He did just that, with a promise of a lifetime’s worth of more to come.
About Carol Van Natta
Carol Van Natta is a USA TODAY bestselling and award-winning science fiction and fantasy author. Series include the Central Galactic Concordance space opera romance series that starts with Overload Flux and features two previous Pets in Space® novellas, and the Ice Age Shifters® paranormal romance series that starts with Shifter Mate Magic. She shares her Fort Collins, Colorado home with a resident mad scientist and just the right number of equally mad cats, the latter of whom are rather put out that dogs play a more prominent part of this story than felines.
Website
Also by Carol Van Natta
Space Opera:
Last Ship off Polaris-G (Central Galactic Concordence Novella)
Overload Flux
Paranormal Romance:
Shifter Mate Magic (Ice Age Shifters Book 1)
Reaper
Xian Warriors Series
She survived against the odds….
Janelle’s life is defined by the small, underground research base. Imprisoned for twenty years after the base was bombed, she and the few Creckel survivors are running out of time as the last of their resources are depleted. With no hope for rescue, she and her companions wait for the dreaded Reaper to finish what the bombs missed.
Reaper, a half-human, half-Kryptid, is part of the Vanguard—an elite peacekeeping force determined to help the survivors left behind by war. New intel leads him to a remote research base where he discovers Creckel survivors—and a lone human woman named Janelle.
Janelle’s life hasn’t prepared her for the breathtakingly stunning, genetically engineered warrior. His words, filled with impossible promises, make her believe there is a place for her somewhere in the vast universe—with him by her side. Is it possible that dreams can come true, or will guilt for another man’s deeds shatter her new hope?
Prologue
Janelle
Hunkered down in the great hall, I was holding Brees tightly against me. She should have been in her cage along with the other Creckels, but I was too scared to let go of her. The loud voices of the Kryptid Soldiers in the hallway yelling at my parents terrified me. I couldn’t make out their words. Not only were they muffled by the closed door, but the clicking sound of the bugs’ horribly grating voice made it even harder to understand.
Brees bumped her dragon snout against my shoulder in an affectionate gesture. Although still young, the female’s body—somewhat similar to that of a giant pangolin—had already developed some strong scales that would make her immune to pretty much any type of physical damage.
The back of my skull tingled as Brees sent a psychic image of open doors on all of the cages containing the other modified Creckels in the room with us. I fearfully shook my head at her. Unlike humans, Creckels couldn’t speak with words but had an elaborate imagery-based language. I had learned it over the past six years, when my psychic abilities had begun to manifest themselves a few weeks after my fifth birthday.
As the angry voices rose even more in the hallway, Brees projected the same image more forcefully before showing a different one with her and the other Creckels taking on a defensive position in front of the door. After another moment’s hesitation, I partially caved in.
“I will unlock them, but they must stay inside unless there is trouble,” I whispered, my voice slightly trembling with fear.
I remembered all too well the last time the Creckels had attacked our captors three months prior. The Kryptids’ revenge had been swift and savage. More than a hundred Creckels—all the original breed instead of the modified ones like Brees—had been gassed and entombed in the basement. Only the twenty-seven modified Creckels around me remained. Although still young, they were extremely lethal. After all, turning them into terrifying killing machines had been the reason the Kryptid General Khutu had kidnapped my parents to perform experiments on those creatures.
Moving quickly but quietly, as if the Soldiers could hear me through the door and over the ruckus they were making, I swiftly unlocked the cages. To my relief, the creatures honored my request. Creckels weren’t pets or trainable animals. They were sentient beings with a will of their own.
I’d no sooner finished unlocking the last cage than the door to the great hall—transformed into a holding area—swished open. The scream of fright that wanted to rise out of me remained stuck in my throat at the sight of the Soldier. He easily stood over two meters tall with broad shoulders and the inhumanly narrow waist of an ant. Dark chitin scales that served as armor covered his entire body, including his three-segment legs. With his bug face, giant, multifaceted eyes and a thick, crescent-moon shaped horn on his forehead, the Kryptid Soldier was the embodiment of evil.
The mandibles framing his strangely human mouth parted as he sneered in anger at the sight of Brees at my feet.
“What is that beast doing outside its cage?” the Soldier shouted at me in his horrible voice, which sounded like nails on glass.
“S-She… I… It was her time for exercise,” I stuttered, half-choked with fear. “I-I will put her back now.”
“Leave it. The female scientist will take care of it. Come with me,” the Soldier said in a tone that brooked no argument.
“With you? Where?” I asked, my blood turning into ice in my veins.
“You do not ask questions. Move!” the Soldier snapped, raising his blaster towards me.
“NO! Not my baby!” my mother shouted, trying to rush into the room to come to me.
The Soldier caught her by the arm and yanked her back in front of him.
“Mama!” I shouted at the sight of the three, chitin covered fingers of the Kryptid squeezing my mother’s slender arm in a bruising hold.
Before my mother’s curtain of golden hair—which I’d inherited from her—fell in front of her face, I saw the grimace of pain that strained her features.
“Female, you will not cause any more trouble if you want to live past this day. The General is furious enough with your failures. You have your orders regarding the beasts. See that you get it done.”
He shoved her with enough force that my mother stumbled back before falling heavily on the floor. While it had no doubt been painful, I was grateful for the slight padding offered by the cushiony organic membrane that covered the floor and part of the walls of the underground base.
As I ran to my mother’s side, Brees automatically took a menacing stance towards the Soldier. Behind him, I could hear my father shouting for another Soldier to release him at once.
“Get that beast under control now before I blow its head off,” the Soldier shouted.
I never saw what triggered the mayhem that followed. Father had likely tried to take the weapon from the Soldier that was holding him back in the hallway. I only saw the flash of blaster fire followed by my father’s scream of agony and the acrid scent of charred flesh.
“YOU FOOL! WHAT DID YOU DO?” the Soldier who had shoved my mother shouted at one of his two companions in the hallway.
A sharp pain lacerated my heart at the sight of my father collapsing, his blood pouring onto the membrane covering the floor. It greedily absorbed it even as my eyes locked with my dad’s, the same dark brown—almost black—color as mine. He silently mouthed the word ‘run’ as if that was even a possibility.