Page 1 of Alien Devil’s Wrath (Vinduthi Stolen Brides #2)

“ E ight seconds.” Kallum didn’t look up from his console, energy shield schematics cascading across his screens. “That’s the maximum window I can give you before their backup generators kick in.”

The hologram of the prison planet rotated slowly in the ready room, a sphere of brown and grey that looked as hostile as its reputation promised.

“Eight seconds to breach a military-grade defense grid.” Rylos crossed his arms, his expression carved from stone. “The margin for error is nonexistent.”

“Better than landing in their sensor grid.” I studied the topographical data. Canyons, ravines, and vast stretches of barren rock. The planet’s entire surface was the prison. No walls needed when everything that lived there would kill you. “What about the local fauna?”

Varrick pulled up a different display. “Intelligence is limited, but we’ve identified at least a dozen apex predator species.

Shard-back Stalkers here,” he indicated a canyon system, “pack hunters with projectile spines. Gravewings patrol the open areas, carrion feeders the size of shuttles. And those are just the documented ones.”

“The facility itself?” I asked.

“Warden Joric Slade runs it like his personal kingdom.” Talon’s voice carried an edge, despite his exhaustion. He’d just returned with his new mate, Tamsin, and the data from the first Regalia. “Automated defenses, rotating patrols.”

Joric Slade. The name alone made my spine crack.

“The second piece of the Regalia is here.” Rylos brought up the tracker signature. “The Sovereign hid it in a crashed transport, deep in what they call the Bleach. A deadland even the prisoners avoid. The tracker will guide you once you’re groundside.”

“Why there?” Brevan asked. “Seems like an unnecessary risk.”

“Because no one would ever look there.” Rylos’s voice carried a hint of admiration. “The Sovereign understood that the best hiding places are the ones everyone agrees are impossible to reach.”

I stood, memorizing every detail of the terrain data. “Forty kilometers through hostile territory. Retrieve the Regalia. Extract at the secondary coordinates.”

“And if you encounter Slade?” Rylos asked.

My jaw tightened. “That’s a personal matter.”

Rylos nodded slowly. “The mission comes first. Whatever history you have with the warden...”

“Won’t interfere.” I bit the words off, the sound sharp in the quiet room. “I know my duty.”

But as I headed for the launch bay, the Sovereign’s blade heavy at my side, I knew that was only half true. The mission would be completed. The Regalia would be retrieved.

And if I got the chance to put my blade through Joric Slade’s throat, well, some debts demanded payment.

The energy shield ruptured as my stealth pod punched through. Kallum had delivered exactly eight seconds, but the entry had torn my ship apart. Warning lights painted the cockpit red as stabilizers failed and the heat shield began breaking away in chunks. The ground rushed up fast. Too fast.

I braced for impact.

The pod slammed into stone and carved a trench through a dry riverbed for fifty meters before grinding to a stop. The screech of tearing metal filled my ears. Sparks showered through a breach in the hull. Smoke, thick with burning electronics, made my eyes water.

When the world stopped spinning, I took inventory. Three ribs complained with each breath, cracked but not broken. Blood seeped from a gash on my shoulder, already trying to knit closed. My primary weapon lay crushed beneath a twisted support strut.

But the harness had protected what mattered most.

I pulled the Sovereign’s blade from its sheath. The weight of it settled in my hand, familiar as breathing. He’d given it to me the day I swore my oath as one of his six.

Live, Zarek. Make them pay for what they’ve stolen.

The tracker showed a steady pulse forty-three kilometers northeast. Through the worst terrain this hellscape had to offer.

I shouldered the tracker and started walking.

The attack came three hours later.

I’d been picking my way through a boulder field when the first territorial call echoed off the rocks.

Not quite a growl, not quite a chirp. Something between the two that raised every combat instinct I had.

The briefing materials had called them Shard-back Stalkers. Pack hunters. Coordinated. Lethal.

The sound came again from my left. Then behind. Then from above.

I dropped into a defensive crouch beside a large boulder, the Sovereign’s blade ready. The metallic stench of reptilian predator drifted on the wind. They were close.

When they came, they came all at once.

The first Stalker burst from behind a rock formation. Two hundred pounds of muscle and scale with bone spines bristling along its back. It launched itself at my throat.

I caught it mid-leap, my hands sinking into scaled hide, and hurled it into the nearest boulder. Bone cracked against stone.

The second was already airborne. I rolled left as razor-sharp spines whistled past my head. The creature landed hard, already flicking more spines from its back. I lunged inside its reach and opened its throat with the Sovereign’s blade.

Two down.

The real pack revealed itself then. A dozen shapes flowing from hiding spots I hadn’t even noticed. Their scales shifted color to match the rocks, natural camouflage that made them nearly invisible until they moved.

I fought with everything I had. The blade sang through the air, finding throats and hearts. My fists shattered skulls. But there were too many, and they knew this terrain better than I ever could.

A spine punched through my shoulder from behind, emerging from my chest in a spray of blood. My vision blurred. Another spine buried itself in my thigh. A third opened a line of fire across my ribs.

I dropped to one knee as the pack circled, their calls rising in triumph. My healing factor was already working to seal the wounds, but it couldn’t work fast enough with the spines still embedded.

I gripped the spine in my shoulder and pulled. The shaft came free with a wet sound, but snapped halfway, leaving fragments deep in the muscle. The one in my thigh broke off at skin level when I tried to remove it, the barbed head still buried in the meat.

A Stalker twice the size of the others stalked forward. The pack leader. Its head waved back and forth, tasting the air. When it opened its mouth, rows of needle teeth gleamed.

It lunged.