Epilogue
Ethan, One Month Later
The armor locked around me with a soft hiss of pressurized seals, hugging every muscle, every joint, like it had been made just for me—which, according to Lyra, it had.
I.C. issue, second-gen adaptive alloy, fitted with kinetic boosters and assisted motion dampeners.
In plain English: I could punch like a freight train and move like a goddamn cat. I felt invincible.
Across the circle, Kovo stood shirtless in a pair of loose training shorts, built like a marble statue that’d been carved with violence in mind.
His skin shimmered with sweat, and when he cracked his knuckles, the sound echoed like a warning.
Adrian sat nearby, chin in her hand, openly ogling her mate like he was dessert.
Meanwhile, my mate leaned against a sun-warmed pillar, arms crossed, watching with that little half-smile that made my pulse do stupid things. Her claws tapped idly on her thigh. "Try not to break him, Ethan."
“I make no promises,” I called back.
Kovo scoffed and circled me. “Ready, armor boy?”
“Oh, I’ve been waiting all day for this.”
We launched at each other—and I swear, the armor sang.
My reactions were faster than I’d ever felt, body snapping into motion like every muscle was wired to instinct.
I blocked his first hit. Dodged the second.
When I landed a right cross to his ribs, the impact felt like slamming a sledgehammer into steel—and he actually staggered back, grinning.
“Not bad,” Kovo said, rolling his shoulder. “You might even make a decent sparring partner.”
I was loving this. The power. The speed.
The way I wasn’t getting ragdolled like a civilian.
I wasn’t just holding my own—I was fighting an Atlan Warlord and living to tell the tale.
With this armor I wouldn’t be a liability on raids.
Could hold my own against a Silver Scion, an Enforcer from Rogue 5, or whatever freakishly strong alien we were hunting that day.
Adrenaline surged through me, but beneath that? Joy. Not just from the fight, but from the people surrounding me. I had a place now. A purpose. A team.
A family.
And all of it was because of her.
I glanced toward Lyra—beautiful, fierce, absolutely mine—and my heart fumbled over itself with pure, stupid adoration.
Which, of course, was when Kovo swept my legs out from under me and slammed me into the mat.
“Eyes up, lover boy,” he said, grinning like a jackal. “Or do I need to call your mate over to finish you off?”
I groaned, laughing, flat on my back. “You fight dirty.”
“I fight smart.”
Lyra strolled over, looking entirely too pleased with herself. “He was distracted,” she said, crouching beside me. “Probably picturing me naked again.”
“Every damn time,” I admitted, still grinning, still breathless. “And worth every bruise.” Lyra and I had tried sparring. More than once. Every time we lasted about two minutes before we started ‘sparring’ naked.
She lifted the helmet visor and kissed me right there, armor and all. I kissed her back, uncaring who was watching. She was mine and I wanted everyone on the planet to know it.
Ethan – Several Hours Later
Bahre’s compound wasn’t what I expected from an alien’s fortified, military style bunker. Sure, the place was armored with security tighter than a military bunker, but the vibe inside? Home. Family.
Kovo sat on one of the reinforced couches with his mate, Adrian, her head resting against his shoulder. Lyra was next to me on another, one thigh pressed against mine, her claws lightly trailing along the inside of my thigh like she couldn’t not touch me—and I didn’t want her to stop.
I’d been officially declared dead for a month now.
The ‘friends’ Jenkins and I had been talking to?
Turned out they were a special CIA task force assigned to deal with the Silver Scions, and any alien threat, without causing worldwide panic.
Our contact had been thrilled to give Lyra and me new, official, human identities—and to use me as her primary source of contact with a group of badass alien Warlords and other fighters who never shied away from a good fight.
With Jenkins still serving with the Miami police force, and me embedded with the Atlans, the CIA team was having their cake and eating it, too.
I thought the uptight CIA officer, a woman serving directly under an ‘anonymous’ Army general, was going to have an orgasm when we brought her in and gave her a direct comm link to Commander Helion.
He had seemed equally pleased to deal with what he called soldiers on the ground, rather than Earth’s politicians.
I didn’t give a shit what any of them wanted. Lyra and I were off-grid. Safe. Together. Matching mating cuffs on both our wrists. She was mine. Totally. Completely. ‘Til death do us part. Which, with ReGen technology, might be a good long time.
So, when Helion’s face appeared on the oversized screen—neon-green eyes full of menace and impatient alien demand—I tensed out of habit.
Based on everything I’d learned about the I.C.
’s highest ranking commander the last few weeks, he ruined lives for a living.
As I understood things, he was never the type to just check in.
“Warlord. Ladies. Ethan Blake.” Helion’s voice was smooth as ever, but I had spent enough time with Krag and Rohn over the past month to read Prillon faces.
Helion was excited about something. “Now that the dust has settled—and I have a direct channel to the human’s fighting force—I believe it’s time you saw something.
Something I think you will all be interested in. ”
Kovo sat forward. Adrian sighed softly like Helion had just pissed in her Cheerios. Lyra stilled beside me, retracted her claws—a sign she was struggling to control her beast.
Helion didn’t wait for anyone to respond. He touched something off screen, and the video feed changed.
It looked like bodycam footage—grainy, fast, and brutal. A firefight, flame and smoke kicked up in all directions. I recognized the inside of the warehouse where I’d seen my first cyborg corpse. The murder scene.
Realized I was watching the scene through the dead cyborg’s eyes, seeing his final memories.
Holy shit.
Lyra leaped to her feet as a figure emerged.
Eight feet tall, broad-shouldered, moving like controlled chaos.
The Atlan Warlord’s hair was dark and shorn close, his skin bronze with strange, tattoo-like markings half-hidden by shadows.
But what caught my attention was the Warlord’s expression—stoic, focused. Merciless.
He approached the cyborg with no hesitation. Held out a weapon nearly identical to the one I’d stolen from the cyborg we’d killed, and fired.
The world tilted as the soon to be dead male spun and fell. Held out his arms as if he could hold off the beast-sized Warlord coming to end him.
The Warlord came down on top of him in a blur of motion that barely registered. One punch. No hesitation. Efficient. Clean. “Tell me where it is.” The command rumbled through the screen with the intensity of a rockslide. Unforgiving. Unstoppable. Already in motion.
“I don’t know. Please! I swear!” The cyborg gagged as a giant hand entered the screen’s view and settled around his neck. Must have squeezed. Hard to say. We could see what the cyborg had seen, but had no idea what he was thinking or feeling.
“Look at me.”
The cyborg obeyed. Turned his head. Stared into the eyes of the meanest fucking Warlord I’d ever seen.
Lyra gasped. “Reji?”
I stood and pulled her close. Her lips were parted, eyes wide and shimmering with shock? Horror? Hope?
Kovo stood, his entire frame coiled, unreadable—until his voice cracked. “He’s alive.”
The image faded and Helion’s voice returned. “He’s working deep cover. Obviously, he was on Earth when this event occurred. And now, Lady Lyra, you know where to start looking.”
Lyra’s hand found mine again, this time holding tighter than before.
I didn’t know her brother, but I knew what it meant to lose Eddie. I also knew what it meant to feel the weight of hope land like a thunderstrike in the middle of your chest.
That’s what she’d been to me. A lightning strike. A storm of passion. Devotion. Belonging.
Love.
So I did what any mate would do.
I squeezed her hand and promised myself, silently, fiercely—
We would find him.
Don’t miss Warlord Reji’s story in Grace Goodwin’s upcoming Sci-Fi Romance: DAUNTLESS
Did you miss Warlord KOVO in Bargain with a Beast ?
Adrian Davis thought getting on a real-life, ‘beam me up, Scotty’, transport pad was adventure enough. Visiting her mother—and the Atlan beast her mom had chosen as a mate—on another planet? Setting foot in an Atlan prison? Completely crazy.
Like totally, bat-shit, what-the-hell-was-she-doing-with-her-life crazy.
She was supposed to spend a few days wandering around with her twin sister, seeing the sights, expanding her horizons.
The trip was supposed to be a much needed break from the hectic schedule she was keeping in school.
She was only nineteen. She had plans. Finish college.
Medical school. Husband. House. Two-point-five perfect kids and a golden retriever named Buddy.
All that changed with one ro
ar of pain. She heard him. A beast. He was out of control, locked behind an impenetrable wall, alone. Suffering the agony of mating fever.
Ready to die. Forsaken.
Adrian can’t let him go. She will have to fight a centuries old system,
warlords on another world, and the beast himself to get what she wants.
To save him.
To keep him for herself.
Read Bargain with a Beast NOW!
CHAPTER ONE
Kovo, Atlan Warlord, Planet Atlan, Prison Cell 4-D7, Death Row
Time to execution: 00:10:12:43
I glanced at the timer counting down how much longer I would live. The small, black box was built into the wall in every cell. Some Atlans didn’t want to know how much time they had left.