Alien Conquest (Fated Mates of Xaensskar #2) - Jude Gray Page 0,7

rage turning to simmering anger the longer I’d stood there.

The two boys were young, and that was the only reason they yet lived. Life wasn’t easy for street kids, as I well knew, and I would have scared the life from them and then kicked their little asses off my property but for two things.

One of them was a Drimuti and still dared come onto my property, and I refused to release a parasitic Drimuti. The second reason I wouldn’t release them was because they’d killed my rescue grosen. I’d saved Jula from a piece of shit who’d had her shoved into a cage in his backyard with seven other grosens. Some of the grosens were older and all were larger, and little Jula was injured. The vet fixed her up, and after she’d healed, the little thing had followed me around like I was her mother.

I’d taken all the grosens from the asshole and my sister had found them homes, but I’d kept Jula. And now two thieves had killed her.

Fucking canks.

No, I wouldn’t be rewarding them with freedom.

The Drimuti appeared to be attempting to comfort his skinny friend. Avanya’s son. Avanya’s life had been rife with tragedy. Though she hadn’t wanted to complain, she haltingly told me bits and pieces. Enough to know her life had been shit. Her son had run away—several times—and was constantly taking advantage of her love for him. When he’d come into my home, she’d believed he’d wanted to see her. She’d hoped to convince him to come home so she could take care of him.

“He’s just a child,” she’d sobbed, as I’d lifted Jula’s lifeless little body from the cold ground.

But he wasn’t a child. He was a street kid who’d grown up quickly, and who, despite the fact that he’d had a home and a mother, had preferred the life of the streets. It made no sense. I’d never met a street kid who wouldn’t have given anything to have what this boy had. What this boy had thrown away.

To Avanya’s shock, I offered her a place in my home fulltime. She would have a room here, and she wouldn’t have to trudge back to her lonely, decrepit apartment in a seedy part of the city. She had no man, which was surprising considering the fact that she was a pretty female.

The Drimuti began to sing, and for a few moments I stood frozen, surprised by his voice. High and crystalline, like a girl’s voice, it pierced the air and hung there, causing my stomach to tighten and my heart to clutch with melancholia.

I stepped closer to the balcony wall and stared down at them, wanting to walk away but unable to. The kid’s voice was fucking haunting. Chills shook my body, and it had nothing to do with the cold, which I’d heard them complaining about before the boy had begun to sing.

I continued to stand there even as the delicate Drimuti began to bellow my name like he believed I might actually answer his annoying summons, begging for warmth, and I watched as one of my guards stomped into the courtyard and began to beat him.

That beating seemed especially brutal—and wrong. I stopped the guard, unsure why, angry at myself for my softness after what the little bastards had done. Still, I commanded the guard to stop, and I commanded him to have a fire built so they would be just a little less miserable until they were dragged away to the authorities at first light.

Even after I went to bed something about the boys kept nagging at me until I finally slept, but my sleep was restless and sporadic. My mood was not improved the next morning.

“Shall I take the boys into the city?” Bo asked. He was head of my security and I trusted him as much as I trusted anybody.

“No,” I said.

“No?” he asked, his nose wrinkled in confusion. “What should I do with them?”

It was only that moment that I realized I had other plans for the little thieves. “I’m taking them to Corsov.” I was slightly baffled by the words that came out of my mouth, yet I did not retract them.

My guards gaped at me. “You’re taking them to the deadlands?”

“Yes,” I said firmly. “They need to learn some lessons that have nothing to do with the streets. I intend to teach them to become something other than common thieves. By the time I’m finished with them, they will be well on their