by Rayna Tyler
Jardun’s Embrace
Ketaurran Warriors: Book 1
Rayna Tyler
Jardun’s Embrace
Copyright © 2019 by Rayna Tyler
http://raynatyler.com/
Published by Rayna Tyler, 2019
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 978-1-7328895-4-5
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
A Special Note
Books by Rayna Tyler
About the Author
Chapter One
LARIA
The assignment is simple. I need you to retrieve a package. Those were the last and only instructions I’d received from Burke before making the half-day journey to Aztrashar, one of the few remaining inhabitable cities on Ketaurrios.
It hadn’t taken me long once I reached my destination to discover that nothing about his request was simple. Not the location, not the three luzardees, one of the planet’s humanoid reptile species, and certainly not what I’d assumed was the “package.”
Shortly after entering what I considered to be one of the worst excuses for a bar I’d ever seen, I surveyed the interior. The five-year war, a result of a sibling’s attempt to overthrow his brother’s rule, had left its devastating mark on the planet, this place included. Now that it was over, the survivors, human and ketaurran alike, were doing their best to rebuild their lives out of what was left. Apparently, the owner of the establishment didn’t fall into that category.
If I thought the outside of the building was bad, with its thin cracks, randomly scorched walls, and numerous chunks missing from the reddish-brown adobe-like exterior, the inside wasn’t much better. The place had been stripped of everything except the barest amount of furniture. It reeked of stale ale, body odor, and urine. I’d bet the handful of cradasson coins I had stuffed in my pocket that the place hadn’t been cleaned in days, possibly weeks.
Out-of-the-way locations like this one had become the preferred meeting place when dealing with lowlife, cutthroat mercs, bounty chasers, or thieves. I was certain, from their arrogant demeanor and hardened expressions, that these particular males qualified as all three.
Life wasn’t exactly easy, and there were those who spent their time using alcoholic liquids to temporarily dull their horrible memories, to make their existence easier to deal with. I was a little surprised to find the place lacking in patrons. Other than the luzardees, a balding middle-aged human male with hairy arms and a paunchy midsection was the only other person in the room. He stood behind a long serving counter attentively paying attention, yet seemed uninterested in my presence. No one in the room had been served a drink, nor did they act as if they were expecting one.
“Are you lost, female?” the luzardee seated at the table closest to me asked. He’d been staring at me as if I were a delectable feast from the moment I’d entered the room.
No, I wasn’t lost, but I was definitely reconsidering my decision to come inside alone. Beneath his animal hide vest and pants, his body was covered in one endless sheet of hairless tan scales. He glared at me with beady black eyes that lacked pupils, and flared the nostrils on his flat face. Of the three, he was the tallest and the biggest, which wasn’t saying much since his lanky frame wasn’t much wider than mine.
Tiny white flecks clung to portions of his scaly skin, a sign he’d been spending too much time in the sun, or he was getting ready to go through his yearly shedding. Whichever it was made my skin itch, and I fought the urge not to scratch my arm.
Now that I was here, leaving wasn’t an option. “I’m looking for someone named Kowhl.”
A slight squint was all the indication I needed to know I’d found the person I’d been sent here to meet.
“I am Kowhl. What is the nature of your businesss?” He leered even more.
I’d learned from my past interactions with the luzardees that they spoke with a slight lisp, which only became more prominent when they were anxious or excited. The way his gaze kept dropping to my cleavage told me it was the latter.
I gave the door an inconspicuous glance, questioning for the third time in the last ten minutes what had happened to my backup. And by backup, I meant Celeste and Sloane. They were my traveling companions, my closest friends, and the only two women on the entire planet who were closer to me than sisters. But no matter how much we discussed our plans ahead of time, they were always, always, always…late.
I straightened my shoulders and pushed aside my disgust. “Burke sent me.”
The luzardee’s pause was brief, his disappointed gaze replaced by a greedy gleam. “Sit.” He angled his head toward the seat across the table from him.
I preferred to keep my distance, but sitting would make reaching the knife in my boot easier if things headed in a bad direction. I silently cursed my friends for being late one more time to make myself feel better, then cautiously pulled out the chair. I was hesitant to take a seat, not because the furniture lacked cleanliness, but because the chair appeared unstable. The loud creak I heard when I sat only reinforced my observation.
Kowhl glanced at the man behind the counter. “Leave us.”
With a nod, the barkeep headed for a doorway leading to the back of the building. Chances were he’d been compensated in advance for the use of his bar.
I thought about Burke’s parting words again and wondered what he’d gotten my friends and me into. “Burke said I was supposed to retrieve a package.”
I accepted all the intricacies that came along with my association with Burke because they kept me fed and prevented me from living out of a trash recycler. Something I’d had to do more than once and preferred never to do again.
Burke was military to his core. He’d led one of the security details assigned to the Starward Bounty. The exploration spaceship from Earth had carried nearly three hundred people: scientists, agriculturists, and their families. It had been my home for over a year before it was forced way off course by a bizarre meteor storm, then crash-landed on Ketaurrios.
Several years after we’d settled on the planet, the war had started and changed our lives forever. During and after those dreadful times, Burke led a group of rebels who did their best to protect the surviving humans. The man could be devious, ruthless when necessary, and sometimes showed a disregard for decent morals. All qualities I’d witnessed on numerous occasions and, in current times, understood why they were necessary.
I trusted him, at least with my life. And in that regard, I owed him a debt. A debt I’d never be able to repay, so here I was, ready to collect whatever he wanted, no questions asked. Correction: I had questions, a few of them, and would make sure to ask them later. If I’d been in the same room with Burke and not discussing the retrieval via my vehicle’s less than adequate sometimes-staticky communication unit, I w
ould’ve taken the time to gather more information.
I’d done quite a few jobs for him over the years, some dangerous and some I’d been aware stretched or jumped way over the fine line defining some of the planet’s laws. This was one of those rare times when I wanted to kick myself for not getting more details.
I’d been tagged with the role of acquisition specialist, a glamorous way of saying I acquired things or performed tasks most people wouldn’t risk doing, so others could stay alive. When Burke used the term “package,” I’d expected something the size of a small box at most, a large crate containing food, supplies, or maybe some stolen blades.
Even if I’d used my imagination, I never would have expected the package to be a man. Or rather male, since all the species, other than humans of that specific gender, insisted they be referred to by the latter.
Not that any of that mattered. At the moment, my objective was getting my package and myself out of here without either of us getting injured.
Without taking my attention off Kowhl, I glanced at the male sitting in the corner with his wrists and ankles shackled in chains. The majority of his body was covered with a hooded coat. Judging by his massive shoulders and the pale green tint of his exposed skin, I was pretty sure he was a ketaurran.
I’d lived on the planet long enough to learn the customs and history of its inhabitants. Unlike the animal-based evolution on Earth, the alien species on Ketaurrios evolved from a lizard-type ancestry. Surprisingly, most of them were warm-blooded. The ketaurrans were the predominant race. Though a portion of their body was covered with smooth scales, their anatomy was humanoid, including their reproductive systems. Relationships between the ketaurrans and humans were rare, but they did exist and occasionally resulted in children.
My suspicions were confirmed when I glimpsed his long, pointed tail swish across the floor near his booted feet. Just because his face was partially hidden didn’t mean I couldn’t feel his penetrating gaze focused on me. It wasn’t my fault he was in chains, so I wasn’t sure why I’d become the focus of his scrutiny.
If his intent was intimidation, it wasn’t working. I’d been in enough difficult situations and many hours of hand-to-hand combat training, courtesy of Burke and some of the other guys who worked with him, to let one male bother me.
As far as the planet’s technology went, the inhabitants didn’t utilize their resources to create any kind of advanced weaponry. Traveling wasn’t always safe, and some of the places my friends and I visited were dangerous. Being able to protect ourselves was a normal part of our lives. With knives and swords the weapons of choice, one could say there wasn’t a blade on the planet that I couldn’t wield with the precision of an assassin.
I was more concerned with being stuck in the middle of a situation that had the potential for going bad on so many levels. Besides being outnumbered by the luzardees, I wondered what kind of problems I’d encounter before I got the prisoner to Burke. If things went wrong and he decided his captors were less of a threat than I was, I might have more trouble than I could handle. There was always a possibility that the ketaurran had friends. Friends who might be looking for him, might not be happy the luzardees had captured him, or who might view me as a threat.
Since the male was shackled with heavy chains, I wasn’t too worried about transporting him. Ketaurrans weren’t easily subdued. It was hard to imagine any scenario where this guy would allow himself to be captured, especially by the two luzardees hovering close to him.
Remaining calm and hoping Celeste and Sloane made a timely appearance was all I could do at the moment.
“My payment,” Kowhl demanded.
I pulled a pouch of coins from my pocket and dropped it on the table.
The luzardee glanced at the bag, then back at me. “I wish to renegotiate. It will cost you an additional fifty cradasson before I release him to you.”
Slimy lizard. I had great instincts and should have listened to them a lot sooner. The niggle of dread, a definite warning that things were about to go wrong, exploded at the base of my neck and shot along my spine with an irritating intensity. “Look, I’m just the retrieval person.” I returned his glare, refusing to show any signs of weakness.
“If you want more money, you’ll need to take it up with Burke.” I suppressed the urge to finger the handle of the blade tucked tightly against my calf. “Though you might want to know the last guy who tried to change the terms of his negotiation hasn’t walked right for a long time.” Actually, the guy had only limped for a week, but I wasn’t above twisting the truth if it meant I’d get out of here without losing any of my body parts.
The luzardee standing closest to the prisoner smacked the long handle of a stun stick against his scaly palm and four digits. Without provocation, he jabbed one end of the stick into the prisoner’s ribs. I heard an electrical crackle and watched tiny bolts of blue and yellow fly from the tip.
The chains dangling from the cuffs around the ketaurran’s wrists were tethered to another set of cuffs attached around his ankles. He growled, and the chains rattled and jerked to a stop inches before he could grab the stick. The shock from the stick was painful, and a normal person would have been screaming by now. It took someone with a lot of strength and endurance to withstand that kind of pain.
Seriously, did the jerk think hurting the male was going to change my mind? Though I’d seen my share of torture and didn’t get squeamish at the sight, it didn’t mean I was a fan. “Could you stop tormenting my prisoner?” The damn lizards could smell even the slightest change in emotion, so I forced myself to remain calm and kept my voice as nonchalant as possible.
“Why do you care what we do to him?” Kowhl wiggled his nostrils and widened the lid on one of his reptilian eyes.
“I don’t.” I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms, masking my features with indifference. “Burke will, though. He won’t appreciate having to explain to whoever placed the bounty on this guy’s head how the burn marks ended up all over his body. It wouldn’t surprise me if you got a visit from some of his men.” As I’d hoped, the threat got the desired results. Kowhl jerked his head at the other male, silently ordering him to stop.
I scooted my chair back. “I need to get going, so if you’ll…” He grabbed my wrist, keeping me in my seat.
“Sssstay.” He released his grip and ran one of his four clawlike fingertips along the back of my hand. “I have never had an Earther female. You can keep Burke’s coins if you provide me with an afternoon of pleasure.”
Bile crept along the back of my throat, leaving a nasty taste in my mouth. I swallowed several times, forcing it back to my stomach. I’d heard the luzardees had male parts similar to a human’s, but it didn’t mean I wanted a firsthand view. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing on the planet, including coins, that would ever make me want to sell my body. I wasn’t about to be his first anything and was happy to disappoint him.
I had a feeling his idea of an afternoon of pleasure included his friends. If they hadn’t been interested in our conversation before, they definitely were paying attention now. The male standing on Kowhl’s right swiped his forked tongue along his bottom lip, no doubt anticipating where he wanted to use it. If a pair of beady eyes could reflect lustful desires, then these guys were practically glowing with it.
Most of the males I came in contact with weren’t the relationship kind, and jumping into bed with a male just to satisfy a need wasn’t usually my thing. Neither was sharing.
This situation was getting way beyond uncomfortable, and waiting for Celeste and Sloane to arrive wasn’t helping. One way or another, I was leaving. It was either going to be easy, in which case I walked out with my package, or hard and bloody, with large amounts of bodily harm—preferably not mine.
I was leaning toward easy, but a part of me would enjoy hard just so I could teach Kowhl a lesson in manners. Doing my best to hide my revulsion, I pulled my hand away from his. “Sorry, I work for Burke, and he has strict ru
les about those kinds of things.” I inched my hand toward the top of my boot. “And, as I stated before, it’s never a good idea to cross him.”
The ketaurran, who’d remained silent while he warily watched my interaction with the luzardees, released a low, predatory growl that sounded a lot like a wild animal. He shook his head back and forth, the hood dropping away and exposing his face. Obsidian strands draped along prominent cheekbones, the longer lengths tucked behind his head. His intense dark gaze flared with jade, his focus pinned on Kowhl.
Surprisingly, I didn’t startle or share the same fear-filled expression as the luzardees. Instead, my stomach fluttered and warmth spread through my entire body. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d found a male so devastatingly handsome, or had such a strong reaction. I forced myself to remember where I was and what I needed to do. I used the distraction to push out of the chair and position myself closer to the door.
Before the luzardee could shock the ketaurran again, the bartender walked into the room. “Hey, there won’t be no problems inside my establishment.” He warned through gritted teeth. “It’s bad for business.”
No one had left or entered the place since I’d arrived, so I wasn’t sure what business he was referring to. I got a little nervous when he reached underneath the bar’s scarred and worn wooden counter to retrieve an antiquated blaster. I hadn’t seen one of them in years. They weren’t exactly legal back on Earth, and the few humans who still owned one had smuggled them onto the ship in their personal belongings.
The weapon, courtesy of a poor engineering design, lacked any decent targeting capabilities. Not a requirement if the user’s goal was to hit anything in the general vicinity of where they were aiming. It wasn’t designed to kill, more like stun, but could do some serious damage to those who were standing close when it was fired. If I remembered correctly, they were also notorious for occasionally backfiring, causing injury to the person who pulled the trigger—a fact I hoped the bartender was aware of.