Chapter One
Kaela
I was the only one left.
That made me angry.
All three of my sisters had been taken from me. Now, I was the last Stryke standing, the youngest of the four of us and the only one remaining to lead our band of human survivors. I’d had to grow up pretty damn fast.
But, even with all that in mind, we were thriving.
Just last night, we caught a wild boar. The caves still smelled of bacon and pork belly, enough to make my stomach rumble. Now, I was focusing on preserving the leftovers so that we would have enough food and provisions for when winter came. Already, the temperature was beginning to drop, enough to cause me to shiver every now and then.
“Kaela. Earth to Kaela,” my friend Sophie whispered. One of the many human females in our camp, she’d been my right-hand girl the past few weeks. She’d been crucial in planning of a few key resource-gathering missions that had gone very well for us, like finding a wine cellar stuffed to the brim with expensive bottles.
“Is there something you need?” I smirked.
“You had that look on your face again. Stop thinking about your sisters. Remember we have to think of the future, right?” she chided.
“I know,” I scoffed, turning my head to watch a couple walk by hand in hand.
Sophie laughed.
“Oh. I get it. You just need a man to distract you a little bit. You know... I caught Liam checking you out the other day. I bet he’d totally be down to give you some much needed stress relief,” she said, unable to stop herself from chuckling even harder. I rolled my eyes but smiled at her teasing.
“You’re bad,” I scolded her, but even I couldn’t keep myself from giggling at her antics. She knew I wasn’t well versed in love. In fact, I’d never been with a man.
I wasn’t destined to find love. My only mission was to survive and remain free. To be the last Stryke standing.
Plus, I couldn’t afford to be distracted like that. I had more important things to worry about, like continuing to survive and keep my people safe.
“You want it,” she winked.
I rolled my eyes and she giggled.
“Kaela!” one of the guys called out. Sophie snorted, and we looked up to see it was Liam. He was running toward me, the look on his face one of full-blown panic. Shit. A gnawing worry began to grow in the pit of my belly.
“What is it?” I asked with an increasing level of concern as he reached me, his face pink with exertion, like he had run a long way, and maybe he had in order to get to me. In my sisters’ absence, I had assigned a group of five men to monitor our perimeter and Liam had been one of them. That duty also included keeping track of all the cameras and traps that Kira had built some time ago in order to protect us.
In our time living deep in the woods, we’d only actually utilized a few of them in order to kill some Vakarrans that were wandering too close to our camp. There were many more that remained inactive, many more that we could use in the face of danger.
“Vakarrans spotted. A group of four of them. They don’t look like the typical unit. They look pretty hardcore,” he spat out, trying to catch his breath.
“They seem like bad guys, Kaela. Worse than usual. They’re carrying an ass load of weapons. Their trajectory is heading straight toward our camp. I’m afraid we might be in trouble if we don’t act soon,” he said, standing up and catching my eyes with his. His gaze was bold, but also scared.
“Only four of them?” I asked.
“Yes. Just four,” he replied.
“How far are they?” I pressed,
“Maybe a day and a half away,” he answered.