Page 5 of Xefe (Nozaroc Alien Warrior #1)

M y scalp is on fire! The itch was maddening, as if a swarm of wasps attacked my head, biting and stinging until my scalp felt like raw meat. Déjame en paz. Leave me alone!

Night surrounded me. I was enveloped in black velvet that lacked the metallic stain from before. When I lifted my hands to scratch my scalp, they slammed into something sharp and stony that didn’t feel anything like my cube.

My brain sizzled and fractured as images raced through my mind: dick-tongues, golden liquid, breaking glass, and sexy sunsets.

Need to get away. Freckles is going to—

Twin vices wrapped around my ankles and yanked. My back scraped against stone, coating my skin in dust. After I’d been dragged a few feet, the light beyond my eyelids lightened, and I took in my first lungful of real air—not tainted, chemical weirdness.

But I couldn’t see. My lids are sealed shut.

“Where am I?” I asked. Except, those weren’t the words that came out of my mouth. My heavy lips wouldn’t wrap around the syllables—making them a garbled mess. My tongue swelled and pressed against the back of my teeth.

What the hell had Freckles done to me?

“She’s awake. Won’t that be fun?”

“Nieve? Is that you?” The familiar voice almost soothed me, the lilting human words a balm against my ears.

No high-pitched shattered glass. Hers were the first human sounds I’d heard in a lifetime.

“I can’t see you. Why can’t I see anything?

” The words were jumbled. All that came out was guuuuuuuhhhh .

“ Dios mío! They fried her brain. I didn’t think anything would be worse than what happened to the newbie, but this might be it. I actually feel sorry for her.”

Oh, hell no. Nobody feels sorry for me. I feel sorry for them. I needed to get my shit together, but there was nothing I could do about my speech. Yet.

I concentrated on opening my eyes. Slowly, my fingers responded, and I scraped at my lids, digging away mounds of mucous. My whole body felt caked in the oily substance. My skin, and my damn itchy scalp, all felt layered in tar.

I removed the film from my eyes and wiped it in my hair. I couldn’t stand it another minute. I scratched my scalp raw. Bliss.

“She’s got a bad case of it.”

I looked up, and now that I could see, the room was bathed in a golden light. I’d never been so excited to see fleshy skin in my life. Even if the human it coated was Nasty Nieve.

Filthy and disheveled, she still looked brillante .

Her cool skin shimmered in the golden light.

Floating curls touched her shoulder blades.

She was glorious, only the glittering white tattoos covering her hands and forearms hinted at her pain.

There were rumors of an accident that had caused her terrible scarring.

And even though you could no longer see the damage, it publicly marked her as less than perfect.

It made her as expendable as the rest of us.

In New Angeles, perfection was currency.

Her injury had robbed her of a promised life of riches awarded to the truly beautiful by the wealthy.

Today, in comparison to The Trials, Nieve wore a scratchy sack with a hole cut in the middle for her head.

Somehow, she pulled it off. It draped perfectly over her willowy body.

Some people have all the luck.

I looked down, expecting a much worse result.

I didn’t have Nieve’s natural grace, which I liked to think I made up for with my wit and charm.

I peeked under my potato sack, and to my surprise…

my body looked ah-mazing . I was filthy, sticky, and covered in black dust from the sooty floor, but I looked tight .

Nothing but long, lean muscles coated me.

Except for my large breasts, that still jiggled when I gave a little shimmy.

Yes. My lucky charms. I sat up and looked behind me.

My ass looked delicious, too!

Damn! Who knew all it took for a perfect bod was alien abduction? Those last ten pounds I fought with, on the daily, had disappeared. Nice! The only other change I noted was my scars. They glowed a soft gold, a muted version of the Oro.

Which reminded me of sunset eyes, so pretty…

My stomach rumbled, and a sharp ache built, like old, remembered pain. Sweat dotted my brow, and my hands began to shake. High-pitched shrieks echoed in my mind. I doubled over; my insides burned. I heaved. A golden glob of mucous flew out of my mouth onto the floor.

“ Bien, eso es simplemente genial. Just great! Now she’s throwing up. I am not cleaning that up. Nuh uh, not doing—” Nieve gasped. “What the hell is that?”

Tiny, multi-legged crab spiders crawled out of cracks in the mountain walls. They swarmed the vomit, and in seconds, the mess was gone. Just as quickly, they skittered back away to the bowels of hell.

I blinked up at Nieve like, Can you believe that shit?

Neither of us spoke. We just sat, stunned, for long minutes.

“You okay?” Nieve finally asked.

“Guuuhhh.” Never better. Old habits died hard. Even if I couldn’t speak, I’d never let my guard down in front of my arch-enemy. So, I made sure to annoy her by smiling aggressively at her. Not my finest moment, but it was too easy to set off the princess’ temper.

“Oh, my gaaaaawd . You’re the worst. I try to be nice, but I can tell by that shit-eater’s grin you said something sarcastic. I hate to break it to you. Your brain is fried. And you look like mierda , too.”

I look like shit? That sounded about right. I nodded and winked to throw her off.

Off to my left, I spotted a tangled mop of hair. Querida’s lifeless eyes came into focus. She clanked two sticks together, sharpening them against each other as if they were her prized throwing knives.

“You’re here, too?” Once again, nothing close to those words whispered past my lips, but Querida nodded as if she understood.

For the most part, she appeared the same—coal-black eyes topped by untamed, thick red hair.

Maybe wilder than usual and a lot dirtier.

Only scattered patches of her peaches-and-cream skin was visible under the dirt.

I wonder who else— “ Valentina? Is my sister here?” Terror, as brutal as a knee to the face, shook me. Scrambling to my feet before I remembered my equilibrium was shot, I face-planted into gritty sand. Tears pricked my eyes. “Valentina!”

“Shh! The guards will hear you.” Nieve ran over and sat on my back. When I wouldn’t shut up, she grabbed the back of my head and shoved my face in the dirt. “You’ll get us punished.”

“ Hermana ,” I screamed.

“Why is she screaming?” Nieve tried to cover my mouth, dodging my sharp teeth.

“She wants her sister,” Querida said, her voice as calm and soothing as dark rum.

I stilled, stunned into silence by the softly spoken sentence. I’d never ever heard Querida speak four whole words in a row. Ever. The psychopath usually sat in a corner, silently watching.

I tried to buck Nieve off my back when I caught a glimpse of a lump behind me, a body crumpled and discarded in the corner of the room.

I froze, every part of me dead, even my heart, as I looked at the frail form.

Valentina? I dug my nails into Nieve’s leg until she yelped and jumped up.

I crawled toward the lump, my uncoordinated limbs making the few feet feel like miles.

“Hera, wait. Don’t!”

A flimsy piece of material covered the lifeless figure. I pulled it off and saw blonde hair. Fair skin. Not Valentina, not her, not her … I collapsed into the dirt.

“That’s the newbie. She didn’t make it.” Nieve hung her head and whispered, “We didn’t think you would, either.”

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Grief and relief warred within me.

Poor newbie. She didn’t deserve this. None of us did.

I rubbed at the tears streaming down my face and pulled the cover back over her lifeless body.

It felt like hours past as I sat there and cried.

But eventually, I wiped my cheeks. I couldn’t waver my focus from my sister.

Please let her be okay. “Val unteehuh ?” This time, the word sounded a little closer to normal.

“Your sister? I haven’t seen her. Now be quiet . If you make noise, the guards will come,” Nieve said as she furiously scratched her scalp.

Gracias, Dios. Gracias. I slumped, my cheek resting against the dusty floor. My short trek exhausted what little energy I had left, but I forced myself to sit up.

The room only spun marginally this time.

I sucked in a few deep breaths, determined to figure out where the hell I was.

It looked like a dirty cave or… a cell? The room was as big as my dorm back home, sans furniture.

Black stone marbled in gold covered walls, floor, and ceiling.

The rock looked smooth but flaked quickly when touched, turning into a fine powder.

About ten pounds of it had lodged up my nose.

We were the only ones in the cell, but it was clear we weren’t alone. Weird squawks and high-pitched squeals and grunts filled the space. No sounds of breaking glass, but the noise was definitely other . As soon as my muscles started working again, I was determined to break free of this joint.

“ Wherr awh wee? Ship?”

“What ship? There was a ship? Do you remember a ship?” Nieve looked at Querida.

My stomach clenched as I tried to tamp down my imagination.

The idea of my sister, tranquilized and trapped on that conveyor belt, made me crazed.

But if she stayed behind on Earth, would that be any better?

Who would take care of her? She had no way to make money, at least not any way I would approve of.

We had no parents. Our abuela , the woman who raised us, died six months before.

Valentina didn’t even have a place to stay.

Fucking Freckles. If I ever saw him again, I swore for the eleventh thousandth time, I would destroy him.

“Hera. Answer me. What ship?”

I squinted at Nieve, unsure about how to proceed. What should I share with them, and what should I hold back? These women had inflicted countless injuries on me—and I, the same on them. But shouldn’t we humans stick together? I looked over at Nieve and opened my mouth—

“ Hello? Ship?” She snapped her fingers in my face.

Nope. Can’t do it. I smiled and shrugged.

“That’s it.” Nieve clenched her fists. “It’s official.

I’ve died and gone to hell. It’s the only explanation for why I ended up in some alien penal colony.

With you. My punishment is seeing your lying, liar face for the rest of eternity.

Stay away from me.” Nieve scratched her head and sat beside Querida, grumbling as the redhead continued sharpening her sticks.

Not gonna lie. Her annoyance gave me the briefest moment of satisfaction.

That pendeja had almost ruined my life, wrenching my shoulder out of its socket seconds before I crossed the finish line.

If I’d won that previous race, I wouldn’t have been in the stadium during the alien abduction, and none of this would have happened.

“ Growl, rawr. Damn roar earthers. Pain in my ass. ”

A giant of an alien, nothing but black leather, spikes, and swirling cranberry eyes, shouted through an invisible force field that coated the opening to our cell.

Querida grabbed Nieve and dragged her toward the back of the cave.

Too drained to move, I stared. Fifty-pound weights felt strapped to my body. Eventually, I made it to my knees. My whole frame shook. I scratched at my head and tried to make it over to the girls. But all I could do was sway.

“Bugs. Infested. ” He growled.

What? Did he say infested?

I hate bugs.

The seven-foot spiked alien called through the force field, “Earthers. Follow.”

I glanced around furtively, slightly relieved that I might be leaving. No way in hell would I remain in a cell, cave, or… whatever , with bugs.

The spiked demon from hell manipulated an onyx staff, running a six-fingered hand over it, and then slammed it into the ground. The force field shimmered and disintegrated, and he strode through the opening.

Before I could scream, a second alien joined him. This one wasn’t quite as tall nor as brawny, but he was still big. Estrellas. Their shoulders were stacks of muscles, twice as wide as a normal man’s shoulders. The new guy had just as many spikes but had one purple eye and one red one.

Why does he look so familiar?

A wide grin split his lips, showing off two sets of three sharp fangs under his upper lip.

“You made it! I am so glad you did not die an excruciating death. Tontoh conducted terrible roarwa .” He looked past me and focused in on Querida and Nieve.

“I forgot you humans can’t understand most of what I am saying. ”

Is this weirdo talking to me? And I understand him just fine.

“Better?” The mouthy alien switched to English.

“I will explain a few things to help you adjust. But I don’t have much time before Nime gets mad.

” He canted his head toward the mountain-sized alien with the cranberry eyes.

“You have been gifted with Glrtsstlllloroggg , a powerful elixir native to this planet. It allows you to understand the very basics of any alien language. Enough to get by, hopefully. When you need to communicate, just speak your language and they will understand as well.” He clapped his hands in glee.

“But because I have such a special interest in you, I have taken more Glrtsstlllloroggg to be able to speak your language fluently. Aren’t you lucky?

” He looked around expectantly, his gaze zeroing in on Querida.

I ignored the chatty alien. Without thought, I tapped my palm twice to activate my vid-phone.

It was something I probably did a hundred times a day to access my sister or check my vida-socials .

But no comforting hologram of her popped up.

It was dead. There was no way to talk to Valentina.

Because I was on an alien planet. The truth continued to sink in, drowning me as each second passed and clarity retuned. Would I ever see her again?

“Come. Let us, go. It’s time to leave.” The annoying alien kept urging me on, and in order to shut him up—and hopefully find some answers—I concentrated on rising to my feet.