Page 2 of Marked for Vengeance
Loris barked out a laugh. “Me? Stars no. I’m quite happy on my own, thank you. Love is for other people. The ones with kindness in their hearts and hope in their souls. You know damned well I have neither of those things.” She believed every word she said, but some small part of her wished it wasn’t true. Loris pushed that thought back into the shadowed corners of her mind.
“You are one of the kindest—” Maddison’s compliment was cut short as all hell broke loose. The deck beneath their feet lurched, and a heartbeat later, alarms blared from every speaker, both inside and outside the cabin.
Shit.
“Go bag. Now. Get it and meet me at my cabin door. Move!” Loris was at the door by the time the last word left her mouth. She hated leaving Maddison, but she needed to grab her own bag. At least her cabin was only across the corridor and a few meters down. She sprinted the entire distance, wincing at the noise and flashing emergency lights. Not good. Not good at all.
2
Vengeance lopedthrough the forest of their adopted home world, leaping over obstacles as he followed his clan-brother, Risk. None of them had been in this area before, so there were no trails or markers to follow, but they knew where they were going.
More or less.
The strange ship had crashed before their rudimentary tracking system could manage more than a rough estimate of its location, but it was enough. They would find the ship and its precious cargo of unclaimed females. At least, Vengeance hoped they were still unclaimed. Most of the clan would have already arrived by now, and his brothers might have taken all the females for themselves.
He growled in frustration and picked up the pace. Why were they moving soslowly?
“Faster,” he snarled to no one in particular.
“Remember what the female said,” Havoc growled back. “We need to be gentle with these humans.”
“If any are left by the time we reach them,” Vengeance snarled. “We’re moving too slowly.”
Risk glanced back over his shoulder, his fangs bared. “Would you like to lead for a while, Venge? You can set whatever pace you like. If you’re away from Havoc, maybe the two of you will stop arguing.”
“I’m not arguing,” Vengeance stated. He’d been trying to make Havoc see reason. The stubborn male was always forming complicated plans to achieve simple goals. Vengeance didn’t see the point.
Risk stopped and spun around to face him, his expression a blend of bemusement and frustration. “You’rebotharguing. One of you wants to rush in. The other wants to make elaborate plans and consider every possible scenario. You’re wrong.”
Havoc stopped immediately—probably because he’d been moving soslowly. Vengeance took several more strides to come to a halt. Risk rarely spoke out like this. Of all their brothers, he had the most self-control. Vengeance was the opposite, especially when it came to spending time with his brothers. None of them found it easy to be with the others for more than a few hours. Instinct drove them to aggression and acts of dominance that strained their bonds and made it impossible for them to live in any kind of close community.
The three of them had been together for too long—first on the hunting trip and then on this journey to the crash site. Vengeance considered that for a moment and grudgingly admitted to himself that maybe he had been arguing with his brother.Maybe.
“We can’t both be wrong,” Vengeance said.
“Yeah, you can.” Risk thumped a fist to his bare chest. “Myplan is the right one.”
Another plan? Vengeance groaned inwardly. Why was any of this necessary? They knew everything they needed to do.
Two days ago, the verexi’s automated defense systems had shot down a ship with human females aboard. Several escapepods had ejected before the main vessel had made what they all hoped was a survivable crash landing.
Since then, three of their brothers had located pods and claimed the females they found for themselves.
Once the others learned of this, the rest of the clan had rushed to the crash site to find any survivors. Only Bysshe had stayed behind. The android was the closest thing they had to a father figure, but while he was a clan-brother in spirit, he had no need for female companionship. At least Vengeance didn’t think he did. Did Bysshe even have the parts for sex?
He backed away from that line of thought before it led him somewhere no one wanted to go. Bysshe didn’t talk about what he was or what he’d done before the verexi had bought him and put him to work as head keeper for their most dangerous experiments—the fa’rel.
The three of them were out hunting when news of the females broke. They’d arrived hours after the others had left to find the crashed ship. His bastard brothers hadn’t bothered to wait. Which he couldn’t really blame them for. He’d have done the same thing in their position, but he was still going to be pissed about it. It was the same for his brethren who had found mates. Sure, he was happy for Mayhem, Strife, and Menace, but he was also racked with envy. He wanted what they had—not their females, of course, but one of his own. Someone he could talk to about things his brothers would never understand. A companion to fill the long, empty nights when memories of his past haunted him. A mate to warm his bed and explore all the ways they could pleasure each other.
Thinking about it made him even more certain his idea was the right one. All these plans were unnecessary. Vengeance’s sense of smell was better than any of his brothers, but he hadn’t realized how much better it was until now. None of them seemed to have noticed that Hope and Menace’s scents containednearly identical elements. It wasn’t that they smelled the same, but their scents complemented each other in ways he couldn’t explain.
That had always been his problem. His instincts provided him with information, but he struggled to put the knowledge into words. Bysshe had tried to teach him the science behind his ability, but Vengeance could never stay still and focused long enough to absorb it all.
“And what’s your plan?” Havoc asked. The question jerked Vengeance back to the present moment.
“Nice of you to finally ask,” Risk said.
The note of rebuke in his brother’s tone made him wince a little. In all the time he and Havoc had argued, Risk had kept silent. Vengeance had assumed he agreed with Havoc simply because that’s how it usually went. They all thought of Vengeance as the reckless one who always charged in. They weren’t entirely wrong about that, but they weren’t right, either. He operated best when he let his instincts guide him.
