Devil’s Dance (Alien Bride Race #6)

Chapter 1

Instead of a mate, I got three years of war. It has changed me. I know it. But I don’t know how to fix it, or that I even want to. The anger I carry inside is justified.

Talhuskins, Denarso, and Nebs deserve to die.

“Jorusk, I need your hands to fix our launcher,” Sidius’ voice calls over my ear com. We take heavy fire from Talhuskin ships that are in orbit above our colony. They don’t like that we escaped their prison cliffs and hate us even more because I killed a prince.

“Can you handle it?” I turn back to Osiris, who’s repositioning our tracking relay that helps us maintain com signals and monitor Talhuskin ships. We are a capable species with a solid Pyraforce, but we have lost many soldiers and have limited supplies on this world.

“Yes, go!” my pale brother says, his wings tucked tightly against his back to avoid being shredded by the gunfire that pelts us from above.

I take a personal shield, ignite the red bubble, attach it to my armor, and spot Sidius’ downed rig across the obliterated farm fields of yet another failed settlement. Bullets punch holes in the dust in clusters that spray out in wild patterns with little concern for targets.

The Talhuskins grow weary of the battle we refuse to lose. They’re throwing everything they have at us.

This is going to hurt.

After a deep breath, I bolt out into the open. Bullets slam into my shield with bruising force. My wings cramp up as I strain to keep them inside the shield that’s low on power. “Vryskas and Rykarn, report!”

“Getting civilians underground,” Vryskas says. “Almost done.”

“I want you two back with Osiris the moment you can. Sidius’ crew has broken down…” A bullet bashes hard into my shield, knocking me off balance as I cross the field littered with bodies of Pyraforce brothers and sisters. “Again!”

My Inferno growls inside me, wanting to be free. But I cannot show him now, or it will paint a bright target on my back for Talhuskins to fire at. The shield sparks, fizzles, and fades.

Frustration and heartbreak are the only emotions I know now.

I think back to being on Aura’s crew when he met Jovie at the Alien Bride Race and the hope I’d had back then for my future.

Aura knows happiness. I’m jealous. But the destruction of my people and our new homeworld is my fault.

I need to be here, where I belong, fighting for my kind.

Sidius, red eyes blazing with desperation, shouts at me when my shield dies. He waves frantically and extends a hand from where he hangs off his missile launcher. I sprint through the deadly lead rain as fast as I can, my tool bag banging against my side.

He snags my hand and slings me inside the shield right as a cluster of bullets pelts the ground, leaving a massive hole that sprays dirt into the air.

Now, I fear whatever mate I was destined for is gone forever, all because I killed the wrong Talhuskin.

He deserved what he got.

Catching my breath, I climb over the rig, following Sidius to the broken slingshot ignition system. It’s burned up, so I squeeze down into the chamber beside Fenom.

“They’re burning up faster than before,” Fenom says, adjusting his helmet.

Bokson snickers inside and fist bumps their driver, Kallus. “Because we’re slinging a lot of vengeance.”

I tear through my bag and grab the tools I need.

Folding my wings to the side, I lean over into the compartment and repair the igniter while Fenom and Bokson fire a handheld rocket up at the long, brown, talon-shaped ships that rake across our sky, the sky that held so much hope just a decade ago.

Now that blue sky bleeds like my brothers.

There must be something more I can do than this. I repair equipment. I operate guns, fly fighters, go on recon missions, and even set traps when we have the opportunity. None of it is ever enough.

I will never regret ripping off the prince’s talons one by one and then ending his life with the last, even as I hunker inside the shelter of an opened panel on our starbound missile launcher to hotwire the damaged guidance system that’s also fried.

“Oh, hellfire.” Sidius lugs Fenom and Bokson back inside the launcher as hail showers the shield. “Kallus, get us out of here! They’ve turned on the poison guns!”

Shouts erupt from the far side of the battlefield outside Ignatious, a colony bordering the city of Mictlan.

Frigid green bullets the size and shape of Talhuskin talons rain from the sky, burying our forces like tidal waves.

They punch into the ground, smash into equipment, and seize up anything that moves, like the launcher I finally manage to repair.

Ice sprays through the shield. Sidius shields me with his body as the frozen fragments shower the racks of missiles.

My Inferno writhes within me like scorching lava.

Even my body shudders under the heat, making me wonder how much longer I can contain it.

Every day that passes that I survive and many do not because of a war I started makes me feel like I am sinking deeper into the depths of Magmium.

I fear I may never recover, and the monster at my core will consume the soldier of my people that I have worked so hard to become.

I stay hot despite the chill because of my rage, not just with the universe but with myself. We will never be free from our masters. Not while we live.

An explosion of ice bashes into my assigned squad’s tracking relay. The boom jolts me upright. When I see the rig in pieces, desperation tears through me. “Osiris!”

A body falls in the field. The relay groans and sputters as the hoverpad bursts under the force, and the machine collapses like the distant farm buildings. I crawl out from under Sidius’ body shield, drop to the dirt, and take off running. Osiris is my closest friend. I can’t leave him behind.

“Jorusk!”

I look back. Sidius throws a fresh shield at me as hail from the Talhuskin ships overhead closes in. I catch it and keep running.

Sidius’ launcher races across the land to escape the frosty green wave of death. He watches me, wearing the look of a broken man, like he knows I’m running to my death.

“You shouldn’t risk it!” he says in my ear com.

I’ll never forgive myself if I let someone else die when I can do something about it, especially Osiris, our one half-breed Drath-human.

But most Drathious are not open about such feelings.

I used to be. I was different, peaceful.

Some would even dare say gentle. But years of battle have worn me down. It hasn’t done that to Osiris.

He is my last tether to who I used to be.

I open the red shield Sidius gave me and attach it to the chest of my armor.

“This wasn’t yo— fault.” Sidius is wrong.

The ice storm is beginning to affect our signal without the use of our relay.

“I’m almost to Osiris. Coms breaking up. Jorusk out.” I just don’t want to listen to him try to make me feel better. I don’t want to change how I feel. I want to change the situation.

The Talhuskin I killed had infiltrated an Amphiran ship.

He let the enemy Denarso on board to take females.

Genesis Amphirans are allies, and they were in the middle of their own civil war, fighting for freedom.

The Talhuskin was a royal. I revived an old war when I killed Kalihtanis with his own talons.

The assault of hail falls harder, smashing into my shield. I pick up my Pyraforce brother, sling him across my shoulders, settle him atop my wings, and run for shelter.

Osiris is covered in red-orange blood. He mumbles incoherently.

“Stay with me.” I stagger under his weight as I run through the damp rows of crushed plants. Ice bullets slam into the dirt, making the ground uneven and soupy. Mud sprays up as I charge for the closest shelter, a wrecked silo.

Another field destroyed. More food is gone. More hard work. More credits. And all remaining hope.

Irkalla is the only city left with an intact shield.

Xibalba is a frozen wasteland. It’s the only way Talhuskins have found to kill us.

Only the shock of an icy, poisoned gel that hardens post-impact can stop our Infernos, and we can survive in space without star suits.

When our Inferno is gone, life fades. It is a blistering cold and sickening death.

My priority now is not a mate; it is holding my world together, even if it means risking everything.

“Jorusk…” Osiris mumbles. He’s barely warm, but I know it’s not from ice. He’s bleeding out.

I lay him down under the shelter of a twisted metal frame and convoluted panels.

The fields are destroyed, the crops gone, like he will be soon if I don’t do something quickly.

Resting him back in a pile of spilled grain, I glance through an opening as the hail fire bullets punch into the warm dirt of our planet and melt, further turning the fields to slushy mud.

The ice will build until we are all entombed in it.

There is no negotiating with Talhuskins. They want us to serve them or die. We chose freedom…and death.

I try to give Osiris warm water from my canteen, but he shies away from it.

He looks down and grimaces at the radiant orange blood that leaks from beneath his ribs.

I dig through my medical pack as the hail pounds harder on the metal.

Finding a bandage, I dump a coagulant pack over his wound and press the bandage to him.

“Don’t bother. I’m so cold already.”

“Osiris, if you die on me, I will take my next chance to visit you in Magmium just so I can kick your ass.”

He laughs weakly and looks away with pain and denial in his eyes. “We all have a time, brother.”

But I am no ordinary brother. I keep myself hidden to help those the elite soldiers never will. Osiris is a kind Drathious, like I used to be. Like we all used to be before survival turned us into animals.

Aura knows I am different. He told me to be myself. But I do not need extra attention when I’m already trying to patch up what I’ve destroyed.