Page 3 of Xefe (Nozaroc Alien Warrior #1)

F ire. I’m on fire…burning…searing…melting me down to the nubs.

The Oro consumed me, gobbling me up while singeing blood vessels—destroying me from the inside out.

My throat burned like I’d swallowed jet fuel.

I could never get a breath in deep enough.

Time sputtered and slowed until it inched by second by second.

First, it attacked my womb. I would have laughed if I had the tiniest breath to spare. Good luck trying to find it.

No uterus, no babies. No sister.

My sorrow swept me away in a river of gold.

Next came my shoulder. The scapula wrenched itself out of place—the clavicle broken and cutting through tissue. My left pinky twisted. My right wrist yanked and pulled until it separated from my skin. On and on and on…

After demolishing my body, the Oro swallowed my mind. It pulsed and grew until it washed over my grey matter, penetrating every fold and sinew until there was nothing left. No respite, no life—just inky black. The certainty of my death was one of the few thoughts I held onto along with…

Valentina.

I floated in fiery nothingness as each body part was examined and then destroyed. My only tether was the image of my sister, which I fiercely held onto.

As time passed, days…weeks…minutes… I clung to life.

For the briefest second, the pain eased enough for me to perceive my surroundings.

The sound of the aliens’ chatter, like shattered glass, shredded my damaged mind.

Rough tubes were inserted into my body as I lay torn.

Freckles lurked; the shrieks never faded.

I’m his pet project now.

When I came to, he was there—watching, manipulating my body. Trying to own me. He prodded me with his mouth. Or, more specifically, foul-smelling dick-tongues. He had three of them, and he used them. Frequently.

You’ll never break me, you pedazo de mierda.

Cocooned in a life-and-death struggle, Freckles and his foul-smelling junk became no more important than a pesky fly.

I focused on the true threat. The Oro. As it rearranged me on a molecular level, I realized it had a pattern.

A design. None of it was random which made me feel it was alive, judging me, deciding my fate, taking my measure—not him.

Who was Freckles in comparison to this otherworldly substance?

He didn’t understand. I would have laughed if I could breathe without charring my lungs.

He knew nothing. Had no idea he could be taken as quickly as me.

I will kill you so hard, Freckles. Right after I find my sister.

That was the first time the Oro paused. My thoughts caught its attention.

Even though the force of its power threatened to crush me, I was filled with peace.

When I thought of killing Freckles, the Oro cooled within me.

As I envisioned shoving a needle through his eye and beating him to a pulp, the Oro lovingly caressed my insides, as if in agreement.

Por favor. Please let me help my sister, I whispered repeatedly in my mind. For Valentina, I would beg. For her, I would give up almost anything… even my soul. But I needed to be alive to help her. Then I needed to kill Freckles for what he’d done.

Find Valentina. Kill Freckles.

The Oro swirled and crested, coasting over me, considering my plea. It didn’t have a voice, but it was the echo of a whisper. A swirl of shadow in my mind. A presence in every cell of my body.

As it got to know me, I got to know it. Or them.

I felt their pain, the rage at being separated from the ones they loved.

They existed in the fabric of every inch of this planet, it wasn’t meant to be stolen and manipulated by aliens like Freckles.

The Oro needed contact, needed attention, needed love.

Revenge and connection. I didn’t know how to give that to them except to let their sorrow and rage mix with my own.

I understood losing someone you loved. I’d had so much loss, my parents, my abuelos , and now my sister.

I surrendered. Sank into the feelings. Let myself be consumed by the gold.

I drowned in a tsunami of energy. Could see it, feel it, smell it.

Perceived it in ways I’d never imagined.

It broke me down and remade me into something… new. The bones began to knit, the organs reformed, and the cells renewed. I was reborn in fire—because of a golden alien substance with the knowledge of the universe.

It understood love.

It understood revenge.

It understood me.

We were one.

***

Pleasure coursed through me like a full-body orgasm. The burn, the writhing agony—all gone.

Is it pleasure or just the absence of pain?

Nope. I was high as hell, but it didn’t matter. Drunk, smashed… borracha ! Nothing mattered but this feeling. My knotted muscles relaxed. My chilled skin heated. An eternity of pleasure existed between each drawn-in breath.

Feels soooo good.

My eyes cracked open, and I looked around the foreign laboratory—Freckle’s playroom.

I should have thrashed against the invisible manacles that held me straight up, floating in the air like a doll on display, but the tension in my chest had disappeared.

Instead, I enjoyed the peace. The calm. No more breaking glass.

The only sounds interrupting my sojourn were deep growls from a… tiger?

Or maybe an escaped lion. From an alien zoo.

Here, kitty kitty.

I blinked and saw swirling stars. Was I floating in space again? Two bright suns eddied in an endless circle. Not suns. Eyes. Sunset eyes swirling inside a being. A person. No. A towering alien.

He looked nothing like Freckles or the other addicts in the lab.

This guy looked like a beautiful monster.

Black spikes covered his head and shoulders.

The top half of his face, and most of his body, were covered in a dark material that could have been armor or skin.

As he turned to study one of the racers, I noticed jagged barbs that lined his spine and the backs of his arms. I blinked, focusing on the hulking ET with the prettiest mango eyes I’d ever seen.

They were set further apart than those of a human.

His nose was nothing more than a blade, with two slits on either side.

Three toothpick-sized spikes protruded above his nostrils, pointing toward his cheekbones.

Even his nose is dangerous. So sexy.

His shoulders were twice as broad as an ordinary man’s. Muscles piled on muscles. A golden mist floated around him, and even from here, it smelled delicious. His musky aura washed over me, consuming me, making the Oro inside me swarm in answer and tug at my brain. A reminder of its presence.

I’ll never be alone again.

Another alien bounded in, stepping in front of my guy—a little taller but not as wide.

Two spiked aliens. The second one had different colored eyes, one purple and the other a darker, tangerine-red.

He was…perfection. The most beautiful being I’d ever seen.

Even though his features were other , the size of his eyes, the sculpted jaw and high cheekbones, all screamed touched by the gods, type of gorgeous.

Like a beautiful alien angel. Even with all that.

I was not impressed. Boring. Something about him annoyed me.

Maybe it was because he was blocking my view.

I wanted to look at the other guy, and lay my greedy gaze upon my alien with the sunset eyes.

A small part of me, a teeny-tiny part, understood the intensity of my reaction was not normal.

I should be terrified, screaming for someone to get me the hell out of here, but the Oro had changed me on a fundamental level.

Made me horny as hell? Nope, I’ve always been this way.

But not during an alien abduction! I should have focused more, figured out my response, but sheer joy engulfed me.

Drunk from an Oro-overdose, I didn’t care about anything as long as I got another whiff of this papacito alien’s musk.

I watched him move. My body lit up, nipples pebbling with each powerful step.

Completely naked, I wondered if he would notice my body’s reaction to him.

I squeezed my legs together, heightening the pulse pounding in my core.

Instead of plotting an escape plan, I focused on being able to move my arms and legs.

To reach for him. I didn’t know what it was about this spiked alien, but whatever it was made my body heavy and expectant.

The two of them still hadn’t noticed me— which was unacceptable —and it almost sounded like they were arguing. Their language was drastically different from Freckle’s screeching; it sounded guttural and primal. Too bad I couldn’t understand a word. Carajo!

“ Grawr roar rumble. Grrrrrr ,” the annoying one said, a slight tilt of his mouth exposing three sharp canines on either side of his front teeth.

“ Grumble grumble. Growwwwl. ” Sunset eyes pointed at the other floating humans and crossed his beefy arms.

How dare he? Look at me! Not those other hoes.

When the grumpy one, my guy, made a slashing motion with his hand, I guessed maybe they were talking cagada about the other racers, and now I was really put out.

I wanted in on the tea. Wanted to know what they were saying.

Everything about the one with the sunset eyes, who I immediately nicknamed Sunny, was intriguing.

I wanted to bathe in his smell, shower in his aura, and lick him like a paleta .

I focused my attention inward and whispered to the Oro, my new bestie.

Help me. It held the power of the universe.

It could do anything . The key to my survival had always been tied to words—my ability to wiggle and deflect, lie and sprinkle in the truth with knife-like precision.

Inherently, even in my Oro-soaked haze, I knew I needed knowledge if I were meant to survive.

Make me understand him. All of it. Every. Single. Word. Pretty please?

A wave of fire scorched the inside of my skull, and for what felt like an eternity, I was back in the abyss. I writhed in pain. The Oro coated my ears and throat, changing and elongating tissue to make room for this new language. I convulsed, but soon, I was remade.

Then I heard the deep rumble of his voice. Magic.