Ferexian Raider Read online

  Copyright © 2018 by Lovestruck Romance.

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  This book is intended for adult readers only.

  Any sexual activity portrayed in these pages occurs between consenting adults over the age of 18 who are not related by blood.

  Created with Vellum

  Ferexian Raider

  Kym Dillon

  Lovestruck Romance

  For updates, freebies, and notifications of new releases, sign up to my email list here: https://claims.instafreebie.com/free/0g4VM and receive your first free book.~ Kym

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  CLAWED (Sneak Peek)

  WERE-SOLDIER WARRIORS

  HEART OF THE DRAGON (Sneak Peek)

  1

  The Righel's solar heart pulsed with steady rhythm that was as true as Calavanian steel, but the drag of the baffles had taken on a powerful shrieking pitch. To the Righel's commander, the sound of the fractured baffles sounded liked the cries of injured children, and he dug hard nails into his palms.

  "How much longer?" he demanded, pacing on the bridge. "How much longer can we last?"

  Terani, the ship's engineer, shook her fluffy black and white striped head. Her irregularly jointed hands were singed with burns from trying to wrestle the baffles into place.

  "If we keep running like this, it'll be just another four hours before we're dead in the black, commander."

  Zan gritted his sharp teeth.

  "And if we drop out of interstellar speeds?"

  Terani hesitated.

  "Another eight hours, or so, sir."

  Zan was still, and his ship's engineer dared to press her luck.

  "Sir. Please. Some things are a matter of fact. The fact is, if we do not put the Righel down somewhere, anywhere, we are going to be staggered sooner or later. The fact is that the longer this goes on, the less likely I can do anything that will fix the baffles permanently. That means getting new replacements, and at worse, it means scrapping the ship."

  Zan's fists tightened at even the hint of his ship being scrapped, a low growl emanating from deep in his chest. It was enough to scare hardened mercenaries into quaking terror, but the little engineer only stood up straighter. That told Zan better than anything else that the situation with his ship was dire.

  "Sir... If we don't stop soon, we will be stopped. The fact is..."

  "The fact is, if you say one more word, I'll shove your fluffy behind out of an airlock," Zan snarled.

  Terani did fall still at that, but she looked at him with stubbornness in her multi-faceted eyes. Her species fell in love with engines and ships far more readily than they did with anything else. It was what made them good engineers as well as enormous pains in the ass.

  Zan knew that she would not leave until he had an answer for her.

  "Drop her down out of interstellar speeds, but keep her at a low hum. The last thing we want is for her to stop and not be able to get her going again. As soon as we have the coordinates for a safe bay, we'll get there as soon as we can."

  The relief on Terani's face was immense, and she bowed low to the floor before scuttling back to the engine room. She had already commandeered a number of the crew to help her with keeping the baffles together. The rest were likely in their quarters, perhaps praying to whatever gods they heeded. They were mostly fighters, but the terrors of space travel could wear on the toughest of them.

  For a moment, Zan stared out of the broad viewing video. The stars streaked by as bold stripes of white, gold, red and green, but as the order to drop out of interstellar speeds was heeded, they became single points again. There was not a single shudder as the ship slowed to a significantly slower speed, and Zan resisted the urge to pat the caress the wall of the old cruiser. The Righel was not as large as other cruisers that roamed the abyssal reaches of deep space, but it was swift and vicious. The idea of giving it up...

  Zan shook his head.

  "Helmsman, look for a planet or an asteroid where we can set her down. Make sure that there's enough atmosphere for the majority of the crew."

  "Target located, commander. Putting her on the screen now."

  Zan didn't really need the visual, but he turned his dark gaze to it anyway. A small round planet, splotched with more blue than green and swirled with the most beautiful white clouds, hung suspended in the black. A jewel welcoming them to its reaches."

  Zan frowned.

  "What is that place? As a matter of fact, where are we?"

  He had been speaking rhetorically, but the eager helmsman, a young Verangian with a radial spray of manipulator limbs, answered promptly.

  "We're on the western arm of the Milky Way galaxy. This is a not often visited primitive planet typically cataloged as Terra, with a breathable oxygen atmosphere, no interstellar ability, no knowledge of..."

  “Terra,” Zan mused, cutting off the crew member thoughtfully. “From the nursery rhymes?”

  He had heard the stories, of course. Every Ferexian child had. Ferex, rich and old, powerful and wild, had a shyer sister cast into the stars, a blue green planet far away. The people of the two planets had once been one, and perhaps someday, they would be joined again.

  Zan wasn't sure that he had ever heard of Ferexians actually going to the sister planet in recent memory. It was far away, even for interstellar-capable speeds, and the question of why a Ferexian might do it only had a limited number of answers.

  A limited number... but there were reasons, and one hovered at the edge of Zan's consciousness right now. It seemed that no matter how battered they became, no matter how much fire had been raised or how much had been lost, some dreams died very hard.

  "Set a course, helmsman, and contact the engineering crew. We have a place to make planet-fall."

  Terra, Zan thought, considering the blue-green planet that hung in the black. He tried to think of it as a coincidence, but the truth was, his kind had never been great believers in coincidence. However, they did believe in fate, and when he checked the small info screen in his quarters, he strongly suspected Lady Fate's hand in this.

  Ferex was a long way away, but once Terani got the ship moving again, the Righel could cross the space in good time. Zan would make it to his home planet in time for the Feast of Falling Stars. He would make it to his planet in time for the twenty year anniversary of...

  Zan's mind shied away from the end of that thought. It was still painful, even after all these years, and he conceded, with a certain amount of grimness, that it might always be so. There were few things that could compare with the horror of having your entire way of life ripped away from you in the most viciously savage manner, after all.

  Zan shook off the ghosts that seemed to keen at him no matter how far he traveled, no matter the substantial riches he acquired or the victories in battles he won. They were the past, and right now, he would do well to keep his mind on the future.

  And
, there it was, the blue-green planet that hung, jewel-like, in the dark.

  “Owww, dammit, dammit, dammit!”

  The generator's shutter clamped down over Stella Courtland's finger, making her draw it away quickly and stick it in her mouth. She stared at the generator mutinously, but it showed no sign of starting up and powering the tiny cabin.

  “Dammit, Alix, I don't call this ‘easy enough for a child to do’,” Stella said to empty air. “And, I swear, if I die out here, I am going to hitchhike my ghost butt all the way back to St. Paul to haunt you so bad.”

  With a sigh, Stella pulled her finger from her mouth, and opened up the generator again. It looked as if it was in good shape, and as irritated as she was, she knew that her co-worker wasn't the sort to lie to her.

  She went over the instructions again, but when that still didn't get any results, she gave in to her urge to kick it. She was wearing boots, but the impact ran up her leg in stinging tingles, making her yelp with anger. But, what do you know, it let out a choking whirr. Maybe all it needed was the sacrifice of a broken toe to get itself going. She held her breath as it sputtered, but when it set up a loud hum, she clapped her hands in joy.

  “Oh, thank God.” She watched it a few more minutes to make sure it wasn’t a cruel trick before deciding that she was a master mechanic and heading back into the cabin. The sun had mostly set, and the North Dakota night was descending into cooler temperatures with astonishing speed. She was eager to get out of the chill and to get back inside her shelter.

  As Stella made her way back into the little cabin, she reluctantly admitted that Alix had been right. A week at a secluded cabin out in the middle of nowhere was probably the best way to get her head straightened out and make some decisions for her future. Lord knew she probably wouldn’t have been able to do that back in St. Paul.

  She knew that she was lucky to have a friend like Alix. Alix and Stella volunteered at the same soup kitchen a couple afternoons a week, but where Stella waitressed at a local diner and lived in a tiny flat nine blocks away, Alix was a trust-fund kid who lived uptown. When they had first met, Stella had cynically assumed that Alix was just getting a Taste of the Real World before running back to her life of luxury, but somehow, against all odds, they became friends. They confused each other on a regular basis, truly inhabiting different worlds, but they protected each other and watched out for each other, and at the end of the day, that was what mattered.

  In fact, it mattered quite a bit to Stella the day before yesterday when Matthew called at the end of her shift, Stella had thought that he was just saying he couldn't pick her up yet again. Instead, he had broken up with her. His “side chick”, who Stella had been completely unaware even existed, was pregnant with his child and he’d decided to make an honest woman of her. Matthew, the guy she’d dated exclusively for the last seven years, ended the dropping of his A-bomb by telling her that she should delete his number because he was going to delete hers.

  Alix had arrived in minutes uttering a string of curses so loud and so vile that even the bussers and dishwashers may have learned a few colorful phrases. Alix got away with it, though. She always did.

  “You are coming with me, and we are going to drink this out of your system!” Alix’s solution turned out to not be the best idea ever. The night was really a bit of a blur, but Stella supposed that at some point, she had agreed with Alix that she did need to get away from everything for a while. She vaguely remembered Alix offering her dad’s old rustic hunting cabin in the wilds of North Dakota.

  “You'll love it, plenty of space to clear your head, a long way from the city so you can breathe free, and nothing but time. Hey, you can use it to bury your nose in that kindle of yours.”

  Alix might have considered Stella's love of reading bizarre, but the truth was that as a child making her way from foster home to foster home, sometimes those books were the only HEAs she knew. In fact, sometimes they were her best and only friends. While others only dreamt of passionate love affairs and far off exotic places, Stella was living them. Through her kindle, of course, but same diff. She packed up her bags, loaded her kindle with the latest sci-fi romance novels, and snagged the cheapest rental car Budget Rides could provide.

  As she entered the cabin and inspected the electrical situation now that the generator was working, she spotted two wall sconces and three electrical outlets. More than adequate for keeping her kindle charged.

  She grinned for the first time in two days. The cabin was a cozy on-room deal and the wood stove was already heating it to a nice, toasty comfort level. Yes, Alix, tucking herself away in this cabin, far away from everything and simply falling into a good book... now, that was a respite from the pressures of the real world.

  She stretched out on the couch, and swiped at the screen until she found the book she wanted. The cover was lurid, featuring a busty half-dressed woman in the arms of a brawny man with scales and wings. Too many people would look at Aislin of the Planet Aeros as foolishness or, what was it they called it, housewife porn, but Stella knew better. To her, they provided something that had been missing for far too long. Something that she, like every other woman needed and deserved. Hope.

  2

  Stella awoke from a dream of swinging a sword above her head to conquer a vanquished foe with a start. For a moment, she thought that she was back in her tiny apartment, the neon sign from the all-night convenience store that took up the bottom floor of her building lighting up city block. Until she remembered the sign below was blue, not green, and she sat up wide-eyed. She was in North Dakota, and the closest human habitation was fifteen miles away. Unless the pig farm she’d passed on the way in had gotten much closer and put up neon green lights, there was something very strange going on.

  Granted, the pig farm pulling up roots and decking itself out in green lights would be very strange and slightly terrifying, she acknowledged, slipping off the couch and reaching for her shoes. She had fallen asleep fully dressed with her kindle spread over her face. She tossed her kindle on the side table so she didn’t accidently sit on it and pulled on her boots. There was a tiny bit of heel to them, which gave her unimposing 5'6 height a little bit of dignity and authority, she thought. She tied her shoulder-length black hair up carelessly in a messy bun, and without thinking twice, ventured outside.

  The sky to the north was lit up neon green, and at first, Stella thought she was looking at the Northern Lights. That was ridiculous. Aurora borealis didn't come this far south this time of year.

  The Northern Lights didn't talk and shout, either.

  What the hell is going on? Before she could think better of it, her legs were heading towards the noise. She hadn’t gone very far at all when the voices resolved themselves into some sort of language that she was certain she had never heard before. Maybe a cross between Slavic, Greek and Pygmy? She came closer still, completely puzzled as to what in the world had invaded her solitude. On her drive in, she had taken note of the fact that the woods in front of her had thinned near a clearing. Green lights came from what looked like emergency stadium lighting, hoisted high on poles to illuminate...

  The ship caught her eye first.

  It was a space ship. It had to be. It stretched out half a football field's length, its curves as elegant as a Mercedes. Thrusters pointed towards the ground that would let it escape velocity, propelling it high into the sky, and battered guns ranged along the forward bow and the rear thrusters.

  It had perhaps seen better days, but it was, without a doubt, a space ship, and Stella's heart clenched tightly with joy and amazement.

  Then she looked at the people who were scurrying back and forth under the green stadium lighting, and she had to clamp a hand over her mouth in surprise. Some walked on two legs just like humans did, while others scuttled low to the ground, tools held high. There was one figure that seemed to have arms stretching out from a central radius of their otherwise human body, and something lithe and the size of a twelve-year-old leaped up to one
of the thrusters.

  Aliens. What do I do? Call the authorities? Go down and make first contact? Oh, my god, this is really happening...

  Her favorite book heroines had always handled moments like this with decisiveness and aplomb, doing the perfect thing to both comfort distant travelers and to assert themselves. Now that the time had come for her to follow in their footsteps, however, she was at a total loss.

  A few more seconds of contemplation and she was seized suddenly from behind and lifted high into the air.

  It's a beautiful planet, Zan marveled, stepping onto the soft grass, but it does feel a little cramped.

  He couldn't quite explain it. He could see right away why Ferex and Terra were known as sister planets. The air was perfectly compatible with his physiology and with that of most of the crew, though the Albarian siblings had to wear the methane-breathers they used on most planets. The sky was clear enough to see a craze of stars above, and he knew from the handheld that a short hop would take him to an enormous reservoir of fresh water.

  It still wasn't home, however, but it was close enough that in that moment, he missed Ferex intensely. He hadn't been back for so long, and that only strengthened his resolve. He would return for the Feast of Falling Stars, and when he did...

  He shook off the thought because there were more important things to do than fantasize about seeking one’s rightful retribution. He ordered his crew to get to the repair jobs, and he took some of his steadier soldiers off to secure the perimeter. If he were honest with himself, he’d have to admit that he wanted to see this world a little, see what it had to offer.