Marked by the Predator

by Milana Jacks

  Marked by the Predator

  Tribes, #1

  Milana Jacks

  Marked by the Predator (Tribes, #1) © Milana Jacks 2021

  This is the copyright section of the book where you can find out if you have the right to copy it. The answer is no.

  This is also the section where I declare I wrote a work of fiction. Nothing is as it seems and similarities to real life anything is a coincidence.

  People who review my books and shout about them can quote, climb on my head and doodle hearts.

  Contents

  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

  Stolen by the Predator Teaser

  Alpha Breeds teaser

  Milana’s Backlist

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Hart

  Another night falls over our territory. Another night of peace after the brutal tribal wars that have ravaged our lands, killed thousands of males, destroyed the females, and completely eliminated any hope for the young.

  I flick the dirt from under my claw, hoping the Alpha of the neighboring Ra tribe feels how I feel, devastated, hopeless, and ready to wage more wars, because, if the ritual doesn’t bear fruit, I’m gonna break the truce and march into his territory, destroy every one of them.

  My males file into the Hall of the Fallen and gather around the fire. Smoke rises and envelops the room. I wanna plug my nose so I don’t inhale, but I have to inhale for the spirit of Bera, goddess of fertility, to enter my body. Or some nonsense like that the Sha-male spouts, which my people eat up like raw flesh in our mouths.

  I’ve lost faith in our goddess of fertility. Send me Amti, goddess of madness and lust, and let her consume my body so I can devour and kill until someone bests me and puts me out of my misery.

  Fuck, I’m dramatic.

  Chuckling, I glance at the Sha.

  He’s still drawing on the same wall he’s been drawing on every span for a cycle straight. He’s got faith and perseverance, I’ll give him that. But I’m sick of inhaling the prayer smoke that makes my brain fuzzy, and I know for a fact my males are coming for the smoke too. This has to stop.

  “Sha,” I say as I rise from the throne. “Tonight is the last night.”

  A wrinkled hand holding the brush pauses, but the male doesn’t turn. He continues painting.

  “Sha-male, I know you heard me.”

  “Yes, Alpha. I’m not deaf.”

  My males laugh.

  I cut them a look because I’m in a foul mood, and no amount of smoke from the fire is gonna calm me down. I’m done with the rituals. I approach the Sha and lean a shoulder on the wall.

  He gives me a side-eye. “Go sit by the fire. Your anger and impatience scares Bera.”

  “Maybe she’ll appear just to tame me.” I grab my crotch.

  Sha drops the brush and wipes his hands on his black apron. “That’s it. You’ve ruined the night.” He pokes me in the chest. “But know this, mighty Hart, when the females enter our lands, you will be the last to breed one.”

  “The females can’t enter our lands. There aren’t any left to walk the lands.”

  “There must be.” Tears appear in the old man’s eyes, and now I feel bad for slapping him with reality, telling him his hopes and our faith in goddesses won’t bring back any of the females slain in the wars. It won’t breed new ones either, and females don’t just fall from the sky.

  Gently, I place a hand on his fragile shoulder. “Go take a whiff of Bera’s body and jerk off for the night.” The Sha are chaste. I’m a hookhead through and through.

  He walks away.

  I turn toward my males. Their eyelids drape their eyes. Some males even hang their heads.

  Mas, our portal genius, looks up, licks his dry lips. “I’ve prepared the terrain for the games.”

  I snort. Even with all the technological advances, even with the world he’s seen, he still believes Bera will bless us with a female, and the games must be prepared for the female’s arrival.

  In the tribe, males compete for the right to breed a female. May the strongest male win and give the next generation’s best chance of survival. Even if I don’t believe, even if I’ve lost faith, I have to allow the preparations, if only so I don’t appear as if I’m following in my father’s footsteps.

  Instead of competing in the games, deeming them useless, he snatched my mother and marked her so no other male could have her. In hiding, she delivered him two sons before the Ra tribal Alpha, the Rai at the time, delivered her my father’s head. Since the Rai couldn’t breed her, he killed her, but not before she hid me and my brother. We grew up and sought vengeance that led to more vengeance and then some more, and before we knew it, a decade of violence had passed.

  I approach the fire, part my verto, and piss on it. The fire dies out, and all hope dies with it. “I’m going to hunt. Maybe kill something. Who wants to come?” Males rise and follow me outside. They’d follow me anywhere, so I better lead them to the land of prosperity, not ruin.

  Chapter Two

  Stephanie

  My vacation to Joylius sure started out exciting.

  First, the ship caught fire. Then the captain initiated the emergency passenger rescue protocol, meaning each seat on the ship got enclosed in a steel globe that could prevent us from burning up in the atmosphere and withstand a hard landing. What I didn’t expect was to be ejected into space right before the ship exploded.

  “Approaching land,” the pod’s autopilot says.

  Oh, thank God. I lean back in the chair and strap in for the landing. Thankfully, these rescue pods self-navigate, and I don’t have to do anything but sit back and recall my existence while the pod self-navigates to the nearest land or a space station, whatever it can find. I presume it’s Joylius, a human colony, since that’s where the ship was headed in the first place, though I fear I might be wrong now that I’ve breached the clouds and the landscape isn’t what a vacation spot on Joylius should look like.

  I’ve only ever gone to the resorts, and this could be the metropolis on Joylius, for all I know. It’s a green city with several expansive structures that have oval rooftops like the Taj Mahal, and strange, tall, uneven, narrow black towers that rise from the ground like trees might on Earth.

  As the pod approaches one of the towers, I see people roaming the unpaved streets. While Joylius natives aren’t humanoid, humans have colonized the planet, so I must be in the right place. The pod stops and hovers in front of one tower. I presume it’s requesting to dock, and I wait. And wait a bit more, tapping my fingernail on my front tooth. If I didn’t have a new French manicure, I’d likely bite the nail. “Hey computer, what’s going on.”

  The lights in the pod shut off.

  I look around. “Hello?”

  The pod drops.

  I scream at the top of my lungs, shut my eyes, and say a Hail Mary before I leave this mortal plane and hopefully end up somewhere in Heaven even though I lied to my boss, telling him my mother was sick so he’d approve my vacation request. My mother remarried and is living a good life on Mars. She wouldn’t see me even if she were sick anyway.

  The pod halts, the pressure in my ears pops, and my belly ends up in my throat from the sudden change. I snap open my eyes. The pod didn’t crash. Thank God. This is good. Very good. My restraints come off, the small e
xit door pops open, and I’m finally free to leave the confined space. I’ve never been claustrophobic, but spending half a day confined inside a tiny sphere took a toll on my psyche. I want to spend the rest of my vacation in an open space, thank you very much. Maybe I’ll sleep on the beach and not even check into my room.

  My body protests the move from the chair. I groan as my ass unglues itself from the leather and stretch my leg to step outside. Looking around, I see a…a path in front of me that takes me to massive iron double doors attached to a building that’s not round. This one has sharp edges, like thorns sticking out of a wide towerlike structure.

  The pod lifts and leaves.

  “Hey!” I shout after it. “Come back! I didn’t get my purse.” It’s gone in a second. I can barely see it attaching to one of the towers on my right. Sighing, I head toward the tower that holds the pod, but stop moving once I see what’s in the street in front of me.

  Massive, bulky alien males who took their fashion sense from the Vikings have formed a living wall. Fur, axes, daggers, leather kilts, tattoos on their faces and bodies, some even on their heads. Not Joylius natives for sure, and while they look human, they’re not. Their jaws are too rigid, and their eyes are covered with a white membrane as if they’re all blind. I have no idea if they are, though I doubt it as I see their heads move up and down as they take in my appearance.

  I don’t think this is my vacation planet.

  Several of them step forward. I step back and notice movement under the skin on their chest and arms, as if something is moving inside them. One male speaks, but his language doesn’t translate.

  “I am a human,” I say. “From Earth. Is this Joylius?” I doubt it. National Security wouldn’t allow vacations on Joylius if they knew about these males. They look like warrior-class aliens. We either war against them or with them against the common enemy, namely any alien classified as predator.

  The male who stepped forward drops to all fours and leans forward, making loud sniffing noises, moving his nose left and right in a way humans can’t. Another male follows, and another, and the three of them look like wolves ready to snatch a rabbit. Rabbits run, and my heart starts beating faster, legs moving back while the males follow, slowly as if not to scare me. One male’s muscles start bulging, stretching his skin. His jaw drops, showing me his canines. Fuck this.

  I spin and run as fast as my legs will carry me up the path that looks like a bridge now and toward those double doors that open for me. Seeking shelter, I pump my legs across the bridge and enter a giant hall surrounded by tall windows.

  Behind me, the doors start closing, and I turn and see the males on the bridge. I have nowhere to go. On all fours, the males creep toward me, their muscles and bones stretching their skin as if something wants to break free from inside them. Is that even possible? I don’t know. I’ve never seen humanoids like this before.

  The doors close with a whoosh, and I back off a little and take in the doors. There are patterns carved into them, with a few repeating ones, sort of like tribal markings, for lack of a better comparison. The scent, similar to frankincense, reminds me of church. I walk around the place while my knees shake, threatening to collapse. I need an exit or a weapon. Preferably an exit. Neither appears.

  It’s an empty hall with intricate mosaics on the floors, exotic, even charming, the kind of luxury my mother would appreciate. Even on the walls, there’s art, but none depicting people. Just lots of colors and patterns, most of them quite feminine: flowers; elegant cursive lines. Seductive in a strange way.

  I stub my toe on something and trip. Hands out, I prevent a face plant, then rise back up, wiping my palms on my jeans.

  Steps.

  Duh.

  I climb them, fascinated by the floor and the patterns so much that I don’t see him until I lift my head.

  A male sits on a throne that wasn’t here just minutes ago when I entered and surveyed the room. His shoulders are as wide as the throne and covered in a fur vest that closes with leather laces crossing in the front. Over his long black kilt, he wears a golden belt with the same repeating patterns I saw on the door. Abundant long black hair is secured away from his face, clearly showing tribal-like tattoos over his jawbone and up his face, stopping at his cheeks. Pupilless white eyes stare back at me.

  I think he’s a…a king or a president or something like that, so I do what most humans do when presented with alien royalty: I bow my head. “Hi, my name is Stephanie, and I’m a human from Earth.”

  Banging against the doors startles me, and I look up. The males outside are shouting in their native tongue, which seems to be spoken from the chest and back of the throat, so we’re gonna have a hard time communicating with no translators.

  He appears in front of me. He’s so fast, his movements are a blur.

  Shit. I step back.

  He doesn’t follow. He leans forward and sniffs, does a weird lifting and moving of his nose. My scent seems to confuse him, because he frowns, then drops to all fours, eyes still locked with mine. He sniffs closer to my belly, then down and between my legs.

  I’m horrified, probably tomato faced. Luckily, the horrid identification his species uses when met with another species ends quickly, and he stands, returning to his seat.

  Oh good.

  The doors start opening, and I turn to see an army of males lining the bridge, waiting for the doors to open all the way so they can barge in here after me. Not good.

  I run behind the throne, hit the wall, then run back, and because I’m desperate, I crouch behind the throne, repeating the Hail Mary, eyes closed, awaiting an unpleasant fate.

  I don’t know what they’re gonna do with me, but aliens classified as warriors tend to be rather hostile. Maybe I’m a prisoner now. Maybe they hope to trade me for some of our tech. Maybe they’ll just kill me.

  Chapter Three

  Hart

  My males rush into the Hall of the Fallen, chasing after our prey, Sor in the lead. He’s just leapt over the steps when I stand and sock him in the jaw. His head snaps back, spinning his body, but he flips and manages to land on his feet. Bones rearrange, align, and snap back together, taking him out of the hunter and back into a male.

  He rubs his jaw and glares at me. “The hunt is fair game. You didn’t hunt.”

  “The prey walked into my lair.”

  “That’s not how it works. We hunted, and I’m first. You have to honor the winner.”

  “The prey outran you.”

  My males laugh, and Sor smirks. “You’re joking, I see. Get out of my way.”

  I shake my head. “That’s not how it works either. You want the prey, you come and take her from me.” I expect Sor to back off, not because he’s scared he’ll lose the fight, but because we can’t afford to fight each other over food. The unidentified species is clearly food, and we have plenty of that.

  He throws up his hands. “Fine, but I want the leg and a buttock. Big buttocks, it looked like. Yummy.” He rubs his belly.

  “I agree. Now, let me eat.”

  My males file out of the hall, and I round the throne to find the prey looking up at me with big colored eyes. Crouching in front of her—and it’s a female judging by the scent between her legs—I examine the round black dot in her eye surrounded by a lovely shade of brown, a warm hue we’d use to color our bedrooms or places of worship. I lean in some more, and the black dot in her eye widens. I lean back. What was that? I lean in, and it widens. Lean back again. Shrinks. I do this several times because it’s fun, and I’m toying a bit with my food.

  For us, the predators, the process of identifying food is simple. We smell the prey, and I sniff, my nose telling me she’s edible. Sniffing again, I detect a male in the hall. I stand and inhale again, sorting through the scents of my males to identify him. It’s Sor again. He won’t try to steal the food from me because he knows he’ll die, so why is he still lingering? I don’t like it, so I growl. He growls back. I think he’s hungry and irrational, and I’d
hate to kill him for trying to steal my food. Instead of snarling and chasing him out, I press the dial on my throne.

  The throne drops into my chambers, right under the Hall of the Fallen. The prey bends forward and hacks, putting a hand over her mouth. Is she sick? Maybe. The turbulence in the pod must’ve been unpleasant, and the hunt scared her. It’ll be over fast. I’ll make it quick and painless. It is a female after all, and I’m softer on female prey than male prey.

  “Who are your people?” I ask, hoping she’ll understand me. Most times, aliens caught and brought here for consumption have translators already, but I don’t think this one does. She wipes her mouth, her strange brown eyes looking around my chambers. She speaks in a way that requires lots of tongue movement, so her language with no translator would be difficult for me to mimic.

  Why would I want to mimic this language? Frowning, I walk to the command center and sense her movement. I turn to see her running. Every instinct in my body screams chase, but if I do, I’ll consume her too quickly and forget I promised Sor a leg. And a buttock. There’s no way he’s getting a buttock, though. Those are nice big juicy buttocks.

  Makes me wanna look at her some more. It’s a female alien, and it’s…attractive, with a pleasing sweet scent between her legs. I want to smell her some more. Maybe eat later. I’m not that hungry anyway. Besides, there’s nowhere to go down here in the same way there’s nowhere to go up in the hall or any place where we corner our prey.

  Our structures are designed to attract prey and make it easy for us to corner them. Some of us toy with prey, give them hope, let them think they can escape, but most of us don’t. It’s a bit sadistic when you’re eating something that still smells like hope. Though this prey doesn’t smell hopeful as she runs around tapping the walls that reveal no exits.