They’d had little hope, would have had none if not for Juliet and Torrin, if not for King Dagan of Caldor and his new queen Sasha, Falden, and the other Lumerian Knights living in secret on Caldor and now Earth, as well. Two thousand years he’d been strong, done what needed to be done to make sure his own people survived alongside the people of Mora Five. The boy should have been safe while he and his chosen teams were on a mission. He’d left good warriors behind. Strong. Capable. Fierce in battle. Now they were gone. Every last one. Pain, fresh and raw, stabbed through him.
He gripped the Sword of Ohm-Ra a little tighter. No one was safe while those creatures existed. And now the boy, if still alive by the time they got to him, would be huddled in fear with the others in a holding cell. The Dark Ones liked the taste of fear. Preferred to taste the terror of their victims in the meat. The fresher the better.
His free hand fisted around another white ring attached to the sling that hung from his shoulder. He carried as many as he could, as many as their people had been able to acquire. The Swords of Ohm-Ra were their only hope of victory.
The Dark Ones existed to kill, and to feast. Nothing else. Blaster fire might kill them eventually, but it would take dozens of shots at the highest power levels. Meanwhile, they were so fast it was difficult to track them with the eye. Stronger than three Lumerians combined. They had no sense of humanity. They were merciless, without feeling or empathy, without joy.
Without life.
The true absence of life. The Dark Ones. The A’nua Na-KI.
Taeger and the others were there to rescue one young boy. Ion. Until recently thought to be their last hope. The others, those weeping and crying with fear and terror nearby, broke his spirit into hundreds of pieces. He couldn’t save them all. His entire life had been about protecting those who cared for his people. Protecting what was left of his planet and his race.
The boy mattered. Not to the feeders. To them, he was one more piece of meat to be butchered and served. But to Ion’s people, to Taeger, the boy represented hope for the future. Survival. They had to get him off the ship alive. To fail him was to fail their entire civilization. Taeger and the other Lumerian Knights would sacrifice everything to make sure he survived. Everything. They’d accepted their fate when they accepted the mission.
They had to get Ion off this ship, alive, and take him somewhere safe. The last true heir to the Fourth House of Lumeria. A new place for the boy, himself, and his Knights, if they survived this day. Earth would have been his first choice, yet it was currently out of the question, as the A’nu Na-KI fleet was headed straight for the tiny planet, ripe for the picking unless their leaders agreed to become full members of the Intergalactic Council. Setting up trade wasn’t enough. They needed full membership, and two of the planet’s leaders were resistant, afraid of losing their power over the people. And yet, there would be no other way to save the people of Earth from the scourge that was coming for them.
“Two more incoming.” Seth warned.
Taeger lifted his head as the blur of motion moved toward them.
“Not fucking happening!” Greig roared, launching himself at the first creature as Seth held off the second with his weapon placed directly against the second attacker’s chest. He fired over and over, straight into the chest. The A’nua Na-KI screamed as the Lumerians swarmed, driving their rings into the adversaries’ bodies. The shoulder. The arm. The leg.
Taeger wanted to yell at them to stop. They were wasting the few weapons that could kill the bastards. The creatures, each stabbed with at least half a dozen of the white rings, made a sound that tore through Taeger’s head like an explosion. Scream of rage. Pure, killing rage.
His team was doomed. The other creatures would come. Already they struggled under two. More would surely end them.
The monsters moved like phantoms. Ghosts. Their bodies were as dark as their ship. The edges of their forms flickered, growing and expanding, appearing and disappearing as they phased in and out of this dimension.
They were only partially here, and they were killing everyone.
“Take them down and run for the ladder!” Taeger yelled. That wasn’t the plan. The plan was to take them all out, then rescue the boy. But they weren’t going to last here. He hoped there would be a more defensible position on the lower level.
With a loud cry, Elduin, the warrior closest to Seth, leaped straight for the enemy’s head, his arm raised to strike as he flew through the air. He struck true; the ring embedded in the center of the creature’s forehead. Elduin’s laugh turned to a gurgle as he fell, the Dark One’s claws protruding from his back where the monster stabbed him through the chest.
Seth drew his sword and sliced the tendons at the back of its legs as Greig leaped for its shoulder, shoving the creature off balance. With quick strokes, Grieg gutted the creature and removed its monstrous head.
“Now, Taeger!” Seth shouted.
Moving with every ounce of speed he possessed, Taeger drove the ring in his hand deep into the center of dark, black abdomen closest to him and nearly fell to the floor, dizzy, as a surge of power erupted from the ring, completing the circuit, locking the second Dark One’s body in place.
“Down!” Seth bellowed.
Taeger and Greig dropped split seconds before Seth’s longsword pierced the second attacker’s chest cavity, slicing up through bone and sinew until the creature dropped to the floor, destroyed for all time.
Standing, Taeger took in the damage. Two of his men down. Elduin with a hand through his chest and Lyari’s throat ripped nearly in half by one swipe of the Dark One’s claws. They had a quarter mile of empty space to cover, nowhere to hide, and no way off the ship unless they gained control of it.
“There are more in this section,” he reminded his men.
“Why aren’t they here?” Greig asked, wiping blood and grime from his face.
Taeger closed his eyes and gave himself to the old ways, taking knowledge from the web of energy that surrounded all living things. In other parts of the ship, more of the Dark Ones stirred, paying attention to what transpired here, but not disturbed enough to interfere. But the others coming? He shuddered as their appetite for horror and torment moved through his mind.
“They like to play with their food.”
“Damn them.” Seth kept his longsword in one hand, a curved ring in the other and looked at him. Nodded. Taeger looked at each of his men in turn. Good men. They nodded. Words were unnecessary. They were all in.
As one they turned and ran forward. Uncowed. Undeterred. Ready to fight. To die.
Boots pounding on the hard, black floor, they raced to the opposite end of the ship, passing countless doors, and behind each door forty or fifty souls locked in terror. There were thousands of intelligent, sentient beings on this ship alone.
Less than halfway to their destination, the attack came, two more of the Dark Ones leaping upon them from behind. Belsaran and Almar turned to face the attack, Almar bellowing over his shoulder to run. To go on. To save the boy.
With a curse, Taeger left them behind, knowing they were right. Belsaran and Almar were buying time, time to save Ion.
The ladder was steep, meant more for sliding than calculated movement. Taeger slid below, landing on his feet in a corridor identical to the one above. He moved aside for Seth and Greig to land and looked over the barren black floor, staring at door after door after door as far as he could see.
There were no lights. No outcroppings. Only their night vision sensors allowed them to see. The corridor was perfectly empty, with only faint markings on the floor where the prison blocks had been moved and loaded in turn, one after another.
They were in the deepest depths of hell with no way out.
But they wouldn’t lay down and die without a fight. It wasn’t in them.
They would survive and take the boy to safety. There was no other choice.
At last, he felt the boy’s presence. They opened the door to the cell and his shoulders sag
ged with relief as there was no blast of air, just a quiet sigh as the atmosphere inside the cell merged with that of the hallway. Taeger crouched down, decloaked, and held out his hand to the little boy, just three years old. “Ion?”
Ion turned his head, his cheeks chapped from crying, his eyes puffy and swollen nearly shut. “Taegie? Is that you Uncle Taegie?” he whispered in his best, bravest big boy voice.
“It’s me. I got you.”
Ion ran to Taeger, wrapping his arms as far around his favorite uncle as they would go, his tiny hand gripping a ratty old stuffed Kuvu bear.
Taeger should have known the boy wouldn’t have left the stuffed toy behind, no matter what. He smiled, refusing to acknowledge the moisture in his eyes.
“I knew you would come get me. I told them you would come and save us, Uncle Taegie. I told them.”
“That’s right. I’ll always come for you.” Taeger squeezed the little boy he’d come to love as hard as he dared. He didn’t want to hurt him. “Come on. We have to get out of here.”
“Okay,” Ion said happily, wiggling out of Taeger’s arms. “I’ll get them,” he added, waving Taeger back toward the cell.
“Wait,” Taeger whispered urgently. “Get who?”
“All of them,” Ion said with big, innocent eyes. “I promised you would come and save us and take them anywhere they want to go, Uncle Taigie, ‘cuz I knew you would. Right? And a ‘umerian promise can’t ever be broken. That’s what you said.”
Taeger pinched the bridge of his nose in resignation. “A Lumerian promise is a sacred oath.” He sighed. “Very well. We’ll try. Where do they want to go?”
“Earth.”
***
Thank you for reading Alien Knight Steals the Bride…. Find out what happens to Taeger and his unit in…Alien Knight Teddy Bear Troubles!
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Also by Becca Brayden
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Alien Knight Steals the Bride
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About the Author
Becca Brayden spends her days writing and her nights dreaming up her next hot adventure with even hotter alien hunks. A Colorado native, she has lived in New Zealand, Florida, Alabama, Kansas and loves to travel in direct proportion to how much she hates to cook. Chocolate makes her happy, licorice makes her cringe, and despite the cult following - she hates pumpkin pie and pumpkin spice lattes. (More for you!)
Natural wanderlust has given her a deep love for Mediterranean food and a bookshelf filled with everything from philosophy to sexy romance and hard core sci-fi. You can catch her enjoying a cup of hot cocoa at her website www.BeccaBrayden.com
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Alien Knight Steals The Bride Page 14