Page 27 of Alokar (The Alliance Rescue #2)

Hannah

“Let me go, you fucking alien Bigfoot asshole.” The words scraped raw from my throat.

The creature—Yaard, without a doubt—reeked of decay so vile I could barely suck in air without my stomach lurching violently.

No wonder Ewok couldn’t smell him. All I could detect was the overwhelming stench of rotting flesh.

I’d been waiting for Ewok in the truck, engine ticking as it cooled after driving into Redmond for supplies. I’d stopped in to visit Stella, but after an hour of her incessant whining about her vanished lumberjack, I’d escaped to the blessed silence of the wilderness.

When Yaard first emerged from the treeline, I mistook him for a massive grizzly and lunged for the rifle stashed under my seat.

But he moved with inhuman speed, razor-sharp claws shrieking against metal as he wrenched the truck door open before my fingers could barely graze the weapon.

I managed one piercing scream before his massive, filth-crusted paw slammed over my mouth, praying desperately that Ewok was within earshot.

“Stop struggling, human.” His voice dripped with condescension, as though he spoke to an animal and not a sentient being. His grip on my upper arm constricted like a vise, claws puncturing skin and sending hot rivulets of blood down my arm as he dragged me through the trees.

I thrashed harder. Yaard paused mid-stride, just long enough to backhand me.

I crumpled, knees slamming into the rocky ground as darkness exploded across my vision.

His claws released my mangled arm only to tangle brutally in my hair, yanking me forward as he resumed his relentless march.

His massive strides forced me into a stumbling run to prevent him from ripping my scalp clean off.

“What are you going to do with me?” I gasped, feet sliding treacherously over loose stones and gnarled roots.

He was hauling me deeper into the forest, into territory where even the most seasoned hunters paused to tread.

Yaard twisted back to fix me with a hateful stare, his yellowed fangs gleaming as his grotesquely long gray tongue swept across his lips in anticipation.

I would be dinner, just like my father.

No! Ewok would come for me. I knew it with every fiber of my being. I just had to survive long enough for him to find me.

“I have been stalking you for days, but the pathetic princeling remained oblivious,” Yaard gloated, his voice dripping with arrogance as rancid as the decomposing grizzly hide draped across his shoulders.

“Oh, he noticed,” I lied, stumbling violently over an exposed root as his grip tightened mercilessly. “How could he not? You reek like a fucking corpse.”

Scent.

Ewok could detect the faintest odor from fifty miles away. He might not recognize that the putrefying grizzly stench belonged to Yaard, but he would know my scent.

With my hands still free, I seized every opportunity, frantically rubbing my palms and forearms against every tree trunk and branch within reach, smearing my scent like a desperate trail of breadcrumbs.

Ewok would come for me.

“All part of my ingenious camouflage,” Yaard bragged. “The cuddwisg device transforms our physical form but leaves our scent unchanged. For that, I had to become resourceful.”

“That was you the other night, wasn’t it?” I snarled, remembering Ewok’s description of the grizzly’s odor. “You murdered Rodney.”

“Yes,” Yaard hissed with savage satisfaction.

“I was hunting you. Your death would have shattered Ewok’s spirit, but that worthless human male blundered into my path.

” He smacked his lips with revolting pleasure.

“He was bitter and stringy. Nothing like your father’s tender flesh, or as succulent as I expect you will be. ”

Rage exploded through my soul at his words. I screamed like a banshee, clawing and kicking with desperate fury, but Yaard only threw back his head and laughed, his iron grip on my skull and massive reach keeping me from landing even a glancing blow.

Yaard’s sadistic amusement with my frenzied struggles lasted only a minute.

His massive paw cracked across my face with the force of a sledgehammer, the impact launching me backward.

My body slammed into the earth, tailbone striking a stone with a sickening crunch that sent lightning bolts of agony racing up my spine.

Stars exploded across my vision in brilliant, nauseating spirals—cartoon-like in their intensity as consciousness threatened to abandon me entirely.

Through the haze of pain, I felt his hands encircle my waist. I braced for the pierce of fangs tearing through flesh, for the wet heat of blood flooding my throat.

Instead, he hoisted me up and flung me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, my ribs grinding against the sharp ridge of his shoulder with every step.

The rotting grizzly hide pressed against my face, maggots squirming against my cheek as the overwhelming stench of liquefying flesh invaded every pore.

My stomach convulsed violently, and I retched with such force that bile erupted from my throat, cascading down Yaard’s broad back.

He didn’t even flinch—but I considered the act a moral victory.

Time became meaningless as we traversed the wilderness—minutes bleeding into hours or perhaps hours compressing into moments.

My skull pounded with each jarring step, the world spinning in sickening rotations.

Gradually, the dense forest gave way to stark, wind-carved stone.

Jagged outcroppings jutted from the mountainside like broken teeth, their surfaces pockmarked with yawning cave mouths—perfect winter dens for creatures that preferred darkness to light.

Yaard headed toward one of the larger caverns, ducking beneath its stone threshold before hurling me to the ground with such force that my body actually bounced off the packed dirt floor.

The impact drove the air from my lungs in a strangled wheeze.

In the dank, enclosed space, the stench intensified— a concentrated essence of death and blood that seemed to seep into my very pores.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, the cave’s horrific contents materialized like the backdrop to a nightmare.

A pile of animal furs moldered in one corner, edges black with rot.

But beyond that... dear God. Bones. Mountains of bones, some still bearing strips of desiccated flesh.

Femurs and ribcages created macabre sculptures in the shadows, and I forced my gaze away before my mind could catalog which ones had once belonged to humans.

“How long have you been here?” The words scraped from my throat. How many innocent people had he dragged into this charnel house?

“Many rotations,” Yaard grunted. “The Trogvyk helped me escape to Earth when the Alliance dared to brand me as a criminal.”

“So, you’ve just been hanging out in the mountains eating people, huh?” The sarcasm felt like armor against the horror.

Yaard’s black gaze fixed on me, one thick eyebrow arching with casual menace. “When I’m hungry.”

I wished with every fiber of my being that I hadn’t asked.

Yaard towered nearly eight feet above me, his colossal frame draped in the putrefying remnants of what had once been a magnificent grizzly bear.

The pelt clung to his shoulders like a second skin of death itself, hanging in festering tatters.

Patches of matted brown fur, slick with bodily fluids I refused to identify, interspersed with sections where the hide had turned black and began sloughing away in wet, meaty chunks.

The exposed areas revealed yellowed subcutaneous fat crawling with an army of maggots, their pale, segmented bodies writhing in obscene ecstasy as they feasted on the decomposing flesh.

The sight made my gorge rise so violently I had to clamp my jaw shut to keep from retching again.

He possessed not a single trace of Ewok’s noble bearing or handsomeness.

Where Ewok’s features held an almost regal elegance despite his alien nature, the abomination looming over me was pure, untamed savagery.

His eyes burned with feral madness, twin black orbs that reflected the scant light that penetrated the cave.

His snout jutted forward like a bear’s muzzle, broader and more elongated than Ewok’s refined features, while his yellowed fangs—God, I couldn’t bear to imagine what had stained them that sickening hue—protruded from blackened gums in jagged, uneven rows.

Where the bear’s fur had completely rotted away, Yaard’s own coarse, midnight-black hair showed through, and I caught glimpses of the tattered remnants of a purple robe.

The fabric, now little more than threadbare strips clinging to his massive frame, spoke of a former life of dignity and respect.

Ewok told me he had been an ambassador once—a male others had looked up to, whose counsel was sought and valued.

But like that part of his existence and the ceremonial garment that had once signified his status, nothing remained but rotting tatters and the stench of moral decay.

“Ewok told me what happened with Duke Ako and his mate,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper as I fought to keep him talking. Every second of conversation was another heartbeat of life, another moment for Ewok to find me. “Why aren’t you dead? Kerzak can’t swim.”

His laughter erupted like the sound of bones grinding against stone, devoid of any warmth or genuine mirth.

“That pompous fool Ako would have imagined my demise, naturally. But he lacks my strength, my cunning, my will to survive.” His eyes gleamed with savage pride.

“The cavern was filled with debris—some of which proved buoyant enough to carry me through the waters. I was injured, yes, but I endured what would have killed lesser beings.”

He took a deliberate step toward me, his massive foot crushing something that crunched wetly beneath his weight. I scrambled backward on my hands and knees, careful to avoid the bone pile that promised nothing but sharp edges and the lingering essence of his previous victims.

“So, you have me,” I managed, my voice trembling despite every effort to project strength. “What’s your plan now?”

Yaard’s lips peeled back in a grotesque parody of a smile.

“Kill the princeling slowly, savoring his screams, then feast on your tender flesh. Then I will commandeer his shuttle and return to Kerzak, where I will slaughter Vienda’s husband and spawn, claim her as my mate, and ascend to the throne as the rightful king. ”

The casual way he outlined the litany of horrors made my skin crawl. He was like some twisted cartoon villain, except the threat he posed was all too real.

“That might not be as simple as you imagine,” I said, forcing steel into my voice. “The Alliance has branded you a criminal. They won’t exactly roll out the red carpet for your return.”

His laughter deepened into something that sounded maniacal.

“Foolish human female. You comprehend nothing of the vast network that supports my cause. The consortium’s fingers reach deep into both the Alliance and Earth’s power structures.

My rule will be absolute, and your pathetic species will be treated exactly as the livestock you’ve always been. ”

The future he painted for humanity made my blood run cold.

Before I could formulate another question, he moved.

His massive hands flipped me onto my stomach, driving a knee into my spine with such force that my vertebrae popped.

White-hot agony lanced through my back as he grabbed what looked like an elk hide from the pile, his claws tearing a strip of rotting flesh from its edge.

The putrid leather bit into my wrists as he bound them behind my back, then secured my ankles with the same methodical cruelty.

The remaining elk fur came next, thrown over my body like a blanket of decay. The stench was so overwhelming and vile that my stomach convulsed violently. I barely managed to turn my head before bile erupted from my throat, splattering across the cave floor.

“I will return shortly, human,” he said, his voice dripping with pleasure as he moved toward the cave entrance. “For dinner.”

Terror crept across my skin, but I forced it down, buried it beneath layers of determination. Ewok would come for me.

The moment I felt certain Yaard was far enough away not to overhear, I wriggled frantically out from under the weight of the decaying elk hide, gasping as relatively fresh air filled my lungs.

Then I rolled across the cave floor, ignoring the sharp stones that bit into my flesh, until I found a rock with a jagged edge sharp enough to serve my purpose.

I positioned my bound wrists against the stone’s edge and began scrubbing the leather bindings back and forth. Each movement sent fresh waves of agony through my shoulders and spine, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop.

I needed to get free. Ewok would come for me—I knew it with every fiber of my being. And when he arrived, I was going to help him kill that bastard Yaard.