by Regine Abel
Chaos
Xian Warriors - Book 5
Regine Abel
Cover by
Regine Abel
Copyright © 2020
All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal and punishable by law. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This book uses mature language and explicit sexual content. It is not intended for anyone under the age of 18.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Chaos
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
Xian Battle Form
Also by Regine Abel
About Regine
Chaos
A love baptized by fire.
As the most unique psychic in the galaxy, Sabra is eager to join the Vanguard, the powerful army of the genetically engineered Xian Warriors. Her desire to be assigned as Chaos’s Soulcatcher takes on a whole new meaning the moment their eyes meet, forming an undeniable bond between them. But before her training is complete, her powers unexpectedly reveal an unfolding drama that threatens the stability in Coalition space, and she is thrust into a deadly game of divided loyalties.
As leader of the Vanguard, Chaos has devoted his life to defending the galaxy, convinced there is nothing else for him but war. Yet, the day he meets Sabra, he immediately recognizes his soulmate. Duty demands he bring the stunning and dauntless Empath on a perilous mission, but his hearts command he keep her safe. The last thing Chaos needs is to relive a nightmare from his past when his Kryptid archnemesis endeavors to destroy everything he holds dearest.
Will Chaos lose his soulmate before their future has even begun?
Dedication
In this dark era of the pandemic, a special thank you to all the medical personnel who risk their lives daily, with hardly any rest and not enough tools, to give the rest of us—complete strangers—a chance to make it through. To our military, first responders, government officials, and everyone else that’s working hard to help us overcome this tragedy.
To all the responsible people out there who realize that their actions can put others at risk, that selfishness is harmful, and who, therefore, act accordingly.
To human decency.
Prologue
Sabra
I turned for the hundredth time, unable to find any rest. The test was still two days away and yet stress and unfounded worry gnawed at me. Since the age of five, when I first began showing psychic powers, I had devoted my life to becoming a Soulcatcher for the Vanguard. Twenty long years of hard work and dedication would be decided in a thirty-minute test. It was all the more unnerving that we would hold the first test of this kind here on the human colony of Thirilia.
That nervousness didn’t even make sense considering my very high psychic scores. According to the trainers, unless I utterly crashed and burned, I should easily hit a rank four and maybe even a rank five. Very few candidates achieved this highest psychic level—the one that all but guaranteed a place in the Vanguard. However, I only needed a four to secure a spot in the final stage of the Vanguard training on Khepri, the homeworld of the Xian Warriors.
Since the Kryptids invaded Earth, which was saved in extremis by the genetically engineered Xian Warriors, life had completely changed for humans. While most of Earth only discovered the existence of aliens a little over three decades ago when the insectoid beings came to destroy us, my family and many other humans had been aware for more than forty years prior to those events. At the time, my ancestors would have been deemed alien abductees, even though they had voluntarily followed the Intergalactic Coalition that had reached out to them for their unique expertise. Dr. Xi, a brilliant Chinese geneticist, had been the one to help the Coalition save the Vanguard program by solving the flaws in the creation of the revolutionary Warriors named Xian after him. They were nearly immortal thanks to their ability to transfer their souls into the vessel of a psychic female such as I, a Soulcatcher. We carried a soul until it could be transferred into a Shell, a perfect replica of the Warrior’s previous body so that he could be reborn.
My grandmother had been an assistant to the doctor, recruited a few months after Dr. Xi had joined the program. After the success of the project, my grandmother and many others chose to return to civilian life here on Thirilia, a peaceful planet not far from Khepri. Unexpectedly, my grandmother fell in love and married one of the locals, a humanoid alien species gifted with empathic powers. While the gift skipped my father—their son—he passed it down to me.
In many ways, it accounted for part of my current restlessness. Despite having my own room in the dorm reserved for all the candidates, I could feel the nervous energy from all the other females sleeping in their own rooms on this floor and the ones above and below me. If I focused hard enough, I could actually pinpoint who that energy emanated from as I knew most of the people here. But I didn’t want to as it would only make their emotions more vivid and my night even more restless. I hated taking sleeping aids as they messed with my head, and I needed to be entirely focused for the trial ahead.
Maybe a little groggy would be better than exhausted from sleep deprivation.
With an aggravated sigh, I turned again and closed my eyes. I pulled my blankets even more snugly under my chin and, bending my knees, I took on an almost fetal position. Thinking happy thoughts, picturing peaceful landscapes and the nice clearing in the Holmak Forest where I often liked to traipse around or sometimes even meditate, I called onto the dream that kept eluding me.
At first, the same void occupied my mind with that wretched voice at the back of my head telling me what a long night this would be. And then, the forest vividly took shape before my eyes. Strangely, it looked nothing like Holmak. The color of the trees was off, their leaves bigger and thicker, their trunks wider with deep grooves in the bark of a darker brown, almost leaning towards black. The fresh scent of moss and dirt tickled my nose with a sweeter aroma than usual. Even the ground felt different, slightly porous. The sky above had a grayish blue hue to it that had nothing to do with impending rain as a bright sun hung at its zenith. It wasn’t abnormal for dreams to stray from reality, but this felt far too vivid, far too much like a Dream Walk.
As if to confirm my suspicion, the loud voice of a female reached me. She appeared to be spurring on a group of people whose footsteps only now registered in my brain. They were so close, only a few meters away. How could I have not seen or heard them before?
You wouldn’t have if you were just now entering the Dream Walk.
I tried to step out of the way, fearful of their reaction once they saw me. To my shock, they didn’t. I realized then that this was not a normal Dream Walk. Looking down on myself, I couldn’t see my body. Even though I had a sense of location, could smell, see, hear, and even feel the caress of the breeze on my skin, I had no visible corporeal vessel.
As
the newcomers hurried past me, unaware of my presence, my mind struggled to make sense of what I was seeing. The group was composed of two adult females and twenty or so strange bipeds that I assumed to be younger. Only the adults appeared normal—if that word could even be used. Their skin—or rather what little of it showed beneath the yellowish-brown chitin scales and plates that covered them—appeared to be a dark shade of blue. Big, black eyes without pupils or sclera dominated their long faces with pointy chins. Unlike the young, their hair also appeared odd, their black color shining in an unnatural way, looking almost plastic from where I stood. But it was the tiny pair of bug wings, clearly unusable judging by the sad way they dangled lifelessly at their backs, that confirmed what those females were.
After the major battle between the Vanguard and the Kryptids two years ago, the last surviving Mimics—a species everyone had believed extinct for years—had been rescued by the Xian Warriors. Ten of them had been left behind, or rather chose to stay with the General who had modified and indoctrinated them in his mad lust for conquest and domination. Although I didn’t know those two females, I recognized their appearance based on the sketches that had been passed around in warning regarding the modified Mimics. But where was this? Why was I getting a vision of these females? If this was a Dream Walk—or a strange version of it—that I believed myself to be having, this meant they weren’t too far away as I could not establish contact outside of my psychic range.
However, the sight of their followers traumatized me. In their late teens, early twenties, they had the same general appearance as a Mimic, their skins a darker shade of blue, vertical gills marking the sides of their necks, and stormy eyes typical of their species. However, they possessed the unnaturally narrow waist of the Kryptids and their three-segment legs. From the strain on their faces, they were clearly in distress.
“Shuria, I’m not feeling good,” a feminine voice said.
I couldn’t see who it belonged to, but it came from the middle of the group.
“We’re almost there, sweetie. You can make it! You just need to hang on a little longer,” said Shuria—one of the two adult females—in a tone that was both pleading and encouraging.
She looked over at the group gesturing for them to keep moving. One of them, she actually walked back to and passed an arm beneath his—correction, beneath hers—to help her move faster. I didn’t understand where they were headed nor could I see any particular destination in the endless forest sprawling around us, but their sense of urgency could not be denied.
For a moment, I wondered if they were being pursued. However, as the group sped past me, I couldn’t see anyone tailing them nor did the group glance over their shoulders as one would when being chased. Despite my lack of a body, I followed in their wake before hastening to the front in a vain attempt to understand what was happening.
The sudden growl rising from one among the group triggered an instinctive flight reaction from all the others. They scattered distancing themselves from the girl emitting that sound; the girl Shuria had been supporting.
“No, no, no, no, no!” exclaimed Shuria.
She fumbled with something on her weapons belt. I didn’t know what it was, didn’t really care, much too focused on the girl. She had stopped moving and was clenching her arms around her midsection, her growl having turned into a scream of agony. The skin of her forearms split open as the sharp tip of a chitin spear protruded. Blood seeped from multiple cuts all over her body as chitin plaques and scales started poking out in all kinds of strange angles. Her shoulders broadened. Kryptid chitin armor formed around her limbs, forehead, back, and chest in a haphazard way. It looked as if the younger Mimic was attempting to morph into one of the bugs and failing miserably, turning into this misshapen creature while hurting herself in the process.
“Herina, get the others to the cave!” Shuria shouted while pressing something to the girl’s neck.
The soft hiss gave it away as a hypospray. But no sooner had she injected the girl with whatever the syringe contained than she swiped her arm violently at Shuria, sending her flying back. The other mutant Mimics screamed in fear as Shuria crashed hard against a tree. Without missing a beat, she jumped back onto her feet, her hands raised in an appeasing gesture.
The other adult Mimic named Herina, despite the visible worry on her face, herded the others towards the cave I still couldn’t see.
“Calm, Loumin,” the female said. “It is me, your Aunt Shuria. Calm. I’m here to help you. We’re almost there. I need you to hang on a little longer.”
The female she had called Loumin seemed beyond reasoning. She stared at her with vacant eyes, her teeth bared as would a rabid animal. Despite Shuria’s soothing words, Loumin appeared to only grow increasingly agitated, and then she rushed her.
Loumin attacked with a vicious fury, stabbing at her aunt with the spear-like limbs that had grown out of her forearms. Shuria partially shifted. I couldn’t quite tell what creature those limbs belonged to, but they resembled scythes made of chitin—different than the spears the Kryptid Soldiers usually grew. She blocked Loumin’s attack, pleading for her to fight the change, to reclaim control, but her niece was beyond help. There was no question she wanted blood, to kill, to maim… But she was no match for her aunt.
Clearly lacking experience, Loumin failed to hit her target despite the frenzy with which she stabbed and lunged. Although Shuria was clearly attempting to strike blows to knock out the younger girl, even from where I stood, it was clear that she couldn’t be redeemed. Loumin’s throat worked, something moving and rising from beneath the skin of her messed up chest due to all the chitin protruding at odd angles. She appeared to be attempting to regurgitate something, which I could only assume to be one of the mouth darts that Kryptid Soldiers could shoot at their enemies.
But something went wrong.
The dart remained stuck in the badly formed throat of the girl. Her attacks faltered, and she began to choke. Shuria moved in to help only to have Loumin stab back at her to keep her away. But even that didn’t last. A blueish foam began forming at the edge of the mutant Mimic’s mouth. I couldn’t tell if it was poison or a sign of rage, but either way, her fate was sealed. Tears pouring down her cheeks, Shuria reached for the girl as she doubled over, suffocating, and snapped her neck.
The girl immediately went limp. Shuria caught her before she fell and gently lowered her to the ground. Cradling Loumin in her arms, she let out a long, agonizing cry of loss and sorrow while rocking the still form of the young girl.
My throat tightened at witnessing her loss. What in the world was going on? What had affected this younger, messed up Mimic that appeared to be eating her from the inside out? I approached quietly to get a better look at Loumin in the hope of getting some sort of insight. But no sooner did I move towards them than Shuria sensed my presence. Her head abruptly jerked up to look at me. Although she couldn’t see me, I could have sworn her eyes were boring straight into mine. She hissed at me.
“Get out of my head!” Shuria shouted then blindly stabbed at me with her scythed limb.
I screamed as a hot blade sliced right through my brain. The forest disappeared, and I found myself sitting up in bed in my pitch-black room. A warm liquid trickled down my face, the metallic scent of blood filling my nose. I reached for the com on my nightstand to call for help but never spoke a word as darkness engulfed me.
Chapter 1
Chaos
Phoenix and Defiant had decided that I would be their punching bag for the day. Legion’s and Bane’s first-born sons had become inseparable. Even as I lay down on the carpet in Raven’s house, the two little fiends took great pleasure in climbing all over me, pulling at my pointy ears, pretending to wrestle me down and—in the case of Defiant who was eternally teething—using me for a chewing toy. I cried out in fake agony to the boys’ delight while Raven was on diaper duty of his own first-born, Havoc.
“Go easy on him, boys,” Liena said with a smile in her voice. “
You don’t want to break Chaos.”
The boys looked at Raven’s mate with unrepentant expressions on their little faces before resuming their assault. She laughed out loud and caressed her growing baby bump while leaning back against the white leather couch she was comfortably sitting on.
Khepri was teeming with life—young lives. Since the hybrids—or rather Dragons as they preferred being called—had helped resolve our infertility issues, every month came with the joyful announcement of a new pregnancy or a new birth. The Xian Warriors were no longer an endangered species. Granted, it would take years for our young to reach maturity, but at least our ranks were once more being replenished.
Except not by my contribution.
I chased away the depressing thought as soon as it entered my mind. Like many of my Xian brothers, I ached for a family of my own, a mate to hold tightly at night, and an ankle biter with my face driving us both insane. I would gladly welcome diaper duty for that privilege.
Raven walked back into the room, pretending to eat his son’s tummy before speaking gibberish to him.
“Raven,” Liena said in a stern voice. “What did we tell you about baby talk?”
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