Page 8 of The Alien Warrior's Mate

His eyebrows arched when he saw the numbers flashing on their screens.

Denizi.

He mentally calculated what he had in his valuables. It would not be enough.

The human screamed again, jerking away from her guards. Liquid leaked down her cheeks. She was trembling like a kidazi caught in the rain, all slim graceful limbs and fear.

“Nooo!” Her gaze remained on her comrade. She wrenched her shoulder and kicked her legs. “No!”

Suddenly, the guard smacked the female across the face. Had she not been held in their hands, she would have blown across the stage. The crowd reacted in approval as if this were an intergalactic fight between the galaxies’ greatest warriors.

The female let loose a tiny whimper that seeped below the noise and wrapped around his body. The anger that swept through him shocked every tendon in his cheek and jaw and made his body charge forward.

The screams of the crowd faded to the background. Shadows danced before his eyes. He could feel the dagger on his spine detach from his bones and emerge from the back of his neck. Black heat seeped through his venas. Sprinting forward before he even knew what he was doing, Korben leaped down the steps and flung himself on the platform.

The Rulari guards turned to him, their beady eyes narrowing to slits and tensing in anticipation. Korben’s breath faded to a slow hum. He had never felt this lack of control before, but he knew one thing.

Every Rulari he could get his hands on would die tonight.

Four

Sara

Pain exploded through her body.She lay slumped between the guards, her cheek throbbing. Sara trained her eyes on Emma as she was led away with the hooded creature that purchased her.

Panic built in her heart and a rattled scream blew past her lips. Sara didn’t know much about human trafficking, but this was the intergalactic equivalent.

A few hours ago, she’d been taken to a lab for inspection. From the way the octopus-like creatures had probed her body and between her thighs, she guessed they were testing for fertility.

Emma had been mistaken. They hadn’t been ‘chosen’. The only special thing these aliens cared about was her body. The thought of being touched by more jelly-like creatures or the lion guards or worse made her want to jump off the freaking roof.

“We have to escape,” she’d told Emma as they were led backstage.

“Don’t bother,” Emma had said. “This is it. This is the end for us.”

“I refuse to believe that.”

But she’d been naïve to think like that. There was no hope. She was just as powerless to save someone here on this planet as she’d been back on earth.

Sara’s mind filled with an image of her older sister. Janet limp in the bathtub. Blood tainting the water. One dark arm flapped outside the white tub.

No, no, no.

It couldn’t end like this.

She wouldn’t allow it.

Bucking against the guards with all her might, Sara strained after Emma. She couldn’t let what happened to Janet happened to someone else.

The lion guards started to haul her up. The one on the right lifted his arm as if he’d hit her again. Sara braced herself for impact when she heard a loudthump.A blue creature slammed on the stage, landing on the balls of his feet, one knee crouched and one hand on the ground in a classic superhero pose.

The blue alien looked like a human except… not. His eyes were a bright purple with large black pupils. He wore pants that clung to muscular legs. The material was skin-tight almost like an upgraded form of spandex. Tattoos ran the length of his massive shoulders and broad chest.

The guard who hit her made a growling sound and raised his sword. Before he could wield it, the blue warrior fell to a crouch and swept his leg out in a circle on the ground. The move knocked the guard off his feet and the sword tripped out of his grip.

Sara’s eyes landed on it and an idea lit up her mind. If she could just get her hands on that thing…

She’d never stabbed someone before, but that didn’t matter. The world was spinning out of control. That sword would bring some of her power back. She slithered on her belly and stretched her arm, straining to get her hands on the weapon.

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