1
Lavender Linton, Earth
“We are herefor the female. Leave. This human is nothing to you.” The creepy cyborg stood in front of me, blocking any chance I had of getting up off the couch and making a run for the door. I was trapped, had been since he and his cyborg friends burst into the apartment.
I wasn’t sure who I was more terrified of, him, or the massive Atlan beast who’d smashed through the door, shouted ‘Mine’, and proceeded to kill the cyborg’s two friends with his bare hands.
There was blood everywhere.Everywhere.
Was I in shock? Or just the dumbest human alive? I should have tried to run when the big guy showed up and the three Hive were distracted. Instead, I’d crouched on the couch like a frightened little mouse, frozen with fear.
I assumed the alien cyborgs who’d broken into my apartment an hour ago were the infamous Hive everyone had been speculating about since the day the Interstellar Coalition of Planets showed up on Earth a few years ago offering protection from the big, bad Hive threat. Only catch? The Coalition wanted soldiers to fight their war, andbridesfor their male warriors, guys like this gigantic Atlan standing here in full armor, making my living room look microscopic.
“Mine.” The Atlan didn’t appear to have a large or eloquent vocabulary. Whatever. What I could see of his face inside his helmet was handsome enough, I’d give him that. But I had no desire to go anywhere with either one of the aliens. I had no idea what they wanted. Why they were here. This had to be a mistake. Maybe I fell asleep on the couch and this was a nightmare induced by watching too many bad sci-fi movies.
With a growl, the Atlan advanced on the cyborg standing in front of me. The cyborg blasted him with his space gun, burning through the armor in places. More blood. More ooze. The Atlan didn’t even slow down.
Jeeeezus. Like shooting a bear with a BB gun. The shots seemed to do nothing but piss him off. The cyborg retreated toward me, the backs of his legs hit the couch.
Shit! I scooted out of his way, which was no small task since the stupid cyborgs had bound my hands before they started interrogating me.
They had the wrong girl. I had no clue what the hell they wanted, what they were looking for, or why they were bothering with me. I was a nobody, a vet tech living with her sister in a tiny apartment. They were asking about images from a fight club. My sister was the photographer, not me. Not that I was going to tell these assholes a word about her. I’d rather die than tell the aliens something that would get my sister hurt or killed.
I must have made a noise when I moved because the cyborg turned to look at me.
Oh no.
He lifted his space gun and pointed the weapon between my eyes.
Shit. I was dead. Thought I’d be more upset. Seemed since there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it, my brain was oddly calm about the whole thing. Maybe I’d be reincarnated as a rich, famous movie star. Or an eagle. A dolphin? That would be cool.
Poor Lark. My sister was going to be so upset.
“No!” The Atlan lunged. I closed my eyes and prayed it wouldn’t hurt too much.
The cyborg fired.
The wall exploded behind me.
Did he miss? How? I blinked in shock to find the cyborg kneeling on our glass coffee table. That wasn’t smart. The table was cheap. Thin. And he was huge.
The glass shattered and the cyborg dropped to the ground on top of the shards.
The Atlan stepped forward and wrapped his hands around the cyborg’s neck. They stared at each other.
“Kill me.” Was the cyborg begging for death. Why? Why would he do such a thing? What the hell was happening? The Atlan stared at him for an eternity. He’d just ripped the other two cyborgs to pieces. Why was he hesitating now?
He looked sad as he wrapped his hands around the cyborgs head.
Guess the cyborg changed his mind again because he lifted his space gun and fired point blank into the Atlan’s thigh.
One twist of the Atlan’s giant hands and the cyborg’s neck broke in a series of audile cracking noises. The Atlan dropped him like a sack of potatoes and stared at me, his gaze lingering on the bindings around my wrists. I pulled my bare feet up beneath me on the brown sofa cushion and tried to think. Who were these aliens? Why were they here? What the actual fuck was going on? Start with the basics. Yes? “Who are you?”
The helmet on his armor retracted to reveal his face. Handsome? Sure. Didn’t mean I wanted anything to do with him.
“We go. Now. More Hive come.”
Moreof those things? Coming here? They’d get Larkspur when she got home. My sister would walk into a death trap. “What? No way. I can’t leave.”
