Kratos: A Sci-Fi Alien Warrior Paranormal Romance

by Ashley West

  "Coulda called that one," Sanaal said as they walked out of the building, the door banging shut behind them. The walk from the office had been uneventful and all the eyes that had been on them when they'd walked in had disappeared.

  "Maybe we need to talk to someone higher up," Kratos suggested.

  "Maybe we need to get off this planet," Milara replied. "No one here is going to have any money for us, and it's just a waste of time."

  "I beg to differ," Combo said, and that was enough to effectively silence all of them. "Having information about The Grey isn't a waste of time at all. We might have to fight them, even if it isn't on the behalf of the humans. They won't be satisfied with just destroying Earth, you know. They are ravenous, like a beast."

  "Always with that way with words, Combo," Kratos said, making a face.

  The walk back to the ship seemed longer than it had when they'd left it, and Kratos didn't know why he felt so...strange. There had never been anything even close to guilt in him when it came to walking away from people who couldn't pay. They didn't work for free, it wasn't a part of how they did things, and this shouldn't have been any exception.

  But there had been children there in that building, looking at him with their big eyes, and there was something about little ones that always got to him. Still, he knew if he tried to advocate for going back and making some kind of deal with the humans, he'd be out voted in no time.

  "Where to next, then?" Sanaal asked, groaning as he eased himself into a seat. "Why don't we just go looking for one of The Grey? Get the information straight from the source?"

  "That is an interesting idea, Sanaal," Combo said.

  "I was kidding!" Sanaal hurried to say. "I was not serious. Combo, don't you dare go looking for one of those things."

  "You don't think we could take on even one of them?"

  "I don't think I want to try."

  "If we had gotten the job from the humans, we would have had to take on all of them."

  "Yeah, but we didn't. And I knew we wouldn't. So nothing to worry about."

  Their bickering faded into the background as Kratos stared off in thought.

  "Nothing to add to the argument?" Milara asked as she came up beside him, her arms crossed as she looked over at the other two and their squabble.

  Kratos snorted. "Best to let them get on with it, don't you think?"

  "Generally. Not like you to be so quiet, though."

  Sometimes he forgot that she had known him for such a long time. "I'm thinking."

  "Not like you to do that, either."

  He made a rude hand gesture and sighed. "I'm just...starting to think that it’s probably a waste of time. No one's going to have any money here. I didn't think it'd be this bad."

  "The Grey don't do things by half," Milara agreed. "The humans will probably all die."

  "More than likely."

  She eyed him for a moment, and Kratos didn't know what she was looking for, but when she nodded, he assumed she'd found it. "As many people as you've killed, and this bothers you."

  "Hey, those people deserved it."

  "And you don't think the humans do?"

  "Not like this." Whatever crimes humans had committed, they mostly committed against themselves. The Grey didn't have a reason to hate them, did they? To want them exterminated? What could humans have done to a group like that to cause this kind of reaction?

  By all accounts it didn't make sense, and Kratos supposed that unless Combo found something, or they got another group of humans to pay them, they'd never know what was going on. Once they left Earth, it would no longer be their problem, but Kratos had it in his head that maybe they could at least put out a warning to other planets so this wouldn't happen to someone else. Or so they could at least start saving their money in advance.

  It was the little things that would help in the long run.

  Kratos' stomach growled, and Milara snorted, elbowing him in the side. "Glutton," she said, but then motioned for him to follow her towards the dining hall. Someone was bound to have something cooked already, and Kratos was suddenly starving. He followed her and tried to put all of this out of his head. There was no point in dwelling on it, honestly.

  Chapter Seven: A Different Kind of Payment

  “I can’t believe they’d just leave,” murmured a woman in hushed tones.

  “I can’t believe they expected us to have money. Look at us,” said a man standing near her. “And how much would they have charged anyway? To destroy something like this?”

  “More than we’ve got. More than we could raise, either.”

  “Didn’t even know mercs were still a thing.”

  “Apparently they are on other planets.”

  “Could they go higher, maybe? To the President? He’d have money, right?”

  “But would he give it to a bunch of aliens? I don’t think so.”

  “Did you see the arms on that one guy?”

  “Did you see the eyes on that other guy?”

  The common spaces of the building were thick with gossip and murmuring about their guests, however briefly they’d been there. They’d tried to keep the whole thing quiet, but of course, everyone knew about the mercenaries and how they had walked out after Keith had exploded all over them.

  Keith, for his part, had slammed down into the basement of the building to go tinker with things, which was what he did when he was upset.

  Kirsten didn’t know what to do with herself. She sort of couldn’t believe that help had been right there and they hadn’t done anything to secure it. True, them asking for money was absurd, but they could have...come to some kind of arrangement. An IOU, something. Anything was better than sitting here waiting to die.

  The more she thought about it, the more she knew something had to be done. They didn’t even know what they were up against, but clearly those mercenaries had. ‘The Grey’, Combo had called them. He knew something, and they needed that information. They needed help. There had to be something she could do.

  An hour and a half later, she was cursing to herself as she slipped out of the building. This was probably the dumbest thing she’d ever done in her life, and that wasn’t even really saying much, considering the fact that she didn’t tend to do dumb things at all. Which...probably just made this dumber, since she had absolutely no clue what she was doing now.

  All she knew was that she had to find those mercenaries. She didn’t think they would have left Earth yet, at least she hoped they hadn’t, and she’d watched as they’d walked off from the building, heading west. If there was a spaceship out there somewhere, then Kirstie would find it.

  She was dressed in all black and armed with a knife. That would do absolutely nothing against one of the creatures if she was attacked, but it was better than nothing. Probably. She hoped.

  It was dark out, and she tried to move quietly and blend in, sticking to the shadows as she left the roads and climbed up into the hills that lined the area around where their apartment building was located. One mile turned into two, which then turned into three, and her feet ached, and exhaustion plucked at her. This was not her area.

  Just when she was considering turning back, something massive loomed in the distance.

  It was a ship. Rust colored and huge, dented and yes, actually rusty, from what she could tell. It didn’t look like any of the blurry shots she’d seen of the other ships, the ones flown by their enemies, and if she had to pick out a ship that was probably flown by mercenaries, this would be it.

  Success.

  Of course, she’d been so focused on getting here, that she had no idea what she was going to say. She needed to make them listen to her somehow, make them see how important it was that they help.

  Well, Kirstie thought, she’d figure it out as she went. Too late to turn back now.

  She had to circle the entire length of the ship twice, once with her cell phone out to check for hidden doors that she could knock on. How did you let someone know you wanted to come aboard t
his thing, anyway? Calling out was probably not the best plan since she was trying to avoid being noticed by anyone who wasn't a member of The Kilan, but creeping around the outside didn't seem particularly helpful either.

  In the end, she didn't have to do anything except jump back when a door appeared and folded out of the rest of the ship, revealing a rectangle of warm light and stairs.

  She looked up to see someone she didn't recognize as being one of the four who had come to the apartment building, and they were looking down at her like she wasn't even worth dealing with.

  "Who are you?" the person asked, arching a thin brow. "And what do you want?"

  "I want to speak to The Kilan," she said, trying to keep her voice firm and her back straight. If this was going to work, then she couldn't be meek about it. Mercenaries respected strength. Probably. There was a lot she didn't know about mercenaries in general.

  "You're speaking to them," was the response.

  "Not you," Kirstie replied. "One of the others. The main four."

  They locked gazes in the darkness for a time, neither moving to do anything other than stand there. Finally the alien turned on its heel and went back inside, leaving the door open. Kirstie didn't know if she was meant to follow or not, but it seemed like a better idea than just standing there, so she walked up the stairs to hover in the doorway.

  The ship didn't look like she would have expected it to. There was a whole lot of metal things and corridors that seemed to branch off to deeper parts of the ship from what she could see, but overall it looked like a home.

  The light was warm and there were people milling about talking to each other, though they all turned to stare when she stepped closer.

  No one did anything, though, and finally the one from before came back, this time with the female, Milara, Kirstie thought her name was, in tow.

  Honestly, while the other three had been scary in their own right, the two huge ones and the one with the black eyes, the woman was the one who unnerved Kirstie the most. She seemed fierce and no nonsense, and reminded Kirstie of her sister Lynn when she was mad and wanted to make everyone else around her suffer.

  Her face was set in what seemed to be a permanent unimpressed scowl, and she looked Kirstie up and down with disdain clear on her features.

  "What do you want?" she asked.

  "I want to talk to you. And the others. About you helping us."

  Milara arched an eyebrow. "We already had this talk," she said. "And you don't have any money. We're not a charity."

  Kirstie licked her lips and swallowed hard. This was the part where it would have been good for her to have a plan already in place so she'd know what to say and wouldn't be standing there looking dumbfounded and ridiculous in front of this intimidating woman.

  "I don't think..." she trailed off and then swallowed again, drawing herself up. "I don't think we fully explored all the options."

  Milara looked at her for a long moment, and Kirstie was sure she was about to be kicked off the ship and sent back to where she came from in disgrace, but then, miracle of miracles, Milara cracked a smile. It was just a small one, just the tiny lift of one corner of her mouth, but it was there.

  "Fine," she said. "Follow me."

  And just like that, she was in. Everyone continued to stare at her as she followed Milara through the ship, and it was odd being on the opposite end of what had just happened when The Kilan had come to the apartment building. Of course, the difference here was that all of these people could probably kill her without thinking too much about it or breaking a sweat.

  But the fact that Milara had invited her in seemed to be enough to get them to keep their distance, and they walked together until they reached what seemed to be the main command center of the ship.

  It looked sort of like what she would have imagined based on television and movies. There was a large screen on one end that she was sure served as the windshield to see out of as well. Five seats were arranged around it, and there was a truly dizzying amount of buttons and switches and sensors on the dash, some lit up, some blinking faintly.

  At the helm of it all was Combo, straight backed in his seat like a king on his throne. Sanaal was off to one side, polishing what looked like a massive battle axe, and next to Combo was Kratos, his feet up on the dash and his arms folded behind his head.

  None of them looked up when they entered, and Milara cleared her throat to get the attention of the other three, a smirk playing about her lips.

  "Hey, Mil," Kratos said, still not looking at them. "We're trying to decide where to go next. Combo's trying to see if he can find some kind of pattern to the attacks so maybe we can get there first and see if..." He trailed off as he finally turned and caught sight of Kirsten standing there. "What. Is happening?"

  Sanaal dropped the axe to the floor with a loud clang, and Combo merely turned his seat around, fingers steepled again. "Interesting," he said.

  "She feels that we haven't fully explored all our options yet," Milara said, leaving Kirstie standing there before she went to take a seat. "So, human. You wanted to talk. Now's the time to talk."

  Kirstie could feel the weight of their gazes on her, and she swallowed hard again. It was hard to read anything from Combo's face, Sanaal looked dismissive, but Kratos looked...intrigued, for lack of a better word. They were at least willing to hear her out, so she needed to say something.

  "I think...I think we can still come to an agreement," she said. "That will benefit you and us."

  "Oh, really?" Sanaal asked. "Because it seemed like you don't have anything to offer. That changed?"

  "We don't have any money. Yet," she rushed to add. "But if you help us, we can get some."

  "Mm, we don't do payment on faith," Kratos said.

  Her mind raced. "What about with...with collateral?"

  Combo leaned back in his chair. "What manner of collateral? You assume you have something we'd want."

  What did she have? Nothing, really. She barely had enough money to make rent and pay for groceries each month, so it wasn't like she had expensive things just laying around waiting to be given away in exchange. It wasn't fair to ask other people to contribute either, since most of them had lost more than she had and barely had enough to get by in the first place.

  No, if she was going to do this, then she'd have to do it with something of her own. This was her gamble, her bargain. "Me," she said, surprising herself.

  Kratos' eyebrows hit his hairline. "What?"

  "Me. I'll be the collateral. If we can't get the money, then you can...kill me or keep me or put me to work. Whatever. Just. Please. We can't do this without help."

  They all looked at each other, with the exception of Combo who still hadn't looked away from her. "You say that like we'd want you," Sanaal scoffed.

  Milara looked at Kratos and then shook her head. "That's a big gamble."

  "I know," Kirsten said. "But we can't do this alone. If you're worth it, then it's a reasonable offer to make."

  "Is it?" Kratos asked. "You don't know what we'd make you do. Or what we'd do to you. We're mercenaries, we're not human, and you don't know anything about us."

  Well, when he put it like that... But still. "It's worth it," she insisted. "So. Do we have a deal?"

  There was a silent moment where they all seemed to be conferring without speaking, and it was Combo who finally delivered the verdict. "Yes," he said, face impassive. "We have a deal."

  Relief came hot and fast, and Kirstie sagged to the ground with it, putting her hands over her face. She hadn’t really expected that to work, but it had, and she’d done it. Keith would likely be furious with her for going off on her own with how dangerous things were now, but that was beside the point. For the moment, she just wanted to relish in her triumph.

  A hand on her shoulder made her jump and look up, and Kratos was standing over her, bent down to peer at her.

  “You’re made of stronger stuff than I would’ve thought,” he commented with a wry smirk. “Com
e on, then. Up with you.”

  He helped her to her feet, bracing her when she wobbled slightly. She could feel his gaze on her face, and she kept her eyes averted, wondering what he was looking for. Probably already planning how he was going to use her if they couldn’t come through with the money.

  “I should...get back,” she said softly. Now that she’d done what she needed to do, her bravery was drying up quickly, and she realized that she was on a strange ship with so many strange creatures and no one she knew had any idea where she was.

  “It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think?” Kratos asked, and Kirstie’s heart skipped a beat. Apparently, she wasn’t any good at hiding the look on her face because he snorted and shook his head. “I mean the hour. It’s dark outside and things are dangerous out there. You should stay here for the night.”

  “Here?” she glanced around, unsure. “I...shouldn’t.”

  “Listen,” Kratos said, one large hand reaching out with surprising gentleness to tip her face up so she could meet his eyes. “We have an agreement now, yeah? That means something to us. It means that as long as we’re working for you, you don’t have anything to fear from us. You try to double cross us or wiggle out of the deal, then it’s a different story, but I don’t think you will. You’ve got that honest look about you.”

  Honestly, she didn’t know if that was a compliment or not coming from this strange man.

  “So you’re saying I can sleep here and no one will hurt me.”

  He smiled. “Yes, that’s what I’m saying. We’ve got plenty of empty rooms, and we’ll take you back in the morning when we go to make this deal final.” Kratos winked at her. “You can trust me.”