Fate of the Beast (Mate of the Beast Book 2) Read online

  FATE OF THE BEAST

  Starr Huntress

  &

  Sonia Nova

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  EPILOGUE

  PREVIOUSLY IN THE SERIES

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ARE YOU A STARR HUNTRESS?

  MORE SCIENCE FICTION ROMANCE

  FATE OF THE BEAST

  COPYRIGHT © 2018 BY SONIA NOVA

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is a work of fiction intended for mature audiences only. Names, characters, places, and events are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Starr Huntress & Sonia Nova

  www.starrhuntress.com

  www.sonianova.com

  CHAPTER 1

  AREZ

  War…

  It was so close Arez could almost taste it.

  His whole body vibrated in anticipation and he could feel the steady pulse of his heart in his chest. Staring out the window of his battle speeder, his eyes were fixed on the enemy fleet before him. Rows and rows of large, dark, Krezlian spaceships filled his field of vision, each of them decorated in the grisly green colors of the gruesome reptiles.

  The ships stood still, completely unmoving, positioned around the planet he was defending.

  Arez’s hands tightened on the controls of the speeder, impatience building inside him. He breathed evenly, calmly, trying to keep his emotions under control as he watched the fleet before him.

  Nothing moved around him. Not the enemy. Not the Alliance troops. Nothing.

  It was just as dead quiet as one would imagine space to be. Vast. Silent. Completely still. It was the calm before the storm. He had learned a long time ago that space was never really as quiet as people imagined. And he knew it wouldn’t remain quiet for long now either.

  No… Any moment now… Any moment, the Alliance would give them the order to attack. To fight off the Krezlians. His makers.

  Bile rose in his throat at the thought and a low growl escaped his lips. This was the moment he had been waiting for his entire life. Except that he had never known it would actually happen. That it was even possible. To sit here, facing his makers, on the brink of war, ready to kill them on command.

  He had looked forward to this mission in Agaria – to finally joining the military and becoming a MR-01 classified military official in the Alliance. But he could not have predicted just how good this mission would turn out to be. Never, even in his wildest dreams, had he imagined his scaly little creators declaring war against the newly joined Alliance planet.

  But when they had, all his dreams had come true at once.

  This… This would be the sweetest kind of revenge. To kill the very species that had created his kind. Made them in a lab. Tortured them. Experimented. Trained them to kill…

  Arez bared his teeth at the battleship before him. He could see his reflection dimly in the glass window of his speeder: his sharp white teeth that shone brightly back at him, his dark gray skin, pitch black eyes, and the massive horns that protruded from his head.

  Just like the Krezlians had wanted them. Scary, big monsters to become a part of their army. A mix of animal and alien DNA.

  He wondered… Had the Krezlians known that one day, they would be fighting against their own creations – fighting against the very army they had made and trained?

  He didn’t think so.

  Just as he had never imagined this day to come, he was sure that the Krezlians had never imagined that their little pets would one day fight against them.

  After all, the Krezlians had never thought much of them. They had always seen themselves as superior in every way – they had made his kind, after all. His people had never been anything more than disposable to the Krezlians. Creatures that lived and died for their benefit.

  Arez huffed out a bitter laugh. They probably still saw them just like that. Even though his people had been saved by the Alliance several cycles ago and now worked for the organization… the Krezlians probably still saw them as their inferior creations.

  He wondered if the reptiles even considered the possibility that one of his kind might kill them. He didn’t think so. They probably weren’t thinking of dying at all, least of all at the hands of their own creations. No… Dying wasn’t on their agenda this day. They only had one goal, and one goal only. Getting his people back at any cost.

  Arez gritted his teeth at his reflection. He gripped the controls of the speeder so hard that his knuckles turned white.

  That wouldn’t happen. If he had any say in it – and he did, because he was sitting in the cockpit of a battle speeder – he wouldn’t let that happen.

  He had suffered enough at the hands of his makers for the first two decades of his life. His scars and tattoos reminded him of that every day. Reminded him of his previous existence.

  No more… No more would he suffer.

  When the Alliance had freed his people, he had been given new hope. A new life. A whole new beginning.

  And now… It was time for payback.

  He didn’t care if he died here today, if he lost his life in a battle against his makers. No, even if it meant his own death, he would speed right ahead into the lizards’ nest and blow it up from the inside out.

  Hands shaking on the controls, his fingers itched to move closer to the red button before him so he could launch the missiles as soon as the command came. His heart pounded in his chest and adrenaline pulsed in his veins. He could feel a trail of sweat dripping down his back.

  Come on, you bastards…

  Arez ground his teeth in frustration. He didn’t know how long he had been at his post already, staring at the Krezlians before him. It must have been hours, and the order to attack had yet to come. The situation was at a stalemate and nothing was happening. For the past hours he had been here, nobody had moved.

  If only the Alliance would hurry up and give the command…

  Arez growled in frustration.

  This was his dream. This was what he had been living for all along. To make the Krezlians feel just as much pain as they had made his people feel – made him feel.

  This time, it would be the Krezlians who would suffer. For all they did, they would suffer.

  He would destroy them. For good.

  A sudden beep in the cabin of his speeder pulled him back from his thoughts. An orange light turned on to the left of him, indicating the communication system had activated, and a familiar male voice filled the smal
l cockpit around him.

  “Tick tock, Arez. Time for a switch.”

  Arez grunted, cursing in his mind. He took the first deep breath he had taken for hours and closed his eyes, taking them off the Krezlian fleet before him for the first time since he had arrived in his position.

  He knew Drezon was already right behind him, ready to relieve him of his duties and take his position, but he didn’t want to go. Not like this, not before the battle.

  A deep sigh escaped his lungs. It was no use…

  Slowly, ever so reluctantly, he removed his hands from the controls, his fingers brushing past the missile launch button, moving away from it.

  Not today then…

  He navigated the speeder out of position and toward the docking bay. He flew as slowly as he could get away with without anyone noticing, still holding onto the hope that the Alliance command might come before he was back on the surface of Efain, Agaria’s green moon and the site of the newly built Alliance headquarters.

  But no command came to send him back to the Krezlian-filled airspace.

  Frowning, he docked the speeder on the platform and hopped out. But before he even had the chance to grab a cold drink and try to think about something other than the fact that his makers were only a speeder’s flight away, his wristband started beeping.

  His heart leaped in his chest at the high-pitched sound.

  The command? Could it be?

  Arez glanced down toward his wrist, his heart pounding. The screen flashed red and white, indicating a message of high importance. He swiped impatiently, read the message that appeared, and immediately groaned.

  It was just a request for pilot duty. And not even to take over a military shift, but a fucking passenger ship. Sitting in the cockpit of a passenger ship to make sure the autopilot was working was one of the most mind-numbingly boring jobs.

  This wasn’t what he had signed up for.

  He cursed aloud. A nearby Alliance pilot who had been jogging toward a speeder stopped to look at him with concern – or maybe disapproval – in his expression. Arez just glared. The pilot moved on.

  Begrudgingly, Arez began to march toward the middle of the platform where the passenger ships departed. He thought about how the request had been marked high importance. Why would a passenger flight be so critical?

  Maybe there was a chance this assignment wouldn’t be boring after all.

  CHAPTER 2

  NAOMI

  “In times of intergalactic crisis…”

  Naomi felt herself dozing off. The words blurred before her eyes and she had to shake herself to stay awake. She stared at the tablet in her hands and tried to focus on the crisis report once more, but her tired eyes simply kept skimming over it. Her mind was close to turning off.

  She had hardly slept at all for the past month, and even less during the past few days. It was a miracle she was still upright. The lack of sleep was partly because she couldn’t sleep and partly because she had to stay awake and read these damned reports.

  Naomi sighed. She had finally arrived at her assigned planet – Agaria, the newest planet to join the Alliance – but before she had even made it to the planet’s surface, the spaceship she had arrived on had been attacked. One human had gone missing, and Naomi had already faced her first test in her new position on Agaria.

  Fortunately, the woman, Alyssa Evans, a member of the Immigration Team, had survived her ordeal. She had been successfully sent back to Earth, but that hadn’t been the end of Naomi’s problems. Now, the very creatures that had attacked them and kidnapped Alyssa had sieged the whole planet, and the Alliance was currently on the brink of war with the Krezlians.

  The Krezlians. Naomi shivered at the name.

  They were the reason she was stuck reading these deathly boring reports and learning more about intergalactic war than she had ever wished.

  Naomi sighed, probably for the thousandth time that day. She reached for her coffee, hoping it would give her the energy to give the crisis report one more attempt. But as she picked up her flask, she noticed it was completely empty.

  Crap. She vaguely remembered drinking the last sip a while ago and thinking about needing to get more, but in her exhausted state, she had clearly forgotten the part about actually going to get it from the canteen.

  Heaving another sigh, this one even heavier than the last, Naomi reluctantly pushed back her chair and turned away from her desk to face her room. It had all the basics of a bedroom: a comfortable bed, a desk, a dresser, and a window overlooking the courtyard of the newly built Eifan space station. A sliver of expansive pale green desert was visible just past the buildings of the station. It was no wonder that Eifan was called the “green moon” of Agaria. It was inhabitable, unlike the Earth Moon.

  And while her room was just fine, right now she wished the engineers of the station had thought to install a drink machine of some kind. They did know there would be Alliance diplomats and other officials staying in these rooms, after all, and Alliance officials always had enough work to keep them up late into the night.

  But instead, to get coffee, she would have to take a break from the report and head to the canteen. Although maybe a break wasn’t a bad thing at the moment.

  Yawning, Naomi stretched her arms above her head. If nothing else, at least this would be a chance to get moving and wake up a little more. Thankfully, the station was modestly sized and the canteen wasn’t that far.

  Getting up from her seat, she walked to the entrance of the room. With the press of a button, she swooshed the door open and stepped into the corridor outside. She started to walk toward the canteen at a brisk pace, making her way through the zig-zaggy hallways of the station.

  She made it about halfway to the canteen, her mind nearly falling asleep again, when she crossed paths with two Trade Negotiation team members, Iris and Cara. Both of them looked just as tired as she felt.

  “Can’t sleep?” She smiled bleakly at the women.

  Cara sighed heavily, and Iris just looked sad. “No… I think the current situation has us all on edge,” she said. “Is there any news?”

  Naomi shook her head. “So far, nothing new. I will let you know as soon as I find out more, but for now–”

  The abrupt beeping of an urgent message interrupted her. She glanced down at her wristband communicator and her heart nearly leaped out of her chest as she saw who the message was from.

  Lady Eneria. The big boss. The main Alliance rep on Agaria. Va’ii peacekeeper.

  “Excuse me,” she said hastily to the two women. “I need to go.”

  “Is it something serious?” Iris asked, a concerned look on her face.

  “I don’t know yet…” Naomi answered grimly, not wanting to lie to the girls. “I’ll tell you as soon as I find out!”

  With that, she rushed to the next corridor, rounding a corner to get some privacy. She didn’t want to take this message in front of the two women. Because the truth was, getting a message from Lady Eneria this early in the morning couldn’t mean anything good.

  For a moment, Naomi paused, staring at the screen of her wristband. She took a deep breath and, with a shaky hand, tapped on the screen to open the message. The melodic voice of the Va’ii woman emerged through the speaker in her ear:

  “Ambassador Rourke. An urgent meeting is to take place at the palace. We will begin as soon as all representatives are present. Depart immediately.”

  With those words, the message was over.

  Shit. This really didn’t sound like a good sign. There must be another development with the Krezlians.

  Naomi was suddenly wide awake. She turned on her heels and immediately started to jog toward the shuttle platform. Of course, the message had come when she was as far as she could be from the platform. The canteen was on the other side of the station from the shuttles. She picked up her pace.

  If only the meetings could actually take place in the meeting rooms on this shiny new station, built specifically to support Agaria’s new Al
liance membership. But the Agari were deeply traditional people and the king of Agaria very, very rarely left the palace, let alone the planet.

  Usually, meetings could be handled on Eifan with just the Agari representatives. But when it came to matters relating to the Krezlians and the safety of the planet, the king’s presence was naturally required.

  For that reason, Naomi had actually been wishing recently that she had been given a room in the palace or at least in the capital, on the surface of Agaria. There had been so many emergency war meetings that had to take place in the palace’s war strategy room. Sure, it was a beautiful space to gather everyone, but it was a hassle to be shuttled back and forth so often.

  Naomi took a deep breath. She was nearly to the shuttles.

  It wasn’t so bad, she told herself.

  She had to remember she wasn’t just a girl working for the Earth Agency of Intergalactic Affairs anymore. She was Alliance. Her job wasn’t going to be cushy, or easy, or ever have a boring day. She worked for the organization that basically controlled everything in the universe. She wouldn’t be returning to Earth after a few months after her “mission” was over. This wasn’t a mission. Being ready to join in on war strategy was a part of her job. On Agaria. As an Ambassador.

  And being an Ambassador meant that she was important and needed at these meetings. She had to make key decisions and worry about important things like the war that was brewing outside the planet’s atmosphere and what Earth’s role in it was.

  Naomi sighed. Becoming an Ambassador had seemed like such a dream. And maybe it would have been too, if the planet she’d been assigned to hadn’t immediately been pulled into a war. As it was, her dream job had turned into a nightmare instead. Too many problems, too many things going wrong.

  War, just on the horizon.

  Lost in thought, Naomi made the turn into the giant docking bay. The passenger shuttles usually took off from the center of the platform, so she slowed her jog into a speed walk and started to navigate through the maze of spacecrafts and Alliance military personnel. The platform was naturally busy during an event like this, even early in the morning.