Wexxon the Great Alien Warrior - Juno Wells Page 0,47

to his knees.

Just then, I felt someone slide my knife right out of my grip. But before they had the chance to use my own weapon against me, I reached back for their frame, pulling them over my shoulder until they landed with a thud by my feet. After that, I pulled their sword out of its hilt, holding the tip at their neck.

I then held my hand out for my knife, motioning for them to return it to me at once.

The warrior took a moment, her eyes going from the sword at her neck and back to the small blade that she’d stolen from me. Eventually, she made the right choice, sliding my blade back into my hand as she held up her palms in surrender.

“Thank you.” I nodded down at her before I broke into a run, trying to put as much distance as I could between myself and the warriors who seemed intent on ending my life. But as I ran through the strange, sunlit forest, I started to feel my legs sinking into something, and deep. My running became impossible, my legs somehow frozen in the ground underneath me, as if the planet was on the verge of swallowing me hole.

Trick sand.

Of course Reddin would be employing such a thing. It’d been one of his favorite features in all the storybooks our parents read to us as we grew up, side-by-side, him always being fascinated by how easily the sand stopped the heroes, how simple it was to vanquish a foe by getting him to chase after the object of their hatred.

And now, here I was, becoming the villain in Reddin’s self-made storybook, the one I was sure he thought was going to end with him finally having his own happy ending.

The ground continued to swallow me, the sand reaching all the way up to my chest. A few seconds later, and it was up to my neck, and soon enough my mouth, too. As a last-ditch effort, I held my breath, wondering how long it was going to take for Reddin to find me, for him to pull me out of the sand and cut off my head.

Because if he’d gone through the trouble of stealing my Rachel, I knew that there was no possible way he was going to let me die like this, let me die without being the one to have taken my life from me.

And sooner rather than later, I was proven right. I felt a pair of hands desperately reaching into the sand, pulling me forward and away from its hold. And as I gasped for air, my chest rising and falling with the motion, I watched as a syringe sank into my shoulder, its contents swirling into my blood.

And then, the sunlight that’d surrounded me sank back into a heady darkness.

Chapter Fourteen

Rachel

I was able to feel my body again.

It’d felt like such a huge blessing, being able to move my fingers and toes, being able to turn my head and look through the glowing, black bars that I’d been forced to sit behind for what seemed like hours and hours. I was too afraid to touch the bars, worried that they’d been seeped in poison, the brightness that emanated from them seeming like a wordless warning.

There was also the matter of the warriors who sat only a few inches away from me, watching from the other side of the bars. They weren’t as big as Wexxon or Reddin, but they still looked formidable, especially with their continuous stare.

“You are moving,” one of the warrior-guards commented, a snarl evident in their tone. “The injection must’ve worn off too fast.”

“Is the child still moving inside you, too?” The second guard chimed into the conversation, an evil grin on his face. “Or are you not far enough along to tell?”

“How brave of you. Wishing death on a child,” I replied, sarcasm dripping from my every word. “Is that why you work for Reddin? Because Wexxon would never have you at the castle—”

“We work for Reddin, because he speaks for the voiceless!” The first guard hissed as he spoke. “We work for Reddin, because he promises an equal Xelxar for all!”

“An equal Xelxar?”

“One where a citizen’s worth is not determined by battle,” the second guard explained. “The kind of Xelxar where a female like you wouldn’t have to give themselves to a male like Wexxon, just to have security and shelter.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” I argued. “And you don’t know anything