Prodigal a sci fi alien.., p.1
Prodigal: A Sci-Fi Alien Warrior Romance, page 1
Prodigal
A SCI-FI ALIEN WARRIOR ROMANCE
RAIDER WARLORDS OF THE VANDAR
BOOK SEVEN
TANA STONE
BROADMOOR BOOKS
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Epilogue
Bonus Epilogue
Also by Tana Stone
About the Author
Chapter
One
Ronnan
“Approaching Vandar territory, Raas.”
I flinched at the words from my battle chief as I stood on the command deck and peered out the view screen. The blackness of space appeared just as vast and cold as it had during our entire long journey across the galaxy, but now the cold darkness was considered the realm of the Vandar. My lip curled at the thought.
I flicked a quick gaze across the warriors surrounding me. They stood at attention at their high consoles, their chests bare and marked with dark, curling marks etched across hard muscle. Leather battle kilts hung low around their waists and menacing, curved-blade battle axes were hooked onto metal-studded belts. My crew looked every bit the Vandar raiders who’d worn this ancient battle gear when they’d roamed the plains of the home world in hordes before our planet had been devastated by the Zagrath and our people had been forced to take to the skies. The long tails twitching behind my warriors were the only things that betrayed the emotions we all felt about returning to a part of space that had once been our ancestors’ and to a people we’d once called kin but did no longer.
I grunted roughly and swung my gaze back to the glass. We might be Vandar, but we did not belong to the Vandar who now ruled this space, and who’d defeated the Zagrath Empire. Not since we’d been exiled.
“But now we return for our birthright,” I said, so low that my words were more like a murmured oath. “Vengeance.”
I spun and stomped toward my majak, leaping to the raised level and making the steel floor rattle at the heavy impact of my boots. My first officer’s arms were braced on his hips as he surveyed the command crew, and he nodded at me as I took my place by his side.
“Is it as you expected, Ayden?” I asked my oldest friend without turning my head to look at him.
He was silent for a beat then one shoulder jerked almost reflexively. “It looks just like home, but it feels nothing like our far corner of the galaxy.”
I understood his words. The blackness of space might look alike, but knowing we were in territory that no one in our horde had laid eyes on before made my stomach churn. It had been our fathers who had revolted against the Vandar leaders and been defeated. They had been cast out to live the rest of their lives in unknown space, take alien mates, and survive without the protection of the hordes. They’d called themselves the Kyrie Vandar—the Lost Vandar—but it was our generation who’d been raised with a hunger for revenge so powerful it had compelled us to return.
“We will do what our fathers could not,” I told my majak. “We will claim our rightful place among the Vandar hordes.”
He cut his eyes to me. “If we can find them. The warriors and rebels we’ve encountered have only heard of the Vandar. They did not know how we could track them.”
I frowned. The Vandar might have defeated the Zagrath, but that didn’t mean that they’d abandoned their desire to be unseen. We’d grown up hearing tales of the raiding warlords who flew invisibly, their hordes of cruel warbirds emerging like dark wraiths to surprise their enemy. When our fathers had rebuilt their own hordes, they had followed in the footsteps of those they’d turned against and even now, we moved through the skies invisibly.
“Even in the far reaches of the galaxy the tales of the Vandar victory have spread. Would valiant heroes remain hidden now that the enemy has been destroyed?”
Ayden cocked his head. “If they do, we will find them.”
I growled my agreement. Word had reached us that the three brothers who’d led the victory—three warlords of their own hordes—were sons of Raas Bardon, the notorious Raas who had defeated my own father and Ayden’s so many moons ago. They were the ones I sought. The old Raas might have passed on to Zedna, but his sons would pay the price he never did.
“And when we do find them, Ronnan?” My friend asked, dropping his voice so that the rest of the crew didn’t hear him address me by my name on the command deck.
I didn’t mind him dropping my title. Ayden knew me better than anyone alive and had grown up by my side. It was only because I was more ruthless and he more cunning that I was Raas, and he was my first officer. But the truth was that we led and ruled our horde together, and I relied on his counsel as much as I relied on the iron sky ship that now flew me to my destiny.
“We will demand to be given a place of honor that was denied our fathers.” I curled my hands into fists by my side. “Or they will regret that the Kyrie Vandar ever returned.”
“I suspect they will regret that in any case,” Ayden laughed grimly. “If Bardon’s sons are anything like their father, they will not welcome a challenge.”
“We do not have to be a challenge.” I slid one hand to the hilt of my battle axe, the cool metal steadying my drumming heart. “We bring many warbirds and many warriors to add to the Vandar might.”
My majak folded his arms across his chest. “But we are not like them. Not anymore.”
I glanced at the broad-shouldered warrior at my side, his platinum hair falling down his shoulders. We both had the coloring of our Selkee mothers, as did most of our crew, which put us in stark contrast to the black hair of the typical Vandar. But the Selkee had welcomed our exiled fathers when they’d been bedraggled and wandering through space, sharing the bounty of their planet as well as their beautiful females, who had become mates to the Kyrie Vandar.
“If the rumors are true, the Vandar do not care so much about pure blood anymore,” I reminded him. Along with word of the Vandar defeat of the Zagrath, the whispers were that the Raases had taken human brides.
I flicked my fingers through my pale hair, wondering for a beat if the Vandar would even recognize us as members of their species since we were the result of intermingling with aliens not even found in this sector. Then I bristled at the thought of being rejected because of my mother’s blood. My mother had been the only one to shield me and my brother from my father’s often brutal temper, and she held the only soft spot in my heart. I would die to protect her honor, and I would strike down anyone who dared insult her.
Ayden rocked back on his heels. “Then perhaps this will be a reunion and not a challenge to the terms of the exile.”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t allow myself to hope for anything but the battle I knew we were provoking by returning after so many moons. Even if the old Vandar who’d cast out our fathers were long gone, there was a score to settle with those who’d inherited their power. Someone had to pay for the wrongs inflicted on the Kyrie Vandar. “It will be the reckoning that the Vandar deserve.”
“Picking up a vessel, Raas.” My battle chief’s voice boomed, echoing off the exposed metal of the command deck.
“A Vandar warbird?” My fingers tingled in anticipation, although I was surprised one of our vessels would be so easy to locate.
Kaiven scowled at the console and straightened, the leather and iron body armor that crisscrossed his chest rattling. “No, Raas.”
Tvek. I knew it couldn’t be so easy.
“Zagrath?” My heart raced at the thought of finding an enemy vessel the Vandar might have missed. It would feel good to destroy the enemy, even if it wasn’t the enemy that had haunted my thoughts for longer than I could remember.
My battle chief braced his hands on either side of the console and shook his head, his hair swinging around his face. “It doesn’t carry a Zagrath signature. It’s also powered down.”
I grunted. This discovery was turning out to be a disappointment. “A mystery ship floating in space? On screen.”
The wide view of scattered stars vanished, and the glass that stretched across the front of the command deck was taken up with the image of a ship that didn’t look much larger than a transport. It also looked as if it had been in one too many space battles, with scorch marks and dents marring its silver hull. There was no identifying insignia on the side. Not that I would have known the symbols for
“Life signs?” I asked.
Kaiven tilted his head and then swiveled it to me. “One, Raas. A female.”
A female, alone on a ship that wasn’t moving? My pulse quickened. Things had gotten interesting.
Chapter
Two
Sloane
“Shitballs!” I slammed my palm against the console in my cockpit. Why had I insisted on taking out the oldest ship in the Valox resistance fleet?
“Because you’re a stubborn pain in the ass, and you refuse to believe that the Zagrath are really gone,” I muttered to myself, as I tried to get the engine to start again, and the sounds of vintage Earth rock music played in my earpiece.
I was only repeating what I was sure others in the underground resistance had been saying since the Vandar had defeated the Zagrath. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to believe the empire was destroyed, but after spending half my life fighting them, I had a hard time believing it. Not when the Zagrath had controlled so many sectors and ruled so many planets. That kind of power didn’t disappear overnight. No, that kind of evil festered in a dark place until it could resurface when you were least expecting it.
I hadn’t been able to explain the gnawing feeling in my gut that they were still out there, but I also hadn’t been able to ignore it. I’d always operated on a heavy dose of gut instinct—and it had served me well as a pilot—and now was no different. Maybe it was so many little things—the lack of any Zagrath ships on their abandoned outposts, the enemy prisoners who stayed defiant in the face of prison, the fact that the number of Zagrath ships destroyed didn’t come close to matching our initial estimates of their fleet—that had convinced me that our enemy was not gone for good.
I huffed out a breath. Too bad I was the only pilot in the resistance that believed the Zagrath were only dormant and not destroyed. They might have been severely weakened by the Vandar attacks, but I was convinced some of them had slunk off to hide.
“And I’m going to find them.” I frowned at my readouts and tapped at my earpiece to stop the music. “If I can get this hunk of junk to move again.”
I leaned back in the pilot’s seat and gazed out onto the vastness of space. Okay, so coming out to the edge of the sector might not have been the best idea, especially not alone. But none of my fellow resistance fighters had wanted to come with me again. After joining me on my search for nearly a full standard lunar cycle and finding nothing, they’d lost their enthusiasm.
More like they’d decided to stop humoring me, I thought. Even Cassie and Thea, my best friends in the Valor resistance and the women I’d been working with since we’d gone through training together, had begged off for this mission.
I hated thinking that maybe they’d been right, and I needed to let it go and enjoy life without having to be on the run from the empire. But what was my life’s purpose, if there was no empire to rebel against? I’d joined the freedom fighters as soon as I was old enough, and since that day, my life had been about fighting against the empire. I didn’t know if I knew how to exist without having something to fight against.
“Come on, Sloane,” I scolded myself. “This is what you’ve been fighting for. The former Zagrath colonies are free. The planets that were under their rule are free. We won!”
I sighed, my heart twisting in my chest as I thought of all the freedom fighters who hadn’t survived to see the empire go down including Leo. The dull ache in my chest sharpened as I thought about the handsome, dark-skinned pilot. I’d known better than to fall for a fellow fighter, but it hadn’t been a conscious choice. I’d fallen in love with him slowly, slipping a little more each time he’d winked at me or given me a conspiratorial grin. Before I knew it, when we weren’t flying, we’d been inseparable. I’d even allowed myself to think of life with him after the Valox. Then he’d been shot down during an attack on a Zagrath freighter, and all my dreams had morphed into a need to avenge him. A need that hadn’t faded when the empire had been defeated.
I thought of the Valox resistance slowly disbanding and fighters returning to their home worlds. What had seemed like a tight-knit family as we’d fought side by side against the empire was now unraveling, and I was spinning—unmoored and alone—through the universe. It felt like the furthest thing from winning.
I gave my head a firm shake and returned my focus to the cockpit. “What feels even less like winning is being stranded in space.”
All I had to do was send out a distress call and the Valor would come get me, but I’d yet to swallow my pride and send the transmission. I dreaded the looks I’d get when I arrived in a clunker ship that had to be towed in after finding no trace of the Zagrath I was convinced were out there. At least I didn’t need to worry anymore about being ambushed by imperial patrols. Even a skeptic like me had to admit there were a lot of benefits to the Zagrath being defeated.
I glanced at the blinking red lights in the cockpit before standing. “I can fix this.”
I wasn’t a skilled engineer like Thea, but I knew the basics. I grimaced. At least, I had when I first started flying. It had been a while since I’d needed to analyze my ship’s engine.
“Doesn’t matter.” I strode to the center of the compact ship as I tugged my frizzy brown hair into an even tighter ponytail and turned on my music again. “I don’t have a choice. I either fix this thing so I can fly back to base, or I get towed back with my tail between my legs.”
I yanked up the center hatch and clambered down to where I could access the engine. Standing surrounded by flashing lights and circuit boards, I scrunched my mouth to one side as the thumping beat of the music helped me focus. Okay, maybe it had been longer than I’d remembered since I’d had to fiddle with the mechanics of a ship.
“Come on, Sloane. You can do this.” I tapped one foot on the steel grate beneath me and the sound echoed over my music. “All you have to do is channel your inner Thea.”
I almost laughed out loud at this. Thea was always cool under pressure and completely unflappable. She didn’t believe in anything she couldn’t see or prove, and she definitely didn’t think the Zagrath were still lurking in the shadows. If there was a person who was my polar opposite, it was my friend Thea. And if there was anyone I needed right at this moment, it was her. Cassie would have joined me in freaking out, but Thea would have quietly gotten to work and fixed the problem, while the rest of us were bracing for the worst.
I squared my shoulders and squinted at the complex innards of the vessel, determined to figure out what was wrong. I bopped my head along with the vintage song, wondering briefly what it meant to smell like teen spirit before forcing myself to talk out the problem. “If propulsion is gone and the engines have lost power, that means the problem is in the—“
The ship jolted to one side, and I stumbled into a circuit board. “Son of a Grednar!”
Glancing around, I saw that the engines hadn’t restarted, so why had the ship jerked? I rubbed my aching shoulder and hoisted myself to the center of the ship. There was no way the resistance had already sent a rescue ship to tractor me back. I hadn’t been gone long enough to be missed.
I made my way to the cockpit, cursing to myself, but when I reached the compact area with its view into space, there was nothing. Had I imagined the ship moving? I touched a hand to my shoulder, which still twinged from the impact against the steel circuit board. Nope. The bruise I would no doubt get was no hallucination.
