Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
With an altar of heads on spikes and a throne of melted weapons outside his camp, not even the sight of it is enough to quell the fire in Halun’s heart for what was done to his brother by the earthlings. The only reason he allows the leader of The Opposition in his presence is because he knows the females of this planet have a role to play in Hallalah’s future. But this one meeting will set the future king on a collision course with the fate he’s longed to find all his life.
Luna, the rebel daughter of The Opposition leader, has been taken hostage by The New Order and moved from one prison to another in the hopes that they can beat the answers they want out of her and avoid being found by her father. He is not who they should worry about. She can’t afford to wait for anyone to come save her, and when she sees an opportunity to escape, she uses whatever means necessary to make her way towards the exit.
She never expected to find a Hallan standing in her way.
He knows he’s found his mate.
She thinks she’s come up against her new captor.
The rules just changed.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
ONE
There’s something about the smell of war.
Something exhilarating.
Something I like.
At the gate of the compound where my army of Hallans have taken control and made camp until our duty here is done and we leave this awful planet, I stop for a moment. Long enough to catch the scent on the breeze. I breathe a good chest full in, and then exhale.
Ah.
There it is.
Suffering and the beginnings of a long restitution. This planet will pay in a river of blood. I don’t need to return to the Hallan war horns in the distance to pick up on the cries of mercy from the newest wave of human males captured in our latest attack. As I leave the destruction and death cries behind, I still want that moment to appreciate the unfurling, unpleasant truth coming undone beneath these earthlings’ feet.
If I’m being honest, I did not expect to be on Earth for this long after first arriving. Yet, those left in power after the recent demolishment of their capitol by our destroyer ships remain a stone in my shoe.
Forever on my last nerve.
And not one more step ahead of me for long.
I found the sanitorium shown to me in my brother’s memories taken from his mate. I found it within mere days of our arrival, in fact.
I found it empty.
Ransacked.
Practically useless.
Except for the records. We may be getting closer to the ability of reading the human language—the library of books we’ve amassed just from the general’s home alone is astounding—but I didn't need to understand the words inside a file to match the photograph of a mature-aged, black-haired woman to one found in General Lockett’s home.
Zarah.
That’s the name a dying male croaked under the crushing grip of my hands around his throat before I made sure his death was painless.
Mostly.
Selina Lockett’s mother will be found if it’s the last thing I do here. I won’t fail in that promise to my baby brother. No matter how determined the males in power of this planet are to use Zarah as the bait for the return of Bothaki’s mate.
I no longer listen to those demands.
Now, I simply answer them with more violence.
Apparently, I’ve not yet amassed a large enough altar of skulls for the warning to be clear to those who need to know and heed it. That, too, will happen soon enough.
My return beyond the gate after another successful mission is greeted with the bang of staffs against the ground, mirrored bows across the board of waiting guards, and a murmur of, “Waliz Halun.”
The greeting of my people, even on the day of my birth, has yet to fail in settling heavily on my shoulders. Like the hug of an old cloak that fits my contours perfectly but I can’t forget it is there.
Not for a second.
“Mecha,” I reply in kind.
A good day, I tell them. Another well done round of making our position here unbearably clear to any human within distance to hear it. And they will, everywhere.
Until I get what I want.
I make my way through the front of our compound quickly, weaving between a circle of Hallans cheering on two who go fist to fist in the middle. Their cheers and jeers for the fight only stops long enough to greet me respectfully as I pass.
The same treatment follows me deeper into the compound, beyond the open pits of cooking food and the game of golden rings another group plays under a tent. Knowing news waits for me once I get inside the laboratory we now call our headquarters, and that I’ll be able to get what I’ve been yearning for all day, I don’t pay the delicious scents or game any mind as I head by.