Page 3 of The Alien Warrior's Heart

If sheevergot her hands on these aliens…

The octopus pressed a button and a door opened, admitting a different kind of creature. Simone would have gasped if she was capable of making a sound.

The new aliens were tall and fierce-looking. They resembled lions but walked confidently on two legs. They wore heavy armor that clanked every time they moved.

The lion aliens exchanged a tense conversation with the octopus aliens. She could tell it was about her and the results of her test because the octopus aliens kept pointing to her and then to the screen where strange symbols were popping up in neon.

The lion aliens grunted and two of them stepped toward her.

“Get away from me,” Simone barked hoarsely.

They yanked her off the cot.

Simone dug deep to find the fight inside her. She had to get out of this. She had to help those other women who’d been wheeled into a separate room. She had to save herself.

No one would do it for her.

If she was getting out of this, it had to be through her own efforts.

But her efforts were no match for these aliens.

Whatever they’d drugged her with kept her movements sluggish and slow. The bindings on her wrist chained her in place.

The lion aliens dragged her limp body into a hovercraft. She watched the lights playing past her window numbly, unable to move. What felt like hours later, they dragged her out and marched her through a long corridor.

They’d taken her far away from the warehouse with the rest of the human girls and women. Feeling began returning to her body as they jostled her around.

The lion aliens took her down to a dungeon. The walls were slick with mucus and strange black worms. The smell was enough to make her hair stand on end.

The lion alien strapped her to another gurney, but this one had her arms locked above her head and her feet spread eagle. Her heart jumped straight to her throat at the position.

Why was he leaving her legs spread?

The lion aliens dragged her cot through a long corridor of black doors.

“No.” She screamed. Pleaded. Begged. “No.”

But the lion alien ignored her and opened a door all the way at the end. It looked to be the most heavily barricaded and it took several seconds for him to undo the locks.

“Please.” Tears leaked down her face. She was trying to be brave, but something told her that a fate far worse than death waited for her in there. “Please, let me go. Please.”

Without blinking, the guard shoved her cot inside and the door slammed with finality.

Two

Zar

Since his father’s death,he had only known anger. It slid and sizzled through his veins. Clawed and ached at his heras. Pawed at his innards and branded him until the white-hot blaze was all he knew.

The anger made him cocky.

Made him take on an army of Heronas because the blood in his venas demanded it be so.

The anger blinded him. Made him miss the sharpshooters that waited in the trees. That were primed to immobilize him with one shot.

The fury overpowered him. Locked him in a Heronas prison.

Put a shock-collar around his neck.