Prologue
ROWAN
“Ithought I’d find you here.” The deep timbre of his voice washed over me, scattering gooseflesh across my skin.
I shifted my gaze away from the endless expanse of sea surrounding our secluded island to find Zikkar. He stood tall, at least seven feet, his kilt hanging low around his hips, accentuating his muscular frame. Long strands of silvery white hair cascaded down his back and chest like a shimmering waterfall, catching the first rays of the twin suns in a mesmerizing display.
He was the only Valosian who didn’t unsettle me. A tech from Clan Huren, he had the same alien features as all the rest: elfin ears, tight-knit silvery scales that shifted colors with his mood and surroundings, fangs like a Vampire, and swirling silver eyes.
My fingers instinctively rose to my chest, rubbing at the fluttering pressure behind my sternum as Zikkar took a seat on the ground next to me.
I sighed contently as he joined me. Zikkar’s presence was like a first sip of morning coffee, a warm, comforting embrace from within. A wave of calm accompanied him, a welcome balm from the sorrow and fear that I often carried with me.
“You’ll be leaving soon.” I pulled my bottom lip into my mouth to stave off the trembling. I didn’t want him to go. Not only would I miss him terribly, but his mission was dangerous. He was to fly over the city of Huren in what the girls called a bubble craft, a small invisible vessel, where he would spend countless days working on a device that would open a portal in the impenetrable dome shielding the city.
A war was coming, a stand against the Gretolics who had taken over the city, the same little gray freaks who had abducted all of us girls from Earth. I’d heard vivid descriptions of them and was glad I didn’t recall ever seeing the creatures who had stolen me away from my family.
“As soon as Wexxor and Sazzar are finished speaking with Sia Jakkar,” Zikkar said with a tight smile.
A twinge of reluctance flittered inside me, but the muted feeling was gone before I could grasp it.
“How long will you be gone?”
“For as long as it takes to create a portable gate large enough to let in an army of warriors,” Zikkar replied, then rattled off some tech jargon that was way over my head.
I was a student of botany, so science wasn’t a stranger to me, but alien technology was something entirely different. I didn’t understand how it all worked, but she did.Rose.His girlfriend. They weren’t a mated pair like the other Valose/human couples. No matching shawras were etched over their hearts, no glowingdesign to mark them like wearing coordinating wedding bands, but they were still an item.
“Please, be careful and stay safe.” It was on the tip of my tongue to beg him to stay with me, but I had no right to ask such a thing. He wasn’t mine, he was Rose’s, and they were leaving together along with another tech named Wynnter.
“I promise,” Zikkar grinned. “Once the warriors take back the city, we will see each other again.”
I wanted to be reunited with Zikkar after the battle but moving from the seclusion of the island into the middle of the jungle inside Huren territory—a place I had only heard about from the girls who had been there—terrified me. Protective dome or not, the jungle everyone spoke of exuded a sense of peril, even in their stories. Their tales painted vivid pictures of colossal beasts reminiscent of prehistoric Earth. I imagined the nocturnal dinosaurs they had described and wanted no part of that.
From the girls’ accounts, I could visualize the saber-toothed cat Chompers, now just a playful pet, would eventually grow into. A formidable predator with an insatiable hunger, his adorable, fuzzy face twisting into a menacing visage that haunted my imagination.
“I’ll miss you,” I blurted.
“I am always with you, Rowan,” Zikkar placed his hand over mine where it circled my sternum, “even if I’m not physically here.”
It wouldn’t be until much later that I understood the true meaning of his words.
Chapter One
ROWAN
Zikkar and Rowan’s story begins several days after the clans band together and take back the city of Huren from the Gretolics. It overlaps the end of Silver Spice Saga 7 and the beginning of Silver Storm Saga 8.
On shaky legs, I disembarked from the first alien spacecraft I recall flying in and took my first step onto soil of a city where I was once held captive inside a cage yet had no memory of. I gazed up at a crystal palace, the crown jewel of Huren. It stretched so high, the structure seemed to touch the clouds. I wondered if it could, minus the wavy shield of the dome that kept everyone safe inside.
My gaze trailed down the fairytale edifice to the smaller white complexes skirting its base. The girls likened it to the lost city of Atlantis. Now that I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I suppose it does, that is, if we were on Earth and not another planet.
Arched double doors marked the grand entrance fit for a king, or a Sia, as the Valosians called the rulers of their clans.A palace where I had been held captive inside a cage two stories underground along with nine other women and several Valosians. At least, that’s what they had told me.
All I remembered before this silver and blue world was going to sleep in the house I shared with my twin sister and waking up on an island surrounded by women who were strangers and silver men I had mistaken for the Sidhe, fairy folk from Irish folklore. It was an honest mistake given their pointed ears and shimmering scales that changed colors with their moods and environment.
These men, with their muscular physiques and long, silvery white hair, weren’t magical beings from the bedtime stories my father told my sister and I, but aliens living on another world. Except they weren’t the aliens here since this was their planet. We were the aliens, visitors abducted from Earth by little gray men and brought here.
Several days had passed since the Valosians took the city of Huren back in an epic battle. Gia and I had chosen to wait on the island with the other eight girls still waking up and recovering from the green liquid the gray aliens called Gretolics had pumped into our bodies to keep us in a state of suspended animation.
