Chained to Darkness

by Raven Woodward

  Snarls and the moans of the dying played like a symphony in the background. She breathed in deep the smell of blood, even if most of it was from her troops. She had many, many more. The red beast fought with the ferocity of a woman who thought she could win. It was laughable, but also incredibly sexy.

  “When you and your little band of merry men—and woman—are done playing war, I’ll lock you all up.” Onoliza licked her lips. “And I think I might just have to sample your mate.”

  Oricus snarled, and it curled Onoliza’s lips with satisfaction. So predictable. In the next instant he and Rasimus lunged. She crossed her wrists and sent a double blast of ice that pelted them square in the chests. Their grunts of pain were not enough.

  She raised two fingers to the pilot, who rushed out of the airship looking stricken. It was the signal to fly. With or without her.

  He gave a reluctant nod, his face paling even further at the carnage strewn on the steps. The freight door began to lift.

  She trained her gaze on Oricus. “I’ll give you a hint. Even if you managed to kill me, the crown will never be worn by you. I’ve made sure of that. No Scondeladian can ever wear the crown. No man could ever wield the power befitting a ruler over the entire galaxy.”

  The beast paused, cocking his head. Then all but two sprinted for the freight ship, leaping from the slippery steps and through the open mouth with ethereal grace.

  She ground her teeth in agitation. Oricus remained—as did Harlow.

  But her stunning sapphire-blue gaze was locked on Arian, and his on her. The little red creature growled softly. It was almost cute.

  The ship’s door closed and the whirring from the engines grew to a crescendo. Then, in a blink, they vanished.

  Onoliza smiled wickedly. “It’s too late now. Earth will fall to my power.”

  Harlow sat back on her haunches as her muscular animal body turned to soft, pale skin. The sight of her nakedness stirred Onoliza’s lust. But not just hers—she scented it on both males remaining, even while Arian looked like he wanted to rip the girl apart. Onoliza’s lip curled, anger filling her icy veins.

  As the girl rose to her feet, her glinting black armor zoomed toward her from an unknown location. It wrapped around her curvy body like pieces of a mosaic coming together. She looked even more fearsome. Though, a little plain.

  “I understand what you see in her, she’s quite delicious. But she’s still weak.” Onoliza shot a blast of ice from her palm, aimed directly for Harlow’s chest. The girl flicked her wrist and the ice froze in place, disintegrating to snow and falling uselessly to the ice-covered steps.

  Onoliza gasped sharply. “Well, well, well, things are starting to make sense.”

  Arian averted his gaze, which told her all she needed to know: he’d known. And Oricus had brought her here as his little weapon.

  We’ll see about that.

  Harlow’s eyes narrowed as flames erupted from her hands, licking up her pale arms and melting the ice beneath her feet.

  Onoliza hissed, sending another, more powerful blast. It melted before even making contact. The heat rolling off Harlow was too much.

  Shrieking, Onoliza stormed for the girl, sending blast after blast of ice. Harlow smiled as each burst splashed near her feet in pools of water mixed with the stains of blood.

  Onoliza charged the girl and Oricus snarled, leaping in her path. She brushed him aside with her frosted wind.

  Harlow’s eyes went wide a split second before Onoliza had her by the throat. The Empress’s flesh sizzled, fire burning away her ice and lapping at her fingers. She gritted her teeth and marched forward, the edge of the platform less than a foot away.

  Harlow seemed to realize that too. She clawed at Onoliza’s hold, sending waves of fire over her, but Onoliza continued to push her frozen magic through her own body, protecting her skin. Even still, she saw little cracks like fissures through marble. It was agony, but she wouldn’t let herself feel it. Not yet. This was too important.

  Two beasts snapped and growled at her back, but as long as Arian wore her collar, he couldn’t harm her. It forced him to intercept his brother, the two crashing together in a flurry of snarls and flashing claws that sliced through fur and hard flesh. She ignored them, letting the animals fight it out as Harlow hovered over the edge. The girl fought for purchase, struggling to keep the ground beneath her feet, instead of miles of open sky.

  Even if the girl fell, she wouldn’t die, but it would take her a very long time to recover.

  “Oricus!” Harlow cried, though the sound was choked.

  Onoliza squeezed tighter, ignoring the crackling and popping of her skin against the flames raging from the woman.

  “Goodbye, little harlot,” Onoliza crooned. The ice climbed up her legs, anchoring her to the ground while the girl clawed and pulled at her, trying to bring her down too.

  When Harlow’s fingertips slipped, she let loose a scream that made the ground tremble. It cracked, and crumbled. Onoliza stumbled back, as did her black beast. Grabbing hold of his chain, she hauled him toward the smaller aircraft awaiting them both.

  Oricus dove from the disintegrating stairwell, after his mate, and Onoliza laughed. He was foolish. Now they’d both be out of action for several tide lengths. Enough time to make Earth bow.

  Inside the ship, Arian turned back into a man. His jaw was tight, but he was silent. She bound his chain to the wall and took her place up front a moment before the self-driving ship launched through space, ripping from one galaxy to the next.

  REX

  They’d slaughtered or knocked out all the soldiers that had been in the ship before it even landed. In the silence, cries and muttered words that were not English emanated from under the sheets, giving them all pause. Rasimus gripped the fabric of one and tore it off. Inside, the faces hissed, and recognition snapped through all of them at once.

  Their faces were part flesh, part bone, eyes black as the void they had clearly come from.

  “The bitch’s mutts, eh?” Viktor sneered. He had more reason to hate the shifters than the rest of them, even if some were only children.

  It made sense that the Empress would bring them along to infect the planet with whatever disease they carried, but Rex’s stomach still clenched with dread.

  “Good thing they’re in cages,” Lefayon remarked.

  The man in front, with dark hair slicked back, snarled. “We could just as easily not be in these cages,” he spat in a thick accent. “With no Empress to keep us contained we could rip through these bars as easily as you.”

  Darrow spoke up. “What’s your story? What do you call yourselves?”

  The man hissed at him. “We are Couguay from the planet Couguar. I was once their king. I am Thayer. We serve the Empress.”

  Geoff cocked his head. “Willingly?”

  The shifter called Thayer ground his teeth audibly. “Yes.”

  Rex chuckled. “Sure you do. The cages are proof of that.”

  A woman with ebony hair stood behind the captive king, clutching a young boy who wept softly.

  “Couguar was destroyed, wasn’t it?” Rasimus asked Geoff.

  He nodded in confirmation. “Many centuries before our home was conquered. The Couguay were said to be a race that survived only in tunnels. And that Onoliza froze their tunnels solid, and pushed the planet out of orbit, toward the sun, Lazarus, where it burned away to nothing.”

  Thayer scoffed. “She froze our tunnels and enslaved my people, but our planet still exists. Her bargain to keep us compliant was to return us to Couguar once she captured the Earthians.”

  Geoff frowned, no doubt wanting to debate textbook facts, but he kept silent.

  “Being outside of our underground labyrinth has ate away at us. We crave the darkness. She keeps us covered, but we need our mineral-rich soil on our skin. It infuses the air we breathe. We cannot survive much longer under these conditions.”

  “We’ll return you to
Couguar if you help us defeat the Empress,” Rasimus supplied, as though the solution could ever be so easy.

  Thayer smirked, baring razor-sharp fangs. “Why return us to that planet when Earth is so much bigger? We can establish a new colony here. Our plague will wipe out the humans and we’ll have the planet all to ourselves.”

  “Well, fuck,” Tadaj murmured.

  Rex took a step forward. “Sorry, but I can’t let you wipe out billions of people for the sake of your…” He tried to estimate the number of Couguay based on the cages. One was far larger than the others and could easily hold six times as many of them. “What? Hundred?”

  Thayer smirked in the direction of the large cage Rex had been eyeing up. “Fifty,” he corrected. “We’ve been slowly wiped out over the years.”

  Rex’s brows darted together. That could only mean there were no Couguay in that cage.

  “You’re not immortal, yet your venom is lethal to us,” Geoff mused.

  Lefayon snorted. “Bro, you’re not studying the groundhogs right now.”

  “We may be venomous, but only the Empress’s blood can cure our bite because she created us.” Thayer snarled, then threw his body against the bars. The metal groaned, bowing from the force.

  Rex took a step back, exchanging looks with the others. If any of them got bitten, they’d need Onoliza’s blood.

  Rasimus sent him a look that said, Get us some of her blood, to which Rex nodded.

  Another hit shocked them from their silent conversation. They needed to get out of the freighter ship before a very angry bunch of lethal wolves attacked them.

  Kel seemed to be thinking the same thing, because he hit the button to open the hatch. With a whirring sound, the door began to drop. Thayer and a few others rammed the cage’s bars. One of them snapped.

  Rex and the rest of the guys began to back away, and soon the other cages clang and rattled as their occupants tried to break free.

  Thayer’s black eyes narrowed, and a smile curved what was left of his full lips before he charged one last time.

  Rex sprinted for the lowering door, using it as a ramp to leap out to the grass below. He was thankful for the soft landing, especially when a few metal bars went flying, and snarls came from inside the ship. Rex and the other guys took off running, finding an array of different creatures and humanoid species disembarking the ships all around.

  “Fuck. Shit. Damn,” Lefayon cursed.

  They were surrounded. And with a bellowing howl, the Couguay leapt from the bay door. The others transformed into beasts, but Rex remained upright, flinging his magic where he could.

  Crouching low, he placed a palm on the ground, the blades of grass like soft silk between his fingers. He coaxed it to grow, to rise.

  The green strands twitched before lifting, rising higher—like a thick wall blocking himself from the Couguay. Though they could easily sprint through it, he was now hidden from view.

  He took off at a run, flinging a wall of wind around himself as laser blasts erupted, aiming for him. The wind broke up the pulses, but Rex’s heart pounded anyway.

  Where the fuck were Harlow and Oricus? He hoped they weren’t back on Scondelade in need of help. If they were, there was nothing anyone could do.

  He just hoped they got here soon and that they were okay.

  Feeling down the Mark—which was stretched too thin for full communication—he sensed a flicker of terror, and went rigid.

  The distraction prevented him from seeing the wall of muscle and bone leaping toward him until it collided.

  HARLOW

  Her scream burned her throat, but she willed the wind to slow her descent. To catch her before the ground leapt up to break her fall. She wasn’t an elemental, but she felt herself slowing. Above her, a dark shape fell even harder, racing to meet her. The platform holding the castle high up in the air was breaking apart, raining down around her.

  She sent another gust of wind to blow away the debris set to collide with her, and noticed molten silver orbs fastened on her. Her heart stopped.

  Oricus.

  With a shriek, she forced a stronger blast to help break his fall.

  Both of them slowed, but before she could get her feet beneath her again, her back hit solid land. Something cracked and she gasped. Oricus, however, landed on all four feet, sprinting over to her as he changed back into a man.

  “You damned fool, I was going to be fine,” he snarled. All his bare skin glistened with sweat, making the dark ink on his skin look like live snakes. “I’ve jumped from that height a thousand times by twenty.” His hands shook as they gently ran down her, pausing on her ribs when she winced.

  “Give it a second to heal,” he ordered. “Don’t move.”

  “We…can’t stay,” she wheezed, her lungs searing with liquid heat, making her cough. Her throat was raw too. “You go.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Don’t be stupid, Puppet, you’re coming with me. It’ll heal up in just a minute.”

  Harlow coughed again, the pain burning her chest from the inside. But after a few more moments, it started to dull. She was healing.

  Rolling onto her side, she sucked in a lungful of air. Oricus supported her. When the pain was little more than an ache, she got to her feet, wincing. Her entire torso felt like one giant bruise, but she was stable enough to fight.

  “Let’s go.”

  Oricus smirked. “See, there was no need to be so dramatic. Next time, land on your feet. You might tear your knee joints the first few times, but those stitch back up in seconds.”

  She rolled her eyes and he took her hand. Keeping her eyes shut tight like Arian had always instructed, she felt the paved streets of Scondelade vanish from under her feet, replaced by softer ground and the scent of morning dew.

  Golden light bathed the scene before them, but it only managed to cast each element in an even more morbid way. The sky was filled with ships and even more covered the rolling hills. Wherever they were on Earth, it was thankfully far from a cityscape, though she saw the rise of black smoke pluming from chimneys in the distance. A town was not far off. The guys were already tearing through guards and creatures she didn’t recognize.

  Rex battled on the ground beneath a rabid zombie wolf, his grunts audible in the chaos. A scream caught in her throat and she took a step toward him, only for Oricus to catch her arm.

  “Let him handle it,” he ordered.

  She shot him a glare just as a blast of wind erupted from the spot where Rex lay, and the wolf that tried desperately to sink his teeth into her mate went flying back, hitting the side of another airship with a squeal.

  He got to his feet and instantly met her gaze. Relief came from the bond, but another creepy creature from across the way started shooting some freaky laser gun at him, and his attention was torn away.

  Behind her, the steady thump, thump, thump marked soldiers marching. She whirled, and a choked gasp caught in her throat.

  It was her vision come to life. The rows stretched in both directions at least a few thousand wide, spanning back as far as she could see over the dips and mounds of grassy plain. Riding in the center of it all, on the back of a giant black beast with a collar around its neck, was Onoliza. Her icy blue gaze crashed with Harlow’s.

  Oricus swore low, most of it not in English. In the next breath he was a beast, charging toward the hundreds of thousands of soldiers. She followed him, preparing to give him coverage. Now the vast sky filled with ships had made sense.

  Onoliza had truly brought an entire galaxy with her. Several galaxies, she guessed.

  It was hard not to be in awe of the magnificent creature Oricus was. The sheer size of his powerful body combined with the speed he exerted was striking. The front line aimed their weapons at Oricus, and Harlow shot a ball of raging fire toward them. Their screams were barely heard over the roar of battle.

  Blasts of red shot soundlessly from thousands of weapons and toward Harlow and Oricus. The b
arrage was hard to field. She sent a sweeping arc of wind that carried the shots away, but more were fired too quickly for her to catch.

  Oricus howled, spurts of crimson blossoming on his body. Harlow gritted her teeth and focused. Swirling her palms in the air, she worked a ball of fire to fill her entire arm span. She hurled it at the approaching army, leaving nothing but charred earth and scorched bodies behind.

  Oricus ripped through several rows while Harlow shot more balls of fire that carved away soldiers, but more just took their place. When another wave of laser blasts made it through her line of defense, Oricus’s body was peppered with wounds that made him stumble. Her chest felt like it might cleave itself in two.

  Onoliza grinned atop her perch, getting closer and closer. Soon she would be within reach. Howls sounded from a ways off. Glancing to her left, Harlow saw a few of the zombie wolves cresting the ridge, where the town lay beyond.

  Rex! Someone! There are wolves headed for the town. I can’t leave Oricus.

  It was Rex that responded. They’re called Couguay and I’m headed for them now. Also, get some of the Empress’s blood. It’s the antidote for their venom.

  Are you sure? she thought back. How do you know?

  They told us, Rasimus replied.

  It could be a trap to make you careless, Harlow returned. But regardless, she was going to make the bitch riding her ex bleed.

  Harlow spun to help Oricus, only to have Rex say, Only one way to find out.

  The ball of fire she whirled went sideways, crashing just in front of the soldiers she’d been aiming for.

  She growled. If you get yourself killed, I’ll murder you, she said to Rex.

  Chuckles flowed down the bond, reassuring her that for the most part, they were all safe.

  Though she wanted to find a way to split her attention in twelve directions, it was Onoliza she needed to focus on. But when she turned her attention to the battlefield, Arian charged faster, his back free of the Empress. The soldiers marched, moving aside for the beast to pass.

  Harlow let her righteous anger for Arian spurn her on as she threw blast after blast of fire. He zigzagged, her blazes missing him by inches. Some of his fur burned in places where they grazed him.