The Alien's Escape: A SciFi Alien Warrior Romance (Drixonian Warriors Book 2)

by Ella Maven

I threw my hands in the air. “Then what? Why would you keep this from me?”

  “Because I’m supposed to protect you!” His aura shook, blurring, the panther’s face nothing but an unfocused grimace. Sax’s chest heaved before his eyes drooped, and he held out his hands to me imploringly. “The thought that I might fail you is more painful than anything Borhan could inject me with.”

  “Sax,” I whispered. I wrapped my arm around his shoulders and held him to my chest. He exhaled across my wet skin, raising goosebumps. I closed my eyes, listening to nothing but the rushing water and the breeze blowing through the trees. “I’m sorry I yelled,” I said softly. “I’m worried about you.”

  I felt his breath hitch before he pulled back and shot me a crooked grin. “It’ll be fine. I’ve been walking on it all day.”

  “Let me look at it,” I tried valiantly to switch to nurse mode. I’d coached my mother through chemo and watched her body turn on itself. I could try my best to evaluate Sax clinically.

  I ran my hands over his leg and palpated the skin. Pus oozed out of the injection site, which had widened to about a two-inch crater in his leg. His veins, which were normally black beneath his skin, had turned a grayish white around the crater. Whatever Borhan had injected him with seemed to be in his bloodstream. I didn’t hold out much hope, but maybe I could prevent the spread of the toxin to his vital organs.

  I tore a few strips of fabric from our pack. I wrapped one tight around his upper thigh, and then another below his knee to make tourniquets.

  Looking at my handiwork, I wasn’t happy that this was all I could do. Sax watched me carefully as I tended to him. He flexed his knee, and winced, but quickly hid it from me. I narrowed my eyes. “I know it hurts. Don’t act like it doesn’t.”

  He huffed a laugh and went to sit up. Although he swayed slightly, his face pale, he managed to roll onto his hands and knees. Still, he panted rapidly, and I knew it was from pain and not fatigue. I gazed up at the waterfall, and a shudder snaked down my spine. “I can’t believe you jumped off that. I thought we were goners.”

  “Goners?” he queried.

  “Drowned. Dead. Smashed to bits on a rock. Broken necks.” I reached for his messy hair and with shaking fingers, began to braid it. “Thank you. For protecting me. You got the brunt of the impact.”

  He leaned back on his heels and swayed into my touch. “We’re still alive and so I can admit that I wasn’t quite so sure I’d survive that impact.”

  I glared at him. “Can you stop trying to sacrifice yourself for me?”

  His chest heaved. “I would die for you.”

  “Yeah? Well I don’t want you to die for me, because I don’t want to live here without you, you big blue bastard.” I finished his braid and tied it off with his band. “So how about you work on keeping yourself alive?”

  I thought he’d laugh or make a joke. Instead he lunged at me and pressed a crushing kiss to my lips. “I wish we had time to do more than kiss, but we have to move. The Night Kings’ home is about three-quarters of a day’s journey, and I’m hoping to make it in half a day.” He gazed up at the sun high in the sky. “Ready?”

  I nodded as I rose to my feet. “I’m ready.”

  He stood and took a step. His left knee buckled, and he swore as he grabbed a nearby tree trunk to stay upright.

  My stomach dropped to my feet as I gripped his arm. “Maybe we can find a place to hide—”

  “We have to move,” he said. “The longer we wait, the worse my leg will be. And the Kulks will be combing this area in no time.”

  “But your leg—”

  He shot me a look, and for the first time, I saw genuine fear and concern in his eyes. I clenched my fist as hopelessness threatened to overwhelm me. I had to be strong for Sax.

  “Let’s go home,” was all he said.

  And all I could do was echo back, “Yeah, let’s go home.”

  Fifteen

  Val

  We walked for what felt like hours, until my legs ached, my feet were covered in blisters from the too-big boots, and sweat coated every inch of my skin. Sax showed me the direction we were going, based on the position of the sun in the sky. Due west.

  For a while, he walked with a slight limp. Then it grew more pronounced. I grabbed a stick and showed him how to use it like a crutch. He did until the wood snapped under his weight, which meant he was leaning on it. Heavily.

  By the time the sun was halfway toward the opposite horizon, his color had turned a sickly gray. He dragged his leg behind him, grunting with each step, and the sound tore at my soul.

  I couldn’t help him. I didn’t know what Borhan had injected him with, and even if I did, I had no way of doing a damn thing about it. The two tourniquets were all I’d managed, and I wasn’t sure they were effective at all.

  Adding to my terror was that I swore I heard the Kulks bearing down on us—the thud of something hitting a tree trunk, deep voices carrying on the wind, an odd clang of armor.

  Sax didn’t react. His eyes were glazed, like when he was in cruise mode. I grabbed his arm to help him along, and he leaned into me. We entered a small clearing, and by the time we reached the opposite side, he’d given me almost all of his weight.

  I grunted as I tried to stay upright. “Okay, it can’t be much farther, right?” Oh God, please tell me I’m right.

  Sax didn’t answer and his head slumped, hanging listlessly, his chin on his chest. My lungs seized. “Sax?” I cried, shaking him. “Sax?”

  His body swayed, and I wrapped my arms around his chest, trying to keep us from going down. It didn’t work. He was too heavy, and I was too damn tired. We crashed to the ground with a thud, Sax’s considerable bulk landing on my stomach and knocking the wind out of me.

  I managed to roll him off, and I immediately scrambled to his side. His eyes were half-open, his lips nearly white. His leg had swollen more, and the white veins were close to escaping my tourniquets.

  “Sax!” I shook his head and slapped his cheeks lightly. He moaned but didn’t open his eyes. Tears blurred my vision as I pawed through the pack, withdrawing the last of our qua. It wasn’t much, but I upended it into Sax’s mouth. His lips moved weakly, and his throat worked as he swallowed.

  “Please,” I wept over him, my tears splattering on his chest and face. “I’d carry you if I could. I’d carry you anywhere. But I can’t. Tell me what to do!”

  He blinked, and his eyes opened, a dull black that couldn’t seem to focus on my face. “Leave me,” he murmured. “Take the chip from my pocket. Keep going the direction we were. Due west based on the sun like I taught you.”

  “Leave you?” I sputtered. “Are you crazy?”

  He still couldn’t seem to focus, and his breath came faster, like he was panicking. I grabbed his hand and pressed a kiss to the inside of his wrist, right over his loks. “Sax, I’m right here. Can you see me?”

  He swallowed and didn’t answer my question. “Find Daz Bakut of the Night Kings and show him your loks. Tell him you’re my cora-eternal. Give him the chip. And live.” His breath shuddered. “Go, Val. Please, my lioness.”

  “But the Kulks—”

  “You matter the most,” he said. “She Is All, remember?”

  “No,” I cried. “You matter. You can’t leave me. I love you!”

  His eyes focused on my face for a split second, and a beautiful grin stretched across his face. Then his lids closed, and his face went slack.

  “Sax!” I screamed. I laid my head on his chest. His heart still beat, and he breathed, but he wasn’t conscious, and there was no way I could drag his limp body the entire distance we still needed to go.

  I didn’t know what to do. Something buzzed behind my back. Leaves rustled overhead. I was suddenly very aware I was alone. On a strange planet. Crouched over my passed-out alien boyfriend who didn’t seem far from death. His aura had nearly faded to nothing, the panther only a hazy silhouette.

  My vision narrowed to a tunnel and my head spun. I coul
dn’t catch my breath, and the familiar feeling of a panic attack gripped me.

  No. Fuck no. This couldn’t happen now. “Breathe, Val. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe,” I chanted.

  I gripped Sax’s hand in mine and focused on it. This hand had fought for me and killed for me. It had cradled my face, brought me pleasure, and gave me gifts. I stared at my own hands and the golden loks that adorned my skin.

  I was better than this. Sax deserved better than this. I breathed through the panic attack and didn’t let it overwhelm me. I went through all my techniques as the tightness in my chest eased. When I could breathe again, I swiped at my eyes.

  I stared west, contemplating how far I could drag Sax or where I could hide his body. A twig snapped behind me. I went still and slowly turned. A large leafed plant moved. A shimmer of silver caught the light by a tree trunk. An armored arm pushed aside a branch to my right.

  Within seconds, at least two dozen Kulks materialized from the dense forest, forming a semi-circle in front of me. They held solar guns in their meaty fingers.

  They began to come closer. I wasn’t stupid enough to think I could outrun them. They were here for me, and I knew without a doubt they’d kill Sax. He was good as dead anyway if I didn’t get him help soon.

  Fear leached into my blood, pumping cold and icy into my heart. For a moment, I was certain this was the end. I couldn’t move, and they’d pluck me from the ground like a wilted flower and carry me home like a trophy.

  But something happened in the four chambers of my heart, because that icy fear heated until it boiled and bubbled, sparking into anger. Red-hot fucking fury.

  “Stop!” I yelled, and the Kulks stopped advancing. I rose to my feet, hovering over Sax. “Are your orders to take me back alive?” I asked the one closest to me, a big fucker with a different ornament on his armor.

  “They are, human,” he said in a deep voice.

  I cast my eyes to the ground, looking for a rock that would serve my purpose. “And Sax?”

  “The Drixonian dies.”

  I didn’t let the callous words freeze me. I bent and picked up a flat rock. One corner was sharp, like it’d been chipped recently. The rest of the rock was smooth and weathered. I lifted my chin as my blood pumped hot in every limb. My anger was a full-blown conflagration now, consuming me so I saw red as my face burned.

  Fuck karma and Fatas. Fuck putting aside my own desires for other people. I was Sax’s lioness. I stood up for myself, and I wouldn’t go quietly into the night with these assholes. I wouldn’t be a pawn for someone else’s purpose. I inhaled deeply, muscles swelling.

  “I’m not coming.” I held the sharp edge of the rock up to my neck. “No one gets to decide the direction of my life but me.”

  The Kulk stepped forward, tension rolling off of him in waves. “Human—”

  “My name is Valerie!” I roared at him, pressing the rock into my neck until I felt a bite of pain. “You don’t get me, you don’t get my womb, and you don’t get Sax’s life.” Blood trickled down my throat. “Because he. Is. Mine!” The roar that left my mouth was unlike anything I’d ever produced. It shook the ground. The trees. It sent my heart into overdrive as my lungs burned with each giant inhale.

  The roar seemed to go on, long after I fell silent. The Kulks glanced uneasily at each other. And that’s when I heard it—a dull buzz that grew and grew until the very air seemed to vibrate.

  “Grab her!” the Kulk leader screamed just as a gust of air knocked me off my feet.

  I landed on my hands and knees and tilted my face up at the sky. A horde of mean-looking, blue-horned aliens on wheel-less bikes roared over my head, heading toward the Kulks. I stared in amazement as a cavalry of blue aliens leapt off their bikes midair and landed on the ground in front of me, the force slamming my shoulder to the ground.

  Their bone blades rippled down their forearms and backs, and they crossed their arms in front of their throats before moving into some sort of practiced, V-shaped formation. I scrambled backward and huddled over Sax’s body as a whistle rent the air.

  Then the battle began.

  The Kulks continued to pour from the trees, their numbers seemingly infinite. I thought the Drixonians would be outnumbered, but I quickly learned that wasn’t the case. Sax’s words came back to me. One of us is powerful. As a unit, we are nearly unstoppable.

  I understood as I watched the Drixonians fight. They went through the Kulks like a heated knife through butter, melting their ranks and leaving bodies in their wake. A few Drixonians remained on their bikes, zooming around the trees like X Games champions, firing precision-aimed laser gun shots at the Kulks.

  It was a massacre.

  I huddled over Sax’s chest, watching as green Kulk blood arced in the air and soaked into the ground. Lifeless bodies hit the ground and death rattles shook their chests. The Drixonians fought nearly silently, some seeming to relish the fight, grim smiles on their faces that chilled me to the bone.

  A massive Kulk with one broken horn, his face scarred, lashed out with a tail ringed with metal spikes. The weapons sliced into the Kulk’s armor, and he alone took out six at a time. I’d never seen anything like it.

  By the time the battle was over, Kulk bodies lay half a dozen deep. Crashing sounds echoed through the forest as the rest retreated.

  From the crowd of warriors, a large Drixonian emerged. His gaze leapt from me to Sax, and his expression turned thunderous, his eyes nothing but black pits. With his legs and arms streaked with Kulk blood, he was absolutely terrifying. His eyes were wide, nostrils flaring on either side of his pierced septum, and his shoulder-length hair swirled around him in a kaleidoscope of blue, black, and white.

  I braced myself over Sax’s body, covering as much of him as I could. I remembered Sax’s words. Not all Drixonians could be trusted. Just because they battled these Kulks didn’t mean they would take care of me and heal Sax. Would this Drixonian finish Sax and take me?

  He approached, his massive boots thudding on the ground and kicking up green dirt. He hadn’t lowered his bone blades, and I knew it was stupid as hell to face off against him when his warriors had taken out an army of Kulks, but my focus was protecting Sax.

  I bared my teeth at him, feeling as feral as I probably looked. “Don’t come any closer,” I hissed. “Don’t touch him! He’s mine!”

  The Drixonian rocked to an abrupt halt. The anger slowly leaked from his eyes until they became violet. He held up his hands, palms out. “Hello, female. I’m Dazeem Bakut, drexel of the Night Kings.”

  I sucked in a breath, and my head swam. Was I hearing things? Could this actually be…

  “I appreciate your protection of my brother, but you’re safe now,” Daz said. “Let us take you home and see to Sax’s injuries.”

  At those words, relief rushed through my muscles, weakening them as the days of fear and uncertainty caught up to me. Unable to hold myself up any longer, I collapsed onto Sax and wept.

  Sixteen

  Val

  I refused to leave Sax’s side. He lay on a massive pallet on the floor in a large room in the healer’s hut. I joined him, snugged up against his side amongst the furs. His body was warm. Too warm. His eyes—when I pried open his eyelids—were bright with fever.

  The Night Kings’ healer, Rokas, was a smaller Drixonian, quiet and careful, with nimble fingers and a kind smile. He never once admonished me or told me to leave Sax’s side. He even remarked one time, quietly, that he believed my presence was the only reason Sax seemed to be holding on as the poison ravaged his body.

  Rokas wasn’t sure what Borhan had injected Sax with. He’d drawn blood samples and taken tissue scrapes then ran tests on them with a complicated piece of machinery. So, he did all he could—their medis wasn’t powerful enough to cure the damage the poison had already inflicted, but it stopped the toxins from spreading further in his body. We kept him cool to try to drive down his fever, but now it was mostly a waiting game to see if Sax’s body would reco
ver.

  I hated the waiting game, but I was familiar with it. A few times, I looked at Sax and instead saw my mother, frail and serene while doped up in hospice. The déjà vu was too much, and I refused to let myself go there.

  I took care of myself too. Because I knew I needed to. I ate, slept, showered, and rested pressed against Sax’s body. It was part of my whole new sticking-up-for-myself plan. I wasn’t any good to anyone, including Sax when he—I refused to say if—recovered. He’d want me healthy, and I wanted myself healthy, in order to get used to this new, strange life.

  When we’d first arrived at the Night Kings compound, I’d been nearly delirious with hunger and fatigue. They’d immediately taken me and Sax to the healer’s hut. I’d fallen asleep while Rokas worked on Sax. When I woke up, he’d shown me to the cleanser and provided me with a tray of food. Other than the Drixonians who had rescued us, everyone had left us alone. On Rokas’s orders.

  Now I sat beside a feverish Sax, my knees pulled to my chest, his massive hand in mine. I brushed my thumb over his loks and talked to him while Rokas was out checking on a minor injury one of the warrior’s had received.

  A shadow fell over me, and I jerked up to see Daz standing in the doorway, his bulk taking up nearly the entire space. In my heart, I knew he was good, but the only person I truly trusted was Sax. Still, I met his gaze directly. If Daz was who Sax said he was, he’d accept me.

  “Rokas gave me a report,” Daz said. “Sax isn’t improving as well as he’d like, but he’s not getting worse.”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  He stepped farther inside, and I realized his steps were slightly hesitant. “What is your name?”

  “Valerie.” I cleared my throat. “I usually go by Val.”

  “Val,” he said softly, and his lips tilted up, changing his expression from intimidating to something much warmer. “I’m honored to meet my brother’s cora-eternal.” He jerked his chin toward my wrists. “I assume he told you what that means?”