Alien Paladin's Woman: SciFi Alien-Human Military Suspense Romance Page 5

  "Yes," the Palian replied, never taking his eyes off the big, central Jorcossi, but the creature somehow dodged every shot. "They are, but they have to hurry. If that thing gets the stone…"

  Audrey didn't get to hear what was going to happen then, because one of the smaller ones jumped to tackle her guard, sending him stumbling back.

  She suddenly found herself alone between the Jorcossi and the glowing stone behind her. Aznim was being held down by a horde of the smaller creatures and all the miners were under attack too. A few were approaching her as well, but Audrey kept picking them off one by one with frantic shots.

  None of it did anything to discourage the big Jorcossi. Audrey had no idea how she could keep missing him at point-blank range, until she noticed the creature's body wiggling, twisting, and undulating out of the way. It was so fast it nearly seemed to teleport a few inches to the right or left every time she thought she'd gotten a clean shot.

  When the creature reached her, it simply threw her aside with surprising strength for his thin form. Audrey landed with a pained grunt and fought to stand back up on her feet, scrambling out of the way of a Jorcossi that tried to pin her down. In the next second, she was already running back to the big one who was reaching for the gleaming stone.

  Since shooting hadn't seemed to help, Audrey did the next best thing. She tackled him.

  It can't dodge the whole of me, can it?

  The creature saw her coming and turned to her with an angry hiss. Audrey knocked him away from the stone and they fell together. Again she got to feel how strong the alien was despite his looks.

  Long fingers closed around her throat and her eyes went wide, realizing that might have been the end of her.

  Her instincts kicked in. Franco had taught them that all species had different weaknesses, but generally eyes were a pretty safe bet. She jammed her fingers into the Jorcossi's eyes, pushing down with disgust.

  With a shrill scream, the creature let go of her to peel her hands away, but by then Aznim was there.

  He pulled the Jorcossi off her, taking aim with his gun, but the Jorcossi slithered away so fast Audrey barely saw him move. It was like something out of nightmares, constantly just out of reach. One moment he was right there in front of them and in the next, he reached for the stone.

  Shortly, Audrey realized that the Jorcossi never actually touched the stone. He picked up one of the containers from the ground, meant for sorting through the smaller findings and used it as a shovel to peel the stone out.

  Aznim ran to stop him, but every Jorcossi still standing jumped in his way, pushing him back. She waited for a few moments while the big creature dug, making sure the smaller ones had forgotten about her.

  The white cloak she was wearing made being stealthy difficult, but everyone seemed to be too caught up in their own fights to see her rush to the big one the second he got the stone free.

  Audrey grabbed it out of the container, her hands closing around the ghostly glowing stone.

  In a heartbeat, it felt like she had no heart at all. Audrey's conscious mind struggled to keep itself intact, losing track of who or where she was. Her hand shook, her fingers closing around the stone desperately as her entire being quaked down to her soul.

  She thought she felt the Jorcossi claw at her, but she felt like she was above it all.

  For a long moment, and she couldn't explain it in any way, it felt like she didn't exist. There was no her to speak of, no sense of self.

  Then, as suddenly as it had disappeared, the world returned with a rush and such power surged through Audrey that she gasped in surprise. She raised her eyes to the Jorcossi trying to rip her cloak to pieces, to peel the flesh off her fingers, and kicked him so hard the creature flew ten feet before slamming against a wall.

  As the power coursing through her veins began to overwhelm her, burying her under it, Audrey could hear running, coming closer from the end of the hallway. The last thing she saw was a man unlike any other she'd ever seen, running towards her at the head of the paladins.

  The world was cloudy, but she saw him clearly.

  Palians were naturally thin and pale, but the paladins were anything but. Audrey's eyes focused on their leader, unable to tear her gaze away. Everything about him was demanding her attention, her interest, her trust.

  He was tall and powerful, built as strong and mighty as the mountain around them. His dark black hair was cut short, leaving the hard lines of his face bare for her to see. Eyes the color of darkest hazel stared right at her. The look in them took the last of her breath away.

  Pelar was right when she said I'd recognize him.

  The stone dropped from her hands.

  4

  Tieran

  The Terran female was holding the lifestone.

  Her gaze spoke louder than any voice Tieran had ever heard. The look in her beautiful green eyes was terrible to behold. They were filled to the brink with the power the stone instilled in her, the mineral itself reflecting its sparkle on the surface of her eyes.

  She was a vision.

  Standing there, bathed in the gentle light of the lifestone, Audrey Price looked divine. Not only breathtakingly beautiful – although he couldn't deny she was – but infinitely powerful as well.

  Her long silver-blonde hair reminded him of daylight shining through snow and ice, the smile on her lips making his heart beat faster than it had been when he was fighting the mech-Fearless.

  Beautiful.

  All of that passed through Tieran's mind without him ever stopping. The second he saw the governor holding the stone, he ran. Paying no attention to the Jorcossi, he dashed to her, knowing he had seconds to save her life.

  But even his best speed wasn't enough. Audrey's eyes opened in terror as the stone's power threatened to undo her, but the enemy came to her aid. The big Jorcossi splitter knocked into her and the stone fell from her limp hand as she fell.

  Tieran caught her in his arms. His entire body shook in the shock of the lifestone's energy leaving her. The impact knocked her out and she lay lifeless in his hands. Even like that, inches from death, she was the most gorgeous being he'd ever seen.

  Yet Audrey – along with everyone else – was still in terrible danger.

  Tieran laid her down as softly as he could and turned around. The sight that greeted him nearly stopped his heart.

  The smaller Jorcossi were still around, cut to pieces mercilessly by his paladins. The little spawn couldn't produce any new ones and they couldn't match the splitter in speed, making them embarrassingly easy prey.

  The splitter itself was gone. But it wasn’t the Jorcossi that made him pause.

  The stone was nowhere to be seen.

  Tieran was a commander of the Palian paladins, a position few in the galaxy even knew about. Those who did know he was the leader, also knew he was one of the most dangerous and deadly fighters ever to be born to the stars.

  And he was not a man known for losing his temper, a reaction almost unknown to Palians.

  Then again, paladins were different from the rest of their kind in many ways.

  Seeing that his momentary distraction had let the enemy hide almost made Tieran roar in fury. It was as undignified as it was surprising to him. The day had come with many surprises. It was getting on his nerves.

  Nothing ever got on his nerves.

  As the last of the small Jorcossi were cut down, Tieran turned to his audience. The Palians were looking at him and his men with open awe, standing tall, honored by his presence. The Terrans were staring, their mouths dropped open. Later, memories of them needed to be removed, but right now Tieran was in need of every pair of eyes.

  "The splitter," he boomed. "Where is he?"

  Silence answered him. It was like the miners were finally noticing something was missing from the picture.

  Tieran considered the situation.

  Jorcossi were parasites. They were capable of growing incredibly fast, not to mention the splitter types could spawn the smalle
r kind. In a way, they resembled plants in their capability to keep living in every part of them that was cut.

  It was only one of the reasons why dealing with them was so difficult. The smaller ones were easily dealt with, but the big Jorcossi was gone in the same way Tieran knew it had infiltrated the station in the first place.

  It had cut itself, attaching a piece of itself to a new carrier. The old body would be discarded somewhere out of sight. All the Jorcossi splitter needed to fully grow again was a living host and a piece of it embedded within that living, breathing body.

  It would be able to take over the body very quickly and then split again and again, filling any space with offshoots of itself, both splitters and the smaller ones that could not recreate themselves in the same fashion.

  "Find the body," he ordered the paladins grimly. "Quarantine everyone else. Burn the enemies."

  As they rushed to destroy what was left of the splitter's previous form and deal with the confused miners, Tieran knelt down beside the Terran female.

  He found no joy in what was to come, hoping with a passion that surprised him that it didn't come to the worst.

  Before, Tieran had thought that it was the stone that had made her look so gorgeous, bathing her in the light of it. But now that the invaluable item was gone, he found it hard to focus on anything besides her.

  Wrapped in the white fur of her torn cloak, Audrey Price was without a doubt the most beautiful creature he'd ever laid his eyes upon. Just like the first time he’d seen her, she took his breath away, but now it was magnified by the ghostly glow of the stone. Tieran had spent a whole year admiring her spirit and drive, looking on from afar, but now he was truly entranced by all of her.

  It was strange and almost impossible, to distract a paladin like that, but he liked it.

  Standing, Tieran turned to the miners, all gathered up under the watchful eyes of his paladins.

  "Make no mistake," he said seriously, his deep voice echoing in the cave around them. "We are still under attack by the enemy. I will say this once and I want you all to understand that I'm being serious. This is more important than any of you can imagine. The Jorcossi splitter is still alive. They are parasites, capable of taking over their host. My men..."

  He received a confirming nod from one of the paladins.

  "… have found the body, which only means one thing. One of us is the host to the splitter and the stone is hidden somewhere down here."

  There were gasps all around, even from some of the Palians. Tieran waited for the noise to die down under his thunderous gaze before continuing.

  "I want to make this perfectly clear," he said. "The enemy can't be allowed to escape with the stone. All of us, including me and my paladins, will be going to the station where we will be quarantined until the scans tell us who has the host.

  “Once we find it, I will kill it. Unfortunately, being the host is a death sentence. There is no way to remove the Jorcossi without killing the person carrying it. It is pointless to ask for mercy, should it be you."

  That was only met with stony, terrified silence.

  Tieran pointed to the bodies on the ground – Jorcossi, Terran and Palian alike.

  "Take all of these. The dead will be scanned along with us, then burned immediately. The team sent down here to locate the stone will be the first to be scanned to make sure there are no more Jorcossi in the station. Is this understood?"

  The paladins nodded, their glaives held at the ready. Tieran nodded grimly, bending to pick up Audrey Price himself. He gave the orders to the control center to make sure no living being came in contact with them before they reached the quarantine.

  Then he carried the female out of the mines.

  He could feel her smooth skin under his fingers, the brush of her soft hair against his flesh. It was driving him straight out of his mind. Tieran had no idea why Audrey was affecting him like that, pulling him to her with a force he wasn't able to resist.

  Her body was perfect, every dip and curve of it delicious, as if she was crafted by a higher being for his pleasure alone. She fit perfectly into his arms and every subtle movement of hers against him made his cock harden, pushing urgently against his armor, needing to be buried inside her.

  Curious.

  Tieran wasn't religious. Palians believed in themselves, in making the galaxy a better place for everyone in it, in peace and truth. Right then, he really wished there was some deity he could pray to, someone he could ask to make sure Audrey wasn't the host.

  He would have rather thrust the glaive into his own heart than hurt a hair on her head, but he knew the galaxy was on stake. His wishes and prayers would mean little in comparison.

  He had never before in his life doubted his capability to do the difficult thing, but the little female was testing him like no enemy ever had, without even knowing that she was.

  The station was in absolute lockdown. Tieran had given the strictest of commands to cut all contact with the support ship on the orbit and even halted work in the mines. Only the crew that had been cleared by the scan were down on the lowest level, looking for the stone. So far they had come up empty-handed.

  As the healers worked on Audrey, trying to bring her back, Tieran had the paladins scanned first. Once it was confirmed neither he nor his men were the host, he assigned them to guard over the proceeding, sweeping across the station section by section.

  When they were small, a Jorcossi could only attach itself to something living. The splitters were dependent on the host to feed them until they literally grew out of them. The fact he didn't need to decontaminate the entire station was the only good news.

  He had Audrey scanned next.

  He had almost been surprised when his heartbeat elevated while fighting the mech earlier in the day, but waiting to hear the Audrey’s result was the longest minute in his life. Tieran had no idea why the female had such an effect on him, but there was no denying it.

  Palians never denied anything they experienced firsthand. It was a mystery, nothing more. And a pleasant one at that.

  Looking at Audrey, color slowly returning to her face, Tieran felt whole somehow. He had never thought there was something missing from him, but now the female was making him feel like he was made anew.

  He was intrigued, to say the least.

  When the negative result showed on the screens, Tieran let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding in.

  Palians didn't have callousness in their blood, but he was far removed from his kind. Paladins were bred and trained to be cold and logical, to treat every situation only in the objective terms, much unlike the rest of his kind.

  He knew that without the scanners he would have been left with no other choice but to execute everyone who'd been down in the mines.

  If they were correct, the lifestone was at once the single most important find in living memory, but also the most dangerous. It couldn't leave Verien.

  Since there was little for him to do while the search continued, both for the stone and the Jorcossi, Tieran went to Audrey. He stood by her bedside, waiting patiently until she opened her beautiful green eyes.

  The smile that greeted him was almost enough to make him forget everything else. Her eyes wandered over him, eating him up like merely seeing him was a cure of its own.

  "Commander," she whispered, her voice very weak. "We meet at last."

  He nodded his head in greeting, helping her sit up. Her fingers gripping his sent a surge of electricity through his body.

  "Yes," he said, bitterly reminded that after the whole ordeal was over, she, too, had to undergo a procedure to make her forget him. "I'm glad to see you suffered no permanent damage."

  A shadow crossed over her face as Audrey frowned.

  "Was I in danger?" she asked. "What even happened to me? I remember grabbing the stone from that thing and in the next moment, I... I can't even describe it."

  Tieran took a moment to choose his words very carefully. Even if Audrey would forget all he t
old her, there was a threat in telling her too much.

  "We are not sure," he admitted. "It was not long ago when we heard about the lifestone. That is what we call it. We haven't had the chance to study the mineral itself yet, but from what we can tell, it's an energy source.

  “It boosts, powers everything it touches. Like a stimulant, but more powerful than anything we've ever encountered. Considering all that, you are lucky to be alive after touching it."

  She was listening to him, her eyes wide, thoughtful.

  "So when I touched it," Audrey said. "It magnified me?"

  "Basically, yes," Tieran said, a smile coming to his lips, unbidden. "A few moments more and you would have been gone. No person can bear being more than they are."

  As soon as he'd said those words out loud, he realized the true threat to them. It must have reflected on his face, because Audrey stared at him intently.

  "What's wrong?" she asked. "No more hiding. Tell me what's going on. This is my station and I need to know what I'm defending it against. Those things. What were they?"

  "Jorcossi," Tieran replied grimly. "They are parasitic creatures from a world we discovered a while ago. They’re not from around this planetary system, though."

  "How are they here? And why? We discovered the stone moments before that thing revealed itself. How could it be there already? Has it been here the entire time?"

  "I think someone, or something, arranged for them to be here," he replied, his deep voice gaining a dark edge.The look on Audrey's face could only be described as incredulous.

  “Who?” Audrey demanded.

  He slicked his tongue over his teeth, feeling his cheeks tense. A power like the one the lifestone possessed…. There would not be a being in the galaxy that did not wish to possess it. There was only one that truly concerned him, though.

  “Fine, so don’t answer me. I thought no one but the Palians knew about it. If there are others, then… The way you describe it, it's practically a magical source of, well, everything. The destruction that could be wreaked with it…"