Prologue
Oran
The fear that life on Earth may be worse than back on Iriaza grows stronger with each passing day.
As I watch my two brothers, now mated and content, my misery deepens. I am not like the rest of my kind. I was among the youngest to be captured by the aliens when they swept into our Nordic homeland and enslaved us nearly three centuries ago. My wiring is different, and being around those who have found some level of contentment back on Earth only highlights my own alienation.
Their experiments and genetic manipulation—their torture—changed me in a way it did not change the others. Watching my family thrive since our return should give me some joy. Some comfort.
But it does not.
My brother Mol was the first to find his mate. He and Raven will soon have their first born. The next generation of our clan.
Tigor was next, his female is also mated with his offspring.
My mother and sister, two of the few females that survived Iriaza and three hundred years of enslavement by the Moban, are more alive than they have been in centuries.
Our clan is strong and getting stronger. Mol and Tigor have made allies with the Larrsen clan, we have grown our territory and strengthened our numbers. They are happy, but I think we should take on more of the human ways. Forget honor and law. We were brought back into war. I fought from the moment my foot found Earth dirt and I will never stop.
My family and the clan dismiss me, pity me, knowing the torture I endured. I do not want their pity, I want power, strength. I do not want to be softened. By anyone or anything.
The darkness consumes me. Every day the pain in my chest sends rage deeper into my DNA. The red fire in my vision pushes me toward an edge from which I fear I will never return.
My senses are heightened, like needles in my brain and over my skin. Being touched feels like a thousand hot blades raking over my flesh.
I thought being free would dampen the fire inside me, yet my hatred grows with each breath. My family does not know. They believe I am simply brooding and quiet. But, I am afraid my control will snap and I will take out my rage on the only beings in this world that mean anything to me.
My family.
The cold stone of my heart tells me there is nothing here for me. Nothing but the momentary release of the darkness rooted in my core.
Releasing my demons in the cage has been my only salvation. Fighting to the death against any being that dares challenge me gives me a moment of dark respite. Violence was the closest I came to feeling alive.
Until I saw her.
When I was not helping the clan or fighting, I took to the woods. Walking for hours, breaking branches and uprooting trees. Throwing boulders that had not moved in centuries. Cursing the sky and the blood that flowed like fire in my veins. My bones crack as I moved, the alterations the Moban made to my body a painful constant reminder that even among my people, I was a monster.
Then, I found her in the moonlight nearly twenty-earth nights ago. The water of the lake sparkled against the night sky as she walked the docks at a near-empty marina miles from our clan’s settlement.
The way she moved, her scent lingering on the cool night air, awoke something inside of me. Could she be my mate? I do not know. I do not feel things the same way the others do. My instincts are twisted, untrustworthy. Yet, there was a stirring inside me, yes.
My mating member throbbed but not with pleasure. With a gut-twisting pain that brought me to my knees.
Still, I watched. I was rapt. She stomped along the wooden planks as she cursed to no one. Every word stung me like bald-faced hornets. My skin tightened as the clenching in my chest stole my very breath.
There was a tang of anger in her scent. I held onto the closest tree, steadying myself there lest I run to her and…
Do what? I did not know.
But, as I stayed and watched from the darkness of the woods, the anger boiling inside me cooled. I forgot my hatred for those moments. I found a lake of calm water and I floated across it.
Since that night, I have stalked the female like I’m stalking my next kill just as I do now with the sun setting on the lake. Her hair an angry red like glowing coals. Eyes like the brightest sky surrounded by an onyx circle. Her lush form made my fingers twitch. Not with the thought of mating, but with a territorial urge I can’t deny.
Obsessive.
Possessive.
I’ve hidden in the shadows since. Watching her working the docks, walking around inside her house, cooking, yelling, throwing plates at nearly every meal.