Alien Conquest: (The Warrior's Prize) An Alien SciFi Romance by Scarlett Rhone Read Free Book Online Page B

for the future, and that future would take him home.
    Vega preferred the barracks this way. Silent, ponderous. He passed bunk after bunk, some with multiple people piled into one bed, some with hammocks swinging from the ceiling. His fortune in the Arena had earned him the only single bunk in the barracks, and he had maintained its occupancy for a full year now. He hoped never to leave it, unless it was to walk freely out of the Chara palace altogether.
    The hallways of the barracks were silent and dark. Even the mess was quiet, the few cursii there sleeping it off on tables or benches, the soft huff of snores pervading the air. Vega walked on. The barracks were essentially looping tunnels winding around underneath the Chara palace, connecting the training yard to the slave quarters to the long walk down the lower level tunnel to the Arena itself. Vega walked the length of it, from the training yard back through the barracks towards the gate that led to the tunnel, knowing he would do it all again the next solar, and then into the Arena for real. The only sound that accompanied him was the soft fall of his own bare feet across the metal floor.
    Then he heard steps behind him and stopped. And waited, letting them catch up, before he turned and in the darkness could make out the bulky, heaving silhouette of Lohar in the black.
    So he wouldn’t even wait for the Arena, it seemed.
    “You’re making a mistake,” Vega warned him. “You should wait until tomorrow.”
    “You’re not gonna see tomorrow,” Lohar growled.
    Then they both heard, from down the hall and up the stairs that led to the slaves quarters, the sound of voices. Soft, feminine.
    Vega paused, listening, and heard the gate at the top of the stairs slide open and then closed again. Lohar heard it, too, and took a step back. Vega stood as he was, expecting to see one of the guards turn the corner. Instead, in the wan light of the corridor’s single overhead light, he saw the donara herself appear, having come down the stairs and turned the corner. He saw her, and she saw him, and she froze. Lohar saw her too.
    What madness was this?
    Why would this creature be coming to the barracks in the dead of night? And who had helped her get out of the slaves quarter? Certainly not the domina. Fraternization between the house slaves and the cursii was strictly forbidden. The stupid human was going to get herself killed, or at least whipped, if she got caught down here. Then Lohar was moving, and Vega bit down on a curse, because the big Errai cursu was bowling right for the donara instead of Vega himself. No doubt to claim a prize he certainly had not yet earned.
    Vega almost just let it happen.
    It was the night before the games. He shouldn’t have been wasting his energy on this kind of bullshit, whatever was really going on, because it was definitely bullshit. How the donara had gotten down here, what Lohar might do to her, and what the domina might to do them all when she discovered it. Vega knew he should’ve just gone right back to his room and pretended he’d never seen any of it. But in the end, he was not that heartless. Perhaps he tried to be in his worse moments, but he wasn’t. So he just sighed and then went after Lohar.
    The donara screamed when Lohar got to her. He grabbed her, lifting her right off her feet, and slammed her into the nearest wall.
    Vega caught his shoulder and yanked him back from her, driving his fist into Lohar’s face. Lohar bellowed in pain and tackled Vega, and the two of them went rolling across the corridor floor, grappling, until Vega could get the bigger cursu in a choke hold. He wrapped his legs around Lohar’s waist and his arms around his neck, squeezing tight, using enough force to slowly cut off his breath without killing him outright. It was not a personal mercy, but he knew if he killed him he’d have to pay the price of Lohar's contract himself. And that contract must have been high enough that Lohar had no hope of