The Alien Bounty Hunters Complete Series: Books 1-8

by Mills, Michele

  Three more shapes formed, each of them showing the tell-tale signs of tall Xylan warriors.

  “Oh,” his Bride gasped. “Can it be…?”

  “Melachine.” Kroga raced to her side. “Don’t lower your weapon. We don’t know who is arriving.”

  She shook her head, eyes bright with unshed tears and placed a claw over her hearts. “Look, it’s…my sons.”

  Kroga stood in shock as three intimidating Xylan warriors fully materialized, heavily armed and ready for battle. His two sons and a Margol he did not recognize.

  Three different blasters were aimed straight at him.

  And Kroga saw his firstborn son for the first time in fourteen years.

  The male looked like a male of his own distinguished line. Pride burned in his hearts. They’d bucked tradition by naming their firstborn son Rayzor and not a variation of his own name, Kroga. But he’d never liked his own name. He was named for a notorious ancestor and now he was certain he’d ruined that name for all eternity, doubling the notoriety—it would never be used again. No one would name their offspring after a male considered to be the worst traitor to the empire.

  And Kayzon stood nearby, looking very much like Melachine and House Ulmath. Except his face was marred with a deep scar and an older-model cybernetic eye, proving how hard the banishment had been on his younger son. Yet another wave of uncontrollable hatred lumped in Kroga’s throat for those Hurlian officers who’d ruined his life, and the lives of his line.

  Rayzor pressed a com on his wrist. “We made it safely,” he told someone. “Melachine is here”—he narrowed his eyes and met Kroga’s gaze—“and so is he.”

  “How did you get past security?” he asked his sons, genuinely surprised that they’d managed to bypass a locked system.

  “Mother,” Kayzon growled, ignoring his question. “Are you well?”

  “I am fine,” she answered. “Don’t worry. I was not mistreated.”

  Kayzon nodded. And only then did the three warriors lower their blasters and step off the disks.

  Rayzor bent down to help up the winged male who was still cowering on the floor. “This being is the hacker who discovered a way into locked industrial grade transporters. He claimed that for an exorbitant fee, he could safely send beings to any destination they required. We decided to send him through first to make sure he wasn’t telling us lies.”

  The Margol warrior stepped forward and pushed the winged male back onto a disk. “And we’re sending you back right now too,” he told the hacker, “to make sure you secured the exit like you said you did.”

  “What?” the stunned male gasped as the disk lit up.

  “Bye,” the Margol quipped. “I hope for your sake you weren’t lying when you said we could get back safely the way we came.” He waved his claw at the winged male as the being’s form dissolved into atoms and disappeared.

  Kayzon lifted the com at his wrist to his ear to listen to a message. “He made it back safely,” he remarked.

  “Good,” Rayzor answered, then he turned to face Kroga and tagged him with a harsh stare. Meanwhile the other two warriors stepped over to Melachine and embraced her with tight hugs and cries of joy. “And now that that’s settled, it’s time for you to tell me what happened,” Rayzor demanded.

  Kroga glanced over at his Bride who was lit up with joy at the presence of their offspring and this Margol who obviously knew her too. He turned back to his son. This was going to be difficult, but it had to be done. He lifted his chin. “I was under Hurlian mind control for fourteen planetary rotations,” he answered. “I am only now free of their rule.”

  There was quiet for a moment while the three males processed what he’d said.

  “You’re making that shit up,” the Margol he didn’t know snarled.

  “I’m not. And who the hell are you? Why is this Margol here?”

  Rayzor’s jaw clenched. “I want proof before I will believe your excuses,” he said. “And this Margol is my honorary brother, Joyzal of Seventeen, the male who took care of your Bride for the last fourteen years while you were busy committing treason, killing beings and breaking laws. Joyzal took in Melachine as the Manager of his line when no one else would. Do not disrespect him.”

  Kroga processed his son’s words, took a deep breath and turned to the Margol who had protected his Bride. He fisted his claw and pounded it against his chest. “I thank you for your honorable actions. You protected my Bride when I was unable. I place your honor before mine and I formally accept you as an honorary member of my line.”

  The only sound in the cargo bay was the sniff of Melachine’s tears.

  “Your deference to Joyzal is noted. But why did you kidnap our mother and bring her to the Swirl?” Kayzon demanded. “She could’ve died on the journey here. Why would you risk our mother in this way? And also keep her from us?”

  Kroga met the angry gaze of his youngest son, tagged by his glowing cybernetic eye. “The Hurlians were looking for me everywhere but were unable to find me. I brought Melachine here because they’d always told me if I ever managed to escape from their mind control and stepped out of line, they’d kill my mate first, as retaliation. I had to take her with me or she would be killed too.”

  “This whole time you were under mind control?”

  “Yes.” And then he continued to tell them all the same stories of the last fourteen years he’d told his Bride. And when he was finished the three warriors stared at him with the same disbelieving look his Bride had been subjecting him to for the last few diurnals.

  Melachine stepped forward. “I can’t trust you. I don’t know what parts of your story are the truth and which are lies.”

  “I am telling you the truth.”

  “But what part of what happened were really you? What parts were caused by the Hurlians messing with your mind and which were you? I don’t know the real you anymore. Because even when you’d been freed you took me and didn’t tell me everything. I fear you’ve still been lying to me. And look at all the destruction you’ve caused.”

  “Melachine.”

  “You haven’t made amends with your sons. You haven’t met your grandchildren. Look at Kayzon. Look what happened to our son as a result of his disbursement. I feel like you’ve still only been thinking of yourself. You took me and left them behind without thinking of the consequences of them all losing their parents yet again. What kind of response is that?”

  He stood there, stunned.

  She shook her head, as if she was disgusted that he’d never seen it this way before. “You think only of yourself, Kroga. I can’t be with a male like that. It will only lead to future heartache.”

  “But you are my Bride, I can’t live without my Bride.”

  “If you were under mind control, you didn’t truly experience our separation. But I did. And, Kroga, we lived without each other for fourteen years. I survived that, I can survive another separation. You can stay here, but I’m leaving and going back. And I’m taking the cats with me too. It’s time for you to feel what it’s like to live on your own, without anyone, with everyone you love stripped from you. Only then can you truly understand what you put us through.”

  And then she left and she was gone, forever.

  7

  There was a sharp rap on the door to his quarters, which Kroga chose to ignore. The computer had already alerted him to the fact that an intruder had arrived in the transporter room, alone. But then the knock upgraded to a violent pounding.

  “Open the damn door,” his eldest son bellowed at him.

  Kroga forced himself to ignore the pain throbbing in his head as he stood on shaky feet. He shuffled across the room, kicking aside trash as he went. A growl rumbled in his chest. They’d all left him behind and ignored him for an entire moon cycle and he’d assumed this meant forever. He slammed his claw on the panel and opened the door.

  Rayzor looked him up and down. “You look like the fires of hell,” he commented, then brushed past Kroga and stormed insid
e. He glanced around at the cluttered room, inhaled, and wrinkled his nose. “What is happening here?”

  Kroga licked his cracked lips and rasped out an answer. “What does it look like? I’m drinking myself to death. And if that doesn’t work then a blaster to the head should do the job.”

  Rayzor’s lip curled in disgust. “Look at you. You are acting like a warrior without honor.”

  Kroga ran a claw over his dirty braids. “My lack of honor has already been established.”

  A muscle ticked in Rayzor’s jaw. “I purposely came here alone, without Kayzon or Joyzal, because I’d heard rumors you’d plummeted to this level, and I didn’t want anyone else to see you this way.”

  “What do I care what anyone thinks?” he growled. Although, his hearts were both hurting at Rayzor’s statement, which was exactly why he needed more ale. Where was it? Kroga turned and knocked over an empty tankard. “Dammit,” he muttered. He’d have to go back out to get more ale from the food dispenser. And the mess hall was so far away…

  “You cannot do this to yourself. You have to stop.”

  Kroga turned and narrowed his eyes at his eldest son. Rayzor had disowned him. Kayzon had told him to his face that Kroga was no longer of his line and not his father. And his Bride had left him. It had been the worst day of his life. “What do you care what happens to me? You’ve already made it clear that I am no longer a part of your life.”

  Rayzor knocked dirty clothes off a chair and sat down. “It’s true, we were angry. I didn’t believe you at first when you tried to tell us you’d been captured and used against your will by the Hurlians. You said they’d implanted you with some kind of sophisticated mind control device and essentially turned you into an organic cyborg, doing their bidding. You have to admit it sounded fantastical and oh so very convenient.”

  Kroga snorted. “I told you the truth and you didn’t believe me.”

  “Yes. And neither did my mother or Kayzon. Or anyone else. None of us believed you.”

  “Let’s not revisit that day,” Kroga said, stopping in front of a forgotten tankard he’d found on a shelf, one fourth full of stale ale. He paused to chug the whole thing down.

  “After I returned home to my farm, I had time to reflect on your story. My Bride, who is very wise, pointed out that I had to at least verify your claims as either true or false if I was going to move on with my own life. So, I have since taken the time to check on every claim you made regarding your capture. I checked timelines, vids and textual transcripts. I also checked your medical records, using the scan of your body loaded into the med bay on your facility here in the Swirl.”

  Kroga wiped his mouth with the back of his claw. “And…”

  Rayzor took a deep breath, glanced at the ceiling, then admitted, “You were telling the truth. The Hurlians had an extremely advanced mind control device implanted in your brain, like nothing anyone has ever seen before. None of what you did was under your free will. You were a warrior trapped in a body that was used for nefarious purposes and you had no way to stop what was happening.”

  Kroga’s jaw dropped. Hot tears formed behind his eyes. For fourteen long years he’d been the toy of the Hurlians and no one had noticed, no one had tried to help. Everyone had easily believed he could do those unspeakable acts and believed the lies the Hurlian intelligence had spread about him. Meanwhile, he’d been trapped, without his mate and living a lie that was destroying his line.

  “Turns out you aren’t a criminal mastermind after all,” his son noted.

  Kroga walked over and sat heavily in the chair next to Rayzor. “I don’t have the device anymore either. Once it was removed, I ordered the computer to burn it in the incinerator. I was concerned it might have a tracker or that it could possibly reinitialize.”

  “Good… And I am here to formally apologize to you for my former harsh treatment,” Rayzor concluded. “I thought you were a traitor to Chronos who was trying to kill my mother.”

  “I understand,” Kroga answered steadily. And he did. And he was so fucking proud of his sons and what they’d done to keep their mother safe. And for the fact that they were both fierce warriors who implicitly followed the honor code despite the hardships that had been thrown their way.

  “Do you accept my apology?” Rayzor asked.

  Kroga bent forward and braced his elbows on his knees and bowed his head. “Of course I do,” he replied, then glanced up at his son. “Do you accept mine?”

  “Father,” Rayzor responded gently. “There is nothing to apologize for; you were not able to control what happened.”

  A sudden spark of rage lit inside, and Kroga sat up and pounded a fist against his chest. “No,” he raged. “It was me. That is what your mother said. That is what everyone outside that door thinks.”

  “This is what you think of yourself?”

  “My body and mind were used to commit unspeakable crimes,” he croaked, “and I was too weak to make it stop. The High Command is right, I do not deserve to live.”

  “That is not true.”

  “If the High Command was able to reach me here, they would execute me, as is their right. Instead, I will finish the job for them.”

  “No.” Rayzor shook his head. “Everything has changed. This is the last time I can come here like this. The Swirl is about to be closed to me. The hacker I hired has, not surprisingly, been arrested for hacking into the Gravian securities financial mainframe and finding a way to give out the personal information of billions of beings. So, he’s in prison now. He was the only one with the knowledge on how to get into locked transporters and safely use industrial grade transporters on sentient beings. It’s looking like this information will die with him. This is our last chance to come and go from this section easily. When I leave here, that’s it, I’m never coming back, and I’m taking you with me. I need for you to shut down this facility, put this business up for sale and leave the Swirl for good and never return. You will come back to the four sectors and restart your life.”

  “I cannot. What I did cannot be forgiven.”

  “It can.”

  “No.”

  “Yes, it can. I used the resources of the Bounty Hunter Guild in order to find evidence to exonerate you and I’ve already sent it to Zhoryan of Seventy-Five and also to the High Command. A tribunal of judges is reviewing it right now. Zhoryan has already communicated with me that their initial review includes a judgment of innocence. Your overall exoneration on Chronos is in the works.”

  “No. I am the butcher of Cordova. Kroga the traitor. All Xylan hate me, no matter their caste.”

  “It is true that you are the most hated individual in the four sectors. But you have the opportunity to now instead become ‘Kroga the Redeemed.’ Although, I do not recommend you relocate to Chronos because gaining forgiveness and correcting your reputation there will take the rest of your lifetime, but you can restart elsewhere, in a location where you can at least become a daily part of your immediate line.”

  Kroga placed a claw over his heavy hearts. “All I care about is the forgiveness of your mother,” he rasped. “I want my Bride back.”

  “Then come and get her.”

  8

  Three moon cycles later…

  The wind lashed Melachine’s face as she strode through the charming nighttime forest that bordered the distant edge of her son’s farm. She lifted her chin, enjoying the stinging slap of rain on her cheeks.

  One of the locals flapped its paws at her to turn back as she’d entered the dark forest. “Mistress,” it screeched with urgency, pointing at some sort of sign, “no one enters those woods at night, especially during the rainy season. Predators will devour you and a vicious storm is on its way. Please turn back. I fear for your safety.”

  She’d smiled, thanking the being for its concern and continued on.

  Strange.

  That had to be the fourth time a local had spotted her starting one of her regular nighttime walks and fretted over her safety. Yes, she’d had t
o leap over a wired fence in order to access this terrain, but still, all this worry over a simple forest? She shook her head and chuckled. These locals hadn’t seen real danger until they’d tried to traverse the Red Desert Canyons of Chronos.

  Melachine swung her arms, crooked at precise right angles, and picked up the pace of her exercise routine. The majority of this planet was covered with pristine natural landscape dominated with wild creatures, which was part of its charm. This was a lovely walk, especially after the suns set and she could see objects so sharply with her nighttime vision. She had no idea what the fuss was about.

  After she’d left the Swirl, she’d stayed for one moon cycle with her son Joyzal and his Bride on Zamarilla, the famed vacation destination planet. She’d cried the moment she’d been reunited with her granddaughter, Joy. That tiny girl was her everything. Melachine cried shamelessly the moment her arms went around the squiggling toddler. “Grandma,” Joy cried. “Lemme go, you holding me…owwwie.”

  Everyone had laughed.

  She’d missed so many moon cycles of Joy’s growth. The darling little girl was much bigger now. And godsdammit, she didn’t want to miss any more time with her family, especially with the sons she hadn’t seen for fourteen years.

  Melachine leapt over a fallen log, easily avoiding the spiked limbs. She glanced around, admiring the gorgeous scenery. This forest was simply stunning. Giant trees jutted up into the nighttime sky, the trunks larger than the width of three warriors. Wind continued to thrash the nearby branches and rain dripped off her hooded jacket. A creature howled ferociously in the distance, and then another one responded in a closer location. She inhaled a deep breath of the woodsy air. It reminded her of the Xylantic forests on Chronos. No wonder Rayzor had relocated here. Zamarian Prime was a very livable planet.