by Tana Stone
Exposed--Tribute Brides of the Drexian Warriors #3
Tana Stone
Broadmoor Books
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
Preview of Book 4: RANSOMED
Also by Tana Stone
About the Author
Chapter One
Zayn worked the chains fastened around his wrists, feeling the weak spot he’d made over the past few weeks with a loose shard of steel. Just a little more and he’d be free, he thought, straining against the metal and pushing the pain aside. Blood trickled down his wrist, but he ignored the sharp tang that hit his nose. It wasn’t worse than anything else he’d smelled since being thrown into the dungeon over a month ago.
He glanced around the dank cell that held nothing more than a cot and a metal bucket. Considering how technologically advanced his enemy was, Zayn had been surprised to find their prison so rudimentary. Of course, he hadn’t known just how advanced the Kronock had become until he’d been taken captive.
He let out a low growl, and the rusted metal walls echoed it back to him. Being captured had not been part of the plan. As a member of the Drexian military team sent to infiltrate a research colony near enemy space, his mission had been to defeat the Kronock and gather intelligence on their research. That hadn’t worked out so well when his entire team had been slaughtered by an enemy considerably more sophisticated than they’d suspected. Well, not the entire team. Him, they’d kept alive.
He tried not to think about the surprise attack that had left the other warriors dead and had landed him inside a Kronock prison. His people hadn’t ventured into enemy territory in decades, battling their crude and brutish foes on the borders of Kronock space and repelling the would-be invaders on the outskirts of the solar system the Drexians protected. They had no need. The Kronock were predictable in their attacks, but they were outmatched by Drexian technology and warfare. Had been since they first attempted to invade Earth over thirty years earlier. Or so his people had thought.
Zayn’s blood heated as he flashed back to how easily the Kronock had disabled their weapons, the efficient way the gray-scaled creatures had slaughtered his comrades, and the sophisticated ship they’d dragged him onto, bloody and broken. It was clear to him now that the enemy had spent years lying low and pretending to be oafish brutes, all the while developing technology to blow the Drexians—and Earthlings—out of the sky.
The only thing they hadn’t changed was how they tortured captives. That had been old school. A sharp pain pierced his side as he breathed in too quickly, and he knew he had at least one broken rib. The skin on his arms had stopped healing from the lashes he’d taken with a laser whip, the gashes deep and oozing. He shook off the discomfort. They would heal once he was away from the daily abuse, as would the flesh on his wrist he was scraping off as he loosened his chains. The crucial thing was getting off the ship and back to his people so he could tell them what he’d learned.
Zayn tugged at his wrists and felt the metal give, finally snapping and clattering to the floor. He paused to listen for the rush of feet, but there was nothing. He touched his raw flesh, grateful to be free of the shackles and the burden of dragging the heavy chain with him when he moved. Shaking his hands to regain some of the feeling, he ran them through his hair. It had become shaggy and matted in the weeks or months he’d been held—he’d lost all track of time in the dank cell—and his fingers tangled in the dark locks.
“Time to have another chat with the General,” a voice said, from the end of the corridor.
His auditory implant made it easy for him to understand the guttural words of his enemy, but still, the rough sounds grated on his nerves.
Zayn reluctantly picked up the chains again and held them around his wrists, flinching from the contact and hoping his jailor wouldn’t notice the broken clasp. He didn’t respond to the Kronock. He never did. He never said a word, a tactic that had earned him more electric shocks than he could count, and beatings so severe he usually blacked out and had to be carried back to his cell. The worst had been when they’d electrified the bumpy nodes running along the length of his spine. Normally an indicator of arousal, they were sensitive to touch, and he’d writhed in pain each time they’d sent a jolt through them.
A tall alien approached the door, his wide, clawed feet tapping on the floor and announcing his arrival before his bald, scaled head appeared in the window. He looked at Zayn through the metal panel grafted to his eye socket, and the red, bionic eye flashed as it scanned him. Zayn had learned that aside from being huge and strong, some of the Kronock had augmented themselves with technology, the bionic eyes being the most obvious addition. He knew there was more he couldn’t see beneath the armor grafted to their scales, which was why they’d been able to overpower him and his team. Zayn swallowed the taste of bile as he thought of how outmatched they’d been. That was why he would need to be faster and smarter to make it out alive.
As the door creaked open, Zayn took a breath. This is it, he thought. Now or never.
The Kronock stepped inside to take him by the arm as he usually did, but at the last moment Zayn feinted to one side, rolling his shoulder and spinning around, before whipping the chains around the jailor’s head and darting for the door. Stunned, it took the Kronock a moment to react, and by that time, Zayn had slammed the door shut behind him and locked him in.
Zayn didn’t stop to listen for the roar of frustration. He was already halfway down the corridor, when he heard a noise to his left and swung his head toward one of the cell doors. The noise wasn’t the harsh language of the Kronock. It was the Drexian language. It might have been weeks or months since he’d heard it spoken anywhere but in his own head, but he knew the sound of his own tongue.
He glanced through the window cut into the door and saw a bare, muscular back hunched over in the corner, the bronze skin and raised nodes confirming his initial guess. This was a Drexian.
“Brother,” he called out. “Come with me.”
The man raised his head but didn’t turn. “You’re Drexian?”
“Yes,” Zayn said, impatient to get away but not willing to leave another warrior behind. “I’m getting out of here, and you’re coming with me.”
The Drexian shook his head. “Impossible. Go without me.”
“I can get you out,” Zayn said, leaning against the metal door and stumbling forward when it swung open easily.
The Drexian prisoner stood, his hands in tight fights by his side. “It’s too late for me. Go before they come for you.”
Zayn started to shake his head when the other prisoner turned and focused his red, bionic eye on him. “They’ve made me one of them. I can’t go back after what they’ve done to me. After what they’ve put inside my head.” His arms shook as he spoke. “Even now, I have an urge to kill you.”
Grek. Zayn backed away, his throat constricting and making it diffic
ult to speak.
“Go,” the Drexian hybrid strode forward and pushed the door shut. “Save yourself.”
Zayn stumbled away, his eyes not leaving the unlocked cell door.
“Wait,” the Drexian called after him.
Zayn met his gaze through the window in the door.
“The next time you see me.” The red eye blinked as he spoke. “Do not hesitate to kill me.”
Zayn didn’t answer, his gut twisting in a knot as he continued down the hall. The guard station was empty, but the metal wall cabinet that held extra weapons was not, although it was locked. He ripped the cabinet door off its hinges and grabbed two blasters from inside. He guessed he had no more than a minute before his escape was detected, so he needed to move fast. He pushed the thought of the other Drexian warrior out of his mind. If he let the feelings of rage and regret fill him, he would not be able to do what he needed to do.
Running down another narrow hallway, Zayn ducked into a closet as he heard footsteps pounding toward him. He’d learned what he knew about the ship by feigning unconsciousness when he was dragged back and forth from being tortured. Sometimes his eyes really had been swollen shut, but other times he’d only pretended to be half dead. If his memory served him, the shuttle bays and flight decks were one level up. He glanced above him, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw a vent covering.
Zayn clambered up into the ceiling and pulled the covering back into place. Crawling as quietly as he could, he followed the vents up, using his elbows and knees to gain traction in the tubes. When he was sure he’d reached the right level, he slid a panel back and dipped his head down.
The corridor was empty, so he lowered himself, holding on with one hand as he slid the ceiling panel back into place before landing on the floor with a thud. He kept close to the wall as he hurried toward a wide door, which slid open as soon as he stood in front of it.
“You’re going to make it,” he whispered to himself as he took in the expansive flight deck.
Ducking out of sight behind a stack of metal containers, he eyed the array of ships. He needed to find one that was leaving as soon as possible, and one big enough on which to stow away. That eliminated the shiny, two-seater fighters, and the cargo ships still loading up. His gaze lingered on a rusted, banged-up ship, and he watched a squat alien pilot stride on board.
“A scavenger,” he said, rubbing his hands together. He recognized the short, purple-skinned alien as a trader of space junk. It wasn’t the fastest ship, or the best smelling, but it would probably get the least amount of scrutiny.
Edging his way around the flight deck by darting between crates and containers, he dashed up the ship’s ramp as it began to lift and rolled inside. As he watched the ramp slam shut behind him, he flinched. After being the only member of his team to survive, he was now leaving a Drexian behind. Not really a Drexian anymore, he reminded himself, taking a breath and trying not to think of the metal eye implant grafted into his kinsman’s flesh.
He looked around the quiet ship and guessed the captain was busy piloting, so he crept to the rear, slipping into a particularly dirty bathroom just big enough for him to close the door while holding his breath.
Zayn felt the ship begin to move, then accelerate, and when he felt the jump to light speed he let his shoulders relax long enough to shift the grip on his blaster. He stepped out and cracked his neck by twisting it from side to side. “Time to talk to the pilot about setting a new course.”
Chapter Two
Katie walked along Rodeo Drive, her camera tucked into a pink leather bag slung over her shoulder as she scouted the sidewalk looking for celebrities. She tried to act casual as she peered into the storefronts, but she was a bundle of nerves. It didn’t help that it was a thousand degrees, and she’d had to cover her hair with a scarf.
“Come on,” she muttered to herself. “There has to be a Hilton heiress out shopping today. Or a Kardashian. I need something.”
A thin woman carrying a beige Birkin bag gave her a sideways glance. Katie sized her up as no one worth photographing and gave her what she hoped was her most innocent smile. The woman wasn’t fooled and moved away, shooting a nasty look over her shoulder.
This was a disaster. She knew her desperation was palpable, which was the kiss of death in her business. Even though she was tall, with striking curly, red hair and more curves than were typically accepted in LA, she’d always had the confidence to blend in anywhere. It probably came from growing up with a father who was a grifter and had taught her everything from three card Monte to how to work a mark. It wasn’t tough to see that he was why she’d ended up as a paparazzo for some of the top Internet gossip sites.
“I just need one shot,” she said, more to bolster her confidence than anything. “Just one great shot to get me through this.”
This meant the disaster that had become her life since she’d taken the last known photo of the socialite Mandy Talbot before she disappeared. Katie closed her eyes briefly, willing herself to go back in time and not take that image of Mandy outside of the restaurant after her best friend and TV starlet London had left their standing lunch date.
At the time, Katie had thought it was gold. Mandy was cleared distraught in the image, and the headline the tabloid rag ran next to it proclaimed the TV producer’s daughter to be an “Instagram diva ditched by best friend and boyfriend.” It had netted Katie a tidy sum, enough to cover rent, since her stand-up-comedian boyfriend hadn’t gotten a gig in weeks. It had also been the last image anyone could find of the woman who had apparently vanished the day the photo was taken.
Katie had been interviewed by the police, and by the private investigators hired by Mandy’s dad. Somehow, those investigators had been able to dig into her financial life and see the debt she was in. That was all they needed to decide she was somehow involved in the disappearance, and it had all been downhill from there. She’d ended up on the pages of the very magazines she usually shot for, headlines proclaiming her as the last person to see the heiress alive and painting a picture of her as someone with nothing to lose.
She adjusted her oversized sunglasses. Part of her was glad her father hadn’t lived to see this. She was supposed to be the one hunting for celebrities trying to blend in or avoid detection, not the one hiding. Not that she’d been shocked when her fellow paparazzi had turned on her. No honor among thieves, and all that.
“Katie!” A voice from across the street made her jump and turn before she could stop herself. She heard the click of a shutter.
She cursed at herself. “Shit, Katie, you know better.”
She started walking briskly in the other direction, dodging people and trying to put distance between herself and the photographer. She thought it might be that weasely guy from the Enquirer, but no way was she going to turn around to check. Figures, she thought. Only the bottom feeders were still hounding her after all these weeks.
“Where’s Mandy?” the voice yelled after her.
At this point, people were staring and beginning to recognize her. She kept her head down and held her bag tight, barely avoiding a run-in with one of the Schwarzenegger kids. Damn, she should have been taking his photo, not trying to avoid flattening him while she made a run for it.
She ducked around the corner and nearly ran the two blocks to where she’d parked her piece-of-shit car. Jumping in, she tossed her bag on the passenger seat and floored it, looking in the rearview mirror once she was moving. No one behind her, that was good. But she hadn’t gotten a single photo. That was bad.
It took her almost an hour to reach her apartment in the Valley, which gave Katie plenty of time to think about just how badly her life was falling apart, since her car’s radio wasn’t working.
“Think,” she told herself, letting the wind from the open window cool her. “What would dad do?”
He’d managed to get himself out of plenty of scrapes over the years, and he’d usually been guilty as hell. How had she managed to get herself in such a big m
ess without having done anything wrong?
The problem was Mandy’s TV producer dad and his rabid dog investigators. They seemed hell-bent on blaming the girl’s disappearance on someone, and didn’t seem to be too concerned about the details. Katie had thought the dad was faking it the first time he’d appeared on the news with his collagen-enhanced third wife. She knew a faker when she saw one, and that guy didn’t give a shit about finding his daughter. He wanted people to think he did, though. Hence the private investigators eager to find a fall guy.
Katie pulled up in front of her apartment building and the car shuddered to a stop. She rubbed her fingers on the steering wheel and whispered to the car, “I just need you to hold out a little bit longer. I really can’t take one more thing going wrong right now.”
What she needed was to provide an ironclad alibi to the police and have them call off the investigators. And the best way to do that was to enlist the help of her boyfriend. He may not be great when it came to making money, but she knew he had her back when it mattered. At least she thought he did.
Katie took the stairs to her third-floor, garden apartment two at a time, waving at an elderly neighbor, who clearly didn’t read tabloid news since she smiled brightly. She opened her front door and called out as she walked inside.
“Mark, I need your help—” The words died on her lips as she stood in the near-empty living room, looking at a faded couch and an empty TV stand.