by Mikayla Lane
Mikal
By Mikayla Lane
Editor Beth Braden
[email protected]
Cover art by: humblenations.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations, affiliations and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First Wave Series in Reading Order
Hunting Cari
Finding Jess
Chasing Dare
Grai’s Game
Taming Jax
Grounding Gracus
True Traitor
Second Wave Series in Reading Order
Viper
Drago
Mikal
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To my Readers:
Thanks so much for all of the awesome reviews, suggestions and comments.
As always, feel free to email me.
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https://www.facebook.com/author.mikaylalane
Mikayla Lane
436 Word Document Pages
85,117 Words
Prologue
Alpha Two stared at the wall with cold, hard eyes as the medical technician withdrew more blood and checked her vital signs. She’d long ago mastered the ability to ignore the things they did to her body, preferring to live inside of her mind when she was near them.
“Alpha Two!”
She moved her eyes to the left, acknowledging the man addressing her before she responded as expected.
“Sir,” she said evenly, her tone betraying none of the hatred and pain roiling inside of her.
Gen. John Tanner eyed the beautiful creature in front of him and wished again that he could have her. She was incredible. Her milky skin shimmered as if she were wearing touches of body glitter, and her white eyes did nothing to detract from her perfect features and exquisite body.
The program was far too important to make a stupid mistake like that, and John hadn’t made it to general by being stupid. He cleared his thoughts of all but the next mission and stared impassively at her like the specimen she was.
“You have another mission,” he began, watching her closely for any signs that she was becoming a threat to them.
John would hate to have to put her down the way they had her predecessor, Alpha One. Not because he cared about either of the specimens, but because it was a pain in the ass to train them to be useful, and he needed to prove to the higher-ups that the current creatures had a longer shelf life than the first one in order to keep the funding coming in.
Alpha Two kept her expression blank as she nodded her head.
“I am ready, sir,” she said, carefully guarding her thoughts and emotions.
John nodded his head, mentally patting himself on the back for another milestone day in the Destiny program. Every day they kept Alpha Two from losing control was another success for them. Every mission they accomplished by using her was more money that would be funneled to his coffers to continue his work.
John grinned at her before handing her a manila envelope containing the target, her fake identification, and the cash required to complete her mission.
She knew better than to look at it in front of them, fearing she might display some sort of emotion or expression that would cause them to terminate her. Instead, she laid it beside her on the gurney and nodded her head at him.
“When do I leave, sir?” Two asked, hoping it would be soon.
John studied the girl a moment before answering.
“You leave in the morning. Your handler will drop you off near the hotel and pick you up at the rendezvous location when the job is complete. You have three days to complete the mission or the charge will be detonated. Clear?” he asked, waiting for the response she was trained to give.
“Clear, sir,” Two said, making sure that she kept her face blank and her body perfectly controlled—like the cold-hearted killer they trained her to be.
Two waited until they were done with her tests and led her back to her room. Once she was locked inside, she placed the envelope on the dresser and lay down on the bed, closing her eyes. Within moments she was bombarded with the voices.
“You’re our only chance.”
“Please, don’t leave us here.”
“Kill them all.”
“Don’t let them terminate me.”
It was always the same. The same voices, the same pleas, the same soul wrenching pain at the sounds of hopelessness and heart breaking despair. It was the only thing that broke her concentration, fractured her composure, and made her want to kill. Not the targets given to her. But those giving her the targets.
It was exactly what they were expecting her to do. She knew it. She could feel the surprise and fear in them every day when they took her out of her cell for her medical checkup and training. Each day she put on a mask and pretended to be something she wasn’t in order to accomplish a goal. Which is what they trained her to do, but her goals were not theirs.
For years she played the same game day in and day out. She pretended to be a complacent killer and earned their trust-as much as they could give her anyway. She didn’t believe they had enough of a soul to allow room for that emotion.
Although it was hours until bedtime, she lay on the bed with her eyes closed. Two didn’t need them open to know every single detail of her gilded cage—the comfortable bed, the dresser with books on top, the cameras in every corner, including the shower.
Other than the times when they used her to kill, this barren existence was all she knew. Where she was expected to be grateful that those who created her had even given her life and continued to allow her to live. And for that “gift” bestowed on her, she was their slave forever-a slave to the people who expected her to view them as her gods.
She would be a good girl. She would kill—kill every person who played a part in her creation. Every single person who believed themselves to be a god were now going to face their creation, the creation that became something else, something more.
A god killer.
Chapter One
Mikal rushed through the air, his mind forcing out all thoughts but being one with the wind and sky. He was going through the Appalachian Mountains, heading back to his brothers in Washington, D.C., after checking another lead on an underground military lab. He’d already let them know through the Shengari’ that it had been another bad lead on where his uncle, Koda T’Alq, was being held.
Since they had discovered that Koda had survived the destruction of his ejection pod, everyone had worked almost non-stop to find out where the military would have taken him. Angel and Chris had used all of Devon’s government contacts to find out, but they’d learned nothing that would lead them to one of the secret labs where the military was experimenting on their people—which is where they assumed Koda would be taken as prisoner.
They weren’t going to give up, though. They’d already exposed the illegal actions of several members of congress and the human justice system had already secured several indictments and resignations due to their efforts to find out where Koda was. Despite their best efforts to get any information, either no one knew or no one was talking.
His mind occupied, Mikal was unprepared when he heard a scream rip through his mind. The power was so strong that he dropped from the sky, his form flashing from solid to air again until he regained control and landed on his feet.
Mikal crouched low, looking around the thick forest for the source of the sound. In his 150 years, Mikal had never heard or felt anything on those energy strands in his mind. Desperate to k
now what had broken through the unused strands, Mikal placed his hands out, palms down and called on his energy.
He continued to build the energy within him until he finally released it in a shimmering wave that diminished the farther it traveled. He continued kneeling while he cleared his mind and opened his senses, looking for any sound or disturbance in the night that would lead him to who or what had emitted the cry.
Mikal waited silently for long minutes, but when he hadn’t even heard a breath other than his own, he gave up and took to the skies again. But he didn’t leave. He hovered in the air, using his wind form to conceal his presence.
Finally, he felt it. A stirring in the air. A whisper of breath. He pinpointed the location and headed directly to the area, his wind form allowing him to easily navigate the dense forest.
Mikal burst through the trees into a small clearing and stopped short. His mind struggled to comprehend what he was seeing, and he barely held onto enough concentration to maintain his wind form.
Kneeling on the ground in the clearing was a woman. Like him. Her alabaster skin shimmered in the moonlight and short white hair capped her bent head. Her athletic body was covered in black jeans, a long sleeved black shirt, and tactical boots.
Mikal couldn’t see her eyes, but he knew they would be like his own. He could hear her silent tears hitting the forest floor as he felt the despair in her energy. His body vibrated with her nearness and the similar energy to his own, and he fought to hold his form.
Moments later, she stood slowly, and Mikal knew that she could feel him near. He watched as she withdrew a pair of haladie. The double-bladed weapons looked far too comfortable in her hands for his liking. Her hands expertly gripped the center of the handle between the two blades attached to it at both ends like she had a lot of experience with the unusual weapon, and Mikal wondered at why she would choose them.
As she looked around the clearing, Mikal gazed wonderingly at eyes he’d only seen in the mirror or fake ones in movies, TV shows or at Goth clubs he’d been in. She was breathtaking and the first of his kind that he’d ever seen. His sharp intake of breath gave his location away, and he took a chance and allowed his form to solidify on the other side of the clearing from her so he wouldn’t frighten her.
Mikal easily saw and felt her shock and fear before she masked it behind a barrier so strong it stunned him. He held his hands up, showing that he was unarmed, hoping to ease the fear he’d felt in her.
“I thought I was the only one,” he whispered, watching her every movement and the telltale signs that she was considering fight or flight.
She turned beautiful white eyes to his and shook her head at him.
“Did they send you to kill me?” she whispered raggedly.
“Who are you?” he asked her at the same time, causing her to look at him curiously.
“Who wants to kill you?” Mikal asked quickly, checking to see if she was injured. He saw no tears or blood on her black jeans or long sleeve shirt.
Mikal could feel anger bubble up through him at the thought of someone trying to hurt her, and he forced himself to control it. He watched as she studied him, holding perfectly still. He knew she was thinking of running from him, and he didn’t want to have to chase her. Having never met anyone like him before, he wasn’t even sure that he could.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I am Mikal. Are you really like me?” he asked, wondering where the hell she came from and whom she was afraid of.
The strange woman shook her head at him, her body still tense and ready to battle for her life.
“Is that your mission name? What lab did you come from?” she asked.
Mikal was stunned. “What?”
The woman backed up, and Mikal could feel her fear increasing. Afraid she would leave, he stepped back and raised his hands higher.
“That is my real name. My adoptive father gave it to me as a child when he found me. I didn’t come from a lab. What is your name? Where did you come from? Are there more like us?” Mikal asked calmly, trying his best to control his excitement.
He watched her eyes widen in surprise before she shook her head.
“You’re lying. We don’t have names. What is your designation?” she asked, bracing herself and her weapons in a defensive stance.
“I swear I’m not lying. Who are you? Please, just tell me that,” Mikal asked, hating the pleading sound to his voice.
She narrowed her eyes at him and took two steps backwards.
“You think I’m dumb enough to tell you who I am so you can confirm your kill?” she asked with a snarl as she crouched low, the position allowing her to fight or take to the wind quickly.
“No!” Mikal barked out before calming himself again. “I swear to you, I don’t know who you are! Until this moment I had no idea that I wasn’t the only one of our kind. I just want to know if there are more of us . . .” he said honestly, hoping she’d tell him something. Anything.
Mikal watched her composure slip for a bare second before her icy mask was back in place, and he sighed, wondering what had happened to her to make her mistrust him so much.
“You’re a liar. We only come from the labs—which means you know exactly who I am. It also means that the men are kept at another lab from us,” she said, studying him to try and learn as much as she could.
Mikal was horrified.
“What labs? Are you a prisoner? Let me help you! I have friends, special friends, who can help you. Where are these labs you’re talking about?” he asked, wondering if she was talking about the kind of place they may be keeping Koda.
She shook her head and scowled at him.
“Why do you play this game? I know you are here to hunt me and kill me for escaping. I will not die until I finish what I started, so tell the gods that I’m coming. The god killer is coming,” she said before she was gone in a sparkle of iridescent light.
Mikal cursed loudly and took to the skies, trying to follow her energy, but she was gone. He scoured the skies for miles in all directions looking for her or any trace of her energy, but she was gone as if she’d never been there.
Mikal dropped back to the earth in the clearing, and he paced the area where she’d stood, trying to catch a hint of her energy or a scent. Finally, he laid his palm on the ground where she’d crouched and he found what he was looking for.
He raised his hand to his face, and Mikal felt her residual energy shimmer across his cheek as he rubbed it there. Amazed, Mikal held out his arm and used his index finger to trace a shimmering, rainbow path of light down his arm. He laughed as it dissipated, and he did it again.
Mikal held his palm back to his face and breathed in the musky scent of her body. He closed his eyes and allowed her energy and scent to permeate his cells, giving him a chance to find her the next time she was near.
He had to find her before those she suspected were hunting her found her. It wasn’t an option. Not only were there more of his people somewhere, possibly in labs, but they may have Koda as well, and she could lead them there.
And I might be able to find out what the hell I am, he thought.
Mikal took to the air again. This time he made a circle, moving outward from the clearing until he came upon the first town. He could tell right away that she wasn’t nearby and took to the sky again until he found the next town.
He repeated the process until the fourth try, when he finally felt her energy and the hint of her scent in the air. Mikal smiled to himself.
She is smart, he thought.
She’d chosen a city to hide within. If it were humans hunting her, then it was her best chance to go unnoticed and remain hidden.
Mikal found an alley near the center of town and dropped to the ground. With a steadying breath, he calmly strode down the main street to the motel he’d seen from the air. He felt his energy vibrate a warning to him, and he clenched his fists in frustration, wishing he’d dropped closer to the motel.
“Hey, amigo! That’s a nice
coat you wearing, man! What you hiding that you have to wear that thing in this heat?”
“Dude, let me take that from you and make you more comfortable.”
Mikal heard the words and snickers behind him and detected three humans when he sent out his energy. He quickly scanned the area, noting there was no one around them, he disappeared into the wind, and reappeared facing the leader of the trio.
“I find that I am quite fine with my coat. Maybe you should find someone else to assist,” Mikal said, his voice dangerously low as his eerie white eyes stared hard at the leader.
“Whoa! Man! What the fuck!” the young man said, backing up from Mikal quickly and drawing a knife.
“What the fuck is wrong with your eyes?” another one asked.
The third stared at Mikal with his mouth open.
Mikal sneered at the thugs; he had no patience left to deal with them.
“Have a good evening,” Mikal said before he turned and began walking back towards the hotel.
The leader, feeling brave because they outnumbered the stranger, ran back up to Mikal and tried to pull on his arm. Mikal turned on him, lifted him by the throat, and held him against the wall of the building behind them.
“I tried to do this nicely. If you continue to prove your lack of usefulness to this society, I will have no problem destroying the evil in your mind,” Mikal warned, feeling the leap in the unique energy contained within him.
“Kill him!” the leader yelled at his two companions, only to discover that they had ran away.
Mikal chuckled.
“It seems they decided to look for new leadership. Perhaps you should consider another line of work,” Mikal said as he lowered the fool back to the ground, deciding to let the guy go.
“Screw you, freak!” the man yelled before pulling his knife and lunging at Mikal’s back.
Mikal sensed the drugs permeating the man’s scent, the alcohol, sweat . . . and the evil in his soul that there was no cure for. This man didn’t have a mental disorder brought on by an imbalance in the energy due to the conversion. No demons possessed him, and he wasn’t the victim of mental illness. There was no reason for the evil within him, other than he created it, addicted to the pleasure he got from the pain and terror he inflicted on the innocent.