For a second, time seemed to stop. His irises were pure gold and his pupils were narrow, reminding me of a reptile. There was a power behind those eyes and at once, it seemed to consume me. I should have been scared, but that wasn’t the only thing I felt. His entire focus was on me for a moment and for some insane reason, I could feel a certain sense of arousal coming to life inside of me.
I pushed it away and looked away, breaking the eye contact between us. Now was not the time for that. Instead, I slipped my hand into my boot and pulled the dagger I’d stolen free. I flipped it in my hand and brought it up to my chest.
“Where’d you get that?” Mari whispered, just low enough not to bring attention to the two of us.
“I took it. Off the fat enforcer over there when he wasn’t paying attention,” I said smugly, and she snorted with amusement.
“You’re resourceful, I’ll give you that,” she replied. I smirked in her direction, even though my body’s reaction to the tattooed alien was making me uneasy. I shouldn’t have reacted like that and I hoped no one else had noticed.
Especially him.
“That’s Vane. I’ve seen his wanted poster in sector five,” Monica said fearfully. Sector five was where the army was housed. I’d never been there, but she’d told us that her parents had raised her there.
The enforcers opened fire but
the invader moved with such swiftness that every single shot missed him. Lasers shot through the destroyed metal door and bullets bounced off the walls. The alien moved so quickly that the enforcers couldn’t prepare for what came next. Vane circled around the enforcers with such speed that they didn’t have time to react.
He took his first victim by tearing the man’s arm from his torso. The vicious sound of tearing flesh was unbelievably loud and a number of women beside me squeaked in surprise. The smell of urine became overly pungent and I realized one of the women in the cage beside us had pissed herself with fear.
Vane tore the enforcers apart. He slashed at their bodies with his claws. He swiped at the back of their knees and tore their tendons in two, the sound of the ligaments snapping horrifying and terrible. Blood spattered everywhere and I could feel it on my skin. I could see it sprinkled across my khakis, a stark reminder of the incredible brutality that was happening right in front of my eyes. The enforcers screamed with agony and I watched as one of them tried to run while holding what was left of his arm in his hand.
This was a level of violence that I’d never seen before. I’d seen movies of historical battles, but nothing could have prepared me for this. This wasn’t a battle. This was slaughter.
I understood why Vane was so feared now.
I tore my eyes away from the dying enforcers back to the door of the cargo hold. A number of other men poured in. Some looked like Vane. Others were green. Some were blue or purple. They all had one thing in common though. They all had the same tattoo that Vane did.
The enforcers tried to run but there was nowhere for them to go. There was no exit except a quick agonizing death in the cold void of space. Vane’s crew blocked the entryway and they were spreading out to take care of anyone who wandered too close. A few of them fought with weapons, but they didn’t really need to. They were strong, astoundingly vicious, and not afraid to rip apart their enemies with a blade, or even worse, with simply their bare hands.
Their laughter as they killed the enforcers was the most haunting. I’d never forget that sound as they tore the heads off the men without a care in the world.
It didn’t take long for Vane and his followers to kill every last enforcer. When they finished, they didn’t move the dead bodies and mutilated limbs. They just left them on the metal floor as the blood pooled beneath them. A chilling shiver of terror raced down my spine as I rose to my feet.
If I was going to die today, I was going to do it fighting for my life.
Mari stood up too, only she moved just behind me. Flecks of blood stained her blonde hair, but now instead of perfect, it made her look fierce. We met each other’s eyes and nodded. Together, we’d fight.
“Today, my comrades, I bring you a different kind of treasure. Earth routinely ships humans to a number of planets in order to sell them at top dollar, but I think we’ve allowed them to continue this uninterrupted for too long. It’s time they paid for the right to soar through space. It’s time we took what is owed,” Vane began.
His voice was gruffer than I expected. It was low and spoke of nothing but unrestrained power, and I could feel myself reacting to him once again. I gritted my teeth and ignored how hearing him speak was making my nipples hard. I tried to disregard the fact that just the sound of his voice was making my pussy wet.
It was the adrenaline coursing through my veins. The need to fight rather than escape. Maybe it was my body preparing itself for pain. I had no fucking idea, but I wasn’t about to dwell on the fact that this cruel, incredibly dangerous alien was turning me on.
Abso-fucking-lutely not.
My fingers curled tighter around the handle of the dagger. I gripped it so hard that my knuckles turned white as Vane walked around the perimeter of the cargo hold. He inspected the Aberrant men first, but he didn’t spend much time with them. He circled to the female cages and slowly made his way down the wall, taking time to very thoroughly inspect each and every woman imprisoned inside.
He kept moving until he reached my cage.
Until he reached me.
Those golden eyes stared back at me and I was suddenly reminded of a snake. At any moment, he could reach out and snap. His lips curled up in a smirk as he assessed me. It almost felt like he was undressing me just with his eyes alone.
“You’re a monster,” I growled, and his smile grew even wider.
“A human with a fucking backbone,” he purred. “I didn’t think any existed. I’d heard Earth humans were universally meek, especially in the presence of those much more powerful.”
“Fuck that. What are you going to do with us?” I pressed.