The Alien's Revenge - Ella Maven Page 0,11

of my lower lip. I got a taste of dirt and grass before my eyes grew heavy.

I laid back on the furs, and the last thing I felt before I fell asleep was the steady vibration of my mate’s purr under my palm.

Four

The Warrior

I watched the female sleep. A voice in the back of my mind spoke to me, and I hadn’t heard that voice in a while. It belonged to the honorable male I once was, and it told me not to stare at her. It was the same voice which had told me to soothe her when she was scared. I listened to it then, but I didn’t listen now, because I couldn’t look away.

She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. Her light brown skin gleamed in the rays of the sun, and her long, dark braided hair was splayed around her in my furs. She wore a pair of antella skin pants and a shirt made of a soft material. Her chest rose and fell beneath it, drawing my eyes to her full breasts.

I looked away then, the voice in my head insistent this wasn’t how warriors acted. We didn’t covet what wasn’t ours.

It’d been so long since I’d seen anything other than the prey I killed and a few Rizar or pivar packs. A few rotations ago, I’d seen another who looked like me. My mind fractured then, because something told me I knew him, but I couldn’t remember how, and I didn’t know his name. Even though I knew he wasn’t the one who betrayed me—I remembered his face—something about this warrior’s presence angered me and unsettled me. But with him had been one of her. A female. Not the same one sleeping next to me—she’d had yellow hair and pale skin.

She and the male were about to be attacked by a hunner horde, and that many stings would have killed them. So, I did what I could do save them. I hadn’t done it for him, I’d done it for her. I still wasn’t sure why. Now the male knew I was alive, but something about the fear in the female’s voice and her cries … my instinct had been to protect and save.

I worried though, because the male had spotted me and called to me as I fled in words I didn’t understand. What if that male knew the one who betrayed me? What if he told him about my existence, and my enemy returned to finish me off? So I’d prepared. I’d be ready this time. I’d be the victor.

Except now I had a more important task. The sleeping female in my hut. I wondered if she knew the other female, but why would she have been alone? That didn’t make sense. She would have been protected if she knew any warriors. She must be alone, which meant she needed me.

I looked down at my wrists and rubbed the markings there. What did they mean? I’d long ago decided Fatas didn’t exist. We had nothing to reward or punish us. Life was life, flecked and broken. Miserable. But I couldn’t explain these confusing skin markings that matched the female’s in front of me. A flash of recognition over the markings entered my mind, but quickly vanished like smoke. I couldn’t remember, or maybe I’d blocked it out, just as I’d blocked out most of the Before.

I’d been hunting when I’d heard a hoarse cry. I hadn’t thought much of it until I felt a blow to my face as if I’d been struck. I had tasted my blood in my mouth, a bitter tang on my tongue, but I hadn’t been bleeding.

I stumbled toward the sound of a struggle and that was when I’d seen the female fighting two enemies. I knew they were enemies even if I couldn’t remember why. They were hurting her, and they had to die, so I’d killed them with a few easy throws of my blades.

I’d intended to leave her, but once I looked into her eyes, I couldn’t. For a moment, she’d cleared the madness and made me feel like a duty-bound warrior again. I’d had an important job once, but it’d been long ago.

The only purpose driving me now was revenge on the one who took everything from me and turned me into a mute savage. Revenge was all that kept me alive, and it’d turned my mind into a wicked, murky, shriveled thing. Until her. Until I’d looked into her warm