The Beast's Chosen (Astral Heat Book 3)

by Hunter, Ashley

  The Beast’s Chosen

  Astral Heat Book 3

  Ashley Hunter

  Copyright 2017 by Ashley Hunter

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced

  in any way whatsoever, without written permission

  from the author, except in case of brief

  quotations embodied in critical reviews

  and articles.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any

  character, person, living or dead, events, place or

  organizations is purely coincidental. The author does not

  have any control over and does not assume any responsibility

  for third party websites or their content.

  First edition, 2017

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter One

  “Son of a-”

  Amber ducked out of the way as rubble fell from above. Sparks flew off open electrical lines as a surge shook the earth. In the dim tunnel created by debris, light barely came in through cracks, but it was enough to light the way for her.

  “I’m either going to die of starvation, or electrocution,” she muttered, swiping a hand over her face to wipe away the building grime. It was useless—all she did was spread it around. It had been a week since she’d ventured out of her hideout, and her face and hair definitely showed that.

  And if it weren’t for the earthquakes that were causing the destroyed building to shift, she wouldn’t be leaving it. She had enough food and water stored in there to last her at least another week. Just to be safe, though, she was evacuating. At least until the shakes were done.

  When the rubble had settled after another tremor, she carefully crawled under the wire. She did it every time she had to leave her hideout, but it never got easier for her. That wire was the last obstacle in her journey to be free.

  Well, not free.

  She hid under the rubble willingly. It was the safest, most unassuming place she could think to hide from the Rahseal aliens. Before the building had collapsed, they’d gotten reports of aliens invading her town. Blowing up buildings, killing any human on site, setting up base in their ships… Her town had been conquered by the aliens in classical fashion.

  After the office building had collapsed weeks ago, she’d been trapped under it for hours. Disorientated, afraid, and so sore her shoulders ached when she moved them, it had taken her a few minutes to realize what had happened.

  Her building had been attacked. One of the last few to stay up through the attack of the Rahseal aliens, her coworkers had been preparing for the explosion for days—weeks, even. The news station had tried to keep the business running for as long as possible, and had known that most likely, their lives would go down with the building.

  And they had. All except Amber’s, at least. She’d tried so hard to get to her coworkers, but they’d been cut off completely from her. Eventually, she had to block out the sounds of their dying screams.

  Amber had been up front and close for most of the war. Her job had been her life. It had been the only thing left for her to live for. Her family was gone, her friends were gone. Reporting and hopefully saving more families had been her only purpose.

  Why she kept going now was beyond her—all she did now was hide and pray. She prayed that she lived to the end of the war, and prayed that she wasn’t caught by the aliens. She had seen them up close, closer than most had—and most of the time, if you were that close to an alien, you were dead seconds after.

  The war was brutal, to say the least.

  Rahseal aliens from the planet Asirira had invaded Earth shortly after contact had been made. A genius teenager had hacked into NASA’s satellites, and had jokingly sent a message into the deep reaches of space. No one had been aware of it until Asiriria’s military commander had responded.

  After weeks of deciphering, Earth finally came to the conclusion that they would soon be under attack.

  That had been twenty years ago. At seven years old, she’d barely understood what was going on—but by the time she was twenty, with her mother and father gone, she had known exactly what war was, what it did, and how it was played.

  No one survived. No one was valuable. It was kill, or be killed—or, what Amber was doing, which was hide. She hid, and so far, it was working out pretty great—she just didn’t know how much longer it could go on for.

  Amber kept crawling until she saw the first full ray of sunshine. Her eyes ached at the brightness. She was so unused to the sun by now that it took several minutes for her eyes to adjust. But when they did, she wished they hadn’t.

  “Oh, no…”

  A spaceship. One of the Rahseal’s commanding vessels. It was only a block from her hideout, so close she could see the glittering panels that made up the ship. She’d never seen one so close, but she knew about them.

  “This isn’t happening,” she murmured, dirty hand covering her mouth. “This can’t be happening.”

  But it was, and it was happening now. The tremors she’d felt hadn’t been because of an earthquake, but because of the ship. It must have been landing and caused the building to shake. Her heart sank to her stomach.

  “I’m going to die.” She scrambled back into the exit she’d come out of, panic rushing through her. The aliens were going to figure out there was a human living under the rubble, and then they were going to torture her. Woman or not, they would kill her. She’d seen them kill children, animals, older people. Nothing would stop them from getting rid of her.

  In the war between the humans and the aliens, she was nothing.

  And soon, her life would be nothing.

  That didn’t mean she couldn’t try, at least. She had managed to live this long in a war ridden world. She couldn’t give up that easily.

  Forcing herself not to cry, she crawled back into the hole. She didn’t take her time past the open wire, just slid under it and went back through all the obstacles until she reached her hideout. The small cove had cans of food and bottles of water lining the makeshift walls. There were clothes, utensils, anything useful she had managed to find on her rare expeditions into the destroyed town.

  “Weapon,” she whispered, riffling through all of her things. Quick, she had to be quick. The tremors had started a half hour ago, and they had landed only yards from her. It would take them no time to find her. It would take them no time to kill her. “Weapon, weapon, weapon…”

  Through all of her hysterical mumbling, she didn’t notice the shifting of the debris. She didn’t notice the sound of grinding metal, didn’t notice as more light filled cove, or as a presence came up behind her.

  But she did notice when something grabbed her by the shoulder.

  Chapter Two

  The scream lodged in her throat. Fear unlike anything she’d felt before rushed to her head, her hands, her feet, causing her to lash out. Acting on pure instinct, she threw her arm back—but a second hand caught that one. Amber turned around quickly, tears of panic stinging her eyes.

  “Don’t touch me!” She tried to yank her arm back, but the grip that held it was too strong. Whoever had grabbed her yanked her body against his, and even in the dark, she could make out the features—and knew without a doubt that this was an alien.

  She tried to push away from him, but it was useless. His grip was too strong—and if she were honest with herself, sh
e didn’t try as hard as she could to get away from him. Deep down, she knew it wouldn’t do any good. Deep down, she knew that if she angered him, he would kill her without a second thought. Deep down, she’d known this day would eventually come.

  Swallowing thickly, she searched his eyes for any trace of mercy, for any trace of humanity. They were beautiful and brown, just like the rest of him. Every alien she had ever seen, on and off camera, had been unbelievably gorgeous—and this one was no different—except for something she’d never seen from an alien before.

  He had four arms. Two on each side, one above the other. The lower arm of each side was holding her still. The top two arms were crossed over his barrel chest. His outfit was covered in black material. It looked like spandex, but it was thicker and had a particular pattern on it from the stitching.

  “Please let me go,” she whispered. The alien’s head drew back, tilting to the side—and then a sick, terrifying smile spread over his face.

  There was no mercy there. There was no humanity there. Of course there wasn’t—the Rahseal aliens were known for their depravity. It seemed the one thing they enjoyed above all else was torturing humans. He laughed, then picked her up and slung her over his shoulder.

  “No!” she screamed, pushing at him, trying to get away. “Just let me go! Please, I’ll leave! You can have this hideout for yourself—just please let me go!”

  It did nothing. Of course it didn’t. He kept carrying her, using his alien strength to throw things out of the way. Whereas she’d had to crawl to get out of her hideout, he just tossed things aside to make a path for them. They really did have incredible strength, she thought.

  Amber might have reported everything she could about the aliens, but that didn’t mean she believed half of the rumors shot her way. Any video taken of them was mostly ruined—because the only time one saw an alien, was when they were coming your way to kill you.

  As he carried her away from the hideout, she tried to calm herself. Escape—she had to escape. If she didn’t, they were going to kill her. The farther out they went, the more male voices she heard.

  They weren’t speaking human.

  Their language was strange, something she’d never heard before. Their native tongue, Asirian, was beautiful to listen to. Or it would be, if it weren’t for the fact that they were probably discussing how best to torture a human, which brought her back to the matter at hand.

  How to escape, and when.

  She couldn’t do it right now—even if she managed to get out of this alien’s grasp, he would catch her practically right away. That, and he would probably call out for help in catching her. Escaping now was a no-go.

  She would have to wait this out and find the right time. If she pretended to be helpless—which, if she were honest with herself, she sort of was at this point—they might put less security on her. Or, better yet, release her once they realized she was a wimp. If they didn’t do that, however, she had a backup plan.

  In her few weeks hiding under the debris of her fallen building, she’d learned a thing or two about escape routes, and there were plenty for her to go through that she was sure the aliens didn’t know about. She would just have to pray they didn’t tie her up.

  The closer she got, the louder the voices got. When they rounded the corner and she was finally noticed, all conversation stopped.

  Every single eye landed on her. She had to force herself to stay calm. To not freak out. To not cry and scream and beg them to get her go. If there was one thing she’d learned about the aliens, it was that they got off on begging.

  Although, the more she took in the scene before her, the more her instincts screamed at her to do exactly that.

  The area the alien had brought her to was not something she’d seen before in her adventures. The space vessel was also something she’d not seen before. The vessel looked like a giant orb, and was about the side of four football fields. She could only see a portion of it, though, because it had smashed into the earth so forcefully that it had gone under the ground and made a crater.

  Without warning, the alien who’d carried her into the fray tossed her on the ground. She cursed, barely catching herself before her head slammed into the ground. She stayed there, frozen like a deer caught in headlights.

  It was foolish of her to think that maybe staying still would keep them from killing her, but it was all she had to work with.

  Then, before she had time to process what was happening, a loud cry went up into the air. More aliens followed that cry, giving their own. As it rang in the area, she felt her heart slide to her throat. Before she could drag herself to her knees, that same alien that had dropped her pulled back his knee.

  “No-” She didn’t get a chance to finish begging before he drove his foot into her side.

  It had been a battle cry, she vaguely realized as pain assailed her. She grabbed her side, hunching over. Air…where was the air? She gasped, trying to manage her way through the pain, but even breathing techniques didn’t work.

  Before she knew what was happening, two more aliens joined in. But this time, it wasn’t just their feet. One dragged her up by her shirt collar, holding her above the air. As handsome as he naturally was, all she saw was the devil as he smiled at her.

  That smile was cruel and filled with pain, pain that she knew she was going to feel.

  Amber wanted to cry out, but she couldn’t—not with her being held above the ground like this.

  The alien spoke to her in Asirian, and then he tossed her closer to the vessel, to the larger group of aliens.

  She stared up at him, holding her sore throat.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” she said softly, hoping that at least one of them would understand her. “Please. I won’t-”

  She cut herself off as one of the aliens pulled out a blade and twirled it through his fingers. He moved it so quickly that all she saw was a metallic blur laced with blue, and when he held it up to her face, she saw why.

  The blade was beautiful. It was made out of a foreign black metal with a neon blue design that glowed in the center, and she forced herself to focus on the intricacy of the blade. She had to have a focal point, had to have something to distract her from the fact that the aliens were going to slice her into pieces.

  They attacked. Like she’d known they would, the aliens played with her like she was a toy. She tried not to give in, tried not to cry or scream—but that only lasted for a moment. Like a starving pack of dogs, the aliens attacked her like she was a piece of meat.

  Amber tried to fight, at first. But eventually she just gave up. There was no use in fighting if she was only going to die. Her only consolation was that they didn’t use any weapons on her. The alien who had pulled out the blade had quickly tossed it aside when he’d realized using his hands was a lot more fun.

  It went on for what felt like ages, and she felt like it would only keep going.

  At least, that’s what she thought until all of the aliens stopped attacking in unison. As if the hungry dog pack had been called back to heel, the aliens grudgingly stepped back. She stared at them from her crumpled spot on the ground—or tried to. It was hard to keep her eyes open when one was swollen shut, and the other was about there.

  It was then that she heard it. The furious roar. The sound that had called off the aliens from killing her.

  With the amount of pain she was in, she’d wished they’d finished the job.

  The pain was so intense at this point that she knew trying to move was useless. The tears had stopped falling down her cheeks. The blood didn’t bother her anymore, and she felt no shame as she gasped for breath.

  An alien spit at her in disgust. She gave up keeping her eyes open. There was on use. All she could see was alien fists covered in her own blood, her own hair stuck between their fingers. All she saw was hate and disgust.

  Something touched her and before she could stop herself, she flinched. Above her head, she heard a strong Asirian voice speaking—no, yelling. A
ngrily. At her?

  Amber didn’t know. Didn’t care. She knew the aliens weren’t done with her.

  Giant hands touched her shoulder, rolling her over. She inhaled sharply, partly from the pain that caused, and partly in anticipation of more. She kept waiting, not daring to open her eyes. Hell, she didn’t think she could open them at this point even if she wanted to.

  Then something different happened. Hands slid under her body. One behind her shoulders, another behind her knees. Then two more came. Another under the back of her head, and another under her bottom. Was it two aliens, or just one?

  She didn’t have time to figure out her own question before she blacked out.

  Chapter Three

  Something cool touched her forehead, and the sensation whispered over her temples, jaw, neck. It went down her arms and hands, and didn’t stop until she stirred. Whatever was touching her stopped.

  Good.

  I’m trying to sleep, she wanted to say. But she was too exhausted. Too tired. Amber rolled onto her side—and nearly cried out at when her muscles seemed to set themselves on fire.

  “Lay back, woman.”

  She realized several things at once, the first being an alien was sitting next to her. The second being that she was in a strange room, and the third being that she was naked with only a sheet to cover her.

  “Am I dead?” she asked. She had to be. An alien wouldn’t be sitting next to her and wiping her down with a cloth. An alien wouldn’t let her just sit there. An alien wouldn’t let her live without feeling pain every second of every minute.

  “No. But you need to lay down.” The alien put a hand on her shoulder and tried to lay her back. She fought against him, scooting back until her back was against the wall—which was a bad idea, because it was cold. The entire room was cold, she realized.

  The sheet wasn’t doing anything to keep her warm.

  “I have to be,” she said, looking him up and down. He was a classic alien—beautiful to the point of being painful to look at, incredibly tall, and incredibly big. His arms were as thick as her head. His chest was the size of a boulder. He was more handsome than the ones she’d seen previously, but that didn’t stop her from being terrified of him.