Venomous Hunger (Eok Warriors Book 2)

by Mary Auclair

  Kamal stared at the black screen for a few seconds. Answering the call from his brother had been a matter of family honor, and one he never gave a second thought. His crew had been another matter.

  He was traveling back from a supply run to the Relany rebels who had colonized a distant moon on a disputed territory, the bowels of his cargo hold full to the brim with goods they would sell for three times the price he’d paid for them. Or the price he would have paid, if he had bothered paying. As it was, he’d jumped a Cattelan merchant ship, stripping them of their cargo and freeing their slaves on a busy commercial moon.

  This run was a good opportunity but his merchandise was perishable, and lost value with every passing day. The only thing preventing a full-scale rebellion amongst his crew had been the considerable fear he struck in the heart of every male aboard the ship.

  Finding the human village had been easy. It was well hidden under the cover of the forest, but the information his brother’s mate, Rose, gave him had paid off. Kamal and his crew had found the small cluster of homes, made of dried mud and grass, after only a day of searching, but it was empty. The humans were gone. They’d obviously left in a hurry, leaving most of their possessions behind, but without a single clue as to their destination.

  Then the real search had begun.

  After a full week of looking, his crew was restless, and frustration was plain on every grim face. Every inch of snow-covered land in a two hundred mile radius had been turned over, without any leads as to the humans’ location.

  The males had been starting to doubt and resent Kamal. It was a dangerous situation, one he couldn’t ignore forever.

  Then he’d found her.

  Closing his eyes, Kamal was brought back to the memory of the day he’d found the small human female.

  He was on his way back from a six-hour tracking session, shuffling through the knee-deep snow, frustrated and angry. Those humans had to be somewhere close, but they were as elusive as a killkon on the Eokian plains, slipping through his fingers every time he went near.

  The recent storm hadn’t helped. The night had brought two feet of white, powdery snow, blanketing the forest ground, erasing any tracks humans could have left behind.

  His crew’s patience was running dry. Already, half refused to go out, claiming the humans must be dead by now. It was too cold, too harsh for such a fragile species to survive.

  Kamal went out alone as soon as the snow stopped falling, against his second-in-command and best friend Marmack’s advice. He needed to cleanse his mind, and nothing worked better to calm his anger than physical exhaustion.

  As he followed his tracks back to the rocky top of a small mountain, Kamal froze. There, where a few hours before was only pure, undisturbed white snow, lay a small form, wrapped in the brown fur of a large animal. He knelt in the snow, then opened the folds of the fur.

  Her deathly pale skin was smooth and taut, but it didn’t hide the fine delicacy of her bones. Her eyes were closed, and curtains of dark lashes licked the velvet of her high cheekbones. Long, smooth, almost black hair hung around her thin face, highlighting the dark blood red of her cracked lips. Exquisite and fragile, the creature was clearly female, and clearly very sick. Even if he’d never seen the likes of her before, he knew what she was. She was human. Kamal stared at the face of the female, and there and then he understood why the entire species had been hunted down, driven to the point of extinction by the males of other nations. She was the very essence of female—enticing and delicate.

  As he cleared her head of the protection of the fur, a moan escaped her lips, a pitiful little sound, full of need and pain.

  Something roiled and coiled inside him, a base instinct that had been dormant all his life, just waiting for a reason to wake up.

  He needed to protect the fragile creature. Take her to safety.

  Carefully, he cradled the human female in his arms. Something tore inside him at how little she weighed, little more than a youngling. As he moved back on his knees, she broke into a coughing fit. He stared in shock as a thin trickle of blood slipped through her lips. The shock of seeing the red blood against her pallid skin set him in motion.

  He ran. Cradling her to his chest, his legs pumped in the snow as fast as on the training sands of Eokim, despite the cold, the exhaustion. He didn’t slow down until he reached the ship, meeting his second-in-command, Marmack, who watched, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, as Kamal carried the barely alive little female to the medical room.

  Kamal opened his eyes, pushing away the memory and all the unwanted feelings it brought back. This had happened four days ago. Her condition was even worse than he had initially thought. Pneumonia was eating away at both her lungs, and her body was in such a state of deprivation that her heart was about to give out. His medical technician, Wyol, had been treating her day and night, making sure she didn’t let go of the thin line that tied her to life.

  None of them had ever seen such a fragile creature holding on to life so fiercely.

  Each day, Kamal visited the medical room, sometimes staring for hours at the female’s face while she slept the deep, dreamless slumber of the medicated. Slowly, over hour after hour, her cheeks had regained color, her skin had lost its gray, paper-like texture. The nutrient solution filled her veins, padding her bones with a thin cover of flesh.

  His desire grew and grew… until he could barely stand to look at her.

  No matter his initial attraction to her, he wouldn’t touch the human female. His only goal was to honor his familial ties by ensuring the human’s safety until his other brother, Khal, arrived with an entire Eok contingent. After that, he would leave Earth and not come back.

  He would leave her behind, and put her out of his mind for good.

  Kamal got to his feet, vaguely intent on visiting the medical wing to assess the condition of his charge.

  “Kamal!” Marmack rushed into the control room, his eyes wide and his breath short. “Come, quick. The human escaped!”

  Kamal wasn’t even aware of running as his steps echoed in the steel hallways of the ship.

  Chapter 2

  Aliena

  Her steps were too slow and her legs were too weak. She wasn’t covering enough ground, and she knew it. Still, she couldn’t go any faster. Exhaustion had burrowed deep into her bones, leaving a bitter and acrid taste on the back of her tongue, making each slow step a battle. She had fallen twice already, and the last time, she hadn’t been sure she could get back up.

  Everything was torture. Her boots were too big, and the melted snow inside made them heavy. The chilling dampness of the snow wrapped around her legs while the freezing wind dug inside the folds of her too large jacket. Her last reserves of energy were fading fast.

  The synthetic leather clothing she’d stolen wasn’t meant for the harsh cold of the winter, but it was still better than the cotton gown. The pungent smell of the alien rose from the collar of the jacket, overpowering the clean scent of the forest as wind blew between pines and saplings. Every inch of it reminded her of the sick mind of the creature who wore it before, of what he’d intended to do to her. Of the fate she had to escape

  Aliena paused, bracing her palm on an oak tree. The heavy stick she’d picked up earlier to help her walk fell in the snow and she left it there. Her vision was blurry from snow melting on her brows and falling in her eyes, and her breath came fast and shallow, a piercing pain stabbing her chest each time she inhaled.

  She choked back a sob.

  She had escaped, but she wouldn’t have the strength to get back to her people, not without taking the necessary precautions to hide her tracks. She was going to die out there, alone and cold, but it was still better than what the aliens had had in store for her.

  Her knees buckled and she fell to the snow. With a deep exhalation, Aliena turned her back to the tree trunk and braced her tired body against it. That was it; she wasn’t going any farther. Her family had already lost so much, and now they were about to lose her, to
o.

  I’m sorry, she thought. I’m not coming back.

  Now that she’d let go, she was surprised at how easy it was to relax. She let her head rest against the hard bark and closed her eyes. The exhaustion she’d fought for so long took over like a tidal wave, settling on her shoulders with a wet weight. She allowed the cold to seep inside her pores, calming the fear and sadness to a dull ache inside her chest. She was too tired to care anymore.

  Minutes came and went, she had no idea how long she had been there. She didn’t care.

  A branch cracked somewhere behind the thicket of saplings to her left, and Aliena’s eyes snapped open. Fast, her hands dug in the snow, grabbing the heavy stick between stiff fingers.

  Yes, she was tired and defeated, but the prospect of being devoured alive by an opportunistic predator was enough to chase the exhaustion away for a while. As quickly as she could, she pushed herself up to her feet and stood on high alert, her eyes fastened to the moving wall of greenery.

  Hot tears of dread burned her eyelids as she steadied herself. Her only chance against a predator was to scare it off by standing up to it. Most weren’t looking for prey that could bite back, and her very life depended on how good she was at bluffing.

  The saplings moved, then parted.

  The blood drained from Aliena’s face as she locked gazes with the predator.

  His eyes were the first thing she noticed as they fixed on her with a deadly intent. They were the pale, cold blue of fog over a lake during a frozen morning in the fall. Those were eyes made for violence and battle, without a trace of mercy. The eyes of a killer.

  His face shone, metallic blue and bald, covered with a fine layer of melting snow, contrasting with the black synthetic leather of his uniform. His tall stature eclipsed the trees around, towering close to the tops of the young saplings at nearly seven feet. His broad shoulders heaved with deep, violence-filled breaths as he angled his entire bulky body toward her, moving forward with a single-minded purpose. Everything in the creature screamed male aggression, and it struck her with a mindless fear.

  She knew what he was, and what he was, was a nightmare. Worse than a nightmare. He was Eok.

  “Midnight God,” his voice cut the sentient silence of the forest, hoarse and deep. Irritated. Deadly. “How did you cover so much ground? Did you fly?”

  “Stay where you are!” Aliena shouted, her heart pounding and her mind running in circles. She lifted the stick as she would a spear, straight out in front of her. She was only too conscious of its weakness, of her weakness, but she had nothing else to count on. Her hands gripped it so hard her knuckles screamed in agony and the tip of it shook, but she couldn’t stop it. “Don’t come any closer.”

  The male stopped, his eyes squinting at her from the distance, his mouth curving with a cruel edge. He wasn’t happy, that much was clear.

  “Don’t be foolish. You’re barely recovered.”

  “Well,” she scanned the surrounding woods but found no refuge. She needed time to plan an escape. “I’m healthy enough now. You can go.”

  The Eok straightened but stayed where he was. He glanced down at the stick, and the corners of his mouth curved in a mocking smirk. Slowly, he shook his head, like he couldn’t believe she didn’t immediately obey.

  This spread anger on Aliena’s fear, steadying the stick and her buckling knees. She had been ready to fight a bear or a mountain lion. Instead, she was going to fight off this arrogant, self-confident Eok asshole.

  “You’re freezing, and you’re barely standing on your own feet. You’re coming with me.”

  “You wish,” Aliena countered, putting as much strength as she could behind the words, trying to gain a few more seconds. She raised the stick higher in a silent threat. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “You’re not?” the Eok said with a chuckle. “And how do you plan on escaping from me, Little Bird? You’re going to fly away?”

  He still pointedly ignored her weapon, which felt more and more insignificant by the second. Aliena watched the Eok as he stalked toward her, his tall frame moving with an agility surprising for one so muscular. As he came closer, the fluttering of fear in her stomach morphed to an all-out hurricane, and she had to refrain from falling to her knees and begging for mercy.

  The Eok’s skin, of a cold steel blue, was marred with a constellation of tiny bumps lining his features, giving him the appearance of a mythological monster. His cheekbones were higher and sharper than a human’s, and his strong nose was marred by three ridges. His heavy lips curved as if perpetually on the verge of a cruel laugh. He had the face of an angered God, as attractive as it was terrible. He was handsome—in the cruel, self-confident way of a predator—as he came to stand a mere ten feet in front of her. He stared her down in all his glorious strength, so much more than her that she felt like a mouse staring up a mountain lion. A creature of no importance, tiny and defenseless.

  He was every bit as terrifying as Eoks were supposed to be, and that made a cool despair seep inside Aliena’s already defeated body. She might have been able to fight off the gray-skinned, pointy-eared alien, but this one was another affair entirely.

  Aliena still locked gazes with the Eok, who crossed his arms and braced his shoulder against a large tree trunk. His long frame stilled as he looked at her.

  Slowly, she lowered the stick.

  “I know I can’t escape from you. Not now.” Aliena lifted her chin. She refused to let him know how small she felt, how helpless. “I’m not stupid.”

  “Then don’t act like it.” The Eok extended his hand, his entire body radiating confidence and domination. “I’ve lost enough time as it is.”

  His words sent a flash of anger across Aliena’s heart. He’d lost time tracking her, curing her, feeding her? She was nothing more than a pet to him, one that would pay back its investment soon.

  “What will you do if I refuse?” She glared at him, holding the cold gray of his stare despite the trembling of her limbs. “Will you drag me through the snow? Tie me back on to that table?”

  “I will do whatever it takes to ensure your safety.” The Eok lifted his chin slightly. His entire body tensed, as if to prove a point. As if she would offer the slightest challenge. “You already almost died twice, I’m not allowing you to endanger yourself more.”

  Aliena scoffed. This male was getting under her skin with his arrogance.

  “And who do you think you are, to allow me anything?” She flipped her hair away from her face, unable and unwilling to give way, even if she knew the outcome of any physical struggle.

  “Kamal, son of Enlon of the Erynian tribe,” the Eok answered, bending down in a parody of reverence, one hand over his heart and the other arm extended. He never took his eyes off her, and the twinkle of amusement in them made her grit her teeth. “Captain of the Mellark, fastest ship this side of the Ring, and smuggler extraordinaire. At your service.”

  Kamal straightened, his eyes not missing a hair of her reaction. She couldn’t help it, her throat closed and her jaw clenched. She bit down on her tongue, and the taste of blood shook some sense into her.

  “Smuggler?” She could almost taste it, the despair, coming back to her. He was nothing but a ruthless criminal, driven by profit only. She was his key to riches beyond imagination. “You’re a pirate?”

  “Smuggler, pirate,” Kamal opened his hands in a universal gesture of agreement, and his smile widened, sparkling and white, revealing two elongated fangs, “facilitator, and even mercenary, if the pay is high enough.”

  A shiver of fear ran up her spine. He did it on purpose, exposing his fangs like that, she was sure of it.

  “So that’s what you want from me. Turn me into a profit?” Aliena chuckled, a dry, hopeless little sound, a sound so unlike her that she shivered hearing it. “Isn’t that what Eok warriors do? Take females by force? Do it, then, like the monster you are.”

  The Eok paused, his brows drawing closer together, and the smirk fading from
his face. His eyes were unreadable, but his shoulders were no longer relaxed. His muscles were taut under his uniform, and his neck tight with the clenching of his jaw.

  “I would much rather have you come willingly with me.” Kamal kept still but his eyes shone with something she couldn’t decipher. “But, one way or the other, I’m not leaving you out there to die.”

  “What do you care?” Her voice was small, and she hated the note of hope underlying it, but as much as she tried, she couldn’t make herself not care. She wanted to live. “What you want to do to me is worse than death, anyway.”

  Surprise etched the handsome face, swiftly followed by an expression best described as outrage.

  “And what is it exactly you think I intend to do with you that I didn’t have time to do while you were on my ship?”

  “What all males want to do with human females.” She didn’t have the heart to say more. The bleak prospect of life as a human slave didn’t need any words to describe its misery. “Use me. Sell me.”

  This struck a chord. Kamal straightened, his face no longer amused. He was angry at the accusation.

  “Since you came into my care, you have been treated for malnutrition, double pneumonia, and severe cold burn.” The Eok spoke slowly, each word carefully articulated. “Never have you been harmed.”

  “Stealing girls from their families? Selling them for profit?” Aliena countered, once again feeling her anger flaring up. Now that she’d brought the memory back, she couldn’t deny how it made her feel. “Is that what you call no harm?”

  The Eok stilled, then his eyes reduced to slits.

  “I am not a slave merchant.”

  “No? Then why are you keeping me?” She obstinately refused to look at his still proffered hand. “Why not give me food and let me go?”

  The Eok groaned and let his hand fall at his side.

  “You are the most obstinate female I have ever encountered.” He took the few steps that separated them, glaring down at her from his regal height. “I swear that no harm will come to you. Now, I will take you back, whether you scream and kick or don’t.”