Conquered by the Alien Warrior Read online

  It’s infuriating.

  Apparently, Nevada managed to convince a mishua to let her ride it when she went looking for the other human women—shortly after they crash-landed here. But it took her days to persuade the mishua before it would tolerate her on its back, and even then, Rakiz was convinced it would have killed her by the time he found her.

  This is why I was planning to bypass the mishua altogether.

  Sure, a mishua would get me to Rakiz’s camp faster, but I figured as a female traveling alone, it was smarter for me to go on foot—so I could easily hide when necessary. Plus, I can go days without sleep, and I had my contacts lined up along the way in case I needed shelter.

  Unfortunately, Korzyn disagrees.

  “A mishua will get us there much faster.”

  “Only Braxians ride mishua. It’s a good way to announce to our enemies we’re here and traveling alone.”

  “Speed is of the greatest importance.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure you’ve got a busy social life to get back to.”

  He narrows his eyes at me. I narrow mine back.

  “This is what we’re doing,” he says finally, and I grind my teeth.

  “You make it really easy to hate you.”

  He flashes his teeth at me and gestures for me to get on the mishua. Behind him, one of Rakiz’s warriors is looking on in amusement. Dexar and Rakiz quickly realized they would need to keep mishua here for when their people wanted to travel across the water, and they’ve surrounded the mishua pen with guards.

  I smile at the warrior, who has incredible dark-green eyes. “I can leave the commander here to watch the mishua. You wanna come with me instead?” I ask him, and he grins at me. He runs his eyes over my body, and Korzyn goes very still next to me.

  “Get. On. The. Mishua.”

  I sigh. Better to pick my battles. “If we get targeted because we’re on this stupid mishua, I’m telling Arix it was all your idea.”

  The mishua tenses as I mount her, one of her red eyes focused on me. Viv says they’re smart and can understand more than we think, so I’ve likely just made an enemy of my lizard horse as well.

  Awesome.

  Korzyn mounts behind me, and my mood turns darker at the feel of his ridiculously hard body pressed against mine.

  “Move back. You’re in my space,” I snipe, and he ignores me, reaching around me and directing the mishua out of the paddock.

  “Her name is Heli,” Rakiz’s warrior says, stepping back.

  “Awesome.” I wave goodbye to him, ignoring Korzyn’s low growl.

  “Why are you so pissy? You didn’t have to come.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “You gonna tell me what Arix offered you in exchange?”

  “Why would I?”

  Now I’m even more curious. But I clamp my mouth shut. “Fine.”

  “I will tell you in exchange for an answer to one of my questions.”

  Hmm. I consider this as the mishua plods further from the pen and toward the forest. Soon we’ll need to be quiet, careful not to draw any attention to ourselves.

  Despite myself, I’m desperate to know what could have made the commander agree to this trip when he so clearly wants to be elsewhere.

  The king could technically order him to go with me. But from what I’ve observed, the two are close friends. If Arix is giving the commander something he wants, then I want to know exactly what it is.

  Knowledge is power, after all.

  “Fine,” I say. “You tell me first.”

  He moves slightly in the weird mishua-shaped saddle, and the leather creaks beneath us.

  “On the night of Arix and Vivian’s mating, after Vivian was coronated…”

  “Yes?”

  “The crowd left the ballroom to see the shooting stars.”

  “I remember.” It was Seva, and Arix insisted we all go outside. I shrugged, looking for solitude. I didn’t find it, but I became entranced with the shooting stars anyway.

  “I met a female that night.”

  I suddenly feel…uncomfortable. “Uh-huh. And?”

  “She was a noblewoman from Mazark’s tribe. We talked…briefly—”

  I smirk. “You mean you flirted.”

  “Yes. I had thought that was all it was. Truthfully, I wasn’t looking for anything more.”

  Korzyn is being surprisingly open and honest. I glance over my shoulder, but his gaze is on the horizon, his face thoughtful. He’s basically thinking aloud, and it’s as if I’m not even here.

  I stay silent, waiting for him to spill the rest of the details.

  “I wanted to watch the stars alone. So I found a dark corner of the gardens. It was close to the tree the children like to climb.”

  Oh shit.

  “The noblewoman sat next to me, and we looked up at the stars. Within moments, we were kissing.”

  Uh-oh.

  “I don’t know her name.”

  I shuffle uncomfortably on the mishua, ignoring the way the beast narrows her eye at me.

  The noble Korzyn thought he kissed?

  Yeah, it was me.

  I didn’t know it at the time, of course. I’d been flirting with one of Arix’s guards all night, and like most people, I was pretty hammered after all the noptri. Vivian insisted I take a cloak, and I wandered out into the garden in an attempt to make the world stop spinning.

  I plunked myself down next to the guard, a guy named Heros, who was staring up at the shooting stars as if they’d tell him the secrets of the universe. I glanced up too, somehow still shocked at just how different the stars were on Agron compared to Earth.

  It made me feel small, and it reminded me Earth was very, very far away.

  When he leaned closer, I decided to numb the pain in a way that noptri hadn’t quite managed to do.

  The kiss was the kind of kiss you force yourself to lock away because if you ever let it free again, you’ll lose hours examining it from every angle.

  It started off the way all kisses do, my lips brushing his. And then Heros took control, sliding his arm behind me and pulling me close as he explored my mouth. I lost all track of time until the peaceful night was broken as a group of people walked close by, their laughter bringing me back down to earth.

  I pulled away, my head spinning as I got to my feet. Heros turned toward the sound, the light of a shooting star hitting his face at just the right moment, and I suddenly felt stone-cold sober.

  It wasn’t Heros at all.

  I’d just made out with the commander.

  I hurried to bed, swearing to never think of it again and figuring Korzyn would do the same.

  Instead, he made a deal with Arix.

  I chew my lip. Could Arix know it was me?

  I was hungover the next morning. Was that knowing look Arix gave me at breakfast because he knew I’d swiped a bottle of his best noptri or because he knew I’d kissed his commander?

  I reasoned I had no need to tell Korzyn. I figured he’d move on—likely that same night. I never imagined he would care.

  I take a deep breath and slowly let it out. He can never know.

  Korzyn has fallen silent, and I clear my throat awkwardly. I have no idea what he just said.

  “So you kissed a mystery woman and now you want to know who it is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you care so much?”

  He shrugs. “I’ve answered your question. Now you will answer mine.”

  “Fine.”

  “Where are you hiding the control chip?”

  Korzyn

  Sarissa goes still in front of me. “Sneaky commander,” she says, her voice cold.

  “We have an agreement.”

  “I’ll tell you if you swear you will never take it from me.”

  “You agreed to tell me anyway,” I say, and her body becomes even tenser, making the mishua throw her head in annoyance.

  I sigh. “I swear I will not take it from you.”

  “It’s inside my earring.”


  I raise an eyebrow at that, leaning forward to examine the small blue stone in her right ear.

  “How?”

  “These earrings aren’t exactly high-quality, but I was wearing them when I was taken, so I’ve kept them in my ears. The blue jewel part is fake—it’s too big to be real, especially on my budget. So I pried it out and filed it down until the control chip could fit between the jewel and the prongs.”

  I have to admit, the female is exceptionally intelligent. I never would have thought to check the small stones in her ears.

  “That is a good hiding place.”

  “Thanks.” The word is slightly sarcastic, and I’m sure she is annoyed I used my question to discover her hiding place.

  Her annoyance pleases me, and I sit back in the saddle, content.

  We ride in silence, making our way toward Rakiz’s camp. At one point, we slide off the mishua to stretch our legs, and I reach into one of my saddlebags for rations, my stomach grumbling.

  “Food?”

  Sarissa shakes her head, and I frown.

  “Are you still upset because I know where your precious chip is?”

  “No.”

  I take a bite of dried meat, following it with a swig of water as I study her face. She’s staring into the distance, her expression dark.

  I shrug. “Let’s go.”

  Sarissa turns toward the mishua and then freezes, her eyes wild. I open my mouth, but then I hear them.

  Voices.

  Sarissa is scanning the area, and I can practically see her creating and discarding plans. She glances at the mishua and then gives me a withering look, and I know she’s still convinced we shouldn’t have used the beast.

  I give her a look of my own, positioning the mishua behind a group of trees, hidden from the voices to the left of us.

  “Silence,” I quietly warn the mishua, who ignores me.

  Sarissa is crouching behind a bush, and I crouch behind her, my hand on my sword. The voices are coming closer, and Sarissa slides one of her daggers out of the sheath hidden in her boot.

  The voices belong to Dokhalls, who come close enough that I can see their purple skin through the bush. Sarissa is practically vibrating with tension in front of me, and I place my hand on her shoulder. She jumps, giving me a dirty look, but she lets out a long breath, some of the stiffness leaving her body.

  The Dokhalls pass, and Sarissa slowly gets to her feet. Within moments, she’s stalking after them. While I mocked her for making too much noise in the castle, I have to admit she’s almost silent as she prowls after the Dokhalls.

  I follow, careful not to disturb the forest around me.

  While we’ve been traveling by mishua, we’ve mostly avoided the main paths throughout the forest. This was lucky because the Dokhalls have set up their own rustic camp here, building structures out of tree branches hidden just off the path.

  “They’re trying to cut off Arix,” Sarissa breathes, peering around the trunk of the tree she’s hiding behind. “Anyone who comes through this path won’t be expecting an attack.”

  I nod, grinding my teeth. We will have to be even more careful, likely taking days longer to get to Rakiz’s camp. But the sooner I get to the camp, the sooner I can find the dragon and convince him to get a message to Arix, warning him not to send anyone after us.

  “Let’s go,” Sarissa murmurs, and we make our way back to the mishua. We will have to find an alternate path, and quickly.

  I blink, suddenly dizzy. Sarissa scowls at me as I stumble, and we both freeze as a branch cracks beneath my foot.

  We barely breathe, but I have to bend over, my hands on my knees as bile rises and I fight to stay on my feet.

  “What are you doing?” Sarissa hisses.

  “Dizzy,” I mumble.

  She takes my elbow. “What the hell, Korzyn?”

  I focus on making it back to the mishua as the world swims sickly around me. What could have happened?

  “Bush. Poisonous?”

  Sarissa shakes her head. “No. I was closer to it and I’m fine.”

  “Poison,” I insist, and both Sarissas in front of me frown in disbelief. Realization crosses both their faces just as a third Sarissa joins them.

  “The food,” they say, dancing in front of my eyes. “I haven’t eaten anything, but you have. Someone poisoned our food.”

  I push away the betrayal that instinctively rises. I have been protecting Arix from such attacks for so long that it never occurred to me I would be targeted.

  There’s no reason to kill me now that the king’s enemies have been found. No reason except for revenge.

  Someone in the kitchen was working with Bevix.

  “Need to warn Arix.”

  “You need to get on the mishua,” Sarissa snaps. Four other Sarissas also nod their heads in agreement.

  I blink, and my eyes stay shut. Something cracks across my face, and I manage to pry my eyes open.

  There’s only one Sarissa now, and she’s pale, her eyes flashing.

  “Blue,” I mumble. “They’re blue now. Pretty blue.”

  “Fuck,” Sarissa mutters. She wedges herself beneath my shoulder, throwing my arm around her neck. “Just walk. I’ll figure this shit out.”

  I’m so dizzy I’m having trouble seeing the world around me. Distantly, I know this is a bad sign. “Death by dried meat,” I mumble. “Humiliating.”

  Sarissa snorts. “I told you not to come with me. Okay, the mishua is right here. All you have to do is help me get you into the saddle.”

  I nod, but my chin falls forward and my eyes slide closed.

  CRACK.

  “You enjoyed that,” I say, managing to open my eyes to slits. Distantly, I can feel my cheek burning with the force of her slap.

  “Of course I did. Get your shit together.”

  I feel my lips curl. For some reason, I occasionally find her abrasiveness charming. “Vicious female.”

  “Get on the mishua.”

  I can vaguely see the beast dancing in front of my eyes. Sarissa inhales sharply, likely realizing just how bad our situation is.

  “Okay,” she says. She takes my hand, directing it where it needs to go. Then she kneels, and I shift my weight to my right foot as she raises my left one and places it in her cupped hands.

  “Use me as a step stool.”

  The female will only be able to handle my weight for a short moment. I collect every last drop of my remaining energy and shake my head in an attempt to clear it.

  “You got this,” Sarissa says, and I chuckle.

  “Are you…encouraging…me?”

  “Sadly, your well-being is now directly tied to mine. On three.”

  She counts down, and I push up. The female is stronger than she looks, offering a good amount of resistance as she pushes against my foot, helping to boost me into the saddle.

  “I’m sorry,” I murmur, and the world goes black.

  Chapter Four

  Sarissa

  “Korzyn?”

  Unconscious. Fuck.

  We’re in deep shit right now. I glance toward the path the Dokhalls took. We need to stay even further from the main path, which is going to add even more time to our trip.

  I glance up at Korzyn. He’s worryingly pale.

  “I knew you were a liability,” I mutter.

  He doesn’t reply, and I take the mishua’s head, looking deep in her eyes. “You either walk where I lead you with him on your back or I leave you behind for the Dokhalls. Do you understand?”

  The mishua snorts, but I’m not messing around. Either she behaves or I’ll figure out another plan. If I have to drag Korzyn through the forest myself, I’ll fucking do it.

  Of course, I could always leave him.

  I sigh. It’s one thing if I kill him myself. It’s another if I leave him to die while he’s vulnerable. There’s no honor in that.

  Plus, Arix might kill me.

  I grind my teeth. If I’d been allowed to go alone, this never
would’ve happened.

  Well it did happen, Sarissa. So what are you going to do about it?

  I pull out my map. I could head back toward the mishua pen. There are other guards there who may be able to help. Making my way to Hexir is out of the question now. According to the information I bargained for, there are a few caves to choose from, although those came with warnings to be careful not to end up in a wild karja’s lair.

  There’s a cave not far from here. It won’t be comfortable, but if we can hunker down there, I can figure out what to do next.

  Okay. The commander isn’t looking good at all. His lips have a bit of a blue tint. Is his breathing labored?

  Another instructor’s voice sounds in my head. “It’s not the situation that will kill you. Panic will take you out first. Don’t let your own response be the determining factor in your death.”

  Zoey taught me a little about plants before I left. I walked with her in the forest a few times, soaking up as much information as I could. If I can find a particular plant, it may help draw the poison out of the commander. But first, I need to get him somewhere safe.

  The cave it is.

  I tug on the leather strap around Heli’s nose. For a moment, she digs in her heels, and I bare my teeth at her.

  “I will kick your ass.”

  It’s an empty threat. If she lowers her head any further, she’ll probably gouge me with those vicious-looking horns. Korzyn groans on her back, and she jolts into motion, almost stepping on my toes.

  I give the Dokhalls a wide berth, heading deeper into the forest. The mishua takes soft, quiet steps, but I’m still tense, my largest knife clutched in my hand as I scan my surroundings for threats. I stop often, listening for any more Dokhalls. But each time I glance at Korzyn’s face, I move faster.

  I’m dripping with sweat by the time we arrive at the rocky mountain on the edge of the forest. The cave entrance is small, but I ignore my claustrophobia and force myself to go inside, checking for animals.

  The cave is much larger inside than it looked from the outside. Since no wild animals are leaping at me, ready to tear my face off, I duck my head and inch inside the cave, my eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light.