Sekkol: (Scifi Alien Romance) (Galaxy Alien Warriors Book 2) Read online

  Sekkol

  Galaxy Alien Warriors, Book 2

  Lara LaRue

  Contents

  Other Books in This Series

  Chapter 1 / Keira

  Chapter 2 / Keira

  Chapter 3 / Sekkol

  Chapter 4 / Keira

  Chapter 5 / Sekkol

  Chapter 6 / Keira

  Chapter 7 / Keira

  Chapter 8 / Sekkol

  Chapter 9 / Sekkol

  Chapter 10 / Keira

  Chapter 11 / Keira

  Chapter 12 / Keira

  Chapter 13 / Sekkol

  Chapter 14 / Keira

  Chapter 15 / Sekkol

  Chapter 16 / Sekkol

  Chapter 17 / Sekkol

  Chapter 18 / Keira

  Chapter 19 / Sekkol

  Chapter 19 / Keira

  Chapter 20 / Sekkol

  Chapter 21 / Keira

  Chapter 22 / Sekkol

  Chapter 23 / Keira

  Chapter 24 / Sekkol

  Chapter 25 / Keira

  Up Next in this Series

  New Release Newsletter Sign-up

  Note From The Author

  About the Author

  SEKKOL

  Copyright © 2016 by Lara LaRue

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events 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.

  Other Books in This Series

  Dekkir (Book 1)

  Craze (Book 3)

  Stay Connected with Lara LaRue:

  For new releases, exclusive sneak peeks, and giveaways, sign up for Lara LaRue’s sexy Alien Warrior Romance Newsletter HERE!

  Chapter 1 / Keira

  The walk from the office to the subway station felt like torture. Heading home wasn’t something I was too thrilled about since my parents’ death. I inherited the apartment we all shared, and the ghosts of their existence haunted me. Still, selling it felt wrong.

  “Hey, Keira,” a voice said, breaking me out of my trance just as I came down the stairs.

  I hadn’t seen the two girls approach until they spoke. “Oh, hi, Monica.”

  She looked at the other blond girl to her left, and they shared a telepathic message. It seemed they either had not decided what to say or they had some trouble deciding if they should. I just stood there, looking between the two, getting more annoyed by the second.

  Finally, Monica said, “So Stacy and I were wondering if you would like to go to TAO with us tonight? They have a club and all.”

  She said, “Stacy and I,” but I could tell the wondering was all her. “I think I’ll pass. Thanks for the invite, though.” I smiled.

  “Okay, well, if you change your mind, you know how to reach me,” she said as she turned and walked away.

  There was an awkwardness about them, and I stood there for a while longer, watching them walk away with their heads huddled together.

  “I told you she wouldn’t come,” Stacy whispered, but not low enough. “She never goes anywhere.”

  “I just feel sorry for her,” Monica replied and then looked back at me, the smile returning to her face when she saw I was looking. She nudged Stacy, and then the two of them disappeared outside.

  Hey, they weren’t wrong. I hardly ever did anything. In fact, I thought of myself as socially awkward. The only place I knew I fit in was the PTSD meetings I went to every week. My parents died five years ago, and I’d been going every week for the past two years. It didn’t make for much of a social life, but at least I had somewhere to go when the thoughts stormed my mind. I felt completely and utterly alone except for those days.

  I sighed then, swiped my card through the slot, and pressed through the turnstile. I headed down another flight of steps to await the train that would take me home, where I’d be even more intimate with the depression I felt creeping upward.

  As I was standing there, wallowing in my self-pity, I got the sinking feeling someone was watching me. I turned to look and made eye contact with the man standing at the other end of the car. He was staring straight at me.

  He was wearing a white T-shirt, blue jeans, and a scowl that was partially hidden beneath his thick facial hair. His black, beady eyes cut through the other passengers and made a home with mine. I shivered and turned away. This was not the usual look I was used to getting. It actually looked like one I would get from someone who was about to do something crazy.

  My heart started racing, and I grew uncomfortable standing there. When I looked back, he was gone, but I was much too paranoid to rest easy. And I had no intentions of getting off at my station, just in case he was still there and would follow me home.

  I should have gone to my meeting. I was definitely regretting that decision now.

  Hopping off at Canal Street, I decided to walk the rest of the way home. But as soon as I was off the train, I got that same creepy feeling; someone was watching me. Glancing over the crowd, I didn’t see anyone that stood out. Here was the usual marching of pedestrians, their faces either overly blank or equally animated.

  Adjusting the bag on my shoulder so I could reach in to grab a smoke, I suddenly felt something sharp poke me in the side. I shrieked and turned, wondering what I could have possibly rubbed up against that would hurt that much.

  “Not another sound,” a gruff voice said from behind me.

  I managed to crane my neck to see the face, but he grabbed onto my hair and yanked it back. My hair felt like it moved back an inch when he jerked me, and instantly, my temples started throbbing. I twisted my body, all the while wondering how no one was witnessing any of this. “What are—”

  I didn’t get to say anything more. The hand came down on my neck, and I felt a searing pain shoot up my spine and grew dizzy. I tried to maneuver my body, just to see who was holding on to me, but I couldn’t make out the face. Nor could I see anyone close by. How convenient for me. The way he held me, any passerby would think we knew each other.

  A black sedan rolled up just then. The windows slowly rolled down, and a voice came from inside. It was not attached to any face that I could see. “Is this another one?”

  “Sure is,” the gruff voice replied. “Jonas will like this one.”

  “Okay, put her in and hurry,” the voice shot back.

  The next thing I knew, I was being shoved into the back of the car, where I met the face behind the voice. He gripped my shoulder and twisted me around in the same moment he snapped something over my wrists.

  “You’re a pretty one,” he said and pulled on one of my curls. “Kind of plump, but they will like you just fine.” His breath smelled like stale alcohol.

  “What are you doing? Please, let me go,” I pleaded, but my words only fell on deaf ears in the same instant I became aware of the gun in his hand. The tears I hadn’t acknowledged before started racing down my face.

  “Don’t worry. You will like it there. It’s nice I hear,” he said and reached for a black pillowcase.

  I tried to pull away, but it had already become clear I was being kidnapped. “Where are you taking me?” He unfolded the cloth and leaned closer. “My boyfriend is expecting me home. He will know I’m missing.” I held my hands out defensively while I grasped at straws.

  “You have no boyfriend, no friends, no life. You should thank me,” he said and lifted the bag.

  I wanted to scream, but my eyes lingered on the .38 revolver resting on the seat; I wasn’t ready to die yet. I looked ba
ck outside, for perhaps the last time I would see that place. My eyes widened when I recognized the man from the train. He glared at me just as the black pillowcase came down over my face, and the world I knew disappeared behind my temporary satin prison.

  Chapter 2 / Keira

  “Make a left at the next intersection,” I heard a voice command. The car made a sharp swing left, and I slid down the leather seat.

  I had seen the movie Taken, and I tried to use the same skills Liam Neeson had employed to track where he was being taken. But my head was foggy, and I could not conjure a complete picture of anything by the time the car made two more turns.

  “Please, don’t do this,” I whimpered, even though I had no reason to believe he would listen.

  It seemed like he knew things about me, so he knew no one would come looking. I was royally screwed, and I could only hope I didn’t wind up like Neeson’s daughter in the movie.

  I spent most of my time watching movies like Taken and Hostel, where tourists were kidnapped and made into sex slaves or to play survival games for the wealthy. Was that what this was? Had I been kidnapped for someone else’s pleasure? I could hardly believe my luck.

  He made no reply, but just then, the car came to a stop. There was a sliding sound when a gate opened, and the car eased inside and rolled to a stop. Then I felt a hand on me as I was yanked from the backseat. I wriggled, but the hands holding mine were much too strong.

  “Let go of me!” I screamed and wrestled with the man. I figured things were already bad, and I might as well go down swinging.

  “Whoa, we got ourselves a fighter.” He grabbed the pillowcase off my face.

  I spat at him then, and when he slapped me, I came face to face with another man on my left side. My cheek throbbed, but I continued struggling.

  “Fuck, man,” he shouted angrily as he wiped his face on his shirt.

  “Put her with the others,” the other man from the car said.

  There are more? I wondered as I was hauled to a large container at the back of what seemed to be an old warehouse.

  The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a bunch of keys. He fingered through them until he found the one he was looking for. When he opened the lock and pushed the metal door upward, I saw a few people already waiting inside. They seemed to be chained together, and some started shouting as soon as they saw the lights.

  “Get us out of here,” one woman pleaded.

  With tears in my eyes, I turned to the man and started begging again. “You don’t have to do this, please.” I was already beginning to feel weak and that my pleas were not meeting any fertile ground.

  “I know,” he replied as he stepped closer to me. He was American, and I couldn’t understand why he would do something like this to his own people. “But I want to.” He sneered and then shoved me inside with the others. “Be ready to move tomorrow,” he said to someone else as the doors started to close again.

  I was trapped in the endless night with the others.

  At first, I wasn’t sure what to do, whether to sit, stand, or rally support for an escape. The latter seemed improbable, but still, instincts would permit no other thought at that moment. I backed into a corner, slid to the floor, and refused to cry anymore. It was useless anyhow. Instead, I sought to try and make sense of what was happening to me and where I was going.

  Why the fuck hadn’t I gone to the PTSD meeting? Dammit.

  “Miss?” someone to my right said. I didn’t reply; I wasn’t sure how many misses were present in our metal cave. “You, the one they just brought in.” The voice persisted.

  “You talking to me?” I asked the darkness and turned to where the sound was coming from.

  “Yes,” it replied. “Do you know what’s happening?”

  I paused for a few seconds and then rested my head on my knees that were pulled up under me. “No,” was all that came from me. I wanted to say more, but what? I only had speculations, and that wasn’t something anyone needed in this dire situation.

  The voice started whimpering now, until it turned into full-blown wailing.

  “Look, we’re all in this shit together,” another woman barked. “Makes no sense crying and annoying the rest of us.”

  “Got that right,” another said. “Besides, I can tell you what’s happening. I heard something about slaves, so brace for it.”

  “How can you be so cold?” the whimpering voice asked.

  My eyes were shifting back and forth, trying to keep up with the voices racing each other around the space. But the word slave had caught my attention fully. “What do you mean slave? Like plantation slavery?” I realized I must have sounded naïve, but nothing else came to mind.

  “No… well, maybe,” the voice replied in an irritated manner. “I’m thinking they meant sex slaves, but it could be both.”

  I didn’t know why she sounded so comfortable with that, but I wasn’t going to ask. “Well, at least we aren’t going to die.” I sighed and rested my head on my knees again. It made no sense closing my eyes; the darkness that overcame me with my eyes open was equivalent to trying to shut my mind off.

  The woman started crying again and did so for what seemed a considerable time.

  I’m not sure when I fell asleep, but I was awakened to a slow rocking motion, and I perked as I realized we were being moved.

  My heart fluttered in my chest then, and suddenly I heard a loud banging noise as the other people in the container started making a ruckus. I remained on the floor, determined not to waste my energy. I would save my plans for escape for a later time, when it made sense.

  After a while, the shaking and rocking began to make me nauseous. I closed my eyes and rested my head against the tin wall, hoping to quell the surge in my stomach as if it had been pulverized. Unable to hold it in any longer, everything that remained in my stomach from lunch—the pasta, the chicken cubes, the wine sauce, the broccoli florets, and mushrooms—all squished together, came out in one sour mess. I cringed and shivered as some got into my nose.

  “Did you have to do that?” someone asked when they heard me gushing.

  “I’m sorry. Maybe I’ll be more sensitive the next time I’m being kidnapped,” I snapped sarcastically, just before another wave hit me. I hurled again, and I could see, even in the darkness and through my mind’s eye, the others backing away from me and smell the foul stench that would travel with us to our destination. I wiped my hand across my mouth and then squeezed my stomach that felt like it had constricted.

  Eventually, the rocking stopped, and my fear returned. It was deathly silent. I managed to stand as I pressed my ear against the metal wall to discern any distinguishable sound. There was nothing but silence for so long it converted all the paranoia and anxiety swirling in the container into a giant cosmic bubble. All it took was one wail, and soon, the noise was unbearable.

  Soon, we could hear murmuring outside, and then the container rocked, almost tipping us over, and we fell on top of each other, gripping and clawing as we tried to hold on to something. Then it leveled again, hit the ground with a thud, and it was over.

  When the door rolled upward, I realized it was night and we were in a forest of some sort. But where? We all stood there, wanting to run, but not daring to move. Just then, there was the faint sound of an engine that grew louder. I saw a Jeep come to a stop about a hundred feet from where we were. I stepped forward, and as I did, there was a booming sound.

  “Take one more step and you die,” a voice said through the trees. It seemed to dominate the entire space.

  I tried to squint and see but found it hard to determine the source, so I remained still. Afraid to even breathe, I held up my hands in defeat. Based on the movies I’d seen, we were probably in Bulgaria or Amsterdam or some other European country, but I couldn’t be sure since I couldn’t see anything.

  A man appeared from the side of the container and motioned for us to move forward. When we were all on the ground, they forced us into a single file as we moved f
orward in the dim lighting. I stumbled a few times as the men with machine guns escorted us to a huge metal vessel some yards away. It wasn’t an airplane or anything I’d ever seen before.

  “Step up. One at a time,” the man at the front of the line commanded.

  There was a platform that extended to the ground that we were expected to climb to enter the vessel. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I could barely feel my legs as they moved. I couldn’t make out anything in the vessel before I entered, but as I got to the door, I saw other men standing inside around a huge digital screen.

  I was so distracted by the view, I didn’t notice the man to my left who reached across and pulled me to him. I felt a stinging sensation in my neck, and my hand flew there instinctively. I looked at him, still in shock, as I checked to see if there was any blood. There was none, but my neck throbbed.

  “Move along,” he said and urged me forward still.

  Inside, to the right of the screen, were several glass chambers that seemed filled with smoke or vapor. Apparently, that was the direction I was supposed to take, and my legs started moving.

  “We only have twenty-seven this time around,” I heard one of the men by the screen say.

  “That should be enough,” the other replied. “We will get more next time.”

  “But will this be enough? The demand for them is greater than it used to be. They keep wanting more, and…” He stopped speaking when he saw me looking, and when he turned his back, I lost wind of anything else being said.

  I trained my eyes to see their faces, and it was then I noticed there was something off about their features. Their eyes appeared to be twice the diameter of human eyes, and they were spaced farther apart. They also had longer necks but wore long, black coats, so it was hard to see much, and I was moving farther away at the same time. I walked down the long stretch and joined the other women who stood trembling there.

  Now that I was still, I looked back at the path I had just taken. There were three men standing around the screen, pointing at numbers and coordinates dancing around that made me dizzy. Other than that, there was not much of anything else by way of seating. Just then, as if to satisfy my curiosity, one of the men tapped something on his arm, and three seats descended, still attached to the roof by coiled wiring.