Page 14 of Shadow (Marinah and the Apocalypse #1)

King

T here was a part of me that wanted to trust her. A small, insistent part. And there was another part, one I was even less comfortable with, that was drawn to her in ways I couldn’t explain.

It was Beast who was causing most of the turmoil, and if I had learned anything over the years, it was that ignoring his instincts was a mistake.

So why was I resisting him this time?

Females were a mystery to us. A rarity we had lost.

Since we came to Earth, there hadn’t been a single female birth among Shadow Warriors. When we mated with human women, the children were always male. Something in our biology shifted after we arrived here, ensuring that only boys would be born to our kind when mating outside our species.

My ancestors’ ship was one of two out of twenty that made it to Earth. What happened to the others remained a mystery.

My great-great-grandfather left with two hundred adults and one hundred children. By the time they reached this planet, only half had survived.

They had tried to settle on another world that seemed hospitable, but it ended in tragedy, leaving the males alive while killing all but a handful of women. By the time they landed here, the number of men exceeded the women ten to one.

Our history was meticulously recorded, stored in the volumes each ship carried. These texts told of a time before Earth, before the Great Exodus.

On our home planet, few women carried the gene that produced K-5, the substance that allowed us to shift. Those who did were extraordinary warriors whose strength rivaled our own.

Only one in a hundred women possessed the gene, and those who did were revered. We eventually lost all our women, which meant no female children. When we mated with human women, they gave birth to strong boys. Boys who grew into beasts.

In some ways, that made our transition to Earth easier. Even among the conflicts and divisions of our past, women were sacred. As the bearers of life, they were protected above all else.

We honored that legacy, even as we adapted to a world that no longer offered the same balance.

But Marinah… she was different.

And I couldn’t shake the feeling that she might hold answers to questions I had been afraid to ask. That was why I insisted on a female liaison officer from the Federation. A woman would have been easier to protect.

Or so I thought.

Marinah, however, was proving to be a challenge and I needed to understand what drove Beast to the brink whenever other men were near her.

When Boot slung her over his shoulder, Beast didn’t object. It was the first time one of the men touched her in my presence without triggering his anger. But later, when they were laughing together, Beast exploded.

Why?

“You seem deep in thought,” Marinah interrupted, her voice pulling me back. “Dare I hope you are reconsidering how long you plan to keep me here? Trust isn’t built overnight, and we don’t know how much time we have before the hellhounds return.”

I glanced at her, noting the stubborn set of her jaw. It reminded me of her father.

“For us to help you, certain conditions must be met before I share anything. Once our secrets are revealed, I can’t guarantee they won’t be used against us.”

She nodded, her eyes holding a stubborn glint. “The Federation has its own secrets that could leave us vulnerable if you decided to turn on us. That’s what worried them before you gained this island.”

Maybe we were finally reaching the root of the issue.

“The Federation actually believed we’d attack them?” I asked, incredulously.

Her face gave her away.

Of course, they did.

Her government’s paranoia was staggering. All we’d ever wanted was safety and peace for our people. If the Federation left us alone, we’d do the same.

I waved a hand to cut off whatever prepackaged response she was about to deliver.

“Did your president agree to you sharing any secrets at all?”

She shrugged, and I caught a flicker of irritation. “My president gave me full permission to say or do anything that might convince you to help us again.”

My eyebrows lifted. “ Anything? ”

Her cheeks flushed pink, and I couldn’t help the flicker of amusement that rose inside me.

This should be good.

“Come on,” she said, clearly flustered. “You saw how they dressed me. You haven’t figured out that they hoped you’d fall head over heels and take me up on anything I offered?”

Her cheeks darkened to a deep crimson, and she looked away, embarrassed.

“They thought your request for a female liaison was because of a shortage of women. That was the real reason they sent me.”

I shouldn’t have wanted to laugh, but I did.

“And you let them send you here to sleep with monsters?”

Her eyes ground into mine. “Stop calling your kind monsters.” She waved off my words like they were nothing. “I assumed I wouldn’t survive the plane ride, let alone meeting you if I made it off that death trap in one piece. And let me remind you, I almost didn’t survive my first day here. So, no, my thought process wasn’t exactly far off the mark.”

She took a steady breath, her eyes still locked onto mine.

“My father never thought of your kind as monsters. He respected Shadow Warriors more than he did most humans. He didn’t talk about his work often, but he made sure I knew you weren’t to be feared. He was a good man, and he had an uncanny ability to judge people.”

I wasn’t letting her off the hook that easily.

“So, you were okay with sacrificing yourself? Sexually?”

Her head shook, but her gaze didn’t lower.

“I was never okay with it. But I knew my chances of surviving at home were slim. My job was nonessential, which meant the next time the hellhounds attacked, I’d probably be wearing a red stripe and sacrificing myself in a different way.”

She paused, her voice softening.

“I came here because I wanted to do something meaningful for my country—and, because of my father, something for Shadow Warriors.”

Her gaze finally dropped, and I noticed something surprising. The prolonged eye contact hadn’t set Beast off. Maybe he was asleep.

“I wanted my father to be proud,” she finished quietly, “even if he wasn’t here to see it.”

I let the silence linger, staring at the far wall as I made a decision.

“Hellhounds aren’t hounds at all.”

She didn’t respond right away, her mind clearly working to process my words. When she finally spoke, her voice was cautious.

“How do you know that?”

I was crossing a line, though I wasn’t entirely sure why.

Maybe it was the mention of her father.

Or maybe it was Marinah herself.

Every emotion she felt. Joy, anger, and sadness played openly across her face. If she were lying about everything she’d said, she was a world-class actress.

I felt deep in my gut that she was remarkably genuine.

So, against my better judgment, I opened Pandora’s box.

“Because we’ve captured and studied them.”

Her reaction was immediate.

She jumped up so quickly that her chair screeched back across the floor. I wasn’t sure where she thought she was going, but she took three hurried steps away from the table before her shoe caught on the edge of the carpet.

And she face-planted.

Right in front of me.

Again.

I stood up, hands on my hips, watching as she rolled over. Blood dripped from her chin, and she looked dazed.

Shaking my head, I couldn’t help adding commentary. “You need more work than Boot might be able to provide.”

Her hand flew to her chin, swiping at the blood. “Actually, the Federation trained me to fall from an early age. It was my most honed skill,” she said, her voice carrying up from the floor.

The humor and quick wit were just like her father’s. I remembered it well.

“Any chance you could help me up? The training stopped at falling, ” she quipped.

I leaned down, grabbed her under the arms, and lifted her upright in one smooth motion before she could do more than let out a surprised squeak.

The sound pulled a huff of air from my chest, part exasperation, part amusement. There was nothing remotely warrior-like about her clumsiness, and yet, I couldn’t help but see potential.

Standing that close, her scent hit me full force. It was unlike anything I’d encountered before. A blend of blood trickling from her chin, the soap she used, and the unmistakable aroma of her femininity. Together, it created something entirely unique and stirred a response in me I wasn’t prepared for.

Beast stirred too, but for the first time that night, he didn’t want her dead. Instead, he flooded my system with oxytocin and dopamine, making his intentions abundantly clear.

He wanted me horny, and he was doing a damn good job of it. I knew his game, though, and this wasn’t the time for it. Gritting my teeth, I shoved him back, keeping the internal struggle locked tightly inside.

She didn’t need to know there was a battle of lust raging within me and it wasn’t all Beast.

“You’ve studied hellhounds?” she asked, her voice shaky, barely above a whisper. “Why? How?” Her gaze remained fixed on my chest, and a drop of blood from her chin splattered onto the floor.

“We’ll get you cleaned up, and I’ll show you,” I said gently, catching a glimpse of something in her I hadn’t noticed before. There was a subtle allure about her. It was unexpected and somewhat disarming. Between her fiery spirit and endearing clumsiness, I felt a pull I wasn’t prepared for. It was unsettling, and I knew it wasn’t a good thing. While my mind wrestled with these thoughts, she was still grappling with the revelation that we had hellhounds. Her neck strained, the rapid pulse in her veins betraying her fear as her wide eyes finally met mine. The horror in her expression was profound.

When a hellhound died, it turned to dust. Capturing them alive had been our only option. They were flawless predators. Perfect killers. We were better. And studying them was the only way we had any hope of understanding, let alone defeating them.

“You’re telling me you actively have hellhounds in captivity? You’re crazy ,” she whispered.

I held her gaze, letting the tension linger before responding with a broad smile. “Finally, something we can both agree on.”