Captured By her Alien Mate by Ava York

Kator

Ileft my ride several clicks away and ran the last stretch up to the Aetamian walls on foot. Though encumbered, I was practically sailing. The entire journey, my heart had echoed the drumming of the numa’s stride.

As dawn began to break over the forbidding walls of the city, I stepped back to breathe it in. Try though I might, I couldn’t smell any blood in the air. All the carnage crackling between my fingers had yet to be unleashed. The snap of its promise hung around me in a cloud. The whole of my mind lived in Mofat’s throat.

Almost all of it.

The lust for vengeance wasn’t my only companion for the voyage. Riley had been singing in my veins at every moment. At times, it almost felt as though she had been calling me back to her side, begging me to give over the terrible task at hand. I very nearly turned around.

In the glass of my inmost eye, I saw her waking alone. The chill of her loneliness tickled at the base of my stomach. I had indulged myself with the image of her pulling the blanket tight around her naked body, searching for any vestiges of my warmth. In the moment of that reverie, the path of my revenge felt uncomfortably akin to abandonment.

But how could I abandon her? It was unthinkable. No, I had left to cleanse myself, to keep from staining her with my fury. If I had stayed and left the job undone, the open sore of my past would swallow us both. That was too great a risk.

As I scurried along the outer edges of the wall, I cast an eye toward the horizon, to gauge the progress of the day. A rising cloud of dust caught my eye, and my spine tingled knowing that riders were closing in behind me. Had I been trailed? Had Mofat and his treacherous son left battalions in the forest to watch for me?

If that was the case, then my path to justice might be cut short before it even began. I’d find myself outnumbered, and cast in chains before my hateful father, to spit my curses in his teeth before my execution. Stripped of my weapons, my pride, and my name. Nothing left but bastardy and vitriol.

Lest it should be so, I sprang from the wall and into a stand of trees nearby. Grinding myself into the dirt, I crawled along until I found a vantage point that gave me the drop on the troop. Their numa had slowed to a trot, and they cleaved curiously close to the tree line. There was every chance they would ride directly in front of me.

As they drew near, I saw a familiar face. At the head of the hunting party was Vokar, furtive as always. He knew how to approach Aetam, and I marveled that he had led his team so brazenly out in the open. It was remarkably incautious for him, and spoke of a haste out of keeping with his usual deliberation.

Then, just to his left, on the far side from me, I saw a figure in a hood. Even with only the faintest peek at her pearly white jawline, I knew it was Riley. That explained the urgency—they had come to overtake me.

“Hsst!” Pushing to my feet, I came to the very edge of the wood and hissed out to them. Vokar saw me first.

“Are you insane?” I called. “Riding numa this close is suicide. Double around and meet me in the southern clearing.”

Vokar and his companions turned at my word and began their progress back, but Riley hesitated for the barest moment, and our eyes caught. Where I expected to find betrayal or hurt, I found only understanding. When she turned to join the rest, a blast of shame coursed through me. Why hadn’t I waited until she woke? Of course she would have understood.

As things were, she and others had risked their lives to come after me. My inability to face her had endangered all their lives. The best recompense I could make was to meet them, and own up to it. If, however, they tried to stop me, they might as well not have come.

“It’s just like you, Kator,” Vokar said as he slid down from his mount. “Off to a party, and no invitation for me.”

“What I’m going to is no party,” I said. He had a habit of indulging in a bit of gallows humor, but I was far from in a joking mood. “The thing I’ve come for is mine to do.”

“Anything that’s yours is ours.” Lonric helped Riley down, and she ran over to me with eager eyes. “Why would you leave me like that, Kator? I woke up alone.” Her hands cooled the heat rising in my cheeks, and I reached up to find her waist.

“I knew if I waited until you woke, that I would never come. My love,” I kissed one of her palms. “This is something I have to do.”

“Then we have to do it.”

“No,” I said. “It’s too dangerous for you, and if I leave it undone, it will eat me alive.”

“Nothing you do is too dangerous for me, Kator.” She stilled me with her firm hands, and waited until I was able to look into her eyes. They were clear, and strong. “Anywhere you go, I have to be. What if you died out here?”

“I won’t.”

“But what if you did? Kator, when I said I loved you, I meant all of you. Your pain and your anger too. They’re mine now. And, if you’re going to die doing this, then I’ll be damned if I let you die alone. You won’t make me live without you. I won’t let you.”

With so much of my life spent bereft of love or trust, the words poured into my wounds like clean water. Since the death of my mother, I had never had anyone who was willing to share in the entirety of my life. Now, for the first time, I realized the depth of what love could mean.

“Riley…”

“Oh, just kiss her already, will you?” Vokar leaned on his sword, looking impatient as always. Before I could take up the call, Riley stood on her toes and pressed her mouth on mine. I returned each impulse she sent, and we found a compact that felt strangely like equality. Like a shared path. How could I have left her behind?

When we had made our compact, I looked to Vokar and his team. It was rather humbling—some of his best were at his side.

“Shame to see how you raided our armory,” Lonric smirked.

“If you had just come to see me, I would have fit you out myself,” Vokar said. “We’ve got things that will fit you better than what you stole.”

“I was in a hurry,” I shot back.

“So were we,” Strovan said. They were outfitted meticulously. But then, they knew the armory inside and out. I had merely grabbed what was most evident. Like me, each man was dripping with blades, and had more than one crossbow among them.

“You didn’t take many bolts,” Lonric said. “So, we opted to add to your store.”

He tossed me a bandolier that was studded with ammunition for my own crossbow. It was a welcome addition. Turning with a smile, I found Riley had pushed back her cloak to reveal her own leather jerkin.

It may have been cut for a man, but she had tightened it until it hugged her curves in a way that made me flush that others saw her. At nearly every possible strap, she had tucked dart-like knives, ready for any attack. On her hip rode what looked like a smaller version of the weapons Vokar had told me Isabella had repaired from the alien ship.

It was a marvel to see her, but somehow I couldn’t tell her, the words sticking in my throat.

I pointed at her blaster instead. “Is that new?”

She patted the holster, a grin spread across her beautiful face. She wiggled her eyebrows at me. “Isabella asked me to give it a good testing. Less bulk, more elegance, I say.”

“You weren’t kidding around.”

“Neither were you.” She reached out, and nudged at my sword with the toe of her shoe.

“Yeah, don’t let Dojak know you took that one,” Vokar chuckled. “He had it forged specially.”

“I took it to a special purpose.” At the reminder, I grew serious. The help would be welcome when it came to carving our path, but one thing needed to be understood. “Listen to me very carefully,” I said to the men. “Mofat is mine. Even if you get the perfect shot. Don’t rob me of this. Is that understood?”

They nodded. Whether or not Riley had told them the reason for my vengeance, this group of men understood what it meant to need a particular man’s blood on their hands. There’s something sacred in it.

“Alright,” Vokar took control. “Suit up.”

Riley dropped her riding cloak, and each man yanked a bundle of clothes out of his riding pack. She retrieved her own satchel, and passed a bunch over to me.

“What is this?”

“Disguises,” she said. I shook my head, but Lonric was already mostly dressed.

“Don’t fool around, Kator,” he said. “If you go in as you are, I suspect you’ll find yourself unwelcome. We’d be even less so. So…” he tugged a tunic over his head and presented himself. “We go in disguise as Aetamians.”

“You’re going to want to put your hood up,” Strovan said. “For the lady’s sake if nothing else.”

We all suited up together, and as I watched, Riley swaddled herself in Aetam garments until she looked for all the world like a child of their kingdom.

With so many capable fighters at my side, I wondered why I had felt the need to set out alone. More than anything, I felt more steadfast with Riley at my side.

I would never leave her behind me again.