Draekon Warrior Read online

  Draekon Warrior: A SciFi Dragon Shifter Romance

  Rebel Force

  Lee Savino

  Lili Zander

  Copyright © 2019 by Tara Crescent, Lili Zander, Lee Savino.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

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

  Many thanks to Miranda and Aubrey. Ladies, you made this book better! A million thanks.

  Cover Design by Kasmit Covers

  Contents

  Draekon Warrior

  Are you all caught up with the Draekons?

  1. Alice

  2. Kadir

  3. Alice

  4. Kadir

  5. Alice

  6. Kadir

  7. Kadir

  8. Alice

  9. Kadir

  10. Alice

  11. Kadir

  12. Alice

  13. Kadir

  14. Alice

  15. Kadir

  16. Alice

  17. Kadir

  18. Alice

  19. Kadir

  20. Alice

  21. Kadir

  22. Alice

  23. Kadir

  24. Alice

  25. Kadir

  26. Alice

  27. Kadir

  28. Alice

  29. Alice

  30. Kadir

  31. Alice

  32. Kadir

  33. Alice

  34. Kadir

  35. Alice

  36. Alice

  Epilogue

  A Preview of Draekon Mate

  About the Authors

  Books by Lili Zander

  Books by Lee Savino

  Draekon Warrior

  Captured in space. Imprisoned. Sold to the highest bidder.

  But my biggest problem is the bossy, aggravating, impossible, alien who’s supposed to rescue me.

  The bossy alien I kissed.

  That might have been a mistake.

  Kadir is dangerous. I’ve seen him fight and his body is littered with scars. He’s a soldier. A warrior. And when he loses control, he turns into a big scary dragon and breathes fire.

  Everyone’s terrified of him. I’m not. No, call me the biggest fool in the galaxy, because I’m attracted to the big jerk.

  When I first met the small human I was sent to rescue, she punched me in the jaw.

  And broke her wrist in the process. Irrational woman.

  Then she insists that the two of us set out immediately to find her missing friend.

  No, what I have to do is get Alice Hernandez to safety.

  She’s soft, yet she’s strong.

  Fragile, yet so brave.

  She’s everything I’ve never known I wanted.

  Everything I can’t let myself have.

  When the scientists tortured me, they broke me. And when Alice finds out the truth about the fearsome, raging dragon inside me, I will lose her.

  Are you all caught up with the Draekons?

  Don’t miss any of the books.

  DRAGONS IN EXILE

  Draekon Mate - Viola’s story

  Draekon Fire - Harper’s story

  Draekon Heart - Ryanna’s story

  Draekon Abduction - Olivia’s story

  Draekon Destiny - Felicity’s story

  Daughter of Draekons - Harper’s birth story

  Draekon Fever - Sofia’s story

  Draekon Rogue - Bryce’s story

  Draekon Holiday - A holiday story

  REBEL FORCE

  Draekon Warrior - Alice & Kadir

  Draekon Conquerer - Lani & Ruhan

  More coming soon!

  The Must Love Draekons newsletter is your source for all things Draekon. Subscribe today and receive a free copy of Draekon Rescue, a special Draekon story not available for sale.

  1

  Alice

  When you’re dropped into the deep pits of hell, here’s how you survive.

  You stick to a routine. Every morning, when the bell sounds, I get out of bed, and I make a mark on the wall. So far, I’ve made two hundred and six marks. Almost seven months in this prison. Soon, I’m going to run out of wall space.

  You remember who you are. Call it words of affirmation; call it a stubborn refusal to forget myself. Once I’ve marked the day, I have a litany I say aloud. It goes like this: My name is Alice Hernandez. I graduated at the top of my class from Johns Hopkins. I could have chosen any specialization, but instead, I honored a promise I’d made myself when I was fourteen and became an emergency room doctor. I live in Chicago; I work at Northwestern Memorial.

  I like cats, but I’ve never had one because I’m allergic to their dander. To unwind, I knit long scarves and shapeless sweaters. I prefer beer over wine. I sing in the shower. I always tell myself I should read more, but at the end of a long shift, I zone out with Netflix. Right now, I’m halfway through a Turkish show about a guy who discovers he has magic powers.

  I remind myself that my mother loved me. I remind myself that I save lives. My patients are grateful for my skill. I matter.

  You always fight back. When the second alarm goes off, we’re supposed to line up at our cell door, meekly awaiting whatever fresh hellish torture the Zorahn scientists have devised for the morning. If we don’t, they punish us.

  I get punished daily. The male scientist, Kravex, takes a special joy in stabbing me with a prong, sending an agonizing jolt of electricity through me. At the start, my cellmate Tanya used to ask me why I didn’t just obey. I don’t think I have a good explanation for my behavior, really. But doing what the scientists want feels like giving up, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to do that.

  I resist at every turn. I swear at the scientists, using every Zor curse I’ve picked up. I kick at them. I scratch and bite. I am defiant and profane.

  They beat me for my resistance. They break bones, then heal them, and then break them again. But they won’t kill me. The pain they administer is finely calibrated. I’m a human, a rare and valuable lab animal. The scientists paid a lot of money for us. Killing me would be wasteful.

  You never give up hope. I’m going to find a way out of here. Yes, I’m on an alien planet, one with purple skies and three green moons. I’m surrounded on every side by a vast desert. Every day, when the blood-red sun rises, heat suffocates us.

  There doesn’t appear to be a way out, but I will find one. I will watch for an opportunity, and I will act. I will get back home. I will finish watching my Turkish soap opera, and I will find out if the magic guy ever avenged his parents’ murders.

  I am not a lab animal. I am more than that. They can torture me. They can flood my body with agony and pain. They can beat me and break my bones, but they will not change who I am. I will survive, I will endure, and I will prevail.

  The second bell sounds. I deliberately settle myself back on the bed and lace my hands behind my head.

  Time for the morning beating.

  The scientists will be watching me on their monitors. Kravex and Fal’vi will squabble about whose turn it is to punish me. One of them will reach for the prod.

  The punishments have been getting harsher. The scientists are frustrated. They’ve been tinkering with our DNA for seven months, and they’re not making progress. Tempers are running high. If I had any sense, I’d follow Tanya’s lead, an
d obediently move to the prescribed spot on the floor.

  Never. To obey them is to surrender.

  “What’s your favorite breakfast?” I ask Tanya, trying to draw her out in conversation. “Me, I was always partial to chocolate-chip and banana pancakes. My mom used to make them for me every Sunday.”

  She doesn’t reply. She hasn’t talked in over two weeks. She doesn’t cry out when the scientists hurt us. When they inject us with our afternoon dosage of a drug designed to fill us with a sense of well-being and contentment—all the better to control us—she writhes in silent ecstasy. Every trace of the chatty, vivacious, pretty cheerleader from Dallas is gone, and all that is left is this hollow shell of a human being.

  I won’t let them do that to me.

  When our alien ship had landed on a dusty, disused port in the middle of nowhere, we’d begun to suspect that something was wrong. When a crowd of Zorahn scientists had bid on us like we were cattle at an auction, we’d realized the brutal truth.

  We weren’t the honored guests of the High Emperor. We weren’t to be housed on the Zorahn homeworld. We were lab animals, destined for cages. We would never know freedom again. We would never return to Earth.

  Tanya had broken down that day, as had most of the women. Not me. Not because I was stupidly brave—hell no. Like everyone else, I was freaking out. But I’d shed my last tear nine years ago on the day when my mother, who’d been shopping for Christmas presents, had been killed by a gunman who’d opened fire in a crowded mall.

  No sign of the scientists. They should be here by now, waving their prods threateningly in my direction. I wonder what’s keeping them.

  Tanya’s a huge football fan. If I’ve kept track of time accurately, it’s January back on Earth. Playoff time. “I don’t think the Bears would have won their division,” I speculate, even though the little I know about football would fit into a thimble with room left over. “Do you think the Cowboys made it?”

  Back at the hastily created NASA training camp, my cellmate would drone on about her football team for hours on end. I’d start to edge away once she got going. But that was then. Now, not even a mention of Tanya’s beloved Dallas Cowboys gets me a reply.

  Say something, I beg silently. Please. Just so I can hear the sound of another voice.

  There had been ten of us on the Zorahn spaceship, but we’d been auctioned off in pairs. Tanya and I were brought here, to this strange world where the sky is purple, red sand surrounds us in every direction, and water is scarce and precious. “We are in the middle of the desert,” one of the female scientists had told us the first day. “It is a ten-day journey on foot to reach civilization, and there is no water anywhere. If you try to escape, you will die.”

  I desperately want to escape, but I’m not stupid. I cannot carry a ten-day supply of water. I don’t know where the nearest town is, and I have no idea if the residents there will help me or enslave me. I need to bide my time.

  There’s still no sign of the scientists. Anxiety prickles the back of my spine. The three Zorahn—Nara’vi, Fal’vi, and Kravex—are creatures of routine. Why aren’t they here yet?

  The two of us wait in silence. Tanya stands passively by the door. I’m not nearly as calm. Something’s going on, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

  The day passes. The sun rises higher, and our cell becomes suffocatingly hot. My stomach growls, and my throat is parched. The scientists have forgotten to feed us, another anomaly that sends foreboding through me. The experiments have not been going well. Wherever they're trying to do, they appear to be failing. Each day, the trio of scientists looks more and more frustrated.

  Have they given up? Have they abandoned us to die?

  I take a deep breath and smother my worry. Freaking out isn’t going to help.

  It’s late in the afternoon when I finally hear footsteps. Three people enter the room in front of us. Kravex, I recognize, but the other two are strangers. They’re very tall and very thin. They’re robed from head to foot in a mud-gray fabric, but as they enter the room, they pull down their cowled hoods, and I get a look at their faces. Their skin is the color of cream, but leathery, probably from spending too much time in the sun, and their eyes are startlingly blue. Their heads are shaved at the top, and twin braids hang down the side of their faces.

  “This is them,” Kravex says. “Humans.” He pronounces it ‘hoo-mans.’ “Very rare. They’re from the Neutral Zone. They will make a fine gift for your Great One.”

  The strangers give us the once-over. “That one appears defective,” one of them says, pointing at me. “It is scarred.”

  I was taunted through high school about my facial scars. You think the pain would have faded, but no. Hot fury surges in me, and I reply before I think better of it. “Fuck you, asshole. You think I’m defective? Have you looked in a mirror?”

  It’s not much of a comeback. Also, while Kravex is wearing a translator and can understand me, the other two cannot. They know I said something rude—that part is obvious from the tone of my voice—but they have no idea what.

  “She has fight,” Kravex says. “The Great One will enjoy taming her.”

  The men—I think they’re men—look doubtful. “They look weak,” the second one says. “Not good fighters. The other one is pleasing. She will be pliable.”

  Taming her. Pliable. I don’t like the sound of this. If I’m understanding Kravex correctly, we’re being sold as sexual slaves.

  From the frying pan into the fire.

  Kravex grimaces. “We’ve been given orders to evacuate,” he says. “We’re not allowed to take the humans with us. I’ll give you a discount if you take both.”

  The two aliens confer quietly. Finally, they nod. “Two skins of water for both,” the alien that called me defective says.

  Kravex looks outraged. “Six skins, minimum. And I want to be paid in Zor credits, not water.”

  They start to haggle. I inch closer to Tanya. “Stay close to me,” I whisper. “They might take us to a city. If so, we make a break for it. It’s our best shot.”

  She just stares at me, her expression blank.

  The traders finally agree on a price. Kravex must have got more money for us than he expected. He looks almost pleased. “Do you have enough water for your journey?” he asks.

  “Yes, Baku praise your generosity. Akan is only a three-day journey. You will sedate the cargo for the trip? We have many stops along the way.”

  Kravex gives me an evil grin. “Oh yes,” he says, gripping the prod in his hand. “I’ll be happy to.”

  2

  Kadir

  I float in an endless womb of darkness. Adrift in this black sea, the incessant background noise of the universe is muffled. My heartbeat is frozen; my senses are numb. The warrior in me is trapped. Gagged and shackled, I am imprisoned behind walls that I cannot see.

  A woman’s voice tears through the perfect silence. “This is a mistake,” she says. She is terrified. “You don’t understand what you’re doing. This is the first set of Draekons we made, and they are the most dangerous. They’re brutal. They’re killers. They cannot be trusted.”

  “I understand,” a man replies. Underneath a surface coating of steely resolve, his emotions are a tangled mess. He wonders if he’s making a fatal mistake. “Do it anyway.”

  A needle stabs my bicep. The stasis lock disintegrates, and I jerk awake. Instantly, the rathr, the parasite that coats my DNA, clamps its sharp teeth around my mind. Needles of pain puncture my body, and a familiar agony explodes within me.

  Light floods my vision. Six blurry shapes stand in front of me, wary and watchful. I blink, and the bodies sharpen into focus. Four men and two women. The men, wary and watchful, point weapons in my direction.

  My gaze moves to the women. The taller one is robed in white, the silky ribbon of fabric banded across her chest, over her shoulders, and falling to the floor. Her under-robe is white too. The markers of her station are woven into her scarlet brai
ds.

  She is a scientist.

  Attack! Every instinct screams for me to charge. The men will fire at me, but their weapons cannot stop me. I was built for battle. I can tear every single creature in this room to pieces. Starting with the scientist.

  They brought you out of stasis. Find out why.

  I blink the red haze out of my eyes and shift my attention to the other woman.

  This one isn’t Zorahn. I scan through my list of sentient species, and she doesn’t match any of them. Her body is small, and her muscles are underdeveloped. She wears no house markings. There are no guild tattoos on her skin.

  She looks both inconsequential and weak. She is the least threatening person in the room. The easiest target.

  And yet… she’s the only one in the room who isn’t afraid. Curious.

  “Second of the Crimson Force.” The scientist reads out my designation. “Can you understand me?”