Tempest (Valos of Sonhadra Book 2)

by Poppy Rhys

Not that I cared. I didn’t care. Why was I even looking at him? He fucking abducted me!

  His playful expression turned incredulous when I bared teeth. That was easy to read.

  One of the four laughed. The mischievous looking one. Don’t ask me how I knew that, but the wicked gleam in his gaze bespoke the need to search out trouble.

  His left eye squinted as he smirked, slowly walking his predatory stare down to my toes and back up until it met my gaze. The skin at the nape of my neck tightened.

  His hair caught my attention. It was silver but not in the old-man-graying kind of way. It was a shimmery silver that reminded me of a fantasy character I’d imagined in the books I read that were pure escapism.

  It fell no longer than the edge of his double-horned jawline. Yeah, double-horned. It looked wind whipped as if he’d woken up with bed head and walked right into a hurricane. Despite my better judgment, I wanted to run my fingers through it, to tug on it and watch his reaction. Some part of me imagined that would rev him up.

  I shook myself, blinking repeatedly.

  That urge came out of nowhere and I was positive I’d been too long bereft of proper nutrition and water. Maybe the oxygen on this planet wasn’t so safe to breathe after all.

  I clearly suffered of oxygen deprivation.

  The fourth one took a step toward me, and I refused to show fear by retreating. He looked like Trouble—that’s what I’d dubbed the one with bed hair I needed to stay far, far away from—but only in the ways that he differed from Brick House and Kidnapper.

  His skin was lighter, a soft pale blue against a very hard body. They all had hard, fuckable, half-naked bodies.

  I exhaled a little too heavily.

  Get it together, Charlie. Reel it in.

  This one was Sex on a Stick. Alien Sex on a Stick. Stick for short.

  His silvery white hair was slightly longer than Trouble’s, with a thin braid that ended in a tiny pink shell dangling above his well-formed shoulder. His eyes held a calculating, analytical edge, as if he were trying to read me with gaze alone.

  He said something that made no sense to me.

  “Re o’k’ock.” His voice sounded smooth, low, and self-assured.

  My eyes touched on all four of them questioningly. “Excuse me?”

  “Re o’k’ock.”

  “Great,” I mumbled. These kidnapping aliens wanted to communicate with me and it sounded like he wanted to discuss rocks. Or cocks.

  I tilted my head. Who was I to judge?

  He took another step forward and I held my ground.

  “Re o’k’ock,” he repeated a third time, slower, like I was stupid.

  “Sure,” I nodded, wondering if he honestly thought I’d miraculously learned his language in the last five seconds since he spoke. “Whatever you say.”

  He lifted one sleek, silvery brow as if he was questioning my ability to hear well. “Re—”

  “Dosh!” an alarmed voice shouted from behind me, stealing the attention of all four guys.

  I whirled around just in time to see more alien men rushing. I assumed they were men, or very muscular women.

  There wasn’t time to be politically correct on alien gender because two of them grabbed me around the arms and hauled me through the forming crowd before my soggy brain could tell my body to fight.

  “Get your hands off me!” I shouted, kicking my dangling legs as their grip bit into my arms.

  Shit. There goes one of my shoes.

  My bright orange prison uniform clung to my skin like it was trying to suck the life out of me and inhibit my range of motion.

  I hoped they liked my camel toe. My uniform was determined to lodge itself right between my legs or my vagina was seriously hungry. It could’ve been either one, but I was painfully aware of it as dozens of eyes glued to my body like I was some deep-sea creature unknown to science.

  A buzz of voices in varying pitches and volumes hiked up around me as I was carried through the throng of very half-naked alien men who were closing in tightly. My gaze swung around, head falling back on my shoulders, but I couldn’t see them.

  Them. Brick House, Trouble, Kidnapper, and Stick. I didn’t care about them, I cared about me, but they were the only ones who were newly familiar, and while I didn’t trust any of them, they at least didn’t grab onto me and drag me through a hostile-looking mob!

  I needed to convince Kidnapper to take me back to the surface so I could find Preta and figure out a way to get off this planet safely.

  While I was being toted to what looked to be a town square in the middle of an underwater mermaid dome, I realized it was the same place I saw just before I lost consciousness.

  Breath left my lungs in a whoosh.

  Had I drowned?

  My body went rigid as I was hauled to a raised platform that looked like a giant, carved stone reef that was brightly painted with all the colors of a vibrant, thriving ecosystem awaiting the missing fat fish.

  They launched me to its flat, polished gray surface and into the arms of two more goons that made fast work of my wrists as they tied me to a post like some medieval witch about to be stoned to death.

  Oh fuck, I audibly groaned. Please don’t let them stone me to death.

  I had no idea who I was praying to because, again, I was most likely banned from all the prayer lines.

  It slightly helped to ease my irrational panic though. I just needed to calm down, think logically, get the fuck out of here, and swim through unknown, creature-infested waters even though I didn’t know where I was...

  I was fucked.

  I was going to die surrounded by aliens who lived under the sea.

  I breathed slowly. Obviously, I was a little on edge and it affected my ability to think reasonably. It didn’t help that the angry mob was staring daggers at me with their shark eyes that cried for blood. My blood.

  Just assuming, but why else tie me up like a sacrificial offering?

  Shit. I hoped that wasn’t true.

  I prayed again, knowing no one was listening, and hoping if anyone might’ve been, it wasn’t whatever deity these aliens spilled blood to.

  Minutes passed, and I thought I’d got myself in check. I’d moved on from sacrificial bloodletting, and settled into a semi-cushiony mindset somewhere between I-don’t-care and I’m-probably-going-to-die-but-I’m-not-thinking-about-it.

  They were still arguing with one another, gesturing wildly at me, just as they had been for the past while. My gaze roamed around, realizing this place—when not thinking about impending doom—looked beautiful.

  The transparent dome rose high above the city, and the dark cerulean waters glinted with rays of sunshine that penetrated its shallow depths. Schools of strange, multicolored fish swam by, double and triple fin clusters that looked like elegant lace and defied any Earth pictures I’d ever seen.

  Pink and purple and lime green seaweed swayed like towers, reaching toward the surface, straining to be kissed by the planet’s sun. The ocean teemed with life and the awe I felt jumped ahead of my fear that waited to explode.

  I didn’t know if I’d get out, if I’d survive, or how I’d swim my way back to the surface, or if I’d ever see Preta again, but I knew I’d never lay eyes on anything as stunning as this.

  Dwellings carved out of the same stone I stood upon rose from the white and black sand below, its grains dotted with large, crystalline pebbles shining a rainbow of colors.

  When I looked behind me, I realized the trench sprawled wider, stretching farther than I noticed before. More domed cities dotted the shallow but wide underwater valley. None were lit like this one.

  It was an entire underwater civilization. A huge civilization. Or it was. I didn’t know if more aliens occupied those other domes. They were too far away to make out any activity.

  “Death!”

  I jerked my head toward the angry mob as they argued, unsure if my ears deceived me.

  That’s when I spotted them. Brick, Stick, Trouble, and Kid!
>
  They lingered at the back of the crowd, their faces stony, cold, pissed, and their eyes on a particular member of the crowd.

  “Death!” I heard again.

  Goddammit, I wasn’t hearing things! There’d been all this conversation while I was off in la la land. My translator was listening, always listening, learning languages as it heard them.

  Obviously my death was a hot topic, because it was picking up the word left and right now, and my mind shifted back to escape mode. I couldn’t die tied up.

  I yanked on the ties. The dark, dried seaweed-looking rope was strong, stronger than I could handle without my full strength. Maybe not even at full strength.

  The more the word rang out, the more it became like a chant until it was.

  These aliens were chanting death.

  The two goons on the platform with me turned, their sights set on me like the people’s court had just decided my fate.

  I wouldn’t be killed by a flying bullet, a crashing prison ship, or Handsy, the awful prison guard, but at the hands of these aliens who knew nothing about me.

  That’s great. Real fucking great.

  Hands gripped my arm for the third time. I tensed, waiting for a blow, preparing to kick where I could when an opening presented itself.

  “Gemo’k lo to’ro!” Trouble roared, a frenzy in his eyes as he and the other three leapt onto the platform in a lithe movement that seemed impossible for their sizes.

  His eyes flickered a cloudy white, and an electric hum filled the air when his sparking palms gripped the goon who was touching me and tossed him lengths from the stage. My jaw dropped.

  Kidnapper lifted his foot, pulling back his knee and shoving it into the chest of the second goon—who oddly resembled him and Brick and the rest of the mob—before he was right in my personal space, his long fingers easily undoing the ties around my wrists.

  The four surrounded me, backs pressing in close, facing the mob that grew silent.

  “Sen,” growled Brick. Trouble and Stick began to spark—truly spark—with electricity like they were ready to rain down bolts of lightning from the non-existent stormy skies.

  Mostly dried flyaway hairs rose around my head like I was touching a live wire just being near those two.

  I had the overwhelming feeling that shit just got real.

  EIGHT

  ZAID

  “Protect,” was all I said, and my brothers were prepared to guard the small creature with me.

  Why am I doing this?

  I was unsure. This creature wasn’t Ghishwy. She wasn’t valo. At least, she didn’t resemble any valo any of us had ever seen, and we’d battled most races from various regions of this planet.

  It had been hundreds of cycles though. Had other Creators come back to begin anew? None of us spoke to the other races, not in a very long time. There was no need. The Creators had left, along with them their craving for pointless combat games.

  The crowd, our brethren, watched us warily. I could see the confusion in their eyes, in their shifting postures. None of us had taken an interest in anything since Ghishwy’s last battle.

  My skin prickled thinking about the beautiful storms the four of us wielded for our Creator against the Kahav—the earth valos. We warred for days, wreaking destruction—those valos worthy opponents—before both Creators agreed to a draw.

  At the edge of my vision, Kahn lit up brighter than I’d seen him in many cycles. His arms glowed with a charging electricity that hummed the need to discharge, making the air crackle around us.

  I felt a familiar shiver trace my skin with anticipation.

  No, I can’t.

  It would be wrong to battle against my brethren. What were we thinking?

  A moment of clarity had my eyes blinking, but I was immovable. My body remained poised to fight, the ocean calling the song of Ghishwy, begging me to follow.

  “She is not Ghishwy in another form,” Lonan calmly told Riv, the one who sounded the warning when he saw the creature currently behind us.

  “Then what is it?”

  “She,” Dason corrected irritably. I refrained from groaning. We wouldn’t be on the brink of a civil war if he’d just listen to us and stop taking things—borrowing, he insisted—that didn’t belong to him.

  Now look at us. Raising arms against our people when we should be on their side, ridding ourselves of the foreigner in our midst.

  I could feel her at my back, and I was all too aware of her strange presence. I convinced myself it was nothing of note.

  It had simply been too long since I’d experienced a touch that wasn’t clashing forearms with my brothers or brushing against the beasts of the sea.

  The remaining valos women avoided me—and my closest brethren standing at my sides—for fear Ghishwy would return and obliterate them for touching her prized soldiers.

  It hadn’t always been this way.

  I realized the she-creature didn’t touch me, but assaulted me. I hadn’t determined if she possessed an addled mind yet. Regardless, it was contact.

  I craved for her to assault me again.

  WHAT WERE THEY SAYING? The crowd seemed less hostile once Brick, Stick, Trouble, and Kid crowded my personal space and kept the others away.

  There was a lull in the conversation.

  “Listen,” I said to their backs, shaking off the rest of the seaweed rope. “Obviously these people want me gone, and I’m inclined to agr—”

  Brick pinned me with a broody glare over his shoulder that clearly said shut up.

  My mouth snapped closed.

  I could feel the tension. It could be coming from Trouble as his arms glowed blue with flickering currents of electricity, but I didn’t think so.

  I tried to smooth down the dry flyaway hairs and get them to behave with the rest of my damp hair with no luck. They kept springing back up.

  The wedgie between my legs was begging for me to do a weird spread-and-shake-a-leg move, but I held back. My vagina obviously didn’t care about my feelings.

  More tense conversation had my ears straining. I wished I knew what they were saying. My translator had only learned the word death so far, and it hadn’t been said again. Thankfully.

  “Thu nir’k re’k’ek mio,” Stick lowly vibrated. The language sounded guttural and ugly to my ears. His thick, shoulder-length silver locks brushed against his muscled back. I’d noticed all of them were shirtless, only bothering to wear the strange black, capri-like pants.

  The old Jack Sprat nursery rhyme suddenly popped to mind.

  These four had no fat on them. Their tight pants left nothing to the imagination, the fabric sculpted to every bulge and curve.

  Kidnapper’s ass cheeks slightly indented on the sides while Brick’s was a mouthwatering, hard, he-must-do-squats kind of ass.

  I couldn’t decide which one I found most pleasing. They were equally enticing.

  And Stick’s deep back dimples on either side of his spine peeked above his pants, asking to be caressed.

  What was that sound?

  Trouble tossed a glance at me, catching me staring at Stick’s ass, and his mouth curved into what I’d consider a cocky grin. That made me uncomfortable.

  Then I realized...

  It was me! It was me that was making the sound.

  I’d moaned aloud!

  “I need to get off this planet,” I whispered, mostly to myself. I was losing my mind.

  KAHN

  “We should imprison her,” Riv suggested, his suspicions obvious that the she-creature wasn’t Ghishwy in another form. Other brethren nodded, liking the idea.

  Followers.

  I clenched my jaw and looked over my shoulder to view the foreigner we were discussing. She was avidly observing Lonan’s body, a strange moan vibrating in her throat.

  She caught my stare. I smirked, amused.

  Ghishwy made sounds like that when she saw something she wanted. Badly.

  Maybe Riv was right to be suspicious. I wasn’t sure about the she
-creature either, but until that moment, I didn’t suspect her to be our Creator.

  She shared similarities with Ghishwy. Mainly her fearless actions—no one assaulted Zaid and remained in one piece outside our group—and her unabashed stare. What more did she have in common with our Creator?

  If it was Ghishwy, I doubted she would’ve let anyone tie her to a post and debate her death or imprisonment. She’d know exactly what we were discussing, and we’d all be regretting it right now. Our Creator was too prideful to play dumb, and her love of power and control would be too tempting. She would’ve already forced us to our knees, proudly displaying her superiority.

  No, this wasn’t Ghishwy.

  “If she is not Ghishwy,” Riv continued, not being struck down plainly giving him the courage to carry on, “then it will not matter.”

  “I found her.” Dason bared his teeth in a show of aggression I hadn’t seen from him since our last battle. “She is not yours to imprison!”

  The currents roving over my charged arms buzzed enthusiastically. I think Dason was eager to play with her.

  She stirred at my back while our brethren shifted with barely contained outrage in front of us.

  After seeing her assault Zaid, I think we all wanted to play with her.

  Hundreds of cycles had gone by since we’d felt the touch of a female. I wondered what she would be like under our hands. Eager? Shy? Rough?

  I was willing to bet a perfect storm she liked raking her nails over the skin of her lovers.

  A small, accidental bolt shot from my fingers and into the stone below us, creating a crack in its polished surface.

  Riv took a step back, undoubtedly believing I was warning him.

  I wasn’t even embarrassed, but I knew Lonan was staring at me, wondering why the hell I just did that.

  I swallowed a groan, and geared my thoughts to the present. Imagining the she-creature being shared between us wasn’t what I needed to focus on right now.

  It was nearly impossible once the thought entered my mind. I was curious to see what lay underneath her orange encasing. The small contact with her chest when she breathed back to life created a craving I hadn’t felt since Ghishwy abandoned us.