Chapter 1
In the years since Xenthian had opened its borders to outsiders, a lot had changed on the planet. Many visitors had come…and almost as many had stayed.
A sanctuary of sorts had been established for Tarin females who were fleeing a life of captivity and abuse. Because of their distrust of males, every personnel assigned to them, from sentries to attendants, consisted entirely of Xenon females.
It wasn’t fair to judge a whole race based on the actions of a few individuals. Yet, of all the races that had visited their planet, Captain Tirallarah Meadowlark liked the Krytos the least.
Loud, arrogant, and often violent, they tested her commitment to peaceful resolution at every turn.
So, when a trio of Krytos brothers had requested a volunteer from Xenthian to beta test their new mixture of virtual reality, live action, and holo-tech games, she had been somewhat dismissive. While she admitted to a mild curiosity about Evo, she had no desire to be chosen for that particular assignment.
Which was why she now had to contend with feelings of anger and betrayal that her king had ordered her to the planetoid to take place in the trials.
As captain of the royal guard, as well as head of security for all of Xenthian, she didn’t have time for such idle nonsense. She had responsibilities, people who depended on her for their safety.
She also did not need a vacation, as her Vasili had so laughingly suggested. In fact, she felt a wave of bitterness crash over her at the idea of not reporting for duty for the first time in over two thousand years.
Still, no amount of reasoning had been able to sway her king. So, just three days after the request had been received, she had found herself aboard the Reverie, a luxury transport vessel provided by Artane Electronics as a courtesy to their testers.
At least, that was how it had been presented. She, however, suspected they had gathered the volunteers onto one ship as a security precaution. It was exactly what she would have done.
Being provided private quarters on the voyage was not an indulgence she had anticipated, but one she greatly enjoyed. Especially after meeting the other passengers.
The D’Aire females aboard were quiet and reserved. In direct juxtapose, the Tarin males were, to borrow a phrase from her human queen, total dicks. There was also a Helios pair—brother and sister, she’d learned—who took great delight in causing mischief among the others.
They had been the cause of the fire suppressant mishap in the onboard entertainment suite, which had resulted in everyone being covered in thick, viscous foam. It had taken her two days to fully remove the substance from her hair.
The only Krytos on the Reverie were the crew, who largely ignored them. That should have been enough for her, but frankly, their very presence still annoyed her.
Because of the journey, she had encountered her first Reema, a reptilian-like humanoid race obsessed with anything of value. As she understood it, they were not an enemy of the Alliance, but not exactly friendly, either. More like a hostile ally.
The lone male hadn’t spoken a word since boarding the vessel. He just stomped around the ship, eyeing the others through yellow-green eyes with disdain and suspicion.
Him, she liked.
There were also a few hybrids on board, those with parentage or lineage from two or more races. Some were discernable by appearance. Others by subtle nuances in their demeanor. That group fascinated her.
With one exception.
Inias D’Zyr, a male born from the union of a D’Aire and a Tarin. Physically, he resembled the angelic race of his father—tall, broad shoulders, beautiful in an almost ethereal way, with long silver-white hair that darkened at the ends. His eyes, however, were not the iridescent blue of others like him, but the deep, inky black of the Tarins.
And his personality was entirely…other.
“Captain Tira!”
Pausing in the corridor on her way to the observation lounge, she cringed at his overly enthusiastic greeting. Dressed entirely in black leather that created a striking contrast to his fair complexion, one might consider him imposing. Intimidating, even. Until he opened his mouth.
By the ancestors, she had never met someone who loved to talk so much, and for some reason, he most enjoyed speaking to her.
“Where are you headed?” he asked when he caught up to her.
“The observation lounge. We should be arriving on Evo soon.”
“Excellent.” Linking his hands together behind his back, he fell into step beside her as they traversed the expansive hallway. “I’ll join you.”
“An honor, I’m sure.” She stared straight ahead and spoke without inflection, but as usual, her indifference didn’t dissuade him.
“You’re irritated.” For some reason, he seemed to find this amusing.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Your markings glow brighter when you’re emotional. Have you noticed?”
Had she noticed something about her own body she had lived with for millennia? Of all the ridiculous, arrogant—
“Do the patterns of your markings have any meaning?”
Irregular in shape, the pale blue, incandescent markings of the Xenon were much like human fingerprints, with no two patterns being the same. When they experienced intense emotions, good or bad, the marks glowed and shimmered, a visual representation of their mood.
Hers were currently shining as brightly as she had ever seen them.
“There is no meaning.”
Vasili Blackthorn had insisted that she employ discretion during her exile. He had warned her that she would be interacting with many races, and that the future of their people—and their relationships with said races—could very well depend on how she conducted herself.
He did not, however, indicate that banal interrogations would be part of her mission. Besides, she was a solider, a warrior. If he wanted diplomacy, he should have chosen someone else.
“Did you know that humans have legends about beings called ‘elves?’ They were supposedly magical and fair creatures, distinguished by their pointed ears.”
“I am aware.” She had heard all of the stories from Vasili Blackthorn’s human soulmate. “Yet, I am no more an elf than you are an angel.”
Inias chuckled. “Naturally. Humans are such a romantic race, don’t you agree?”
She had never really considered it, but she supposed that was an apt description. From her limited observations, she had learned that humans had a rather idealistic view of the universe and those who inhabited it. They also retained the singular ability to turn anything into a love story.
“I will agree they are an optimistic race.”
“Xenons are magic users, correct?”
The way he jumped topics was giving her conversational whiplash. “Correct.”
“Can you do something magical right now?”
She could drop him out of an airlock. The subsequent silence would be pretty fucking magical in her opinion. That would likely get her exiled from her home for real, though. Instead, she settled for using another of her gifts.
All Xenon had been blessed with magic from the ancestors, but some, like her, had been given a little extra. There were those who had a unique connection with the planet, a link that allowed them to manipulate the elements. Some possessed a proclivity for healing. Others could commune with beasts.
Her family’s gift was influence, the manipulation of another’s feelings and thoughts. It was a rare ability, and a dangerous one in the wrong hands. It seduced and consumed, devouring those who let it control them instead of the other way around.
More than one member of her family had fallen victim to its treacherous allure, which was why Tira had vowed long ago to use the gift only when necessary.
Since it was either manipulation or murder, she figured the situation qualified as necessary.
Relaxing as much as she could, she focused on the male and sent her influence directly to his mind, implanting the suggestion that he suddenly found her uninteresting. So much so, he could hardly stand to be near her.
After several seconds of nothing happening, Inias started to laugh. “I feel you in my head. It tickles.”
She had never attempted to use her gift on other races before. Whether D’Aire or Tarin, she couldn’t say for sure which part of him had the capability to block her, but she didn’t like it.
Uncomfortable and a bit alarmed, she turned away without a word and continued down the corridor to the observation lounge. Inias followed close behind, either unaware or uncaring of her desire to be left alone.
“So, are you excited about the beta testing?”
“No.”
“I wonder if we’ll be assigned to a game, or if we’ll get to choose. I really hope I get the zombie one.”
Curious against her will, she stopped just as the doors to the lounge slid open. “What is a zombie?”
“It’s an Earth concept. The dead come back to life and feed on the brains of the living.”
“That’s disgusting.” And highly disturbing. “These zombies, they’re real? To what purpose were they created?”
Inias chuckled again as he ushered her across the threshold. “No, they’re not real. It’s just a story. It’s fun.”
She frowned, bewildered as to why humans would create such dark fantasies for the purpose of entertainment.
Similar creatures existed among her people, but they weren’t figures in fiction, and there certainly wasn’t anything “fun”about the elu.
Nothing in the universe, magic or otherwise, could return life once it had been taken. The elu were merely reanimated corpses, puppets, created from the blackest magic for the sole purpose of serving their master, usually to nihilistic ends. The ritual was considered an offense against the ancestors, and as such, it was strictly forbidden. To violate the decree resulted in their harshest punishment.
Death.
An electronic whistle preceded the announcement that they would be arriving on Evo in approximately seventeen minutes. Moving over to the large windows that lined the semi-circular room, she caught her first glimpse of the planetoid.
“It’s quite lovely, isn’t it?” Inias asked as he joined her.
With its bright swirling colors that ranged in shades of the palest yellow to the darkest blue, it did possess a certain beauty. Still, although she hadn’t seen the surface yet, she doubted it could compare to Xenthian.
“Homesick?”
Tira jerked around, eyeing the male suspiciously. “You are…telepathic?”
“Empathic, actually,” he answered with a genial smile. “But I don’t need to use my abilities to know that you don’t want to be here. It’s written all over your face.”
“Someone has written on my face?”
It must have happened during sleep. She normally had a keen awareness during slumber, but space travel had been more taxing than she had anticipated. In the future, she would have to be more cautious.
“No, that’s—”
“Where?” Staring at her reflection in the information console, she turned her head one way, then the other, searching for markings on her skin that shouldn’t be there. “I don’t see it.”
“No one wrote on your face.”
She straightened slowly, her mouth set in a hard line, and her eyes narrowing when she realized the male was laughing at her. “Explain.”
“It’s an expression I picked up somewhere,” he answered, sobering. “It simply means that your feelings are showing on your face, in your body language.”
“I understand.” Unfortunately, that wasn’t something she could change easily. Her father had always said her eyes revealed much about her thoughts.
Another electronic whistle sounded, followed by another announcement for passengers to prepare for landing.
“I guess we should collect our things,” Inias said. “Do you need help?”
Everything she had brought with her fit into a single satchel. “I can manage.”
“In that case, I’ll see you on the surface.”
They went their separate ways then, giving her a few minutes of blissful silence before the craft touched down inside a cavernous docking bay on the main island. Stark and barren with blinking lights and the scent of chemicals, it wasn’t exactly the welcome she had expected.
Three large males dressed from head to toe in black—and a small group of what appeared to be civilians—met them at the bottom of the ramp when they disembarked. The tallest of the males stepped forward to introduce himself as a member of the security team. Next, he identified the gathering behind him as a group of engineers and technicians. Apparently, one would be assigned to each of them before entering the games.
“We’ll begin our tests tomorrow. In the meantime, we have prepared accommodations for you that I think you will find—”
“What the fuck?” another male shouted as a deluge of rain suddenly poured down on them.
Inside the hangar.
Dark clouds gathered near the high ceilings, their shapeless forms flashing with streaks of lightning. Thunder boomed and rumbled, echoing off the walls, and workers scattered as they ran for cover.
“There’s a fucking storm in Docking Bay 4!” the first security officer yelled into his wrist unit. “What the hell is going on?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” came a feminine voice from the device. “A sea monster took out one of the power cells, which caused a flux in the grid and short-circuited the environmental controls in some of the sectors.”
Inias shuffled closer to Tira’s side, his long, silvery hair now matted a dark gray from the rain. “Did she say this is because of a sea monster?”
“They have monsters here?” the Helios female asked, and she sounded delighted by the prospect.
She also appeared completely unfazed by the downpour, although many of the other passengers, including her brother, had retreated back onto the ship.
“Well, fucking fix it!” the guard demanded.
“We’re working on it, sir.”
“Work faster!”
“Can’t you do something, Captain?” Inias asked.
Tira looked up at him with an arched brow. “What would you have me do?”
“You have magic, don’t you? Can’t you stop the storm?”
Since the storm was artificial in nature, she honestly couldn’t say what would happen if she tried to alter it. Besides, her gifts weren’t in elemental magic, meaning she didn’t have that kind of power.
She could, however, make things more…comfortable.
Reciting the incantation in her mind, she threw her hands up toward the ceiling. A stream of pale purple light emanated from her palms, creating a shimmering, translucent dome over their section of the hangar.
Thunder still boomed, and fat droplets of rain plinked against the magical barrier, but at least they were no longer caught in the cloudburst. A few grateful murmurs went through the crowd, and she received an acknowledging nod from the security officer.
“Nice job,” Inias complimented. “I knew you could do it.”
Tira smiled. She was kind of starting to like the male. A little.
Unfortunately, maintaining the dome required a certain amount of focus, which proved nearly impossible when a loud, deep growl rose up over the sound of the thunder. Scanning her surroundings for the source, her gaze landed on one of the techs in the group behind the guards.
Whether triggered by her display of magic or something else, a young Krytos male had transformed into what she had learned was their battle form. Only, this was unlike anything she had ever witnessed. The male had grown to nearly twice his original size so that he now towered over everyone else. Saliva dripped from long, sharp fangs, and his irises blazed a bright, angry red.
The black T-shirt he’d been wearing now hung around his neck and shoulders in tatters, revealing a chest swollen with rippling muscles and lined by thick, dark veins. His shoulders rose and fell with every ragged breath, and threatening growls continued to pour from his parted lips.
Then, he started to move, sprinting across the wet floor as he dodged the reaching arms of the guards.
And he was headed right for her.