The Breeding Prize: A Scifi Alien Romance (The Breeding Games Book 2) Read online

  Now he’s being eaten alive by these disgusting things, and once they’ve eaten through him, they will claim me as their fertile prize.

  I grab the thickest book I can find—a dictionary that is on a very short pedestal for the kids to use—and hold it over my head.

  I tremble as I walk, but the goblin aliens are so focused on tearing Raiska apart that they don’t seem me approaching.

  I get to the one on Raiska’s arm, and I slam the book right into its head as hard as I can. The green-skinned alien lets go of him just long enough that he shakes it free. With one of the things off of him, he’s able to swing his scythe. Another alien jumps off of him to dodge the scythe, and Raiska grabs hold of me.

  He kicks the last alien off his leg, and he holds me against his body, and with his one good arm, he points the scythe forward at the disgusting little aliens.

  Their cocks are soft now, but still massive, and they hiss at Raiska as he backs away.

  “Can we get to the portal now, human?” he asks me.

  “Yes. God, I’m so sorry, Raiska.”

  “Do you trust me now.”

  I just nod as tears stream down my face. The three little things look down at their fallen brother and shriek, and then they follow us. Raiska swings his scythe, and they jump back. They saw how easily he cut off the other’s head, and they don’t want to risk rushing into Raiska’s scythe again.

  He backs away slowly.

  “Get behind me,” he orders.

  I go behind him, and with his body and insane scythe between me and the little aliens, they can’t get to me. They start trying to get an angle on us though. Two of them fan out while one stays in the middle.

  Raiska throws the scythe. It moves in a flash of impossible colors, and it slices off the one trying to come from the left’s leg.

  All three of them screech, and the one coming from the right leaps toward Raiska.

  He catches it mid-air by the neck. He squeezes, and it gasps hopelessly for air.

  The middle one jumps toward us, and Raiska throws the choking one forward. Their heads bash together, and they go down in a heap.

  He lifts me up and tosses me over his shoulder. His scythe is gone as far as I can tell—as if it just disappeared into thin air—and he starts running through the library, toward the emergency exit.

  Just as we’re about to get clear, a lanky, shirtless alien with purple skin steps into our path.

  Raiska puts me down onto the ground and pulls me behind him once again. I cling to him. My hands find a place to grip on his cut abs, my fingers resting in his v-cut. I press my cheek against the rippling muscles of his back, and as scared as I am, I risk peeking my head out.

  Raiska has his scythe again. It appears out of nowhere just like it disappeared.

  The purple alien raises both of his hands, and what looks like a swarm of locusts begins to materialize out of thin air.

  “Fuck,” Raiska hisses. “It’s a nanoswarm.”

  “What the fuck is that?”

  “It’s very bad for us. Very few humanoid species can command a nanoswarm.”

  “What does it do—”

  In answer to my question, the swarm lashes forward like a black pillar. Raiska swings his scythe at it, and it cuts through, but the swarm keeps moving. Even if Raiska did destroy part of it, it doesn’t seem to slow or stop it. It just splits around his scythe and surges forward.

  Raiska turns around and dives onto me. He pins me to the ground and covers me with his body.

  I hear him grunt in pain, and there’s a loud, mechanical hiss and buzz all around me. The swarm must be eating him alive to get to me. He’s used his body to shield me, but he can’t fight back, he—

  The buzzing stops abruptly. No, it hasn’t stopped, it’s just moving away.

  Raiska gets up off me, and I look up just in time to see the man from earlier. The one who was eating all the cheese steaks.

  He’s walking casually up behind the purple alien, a half-eaten cheese steak in his hand. He flashes in non-existent colors, and suddenly he’s no longer human. He looks like a man that was dipped in gold, his skin is even gleaming as if he were polished or waxed. He’s completely naked, and he’s even bigger between the legs than the little goblin aliens. They’ve sent the most virile men to claim the fertile prize, apparently.

  “I am Philos,” the gold-skinned alien says, “the fertile prize is mine.”

  The nanoswarm is moving back toward Philos. The purple alien backs up just as the Philos throws the entire half cheese steak in his mouth and swallows it down.

  Just as the purple alien brings the full fury of the swarm down onto Philos, he raises his golden fist, and it grows.

  His fist becomes the size of a small car, and he opens his hand and grabs almost the entire swarm into his palm. He balls his hand up into a fist, and it sounds like thousands of beetles crunching all at once. The distinct smell of fried circuits fills the air.

  The purple alien tries to bring the few remaining pieces of his swarm back to defend himself, but Philos crushes his car-sized fist down, splattering the purple alien like a bug.

  Four

  Raiska

  I pluck her off the ground with one my good arm and throw her over my shoulder again.

  I run.

  There’s no shame in running to protect her. I would stay and fight if I weren’t so badly injured. If I weren’t outnumbered.

  Maybe Philos will fight the little ones, or maybe they’ll work together to take her from me. All I know is that I need to reach the portal. I need to heal before I can fight again.

  Protecting my little human is all that matters, and I will run if I have to in order to keep her safe.

  I take a second to turn around and throw my six-dimensional scythe.

  Philos tries to dodge, but his fist is so large that he’s sluggish, and my scythe cuts into him. A finger the size of a man falls off his hand, and he roars in pain.

  I summon the scythe back into my grip, and then I tuck it back up into the higher dimensions. I can’t afford to hold it as I run, especially with only one good arm, and my little human hoisted over my shoulder.

  I duck into the stairwell of the parking garage. I rush down the stairs rather than taking the elevator.

  Annabelle jostles on my shoulder, and I hold her even tighter to protect her.

  I find the vehicle from earlier. The ugly purple one.

  My orb is already calibrated for this vehicle, and I summon it to unlock and start the car before we are even inside. I rip the door off, and throw it onto the concrete. I set Annabelle onto the passenger seat, then I leap into the driver seat and set the throttle device to “D,” which Annabelle taught me stands for “Driving.”

  I press the acceleration button with my foot, and we take off.

  “Safety harness, little human!” I shout.

  I watch her fumble with it from the corner of my eye. There’s no longer any door on her side of the vehicle, and I can’t afford having the centrifugal force throw her from the vehicle while I perform necessary evasive maneuvers.

  There’s a red-and-yellow gate blocking our escape, and I drive right into it. It’s small and thin, and it doesn’t look at all massive enough to stop a human car. It scrapes against the glass shield of the car’s cockpit, and then it scrapes all across the ceiling of the vehicle’s hull, but we go right under it and are soon driving onto the main street of this area of the city.

  In the primitive mirror which allows me to look backward without turning my head around, I spot a shimmer of gold.

  I hit the “driving” button with my feet even harder, and the vehicle’s engine roars.

  We blast out onto the road.

  “You’re driving the wrong way!” she shouts.

  No. The portal is definitely to the East, and I have a very strong sense of the cardinal directions.

  I drive quickly, which is difficult, as all the other vehicles are sounding some kind of loud alarms at me. They are al
l trying to drive into me.

  “It’s a one-way road, Raiska!”

  I see. I am driving against the flow of traffic.

  I swerve quite adeptly, and I only scrape against a few cars in the process. When I scrape against the side of a rather large vehicle, the mirror on the left side of my car is ripped off entirely.

  Soon I am able to turn onto another road, one which allows for traffic in both directions.

  “You really can’t drive,” she says.

  I can tell from her voice that her heart rate is elevated even though she’s safe in the car with me. She must still be frightened from what happened in the library.

  I approach a line of cars that is stopping for no discernible reason. A yellow light hangs above them, and it turns red as I approach. I maneuver around the stopped vehicles and drive even faster. We are very close to the portal now. I can sense its presence on the higher dimensions.

  I drive right past the last stopped car, but then, from the corner of my eye, I spot movement.

  A vehicle slams into us. It hits my door, and our frail vehicle buckles from the impact.

  White powder explodes everywhere, and some kind of large pillows fill the vehicle. The pillows blinds my view through the glass.

  The little human screams.

  Our car spins around a few times, and then grinds to a halt.

  I jam my fingers into the pillow and pop it. I pop Annabelle’s pillow, and I check her for injuries.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I should be!” she shouts. “You went right through the red light. Fucking hell!”

  “You’re not hurt?”

  “No, I—”

  I rip her safety harness off and pull her from the vehicle. The driver of the vehicle that hit us is out on the road and shouting at me. I don’t understand why he’s angry, he’s the one who drove into me.

  I growl at him, and when he realizes I’m an alien, he screams and starts running.

  Loud sirens are approaching from all directions, but the emergency vehicles are all moving toward the library rather than toward us. I know these are the local authorities, and they will be trying to figure out what happened back behind us rather than worrying about the idiot who drove his vehicle into me.

  I go to throw Annabelle over my shoulder again, but she shakes her head. “I’ll follow you. You’re too hurt to keep carrying me.”

  I’m tempted to show her how wrong she is, but it will be strategically better for me to have a free arm, so I let her have her way this time.

  “Stay close to me, little human.”

  I take her by the hand, too afraid that I’ll somehow lose her if I’m not physically touching her. This human city is full of hills, and the portal is beneath a bridge on a narrow little road. Between two steep hills.

  I can see the crest of the hill in the distance, and I bring us toward it.

  We find a small stairway with a metal railing that brings us down toward the portal. I recognize the stairway. It’s the same one I used to come back up after I opened the portal. We’re almost there, we’re—

  I get a bad feeling, and risk losing time by looking behind me. I see him. The golden one. Philos.

  He’s made his legs larger now, and he’s rushing toward us.

  As a warrior, I’m trained to make life-or-death decisions in split seconds. In this moment, I decide we are close enough to the portal that it’s better to run. I’ve set the portal to collapse the moment I pass through it. All I have to do is jump in, and as long as I can reach it before Philos does, I’ll have bought us a large amount of time and safety.

  If it were just me, and if I didn’t have to protect my little human, I’d stay and fight. I’d risk that I might lose. Maybe it would be to protect my pride or my honor as a warrior, but that is gone now. There is only Annabelle. She is what I live for now, and my pride and honor is nothing next to her safety.

  I pluck her up despite her protests, and I rush down the stairs with her hoisted over my shoulder.

  Just as I reach the bottom of the stairs, the metal railing creaks.

  I look back and see the entire metal railing raising up into the air. Philos is holding it with a massive arm, and I duck just in time for the railing to miss us.

  I bring my scythe up and cut through it as he swings again. The railing is over 100 feet long, but he’s swinging it like a club or a whip.

  Still, I cut off the part that can reach us, and I throw Annabelle back over my shoulder. I rush toward the dark space beneath the bridge. I can see the portal on the higher dimensions. I run as fast as I can, and I do not look back again.

  I leap in the last moment, and the cold tingle of the interdimensional substrate washes across my skin. I cling tight to Annabelle, holding her in both hands. My injured arm is healing already, but using it to hold her tighter still sends waves of agony and pain through my entire body. I have to hold her tight though. I can’t risk losing my grip on her as we travel through the higher dimensions. If I lost her there, I might never be able to find her again.

  Five

  Annabelle

  I’m afraid to open my eyes.

  There was a gross and wet rush of cold that washed over all of my skin. It felt like it ignored my clothing and went right to my skin—no, under my skin. I feel wet on the inside, and not in the good way.

  I’m afraid that I’m going to open my eyes and see something horrible and terrifying.

  “We’re safe now, little human,” he says.

  “Do you promise?” I’m lying on the ground. It feels cool and soft on my back, and there’s a pleasant breeze.

  “You said you trust me now,” Raiska says.

  His hand takes mine and squeezes.

  I open my eyes.

  We’re on a beach. The sand is black, and the water is crystal clear. There is a large slash through the sky, which is dark blue and glittering with colorful stars.

  I look around and see a city behind us. There are some tall buildings, but it’s mostly smaller ones that look intensely futuristic. Some of the buildings look like modern-art sculptures, others look almost like pieces of puzzles that shouldn’t even fit together, but do.

  There are pleasant lights of all colors bathing the city from different angles. One side of a building might be covered in purple light, while the next corner is in a cool teal.

  “Oh my God,” I whisper. “It’s beautiful.”

  “This is Lakria,” Raiska says. “A ringed planet near the center of the galaxy. There are many more stars here because we are close to the galactic center. Some say the sky of worlds like this are much more beautiful than those of worlds in the spiral arms.”

  I nod and look up at the sky, completely awestruck. “I would say that too.”

  I point to the thing slashing across the sky. “That’s a ring? Like on Saturn?”

  Raiska nods.

  We’re both lying in the sand. He hasn’t stood up yet, though I get the impression he wants to. I’m still not quite ready to stand. I’m overwhelmed enough lying here.

  “Can we just chill here for a bit?”

  “You are cold?” he says, “then we must get you inside at once.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “Chill means relax. Can we just stay here for a while? You said we’re safe, right?”

  He gives me a concerned look, and his jaw clenches, but he nods. “We are safer than we were, but we will not be safe until the Breeding Games have ended.”

  “For now though, we are safe, and we can just look out at these stars, right?”

  “Yes, little human.”

  I watch the waves crash against the black sand. Even though the water is crystal clear, the waves bring up enough foam that I can’t see through them. There are glowing fish and things that look like jellyfish or other kinds of marshmallow shaped little creatures swimming through the water. Most of them are glowing a hot pink or teal, but some are warmer colors like orange or yellow.

  “If I had listened to you from the
beginning, Raiska, I could have been here without you getting hurt. And without having to see all those terrible things in the library.”

  “You’re safe now,” he says, “and I heal very fast. I am Valittu.”

  I sit up to look him over, but he sits up as well. I put a gentle hand onto his bare shoulder. His muscles are tight, but the wound on his arm where the little alien’s claws cut through him is closed up. There’s blood on it, some of it still fresh, but it’s not still bleeding like a human’s wound would be.

  “You really do heal fast,” I say.

  “I was bred to be a warrior. A warrior who can shrug off injury is a valuable tool for the Ulkar.”

  “You said you’re half Ulkar?”

  He nods.

  “And the others?”

  “I’ve never encountered these half-breeds. The Ulkar used to forcibly breed with various species. My mother race was called the Aparans. They have been wiped out now, my brothers and I are all that’s left of them. These other species we saw in the library must have been bred from other races. The result of Ulkar breeding is usually quite similar to the mother race, but with extra abilities that function through higher-dimensional sensitivity.”

  I run my hand gently across his wound. I don’t want to touch it too hard or hurt him, but I want to know that he’s okay. He could have died for me, and he must have gone through hell protecting me. I feel like this wound is my fault. No, it is my fault.

  “Higher dimensions? Is that real?”

  “How do you think we traveled to the center of the galaxy in a few seconds?”

  I shrug. “Alien shit?”

  “My wounds are healed, little human. I can read the guilt on your face. There is no need for it.”

  “Raiska,” I put my hand on his thigh now. I don’t know why I do that, but it feels wrong to not touch him now.

  We both look down, and now that my hand is there, it feels even more conspicuous and embarrassing to pull it away, so I just leave it there and look back up at him. “I’m going to feel guilty regardless of what you say. Just know that I’m not going to make a mistake like that again. You’ve earned my trust ten times over. I will do what you need to keep us both alive.”