Page 51 of Claimed by the Alien Warrior Triad

Brigg holds his Orb-Mace aloft as he leads the way through the brush. The three men form a protective circle around me, and suddenly this dangerous planet doesn’t seem so scary anymore. I’m surrounded by three broad backs, and I remember the first time they surrounded me like this – when the eagle attacked so many years ago.

We walk for only a few minutes when I tense up, seeing more of the Scorps ahead of us.

“Watch out!” I yell, and Stryker smiles. Then I see more clearly. The Scorps are already dead, strung up as warning to others of their kind.

“Scorps will not come within a hundred feet of our home,” Haleon boasts.

I feel even safer as I pass by the grisly trophies, and we walk only one more minute before we get to a stream with a rocky cliff next to it. The three Aurelians move slowly, carefully stepping over trip wires. I look at them skeptically. Haleon reaches down and brushes his hand against one of them. Instantly, the sound of gentle bells rings out.

A warning system, if beasts come.

Stryker helps me up the rocky cliff-face and into a small cave, protected by a boulder just like the one from their mountain lair; which they heft aside for me to enter.

Their new home is smaller than their former cave, and filled to the brim with comfortable furs and a store of food to one side. In the corner is a warhorn, and I wonder if they were the ones to sound the alarm that the dragon was coming. Near it are pots, carved from stone. I recognize small mushrooms growing in some of them – the same as the ones that were used in the paste that saved Brigg’s life. I also notice the sweet, refreshing grass growing in other pots.

The three of them have a wooden table set up, crafted expertly. I nearly cry with joy when I see that there arefourseats at the table. Have they really been waiting patiently for me all this time?

Then I shudder.

What if that seat is for another woman?

“There are four seats…” I say softly, knowing I can’t blame them if they took another mate while I was gone for over three decades.

“Foryou, my sweet. I crafted it myself,” Brigg boasts, his voice low and filled with happiness now that I’m safe and sound – back in their little home. I drink in his muscled body, each tattoo so elegantly inked on his flesh. His veins are that beautiful, vibrant green which has haunted my dreams every night for thirty years.

I’ve been walking for so long that my feet ache and my belly rumbles embarrassingly. Brigg pulls out the chair, motioning for me to sit. Before I can, he wraps me up in a huge bear hug.

“I feared I’d never see you again,” he whispers, and I know how broken his heart must have been, every day for the past thirty years. Haleon and Stryker join the hug, and suddenly I’m wrapped up and crushed between the three huge, muscular men – held close by their immense bodies.

“What… Whatwerethose things?” I ask, the moment they break off the hug. I don’t need to clarify the ‘things’ I was referring to. Clearly I mean the monstrous, pincer-handed creatures dragging that crippled panther through the forest.

“Scorps. It’s their venom which gives us strength. It’s their venom coursing through our veins that give us our virility. Our species are intertwined – Scorps and Aurelians. Without them, we cannot procreate.”

My eyes widen when I hear that – but Stryker changes the subject before I can learn more.

“Tell me, love. When did your hair change color?”

I smile. “It’s not real. I colored it so I’d look older. You… You have no idea what I went through to get back here.”

“Why did you ever leave?” Haleon demands, his voice suddenly hardening.

I breathe in deeply. They accepted my scars so easily. But this? This is something else entirely.

These three gorgeous, warrior aliens waited for me because they wanted a future with me. They thought I could give them what they needed so desperately...

Children.

But I can’t. I’m a broken woman. I look down, suddenly deeply ashamed of who I am, and what is wrong with me.

“You’re in pain,” says Brigg, and he stands behind me, wrapping me up in his huge arms to pull me close.

“I… I can’t bear your sons,” I gasp, and then suddenly sob.

If Brigg wasn’t holding me, I’d fall to my knees right now. I sacrificedeverythingto get here. I risked death to have life. But now I’ve told them my secret, that makes me worthless to them.

“What do you mean?” Stryker asks.

I shake my head. “I got tests with doctors,” I say, and realize that even with the amulet translating my words, they still don’t understand. “A… A medicine man, I guess you could say. He told me I can’t bear children. I am… I’mbarren, like a field that won’t grow plants. I am like the ground, burnt by that dragon.”

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