Betrayed: The Fallen World Series Book 3 Read online

  Betrayed

  The Fallen World Series Book 3

  C.R. Jane

  Mila Young

  Contents

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  School of Broken Souls

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  About C.R. Jane

  Other Books by C.R. Jane

  About Mila Young

  Books by Mila Young

  Betrayed by C. R. Jane and Mila Young

  Copyright © 2019 by C. R. Jane and Mila Young

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review, and except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  For permissions contact:

  [email protected]

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  For all the girls who looked up at the stars...and dreamed.

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  Betrayed

  Survival is just the beginning. Ella must fight for love and freedom on the rim of the galaxy...

  Years ago, the skies blackened with the arrival of the Vepar to Earth. Dominant and secretive, they changed the world, ruling over Earth with fear.

  Ella’s always been a survivor, a fighter. But now kidnapped, she finds herself on a foreign planet and running for her life.

  The three men she fell for made a mistake. A grave mistake, and now their blood-mate, Ella must pay the price.

  Fear drives them to keep Ella safe from the monsters who are determined to hunt her down and use the power in her blood for their own deadly purposes.

  But what happens when Ella finds out that Thane, Derrial, and Corran might be the monsters she needs to fear the most….

  Book 3 of the Fallen World Series

  Chapter 1

  Beeeeeeep….

  It felt like someone was trying to drill a hole through my head. Something tugged on my arm and pain sliced down my skin.

  My eyes grew heavy like they had been glued shut.

  What happened? I tried to retrace my steps. I had won the competition. The guys were mine. We were going to go somewhere…and then?

  Fuck.

  I tore my eyes open when I suddenly remembered what had happened. I say tore because that’s what it actually felt like. Maybe those psycho scientists had glued my eyes shut. I wouldn’t put it past them.

  The room was white and sterile and there were beeps coming from everywhere. I wanted to go back to sleep just so I didn’t have to hear their screeching anymore. It was hard to move like my body had been paralyzed. I started to take stock of all my body parts one by one.

  I wiggled my toes first, giving a huge sigh of relief when they moved. I wouldn’t put it past the Vepar to decide that baby incubators didn’t need to have use of their limbs. I tried to move my legs next but all I could do was twitch them briefly. They must have given me some heavy meds because it felt like the hardest thing I had ever done to move my legs an inch. Giving up on my legs for a moment, I moved to my arms. I wiggled my fingers first and gave another sigh of relief when they moved. As soon as I tried to move my arms though, piercing pain shot through me. Glancing down, a scream gurgled from my throat.

  There were at least ten wires or IVs or something sticking out of my arms. Panic curled in my chest, a scream building in my lungs. I pulled at them even though the movement made me want to throw up from the pain. I was faintly aware of an alarm sounding, mixing in with all the other beeps in the room, creating a cacophony of torture for my ears.

  I heard frantic footsteps, and then I was surrounded by what seemed like twenty Vepar in white coats. They were yelling and gesturing and grabbing at me, but my mind was in such a state of panic that it was hard to comprehend what they were trying to say. Finally, one of them pulled out a sharp-looking needle and stabbed it into my upper arm.

  I was so sick of being knocked out.

  When I woke next, I saw the same scene. Except this time when I tried to move, I realized that I had been bound to the table underneath me with thick fabric around my hands and with leg cuffs. Before I could scream, a gorgeous Vepar with ebony hair pulled back severely from her face stepped into my field of vision. She wore a stark white lab coat and carried a calm expression on her face as if it was perfectly normal to chain humans to a lab table and stick things in them without their permission. Maybe it was on their planet, but back on Earth, it was called kidnapping. Veon needed to get with the times.

  “How are you feeling today, Ella?” she asked kindly.

  I stared at her shocked that she could even ask that with a straight face. “Let me out of here and I’ll let you know,” I ordered, struggling with my restraints.

  “Now, Ella,” she began, while typing in notes on her tablet as she observed me. “We really need you to calm down. It’s very important your body is stress-free right now.”

  Was this Vepar for real?

  “Are you having any cramps? Do you feel bloated?” she asked.

  Why was she asking that?

  She must have seen the confusion on my face because she smiled and patted my shoulder. I flinched, but she pretended not to notice. “We’ve been giving you a steady dose of fertility drugs and they often cause cramping and bloating. We just want to make sure that you’re comfortable,” she explained.

  Sick dread spread all over my body. It was happening. My worst fear was being realized.

  Where were the guys?

  I started gagging as I tried to trace back my steps. What if the Trials had been a trick to get me to lower my guard? What if the guys were behind this?

  I took a breath, trying to calm myself down. They wouldn’t do this. Not after everything that had just happened. It would be like playing with your food before you ate it... making me do the Trials while they intended to use me as a baby-making machine the whole time.

  Someone else was behind this… because they wouldn’t do this, would they?

  “Who are you?” I asked, my voice sounding scratchy from disuse. How long had I been out, and wh
at had they done to my body?

  She laughed self-deprecatingly. “Forgive me for being so rude. My name is Dr. Cryon. I’m one of the head researchers in this lab.”

  When I didn’t respond to her introduction, she turned her attention to her tablet and started scrolling through something on it.

  “Looks like it’s time for your Bromocriptine,” she remarked, setting her tablet down and grabbing an angry-looking syringe from off a stainless-steel table next to her.

  The sight of the needle sent me into hysteria, and I began to thrash like a madwoman.

  “Oh, dear,” she said calmly before setting down the needle in her hand and picking up another one. “It looks like you need to spend a little bit more time relaxing before you’re willing to cooperate.”

  I continued to pull at my restraints as she inserted the new syringe into my I.V. Her amused eyes were the last thing that I saw.

  Coming out of whatever drug-induced sleep the doctor had put me in was a bitch. I lay there for what seemed like an hour, awake, but unable to open my eyes. It ended up coming in handy when some of the scientists started talking near me.

  “We’ve searched every one of his databases, the entire file is missing.”

  “It’s one piece of the puzzle, surely we can come up with it ourselves,” barked a voice I recognized as Dr. Cryon’s.

  "It's a little more complicated than that," another voice said. "It took Corran years to find the right compound that made up for the genetic differences between the Vepar and the humans. Without that information, I just don't see how the subject can have a successful pregnancy. The genetic differences will just be too much," he continued worriedly.

  "There hasn't been any sign of him has there?" Dr. Cryon asked.

  "They've all disappeared. And a member of the Council's disappeared as well. They think it has to do with them."

  "Are the risks just to the fetus?" the doctor asked suddenly, her voice contemplative.

  "No. Unfortunately, there's a good chance that the subject would pass as well. In the tests that were initially run on subjects the genetic differences would always lead to the host body attacking the fetus."

  "Attack? What did that consist of? Is there a way for us to control that?"

  “In every experiment, the host body would get confused because the fetus’s blood and host’s blood would somehow mix. That would lead to an all-out assault on all of the host’s internal organs. Their death was usually very messy. If I remember correctly, there was a lot of blood involved coming out of every orifice.”

  His words terrified me. All of this was said with total objectivity as if they were discussing the weather rather than whether someone lived or died. It was terrifying how little the Vepar seemed to care about what happened with the human race considering they were depending on said human race for their race’s continued existence.

  I made myself stay still as they continued to talk even though the urge to pull at my restraints was strong.

  Just then a voice interrupted the conversation, a voice that simultaneously made me furious and filled me with dread.

  "I would stop talking if I were you," said Zeni. "She's awake."

  I heard footsteps and then there was a sharp poke in my arm that made my eyes fly open as I gasped in pain.

  "Told you," Zeni said viciously.

  I realized that the sharp pain I had felt was from her nails, nails that had been sharpened into talons. They fit her perfectly.

  The doctors looked annoyed to have her there, but they didn't say anything when Zeni began fiddling with various objects on the table behind her.

  Whatever deal she made with the Council in order to get me away from the guys obviously had come with a change in her title.

  "So has the deed been done yet?" Zeni asked, playing with a wicked-looking needle.

  "There have been some delays," Dr. Cryon said stiffly.

  "What does that mean?" Zeni seethed.

  "It means that my boyfriends weren't entirely pleased with your plan to get me pregnant without them, and they took some of the information with them," I said triumphantly, even though I was in no position to be triumphant in any form.

  The doctor shot me an exasperated look.

  “Corran was somehow able to take his research with him and we’re missing a key part of the treatment," the doctor explained.

  Zeni’s face scrunched up in displeasure. “I believe the Council gave you specific instructions to deal with this creature," she said, gesturing to me. "She’s to be fertilized immediately."

  Dr. Cryon immediately objected. "Considering the risk and that this human is our best possible chance for a successful Vepar surrogacy, it would be unwise to attempt to do the embryo transfer without Corran’s missing research."

  "The Council is not going to wait. You need to do the transfer now, and then I suggest you start working your asses off to make sure that you uncover the missing information,” Zeni ordered.

  Dr. Cryon opened her mouth to object once more.

  “Have you heard about the new law passed by the Council?” Zeni asked with a very satisfied look on her face.

  “No, I haven’t,” Dr. Cryon explained stiffly. “But I’m sure that you’re about to tell me.”

  Zeni’s face flushed scarlet at the doctor’s impotence. “Anyone found to be disobeying the Council’s direct orders will be immediately imprisoned with the potential for further discipline if needed.”

  She looked over at me. “You can thank your mates for that,” she said with a smirk.

  The doctor and her companion both looked ill at the possibility of imprisonment. I could tell them it wasn’t a walk in the park from first-hand experience.

  Tears burned in my eyes. There was no way they weren’t going to do the procedure now.

  "You know it really is a pity," said Zeni. "This all could have been avoided if you had just taken me up on my offer and left when you had the chance."

  I seriously doubted that I would've been allowed to leave the planet. Zeni would probably have arranged to have me shot down and killed or something like that.

  "At least you can take comfort that if you die, absolutely no one will miss you," said Zeni sweetly.

  “Are you meaning to talk about yourself?" I responded snidely. "Because we both know that the males around you have a habit of picking me over you.”

  “Let’s get this started,” Zeni barked at the doctor, her face turning red with fury at my words.

  A resigned look passed over the doctor’s face. She placed a hand over her ear. “Get the team in here,” she ordered through the communicator device I knew that most of the Vepar had stored in their ear.

  A team of at least ten Vepar began to flood the room.

  This was really happening, my panic-filled stomach clenched. I tugged against the restraints frantically.

  “A big congrats to the mother-to-be,” cooed Zeni.

  I had never hated someone more.

  “I’m sorry about this,” Dr. Cryon whispered to me, actually looking sorry.

  I guess it was one thing to force someone to get pregnant. It was another thing to knowingly kill that person.

  I didn’t accept her apology.

  “See you soon...or maybe never,” Zeni crowed delightedly.

  It was really too bad that the last thing I was going to remember was her disgusting face.

  Dr. Cryon approached me with a needle that I knew would put me to sleep again.

  All I could think as the room started to fade around me was that I wished I could have seen their faces one last time.

  Chapter 2

  (Derrial)

  “They’ll never find out,” I growled, sick of this shit and tired of looking at the Councilman’s slackened body. Gritting my teeth, I ripped my gaze away. “Just shove him inside already and be done.”

  Thane’s lips twisted into a frown, but he knew I was right. He knew there was no other way. This Councilman, Chloped, ordered the blood tests on Ella a
nd tricked us into surrendering our hold of her once she signed to enter the trials. Now, she was in a lab being experimented on.

  My blood boiled at the thought.

  I looked down at his security pass in my hand. This was our key to saving Ella. Torturing him to get information had been easy, he broke instantly. And once we learned the names of the scientists involved, we’d hunt them down to make them pay for their deceit. The Council was on that list too… they wanted us removed from power for gaining too much attention, too much popularity. My arms tightened at my side at the betrayal.

  Not wasting a moment, Thane scooped his arms under the Councilman’s armpits and dragged him into the space cruiser before dropping him. He landed on his back, his head hitting the floor with a thump, and laid there unconscious.

  “Corran, everything’s ready to go?” I looked over to him as he jabbed his finger onto the control monitor in his hand. Shadows crowded under his eyes, his posture curled forward, his black cork-screw horns now a deep gray… he always responded this way when he was angry. We all were angry; we weren’t playing games anymore. We had Ella to rescue and nothing would stand in our way.

  Corran nodded. “He won’t wake up for the next month. His nutrients patches are inserted. All comms and navigation systems will disable by the time he wakes up. By then, he’ll be on the outer edges of our galaxy, right into Nebian territory. Then he’ll be their problem.”