax and Geleth at my flank, so I do not bother to look back for them. They are both young, even younger than me, but they have shown great prowess in the lesser hunts.

  But this will be the first time they stalk prey that fights with weapons of its own.

  “The Valat is near,” Regar says in a low voice. “Their filthy scent is enough to choke on. Know it well or it will be the last
thing you smell before your death.”

  That last is for me, and I grunt acknowledgment. It is my spear that is to taste the blood of the enemy this time, for it is my Proving.

  “When we pass near the dark stream ahead, Dekkar will lead until this is over. Or he is.”

  Again, I grunt, ignoring the slight. I know how much he would like for me to fall during my Proving, and I will not give him that satisfaction. It is nearly a miracle that he has finally given in and allowed my Proving, and the fact that Regar is here to lead the event is not a good sign.

  Of the two brothers, Regar got the gift of cunning and guile. Haelar, by the other token, is as dim as an unlit cave, but his gifts were double helpings of cruelty and brute strength.

  “You striplings will observe and only heft your weapons if one is aimed at your thick skulls,” Regar begins. “And I—”

  “What is that?” Geleth interrupts.

  Regar lifts his spear, likely to break the stripling’s jaw for speaking out of turn, but a powerful roaring descends from all directions, causing all eyes to lift skyward.

  “Falling stars,” Nax cries out. “What does it mean, First?”

  Regar remains silent as we watch the bright streaks of light slice across the red sky of evening.

  My mouth falls agape as I watch the spectacle. The lights seem to multiply before us, becoming five bright scratches against the crimson background.

  And one of those bright scratches is getting larger and closer than the others.

  “It is a sign from the sky gods,” Regar says, an awed quality in his tone. “This is not to be the day of your Proving, Dekkar. The gods have spoken.”

  “The fuck they have,” I say, moving to stand face to face with our First. “You keep finding reasons to make me wait! Six moons late, and I have remained patient. We will go on tonight.”

  Regar’s hand slides to the throat of his spear, but he does not lift it. Yet. “Do not forget yourself, stripling.”