by Jenny Foster
The Human
A SciFi Alien Romance
Betania Breed Book Three
Jenny Foster
Copyright © Jenny Foster
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.
The characters, places, and events portrayed in this book are completely fictional and are in no way meant to represent real people or places.
Warning: This story contains mature themes and language. It is intended to be enjoyed by an 18+ audience only.
ISBN-13: 978-1986121774
ISBN-10: 1986121771
Dear Readers
In “The Human”, you are holding the third book in the Betania Breed series in your hands. It doesn’t matter if this is the first book in the series that you are reading, or your third. All of the books can be read independently of each other. You won’t miss anything important.
The subject of mind reading is the common thread between these single volumes, and every book is about a new set of lovers and their struggles to get together.
I think, however, that you will enjoy these books even more if you begin with “The Captive,” followed by “The Prey”.
Betania Breed reading order:
The Captive
The Prey
The Human
The Dragon
No matter what you decide, I hope you enjoy reading “The Human”.
Yours truly,
Jenny Foster
About this Novel
My orders are simple.
Bring the human female to my king.
A routine job for me – or so I thought.
I am Talon Delkhari.
I was the mightiest warlord of my people, until I dared to contradict my king. Instead of granting me an honorable death in the fight against our enemies, he made me his chamberlain instead. It is my job to ensure the safety of his women.
His newest conquest is from Earth. He won her in a poker game, and I am supposed to deliver her safely to his bed. An easy assignment for someone like me. That’s what I thought, anyway, until this human woman awakened the predator lurking under my skin, and it claimed her for itself.
She is different to all of the other women I know.
She can see the animal in me.
She looks at me without fear.
Her scent follows me into my dreams, and even though I know that she can never belong to me, I can’t take my eyes off her.
My loyalty to my people and my sense of duty, however, are stronger than the beast under my skin that yearns for her...
Contents
The Human
Part 1:
The Encounter
Part 2:
His Companion
Part 3:
The Ally
Part 4:
The Protector
~
Mysterious Background Material
Sneak Peek Volume IV
More Romance Reads
The Author
Part 1: The Encounter
Chapter 1
Talon Delkhari looked at the papers one last time and tried to discern what kind of woman he would be picking up from Earth in a few minutes. The Poker Games Limited, PGL for short, promised grandiose suspense until the last minute, and denied its participants any pictures of the female species that were being raffled off. The paying clientele – the masters of creation – received nothing other than a certificate of health, a declaration of age, and an exact determination of race. And that, Talon thought, as he adjusted his uniform absentmindedly, was precisely the draw – the appeal of this bold undertaking. It was not for a battle-hardened warrior like him. If he ever found a companion, the things he wished for more than anything, were reliability and healthy offspring. He silently cursed his king who had entrusted him with picking up his new bride and delivering her safely to Kanthari 7. Not only was it below a man of his caliber to have to take care of a woman who had been the prize in a round of interstellar poker, but it also cost him valuable time that he would rather have spent doing something more worthwhile… like hunting the space pirates who were getting more and more cocky, to the point that they wouldn’t even stop for a Kantharian ship anymore.
He should have just kept his mouth shut. Then he wouldn’t be in this situation, having to pick up a woman from Earth. Instead, he could be running drills with his men, fighting, or trying a new strategy in the fight against the buccaneers. When his king had asked him to analyze his – the king’s – tactics from the last campaign, Talon had not minced his words. Ferthoris III had the epithet “The Wise” in his title, but he hadn’t lived up to the supplemental name he had chosen for himself. He had made the mistakes of an absolute beginner, and it had cost him the lives of hundreds of his battle-hardened warriors. A very high price to pay just to satisfy the vanity of one man, who hadn’t the first clue about the high art of waging war.
When the waves had calmed a little after the disaster, the king had approached him, his most experienced fighter, and in a strange moment of self-awareness, had asked him for suggestions for improvement. Talon should have known that his ruler would not tolerate even the slightest criticism of himself and his glory, no matter how justified it was.
Talon was lucky that the king hadn’t beheaded him. He was sure that that had been his first impulse. Instead, Ferthoris had chosen a subtler form of punishment. He, the king’s underling, once a battle-tested warrior with the rank of general, had been named the king’s official bride collector. The Earthly woman was now the third female creature he was picking up from a strange planet, in as many years. A beheading might have been a better choice after all, Talon thought. The insatiable ruler of Kanthari 7 had made him his harem guard, and the proud soldier liked this about as much as he would have liked losing his manhood directly. Maybe it was time for a fight for supremacy. If he didn’t have such a strong sense of duty, and an aversion to the diplomatic responsibilities that came with being a king, he would have challenged Ferthoris twice already. Once for each bride he had delivered to the king’s bed.
Now the third woman was waiting for his arrival. He clenched his teeth and let out a dull growl. One look at the chronometer told him that she would be approaching the predetermined spot at any second now, assuming, of course, that she was punctual. Talon got up and checked to make sure that his laser pistol was loaded. The battery was fully charged and the beam intensity was set to medium. This would put any victim out of commission for a long time, rather than kill him or her. In his world, humans were considered unpredictable and emotional – surely a reason why Ferthoris had taken part in this absurd poker game to begin with. His women were all very tame creatures – subservient and always ready to feed his ego. The only one who had ever dared offer any resistance had had one tentacle removed for every defiant word. Talon shivered, partly because of his king’s senseless cruelty, and partly because of his preference for exotic female creatures. Women were to Ferthoris as scars were to Talon: trophies and accolades. With one difference. The king romped about in silk sheets while Talon made a name for himself on the battlefield. He shook his head. Tentacles! Really. Could it get any more absurd? The Kantharians were children of the sun and the desert, and as such, they never showed any desire to get involved with slimy fish women, at least not usually.
He looked at the chronometer again. Just then, his intercommunicative DIP that connected him with the entire crew, buzzed. His first officer’s face appeared on the armband Talon wore on his wrist.
“Sir, it is time,” the distorted voice crackled from the tiny loudspeaker.
“The glider ship is ready for departure.” Talon looked in the mirror one last time. As a representative of the king, he needed to look flawless. His uniform fit him perfectly and his face showed nothing of the reluctance he felt. It wouldn’t make sense, and would be extremely unwise, to anger the woman whose future influence with the king he had no way of being able to gauge yet.
****
Catherine Burke marched, her head held high, towards the abandoned building at the edge of the city. This was the meeting place they had given her. The company that organized the absurd poker games made a huge deal over secrecy, something she had already confirmed with her signature on the participant’s certificate.
Cat had only found out about the “woman poker”, as her colleague had called it, because Martin was a total gossip. After swearing her to complete secrecy, he had told her about his cousin who had participated, and in doing so, had saved her family from a year-long jail sentence. The organizers paid generously for healthy, young women, and lured them with the promise of a safe existence at the side of a husband. Although Cat had asked herself what kind of men these guys were, who wanted to win a wife in a game of chance, anything was better than continuing to live on Earth. Every day brought memories with it that took her further and further into the abyss of self-hate, and every night brought nightmares of the dead coming out for revenge. She just couldn’t keep going like this. Instead of throwing herself into a stinking and polluted river, this escape had presented itself to Cat. The PGL had been suspicious, initially, when she had mentioned her talent, and had insisted on numerous tests. When the doctor examined her thoroughly, she had seen his eyes light up. At that point, she knew that the usual wait time until receiving the final consent, was just pro forma.
Should she ever decide to return to Earth, she had a lot of money waiting for her in an account. In the meantime, it would grow rapidly. As an orphan without any living siblings, she had nobody she could spend the money on. Ninety-nine percent of the charity organizations on Earth were disguised arms of the government. They used any money entrusted to them to finance new weapons technology, unspeakable experiments on humans and animals, or on expensive whores for politicians of both genders. She could have burned all of her money and still inflicted less damage than if she had donated it.
For a second she thought she could make out some movement in the heavy snow squalls, but when she stopped to take a closer look, there was nothing to see. This was the building where she was supposed to meet her future husband. It was cloaked in silent darkness. She was already so close to it that she could see the damage left behind from the last war. The weathered writing above the entrance, flanked on either side by pompous pillars, told her that this building had once been the main library of the capital. Now it was lonely and abandoned. In the chaotic years since the collapse, nobody had bothered to loot the library. Resources like water and food had been more important than books that told of adventures from long ago. Cat sighed silently and looked around, cursing the ridiculous secrecy clause. She was freezing. She was too excited to be tired, and the long walk from the city had exhausted her. If the money hadn’t already arrived at a secure offshore account, she might have thought that Martin had played a well-meant, but over-the-top joke on her.
The sensitive skin on the back of her neck prickled. She felt like someone was watching her. It took all of her willpower not to turn around and run away as fast as her legs would carry her. Without drawing attention to herself, she tried to see something in the intact windowpane in front of her. The gray-yellow flakes prevented her from seeing anything that was more than ten feet away, but Cat thought she heard a low growl, like from a large animal. Her heart was beating so hard that she thought it might burst. The only weapon she had brought with her was hidden in her knee-high boots, but if she leaned forward to get it or went onto her knees, she would be vulnerable. She took a deep breath and turned around. If she was going to die, she would do so standing up.
Whatever it was, it was coming towards her in the heavy falling snow. The sound of boots crunching on the fresh snow droned in her ears. A huge shadow was slowly moving towards her. There was a yellow shimmer where she assumed the eyes would be. Using the height of the eyes to judge how big the rest of the body was, she estimated that this creature, that was coming closer to her with every step, was at least two heads taller than she was. Her knees shook and she breathed in gasps. She heard the growl again, much closer this time, and a soft… sniffing?
Cat prepared herself to die. She let out a scream and her knees buckled. So much for dying with her dignity intact, she thought, as she braced herself for pain.
A face started to materialize out of the snow. Cat held her breath. When she could finally see his face, she exhaled sharply with a hiss. He was a man with an alien exterior, but of a humanoid shape. Even though her senses, or what was left of them, told her that she was not out of the woods yet, she still felt immense relief flood her body. She could deal with a creature that could think and feel, even if… she pushed that thought to the side. This must be the man who had won her in the gamble. He was her ticket to freedom. She tried to remember the password the poker company had given her. “Dandelion?” she asked the man who was now standing less than a foot in front of her. The word came out in a mere whisper, so she cleared her throat and repeated “Dandelion,” this time loudly and clearly.
“Gold rain,” he answered without hesitation. His voice was pleasantly deep and exuded poise. She was grateful for this. Now that she could see him more clearly, she realized that she had secretly expected a repulsive, disfigured, or somehow otherwise disgusting figure. The universe was populated by a multitude of creatures, and many of them were not visually appealing to the human eye. This man here, however, was attractive, at least outwardly. It was strange, but the scar that ran across his face made his chiseled features even more attractive.
Cat suppressed the urge to use her gift. Never again, she had promised herself. Not after everything that had happened the last time.
When the man raised an eyebrow quizzically and pointed in the direction from which he had come, she realized that she had been staring at him for far too long.
He seemed to be a man of few words. That was fine with her. The less they spoke to each other, the less she would be tied to him.
She stomped after him in the increasingly heavy snow. She was thankful for the protection that his broad back afforded her and took the opportunity to study him more closely. The way the man moved, told her more about his character than hours of small talk could. Even though he carried an enormous muscle mass within him, he moved with grace and as elegantly as a predator. A dangerous predator mind you, because there was nothing hesitant about the way he moved. Every now and then, he turned his head a few inches to check the area. Cat noticed that he did not rely only on his eyes. He flared his nostrils and took in the air. If her eyes were not fooling her, his pointed ears could even move in different directions.
He might look ninety-five percent human, but his behavior proved that there was literally more to him than met the eye. Cat became acutely aware of just how little she knew about him, and how dangerous this business that she had jumped into, when she was panic-stricken, could potentially be. Even though the interstellar poker company had promised boldly that all women would get a “husband according to the ritual of the race in question,” who was actually going to check on this? Her companion could drag her off to one of the furthest corners of the universe, and sacrifice her there, on the altar of a pagan god, and nobody would ever know.
She sighed again – this time a little louder.
The pointed ears twitched. “We are almost there,” he said. Cat needed a moment to realize that this was his answer to her sigh. “That’s… good,” she replied. What else could she possibly say? I have changed my mind was out of the question, as was: Tell me, what exactly do you have planned for me?
She didn’t see the space glider until he stepped to the side, remov
ing his broad back from her field of vision. The ship was bigger than she had expected and looked both maneuverable and dangerous. There was a blue shimmer surrounding the ship, emphasizing its sleek shape. Looking at it as closely as she was, Cat could just make out small hatches that looked like they had retractable weapons behind them. The entrance opened up about two feet from the ground. Without any further ado, the man lifted her up into his arms and jumped from a standing position into the interior of the spaceship. Against her will, Cat was impressed with how little effort it took him to hold her against his chest. It also made her shiver with fear. She would need to have more than fast legs to put her escape plan into action.
Carefully, as if she could break at the slightest wrong move, he set her down on the ground. Cat almost regretted that she couldn’t feel the warmth of his body anymore, even though the inside temperature of the ship was fairly high. The air was actually so warm that she took off her jacket and pulled her sweater over her head. Her eyes fell on the portrait of a man whose highly decorated chest swelled proudly towards the observer. He seemed dandy and feminine somehow, maybe because of his pouty mouth that was smiling arrogantly.
In the meantime, her companion had raised his left hand to his mouth and was speaking into his armband. So, they had the most modern communication methods here too. She saw another obstacle to her path to freedom. He growled something in a language that she couldn’t understand. It sounded like the grumbling of a predator. She tried to take her mind off the fear that was spreading through her body, by asking him his name. “I don’t even know your name,” she said, but couldn’t prevent a fearful tone from creeping into her voice. “I am Catherine Burke. Cat. You can call me Cat,” she babbled nervously.