Page 11 of Bonded Queen: to the Alien Warlord Triad

I nearly ran away, shuffling, and dropped the box of tools on the way down a corridor. I picked them up as quick as I could, not daring to leave anything for fear of losing my job, but every second that passed my heart beat faster.

“Do you think they’ll come?” My voice cracks as I ask her.

“If they tasted their Mate here, nothing will stop them. Those bastards would fly through a black hole to get to their Mate. To own her. I’ll take my chances against the Scorp.”

“Are Fanatics really that bad?”

She takes her eyes off the horizon and stares me down. “You a virgin, Rachel?”

I look away, my cheeks flushing red. Hordes of monsters are approaching from the skies, the sirens blaring out and warning us of our fate, and I’m embarrassed? There’s no time for such emotions.

“You shouldn’t ask that,” I say, knowing how foolish I sound.

She snorts. “They won’t need to ask. Aurelians can smell virginity from a hundred feet away. They can taste innocence, and they love to conquer it. And if you’re their Mate, Rachel, you’ll never be free again. They’ll turn you into their little breeding toy.”

I don’t tell her about the dream, the dream that felt as real as the walls around me, walls that can’t protect me from marauding Scorp. I remember the description on the placard at the museum, before we walked away.

Scorp claws can pierce through anything, given enough time. Space stations must have constant patrols, because if an Org-Ship latches to the walls, they’ll burrow inside.

“Don’t think about Fanatics. Just think about how you’re going to survive.”

I swallow, my mouth dry. “Kat, why’d you stay?” She exudes competence, and I know she could have found a way off this planet.

She gives me a wry smile. “I miscalculated. Heard some bad news but thought I had time to take care of some business in the city. Hell, I thought…it doesn’t what I thought. I wish I did leave, but I’m here now, and unless we work together, we’re never getting off this shithole of a planet.”

My eyes go wide. She follows my gaze.

A burning comet the size of the manor is careening towards the ground. It’s on fire from piercing the atmosphere, white, smoking, fleshy material sloughing off the Scorp Org-Ship. The outer layer is peeling off as it plummets downward.

The drumming of the anti-air battery thunders out as tracer rounds blast into the air, explosions ringing out in the air around the Org-Ship.

Screams come from the courtyard garden where servants without a master congregate. Their white dresses, our pristine uniform, look so clean and innocent. I get the horrible vision of red blood staining them.

Smoke billows behind the flaming Org-Ship, black and thick. Direct hit! The egg ship splits in half, and I see the yellow-brown of Scorp in their sticky resin tumbling out from the wreckage. The Queen, three times the size of the rest of them, is ripped in half, pieces of her smashing against the ground as the entire broken egg slams down.

Most of the Scorp shatter on impact.

Some of them landed on softer ground, and the few that survive pull themselves slowly out of the amber material that protects them in the space-flight. They raise their huge reptilian heads to the skies and scream in rage at their fallen Queen…

Then as if they share a mind, they rush towards the tall city walls.

There’s a weak cheer from the garden that the anti-air batteries did their job. I’m shaking with adrenaline, and I nearly let out a whoop of my own before I see the next flaming Org-Ship.

Then another. Another. The anti-air batteries thunder, but the sky is filled with fleshy, burning sacks, eggs filled with the promise of death inside them.

My hand shakes. I can’t keep the gun straight. I try to force my hands to still, but my entire body trembles and shudders with adrenaline and terror.

How did I think for a moment I could survive? The sun is blotted out by the masses of ships. There’s hundreds, thousands of the Org-Ships, filling the sky, and then I hear a strange drip when I realized I pissed myself.

Kat’s hand claps the back of my shoulder. “It’s okay. You can be scared. I am too. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Just keep firing when they come. There’s plenty more dresses, get changed. You’ve got a minute.”

She takes my rifle from me and pulls out the near-empty magazine, replacing it with the armor-piercing rounds. I see another ship land, this one unscathed, and Scorp rip their way out, their giant pincer claws shearing the organic material like they’ll shear me when they get to me…

Unless they take me back to their Queen, for the most terrible of deaths.

3

General Kriz

---