Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 130081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Confident in the connection they had formed in their dreams, she reached up and pressed the button on the side of the frame which killed the stasis field.
And then all Seven Hells broke loose.
NINE
NATE
Nate couldn’t see a fucking thing. Everything was blackness—he was frozen. Frozen in space and time so that every minute felt like an eternity. He strained against the invisible wall that held him in place, but it was too strong for him.
Fucking thing! He felt a growl of pure fury rising in his throat—or it would have risen if everything hadn’t been frozen.
He was living in a nightmare—his existence had been turned into one long, endless bad dream, he thought. After getting out of the Seals, he’d just wanted to find a quiet job and decompress—try to forget some of the bad shit he’d seen. At first, it seemed that he had done that. He’d found a good job with an engineering firm—that had been his degree before he’d joined the military—and a nice townhouse in a quiet neighborhood.
And then just a few months later, the Scourge had arrived.
Nate had put his Seal training to use, leading endless counteroffensives against the alien hordes that came from the sky to despoil Earth. He’d lost everything—and everyone—he’d ever loved or even cared about. The Scourge poisoned the planet, burning the forests and shooting toxic chemicals into the water supply. They killed most of the animals and rounded up all the humans they could and sold them off-planet as slaves.
Somehow, most of Nate’s battalion had escaped capture again and again. But then there was a firefight and three of those big Vat-grown fuckers had come against him at once. He’d run out of ammo—always in short supply—and had to resort to hand-to-hand fighting. Nate was big—pro-wrestler big. But the Scourge soldiers were all nearly nine feet tall. Despite fighting for his life, he’d been overpowered. And then they had taken him to the AllFather…
No! Nate forced the awful memory out of his head. He wouldn’t think of the “feeding sessions” where every bad memory was sucked from his brain and pawed over like a trophy and every good memory was twisted and distorted. He refused to remember the black throne covered in glowing green markings and that hissing voice as the icy fingers dug through his brain…
Fucking stop it! You’re doing it again! Stop—push it away! Don’t remember! Don’t!
The memories made him crazy and he couldn’t always stop them. He pushed against the invisible barrier again, hoping for release, even though it always ended the same way. Every time they let him go for a minute, it was so some other alien freak could look him over and decide if they wanted to buy him. And every time, Nate went in for the kill.
This time was no different. He heard a familiar hiss of escaping air and suddenly the barrier was gone—just gone.
His vision was blurry but he lunged forward anyway, reaching for the figure in front of him—the one who sought to buy him—to own and destroy him.
“You fucker!” he rasped, clenching his fingers around a slender throat. “I’ll fucking kill you!”
TEN
LAN’ARA
“Nate, no! No!” Lan’ara tried to scream, but the words came out in a choked whisper. His long fingers were wrapped around her throat, cutting off her air supply, squeezing the life out of her. His rage was flowing through her like a torrent of burning lava—he wanted to make someone pay for the pain he carried like a vine of thorns wrapped around his heart, and she was the closest target.
“Please!” she whispered again, prying uselessly at his hands, which were locked around her neck. She tried to send him calming and reassuring emotions but he was blocking her. The rage he felt was too strong—too overwhelming. She couldn’t get through to him—it was like throwing kisses at someone behind a brick wall.
Her vision started to get spotty as she struggled uselessly. Was this really how things were going to end for them? With Nate choking the life out of her before she even got a chance to know him? To heal him?
Should have listened to Davrik, she thought to herself. Please, Goddess—I need help! I’m sorry I didn’t wait…I’m sorry…sorry…
At that moment, just as her vision was going completely black and she felt herself sagging in the big human’s grip, someone else came into the living area and shouted her name.
Lan’ara’s eyelids fluttered open and she saw a huge fist headed at Nate’s face. It connected with his square jaw and the hands that were squeezing the life out of her abruptly loosened as Nate turned and lunged at the new opponent.
She fell to the ground, gasping and choking, and was vaguely aware of deep male voices shouting as currents of anger streaked back and forth above her head like lightning.