Esania looked up at the darkening sky, marveling at how it had turned such a spectacular shade of violet. On Khira, the sunsets were shades of purple and maroon, not fiery orange like they were on the Old Planet, Earth. No, here they more closely resembled a good Mars sunset, a sight she didn’t miss one bit.

A warm breeze swept past, rippling the light fabric of her sea-green tunic, flicking the ends of her braids.

In the distance, five of her attendants picked tiny edible orange berries under the watchful eyes of their violet-skinned guards. Esania had intentionally separated herself from the group, choosing to pick berries several meters away, because she knew the women felt uncomfortable in her presence, and she just wasn’t in the mood for stiff, awkward conversation.

When one of the Vradhu guards followed her, she’d waved him away, wanting to be alone for just a few precious minutes. By now she was well aware of the dangers of the Ardu-Sai, but he hadn’t gone far—only a few steps away—and the purple-skinned warrior could move like lightning if he wanted to.

Besides, one of the mercenaries, Zahra, was standing watch on a small rocky outcrop, her hand on her particle gun. The modified human was a fierce, wily fighter, and with her illegal bio-implants, she was much stronger than Esania.

They were protected.

What was the worst that could happen?

Just a few minutes.

So she could breathe.

So she could think.

There was something about tribal living that she found utterly stifling. All those people—Vradhu, human, bionic-human—living in such close proximity, sheltering in communal structures made of wood and stone.

She wasn’t used to it.

For a moment, she visualized her past life on Mars, where she’d been a Primean senator, one of the elected delegates of the powerful State Council. Everything had been orderly, sanitized, predictable. She’d been in control.

Then, with the revelation of a single secret, her life had fallen apart, making her question everything.

Esania plucked another of the berries from its thorny bush—a round thing the size of her thumbnail—and studied it closely, struck by its strangeness, its alienness; the way its smooth red skin took on a metallic sheen in the dim light. Tchirrin, the Vradhu called them. For some reason, these particular fruits were bitter during the heat of the day and sweet in the evening, which was when the Vradhu and the humans would come down to the valley to collect them by the basket-load. They could be eaten fresh or roasted over an open fire until the purple flesh became soft and gooey inside.

Strange.

Everything on Khira was strange, and almost everything appeared to have thorns, even the inhabitants.

A sudden burst of sunlight hit her face, a last gasp from the setting sun as it slipped below the the horizon, cloaking the valley in deep shadow.

The sun was setting on Khira, and it was spectacular, a sight as powerful and alien as the striking ink-faced warriors who called themselves Vradhu.

Oh, and they just happened to have tails; long, black, dextrous things with poison barbs at the end. Calexa, the captain of their doomed escape-transport, had told her about that particular quirk… amongst other things.

Crazy woman. Esania shuddered. Calexa Acura made no effort to hide the fact that she’d formed an intimate relationship with not just one, but two of the intimidating aliens.

Ares and Ares’s clone. With wings.

She shuddered.

Calexa was rather proud of her Vradhu conquests.

Calexa had never said anything, and Esania was too cultured to ask, but… how was such a union even possible?

That Calexa, she was mad.

Only a human would even think of doing something so ridiculous…

No, don’t think like that.

Esania stifled her typically Primean instincts, trying not to fall into old patterns of thinking. They weren’t in the Serakhine anymore, and Calexa was free to choose who she involved herself with. Esania should probably respect it, even if she didn’t understand it.

Of course she didn’t understand it. After all, Esania’s kind were forbidden from seeking carnal pleasures.

Well, that was the official line, but slowly, she’d learned that Primeans weren’t as enlightened as they pretended to be. The constraints of Primean culture hadn’t stopped that asshole, Deputy Commander Kivik, from impregnating one of her girls.

He’d forced her, and somehow, Sara’s contraceptive implant had failed.

What were the chances of that? Statistically, a million-in-one.

What a mess.

Serakhine law was not influenced by emotion. Serakhine law was absolute. The man, the woman, and her unborn child would be sentenced to death. Those that aided and abetted—no matter what their station—would be sentenced to a life of hard labor on Kalluq-3.

If caught, all of the women in her entourage would be found guilty. They’d helped to conceal Sara’s pregnancy for months.

Primeans were notoriously obsessive about protecting the purity of the genetic pool, and cross-species coupling was a Capital One offense, so that moron Kivik had tried to cover up the entire thing, with near-disastrous results.

That was why Esania had and her attendants had escaped on a dark-market mercenary transport run by a crew of unhinged bionically enhanced female mercenaries. In order to conceal her identity, she’d taken the moniker ’S’. It was, for want of a better word, complicated.

Then things had gone horribly wrong. Out of nowhere, a Paxnath raider ship had attacked, and Esania had her suspicions about its origins. They’d had no choice but to enter the Silverstream, an uncharted parallel dimension where ships frequently went missing.

Now she knew what happened to said ships when they went missing.

That’s how they’d ended up here on this wild, primitive planet, where there wasn’t a shred of civilization to be found.

Esania sighed as she dropped a handful of berries into the small woven basket that hung at her side. It occurred to her that they might never leave this place.

She could die here. If some venomous plant or creature didn’t get her, then perhaps she’d succumb to some terrible disease or infection.

There was no advanced medical care here, after all.

A shrill whistle split the air, and the Vradhu warrior watching over her gestured, making a V sign with his fingers.

“Kaala,” he called, sounding a little bored. In Vradhu, the word meant let’s go. Esania knew only a few basic words in their language, and kaala was one of them. Infuriatingly, they liked to use it a lot, in the most gratingly insistent tone.

Grumpy bastards. Vradhu warriors were a proud, surly lot, and apparently, they didn’t stoop to such menial tasks as collecting berries. It was their job to stand guard while the women worked.

Huh. What archaic nonsense.

Esania snorted as she made her way down the rocky slope, wet fern-shaped leaves brushing against her boots. She wasn’t used to being ordered around by anyone, but here she had no choice but to go with it. They were on an unfamiliar planet, surrounded by dangerous flora and fauna, and for reasons she didn’t truly understand, these Vradhu had chosen to separate from their tribe and protect them.

She suspected it had something to do with Calexa and her unlikely union with Ares, but she didn’t really understand what had happened on the Hythra, and the Medusa’s crew were being infuriatingly cryptic.

At that moment, something made her look up. It wasn’t anything she could put her finger on, but more of a feeling. A tingling sensation ran over her scalp and down the back of her neck…

Whoosh.

A fierce gust of wind engulfed her from above. She felt it before she heard it. Suddenly, she was inside a vacuum devoid of sound and movement.

There was only pressure.

Immense pressure.

The Vradhu guard was shouting, but she couldn’t hear him.

Whomp. Whomp.

The air around her became a torrent, a battering ram, smashing down upon her from above. Esania reflexively turned around brought her hands up over her head, ducking down as she tried to run. The cured ends of her braids whipped around her face, stinging her cheeks.

Three of the Vradhu peeled off from the main group, running toward her, their war-spears raised high, their black-and-purple faces twisting into expressions of pure fury.

One of them—the leader—was Calexa’s fearsome lover, the one called Ares, who had emerged from the wreck of the Hythra sporting a pair of menacing black wings.

He sprinted toward her, a terrible war-cry erupting from his throat.

“Esania, get down!” From her vantage point, Zahra aimed her gun.

Esania dropped to the ground.

Zahra fired.

Blam!

Time slowed to a standstill. She scrambled to her feet.

Steeling herself, she looked up…

And saw a horror that was supposed to have died with the doomed alien ship.

Drakhin!

Only this one was different.

Massive pale wings blotted out the remaining daylight.

She gasped.

It—he—was completely naked. She knew the Drakhin was a he, because with that body, he couldn’t possibly be anything else.

Power. He was sheer power. Broad, powerful shoulders, pale arms bulging with corded muscle, sculpted chest and rippling stomach, massive…

Oh, my.

A certain part of his anatomy was on full view, and it was… impressive. She had to force herself to look away.

A pale winged demon was bearing down on her, possibly to kill her, and all she could do was stare at his cock.

Move, idiot.

To her dismay, the blast from Zahra’s particle gun hadn’t even grazed the alien. Why had Zahra missed?

Too close. With growing horror, Esania understood. From where Zahra was standing, it was a risky shot.

Her attacker was too close to her. Zahra could easily have killed her.

A fearsome pair of golden eyes stared down at her, and for a moment, she was utterly transfixed.

She wanted time to freeze so she could simply stare at the impossible creature, but he moved so fast he became a blur.

Heading straight for her.

Move!

But she wasn’t fast enough.

A flash of white split the darkness as a huge pair of arms surrounded her, holding her so tightly the breath was pushed out of her chest.

She tried to fight, tried to resist, but it was futile. The creature that had captured her was impossibly strong; his arms felt like folded steel around her waist.

Esania’s self-control shattered.

She screamed.

Impossibly, the creature relented, hissing in pain as he released her. A long spear protruded from his calf. How? Behind him, the Vradhu were screaming their visceral war-chants. One of them must have attacked him!

Move!

Esania didn’t waste time. She pushed his arms away and ran as fast as she could, stumbling over the uneven ground. The Vradhu surged in her wake, hissing loudly as they surrounded the Drakhin.

Were they going to kill him?

She wasn’t planning on sticking around to find out.