Taken By The Alpha Warlord (Warlords 0f Farian Book 2) Read online

  Vania’s words fell into silence and the three of us didn’t know how to respond. Aimer crossed her arms and cleared her throat. “Well, Alpha Jase has authorized you to accompany—”

  The door swept open and the papers I had so neatly gathered swirled into a mess toward the floor, Cassala spinning forward to catch as many as she could. I groaned inwardly and ruffled my hair in aggravation, then signaled to the clearly anxious messenger that he could speak.

  “Alpha! Tarsine has taken the most southern point sentries, and the Port of Tronto has fallen. He burned the entire town and has turned our boats upstream with his own soldiers. It is said he is coming with all the forces he can gather and that the Delk Clan from the East has bonded with the Bordash for this siege as well, though that is unconfirmed. The Delk Clan will add three hundred hard men and women soldiers to the Bordash hordes of hundreds. The battle between Kajo and Rhone was hard-fought and decimated the Bordash ranks, but it also brought together the looser clans from the south pole and wildlands from the East. That is who Tarsine is charging your lands with right now. They all fight for him. Tarsine himself is leading them. He claims he is the rightful Alpha Warlord to these lands because they belong to Bordash blood, not the Curan scum like us.”

  The messenger's garb was soaked through. He was breathing hard, armed with many weapons, and carrying an assortment of journals which he handed to me. "These are the notes our spy, Felne, was able to take from Tarsine's camp before he was apprehended. We are not sure if Felne is still alive. If he has the chance, he will surely kill himself, and there is no way he any type of torture will do any good. He is far too trained in counter-interrogation techniques. On the contrary, I do not think Tarsine’s men are as skilled and I have brought one of the men we captured with me. He is with your guards now.”

  "Good, then." I held up the rain-soaked journals to Cassala. "Get these to the scribes immediately and see that they are preserved and let's go through them right away. Also, tell LeiLei and the rest of the Commanders that we will be heading out in three hours. Just the Crew of twelve. Full regiments to follow, Xane at the lead, within twenty-four hours. Aimer, you go see to this prisoner. I want him in the interrogation chambers immediately.”

  “Yes, Alpha.” Cassala left through the door, taking the messenger with her. Aimer followed them out quickly, leaving me alone with the Earthling. I turned to look at Vania. She lifted her chin slightly, and her green eyes blazed.

  “You’re coming with us.”

  Three

  Vania

  As soon as I left Jase's Council Chambers, I headed to Daphne's apartment. It was just by chance that Daphne was even in the same city as me. Kajo and Daphne had special accommodations any time they were in town since usually, they were in the Capital, and Daphne was in Second City only to open a new school or bless a new hospital or do some other type of altruistic Leader of the Free World magnanimity.

  Even though it was raining, and it was getting late, I knew she would see me.

  There was nothing we wouldn't do for each other; now, more than ever, I felt. There was certainly a big hindrance in the way of our bond: her Destin status to the Beast King of a planet light-years from our own. As long as Kajo didn't actively prevent it, Daphne would do anything for me. And Kajo would do anything for her, and it seemed like that included making sure I was in her life. Which made both of us very happy.

  So, when the guards outside her room saw me coming up the hallway, they first made sure I was alone, then they made sure I was unarmed, then they knocked and let me in.

  "Vania! It is so good to see you. Tequila?" Daphne offered me the liquor, and I took it straight from the bottle this time. It was close enough to tequila. A bit too sweet to really seem like the real thing. "I'm so glad you stopped by, but is there a reason? What happened? Why are you, bottle-drinking? I mean, girls with class don’t need a glass and all that jazz, but… tell me what’s up?”

  “I’m going to war.”

  Daphne was silent. She sat down on the sofa and looked out the window at the striking lightning.

  “Daphne, did you hear me? It’s what I’ve been training for, I know. I mean, Jase asked Kajo to let me be in his army, and that’s all I do, all day, is train, whether by the books or by the weapons. And I’m ready. I mean, I didn’t ever think I would be a soldier, and this is definitely a different kind than if I were on Earth, but—hey, hey, what’s wrong?”

  Daphne had tucked her head down into her arms against her knees, and I could hardly understand her as she muffled out the words: “I don’t want you to go.”

  I was dumbstruck. There was a rush of realizations. Daphne loved me so so much, and that made tears well in my eyes because it made me recall how much I loved her. Daphne was the Queen and could command that I not go—an idea which made me love her like crazy and also made me so angry that she might hold that power over me. Daphne was Queen, so maybe she was privy to some other piece of information; was I marching to my death? Was this a death mission we were going on? Then, Daphne was my best friend and knew me better than anyone, so did she think that I wouldn’t be able to handle it? But, then, she didn’t know all the ways I had changed in the last six months. She couldn’t possibly know what a great soldier I could be, because I couldn’t even know. Was it just because I was her best friend and she was scared of losing her last anchor to a world we would both never see again?

  This was deeper, there was something else here…

  “What’s going on, Daph? Why don’t you want me to go? I’ve been training really hard. I’m quite good—” I placed my hands on her arms where they tucked tight around her knees and head. She squeezed me back.

  “I know. I know you are. Jase says you are and Kajo wouldn’t let him risk your life if he wasn’t a good leader to follow. I am sure he wouldn’t ask you along if he didn’t think you could handle it, or at least if he didn’t think you could try to handle it and he wanted to see how far he could test you.”

  I felt my cheeks heat up a little as she spoke. That was really cool to hear that the leaders thought so highly of me, but I wasn't so sure what I thought of them, yet. Jase had such a maniacal, reckless, and ruthless reputation. He might be a blonde Greek god looking figure, tall and ripped, with sleeve tattoos of famed mythological battles, Farian battles, of course, that I had recently been reading as bedtime fables, of heroes and goddesses stretching up his arms and revealing themselves in slight chisel curls around his collarbone. I wondered how much they stretched around his body…

  I shook away the thoughts of his broad chest and flexing biceps and tried to remember his razor-sharp brown eyes and cutting words. I refocused on Daphne, who had not stopped speaking in stuttering, shaking sentences.

  “… I am sure you can handle anything. I know you’re… good… I know you’ve been training… But… Vania… I’m pregnant. I can’t lose you.”

  My mouth dropped open, and I jumped up. “You’re pregnant!”

  I grabbed her hands and danced around the room with her. The happy little skips tore a smile from her otherwise scared face as the lightning flickered against the curtains and rain lashed at the windows.

  “You’re pregnant, Daphne! That’s amazing! Does Kajo know?”

  "I haven't told him yet. You're the first. I don't know how to tell him… I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Is it going to be different from an Earthling birth? I don't know what to do!"

  “Oh, Daphne, everything will be fine. You will have a ton of people to help you, and besides that, you’re the strongest person I know. This is amazing. What’s stopping you from telling Kajo?”

  “Well, he is worried about Tarsine. Please don’t tell anyone I told you, because he really trusts Jase, but he is preparing troops, just in case, in order to smash Tarsine back if things get out of hand. He doesn’t want anything to go wrong and wants his Alpha Warlords set up well.”

  “That makes sense, of course. But then why keep this happy news to yourself?”


  “I don’t know how he will react. Maybe it will make him behave differently, distract him or something, and he really needs to deal with this war right now. And what difference will it make to wait until after the campaign to tell him?”

  “I get that. I will keep your secrets.”

  “Thank you, Vania." Daphne squeezed my hands and then walked us back to the sofa. We collapsed onto it, and I grabbed the bottle of non-tequila again. She sighed. "I know you will be great at war. You’re the strongest person I know. We are quite the pair.”

  I gripped the bottle and nodded, my heart racing as I noticed the time slipping away from the clock on the wall. I had just enough time to go to my quarters and grab my gear. Then… off I went to war.

  I smiled at my best friend and took another shot for good measure. “We will always be.”

  Four

  Jase

  The spy rolled his head up at me in his drugged state, the whites of his eyes tinted blue with the mind-blocking medicine. The problem with a telepathic kingdom was that the easiest way to get answers would be to read his mind, while inflicting pain and asking questions, but also the easiest way for him to call for help would be for him to reach out to someone else through telepathy. Our interrogation facilities, the Rumor Caves as they were called, were hundreds of miles away and deep below the earth in the salt fields, a location hidden and difficult to find. The salts disrupted telecommunication through it. We could use telepathy inside the caverns, but nothing could get out of the crust. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to take him there. Even with the speed advantage teleporting might provide us, I just couldn’t be two places at once. So, we had to drug him to keep him from being able to access the telepathic skills, but that also made his thoughts fuzzy. So, while we were gathering a lot of information, some of it might be inutile.

  I flicked my eyes up from the spy’s bloody face as the door creaked open. Aimer held up her hand as a way of apology and slipped inside to stand beside my other two Trio Commanders. The Earthling was a step behind her, gear bag slung over her shoulder, dagger tied down one leg, heavy rain cloak slung over one shoulder, still dripping from the storm outside. Her eyes were bright in the gloom of the room, radiating the excitement I could still remember before going to my first battle: oh, how young I had been, how foolish and brash.

  But, also, my recklessness had gotten the attention of the brass, and I had quickly scaled the ranks, and was now, only ten years later at 25 cycles of the sun, an Alpha Warlord. So, that same excitement I had shared, might be a thing that earned Vania respect. It might earn Vania a chance to shine. She certainly looked eager, shifting from side to side, unable to stand still, hands clenching in and out to fists, continually brushing that beautiful chestnut hair behind her ear, licking her full lips, eyes sparkling as she looked at me with those enigmatic eyes—

  The spy gurgled a word through blood and spit slimed lips, and my attention was brought back to the task before me. I brought my hand down heavily on his shoulder, and he jumped a little, burying his face as low as he could in his chest, but the leather strap around his neck holding him pinned back to the wall prevented too much hiding.

  “What was that?” Cassala demanded. She waved her leather-gloved fingers in front of his face and balled her hand into a fist, the glove lined with brass knuckles molded into the letters that spelled the word “JASE." The knuckles on Cassala's other glove spelled "LORD." It had been my former enforcer's idea. It seemed a little foolish to me, but, again, when I took the throne of Emerona in the beginning, when it had been nearly one quarter the size it was now, I had been young and brash… I thought it would strike fear into any man or woman being punched with those brass knuckles and that I would revel in seeing any of the letters of my name tattooed on their face: sometimes, it did.

  Enforcer Brutus had lived up to his name, but when he had been killed in the war six months ago, Cassala had begged me to take his place as the lead interrogator. Begged isn’t quite fair, I argued with myself. Cassala had never begged for anything in her life. I didn’t think there was anything she cared enough about to protect that much. Except for maybe my life, I argued back. She was a dedicated soldier. She might beg to be killed instead of me if we were both captured. I think all three of my Trio would do that. I looked at the three striking women beside me. They were my best friends, my confidantes, my strongest soldiers. Wicked and beautiful and wise in every way. I would kill, and die, for any of them.

  And not for much else.

  Except for my throne…

  And this spy… this measly spy was what most stood in my way of that at this moment…

  He had been a soldier in Commander Doven’s ranks for nearly a year. It was only through counter-intelligence done by our own spies in the Bordash military that we had learned that this man wasn’t one of us. He was a full-blood Curan from the Southlands. He had been turned by a Bordash agent and was dedicated to their cause, but not dedicated enough to not have already given us the exact location of their main group camp that my Crew would be heading to inside the hour. He gave us numbers, he told us of Tarsine’s fighting style, and he revealed two more spies that he knew of in my army. I was considering how to use that information.

  “… fake your death? Do you have a preference for how you die? You’re going into one of our prisons for a long time. There will be no salvation for you.”

  I grinned at Cassala’s threats. That was the most likely way. Fake his death from innocuous means, so Tarsine would be unaware that the spy had been caught, then use the other two spies to send disinformation and confuse the enemy. See how long I could do that while keeping tabs on them during the warfare. Neither one of the spies had made it high enough in my ranks, of course, to be part of the Crew that was coming with me in advance to spy on Tarsine’s camp, but they would deploy with the armies en masse later today… Commander Xane was a good Second for my military when I was off with my Crew and Trios. He would know how to keep tabs on the other two spies.

  “Anything else of use?” I asked, looking to the Reader, but he shook his head.

  “He’s too far into the quarifin… Just strange thoughts about ducks and yellow flowers.”

  “Ok. Thank you.” I turned to a couple of fully armored soldiers. One of them was also a medic. “Take him to one of the prisons. Prepare him for transport to the Rumor Caves later today. Make sure the quarifin doping stays strong and consistent.”

  “Yes, Alpha. Thank you.”

  I turned to the five Commanders that had attended the interrogation with me. The other six would be waiting by this time at the airfield.

  “We have our destination. Let’s get to the transport and prepare for battle.”

  As I turned to walk away, I stepped into the same space as the Earthling, and our bodies brushed against each other. I was disappointed there wasn't an immediate wave of shocking electricity coursing through her, the way Kajo described his interactions with Daphne, but, then, Vania wasn't my Destin.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled and stepped out of the way. “I’m just over-eager, I guess.”

  I smiled at her. “I can remember the first time I went to war, too. There’s something special about it: the fear and excitement. The feeling that you don’t have a clue what you’re going to be doing, but also that you can handle anything that might happen. The best advice I can give you is: remember you’re part of a team now, our team. Rely on us, be part of us, earn your spot here.”

  “Yeah, Earthling,” Cassala said as she brushed by us, pounding Vania in the shoulder with the bloodied torture glove hand, surprisingly hard, "earn your spot here." Cassala walked on, and I grinned, pointing at Vania's shoulder, where my name was now clearly imprinted in red blood.

  “Dammit,” she grumbled, staring at it, then glaring at me. I laughed and tossed her a cloth off the nearby table with a small display of telekinetic powers.

  "Wipe it off quickly. I won't be offended. You don't need to have any blood on you before the battle e
ven begins. Besides, if I leave my mark on you, I want it to be memorable.” She looked at me sharply, and I laughed again, then just shook my head and walked after my Commanders, leaving her to wipe my bloody name off her shoulder. I heard her cursing as the door closed, and it made me grin. I doubted the blood was wiping off.

  Lightning cracked the sky as we made our way toward the airfield. It would be a turbulent flight to the southern fields. Rain was getting ready to unleash as we walked quickly to the cover of the hangars. I wondered about leaving the Earthling behind and whether or not she knew her way around enough to find where we were going, but then I heard her jogging behind me to catch up. I ignored her and moved to the front of the pack, but found it hard to resist turning around to look at her blazing green eyes and perfectly picturesque curves.

  She had better not be a distraction on this mission.

  I refocused as the sky unleashed and huge droplets of water fell, cool on our faces.

  I had my throne to protect.

  Five

  Vania

  The knife flew so quickly from Aimer’s hand that I could hardly see the release. It whipped through the air with an audible snap. It zinged and made a slight whiffing puff as it arrested right before my face, but not before I moved a slight, involuntary jerk backward. The others on the transport chuckled, otherwise ignoring the exchange between Aimer and I. Aimer was giving me some telekinetic instruction. The rest of the Crew were sitting against the sparse transport’s sides on the jump seats, while she and I braced ourselves in the open cargo area, practicing the skill that the Curans prided themselves in holding so dearly.