The Warlord's Stormy Skye, page 1
The Warlord’s
Stormy Skye
Gail Koger
Copyright © January 2023 by Gail Koger
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Gail Koger. Please do not participate or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized copies.
Image/art disclaimer: Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.
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Cover Artist: Limabean Designs
Published in the United States of America
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events, existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Books in the Coletti Warlord series
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my parents.
Prologue
My name is Skye McAllister and life has thrown me some curveballs lately. I’m a psychic witch and healer. You know, abracadabra alakazam? Myself, my sister Ella, and our cousin Annie Russell are all that’s left of the once powerful McAllister clan. Our unique powers have a bunch of alien males eager to claim us as their mates and no wasn’t in their vocabulary. Ugh.
How did Earth end up being invaded by all these aliens? It started with the Tai-Kok. I was twenty-five when these malevolent, depraved ghouls attacked our world. The image of their three bloodred eyes and metal teeth are forever burned into my mind. How they found Earth or why they considered us tasty, no one knew. The news media’s horrific stories about the Tai-Koks’ butchery made it clear. You fought or you died.
The alien blitzkrieg laid waste to most of Europe and the Middle East. Our military knew it was only a matter of time before they hit North America. The famous Jones clan stepped up. Their psychic abilities gave the world an early warning system, allowing people time to get to the hastily constructed underground shelters before the Tai-Kok and their ally the Rodan, could chow down.
Eager to kill the monsters, Annie joined a local militia that patrolled northern Arizona. Ella and I used our skills as healers to treat the wounded soldiers. If the Tai-Kok or Rodan attacked our field hospitals, Ella turned their brains to mush with her mental grenades. Me? I unleashed an electrical storm powerful enough to bring down their Marauders. The Arizona desert is littered with their wrecked spaceships.
For five long years, we fought the fiends alone. That all changed when Kaylee Jones linked psychically with Talree, a Coletti warlord. It turned into one hell of a “first contact” when Talree claimed Kaylee as his mate. And the really bad news? Their mating painted a big bullseye on Earth.
Talree’s father was none other than Zarek, the powerful Coletti Overlord. Six hundred years ago during the Great Galactic war the population of their home world was nearly wiped out. With ten billion dead, and their world turned into a wasteland, Zarek pledged to do everything in his power to protect his people and rebuild the Coletti Empire to what it once was. That’s when their scientists made a horrible discovery. The Gall bombs’ deadly chemicals also affected their birthrate and now only one of every thousand children born was female. The Coletti people were facing extinction.
To save his people, Zarek did what any fiercely protective warlord would do; he united the clans and promptly started raiding other planets and species for their prized psychic females.
When the Overlord realized Kaylee had unique psychic powers and her blood had the ability to heal cellular damage, he promptly seized control of Earth. He agreed to stop the Tai-Kok and Rodan from raiding our world, but there was a catch. Zarek demanded Central Command turn over all psychic females to him.
My family wasn’t part of the Jones clan, so once Central Command began “requiring” all psychic females to register and get tracking chips, we faded into the background. We thought we were safe, but the Overlord’s hunters were relentless, and we were forced to leave Sedona. We split up to make it more difficult for the hunters to find us. It worked, but not for long.
First, General Saul Jones tried to arrest Annie. She kicked his ass, and the chase was on. The sneaky bastard tracked her down and seduced her. After the way Annie’s first husband had treated her, I was a bit surprised she fell for his Casanova routine. I guess the rumors the General was quite talented in bed sport were true. Anyhoo, they’ve been mated for over a year now and he makes Annie happy. Go figure.
Then my sister Ella made the mistake of shooting down the Askole High Commander’s fighter and he quickly snatched her up. To my horror, the jerk got her pregnant. I’ll admit Sariel dotes on Ella and she claims he’s the other half of her soul. Sigh.
Me? My first error was accepting a job offer from Jagger Kendon. He needed a healer on Domagal, an asteroid on the far side of the galaxy. When something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. I’ve made some bad decisions but this one was a doozy. I chalked it up to sheer desperation. Ella and I had been hiding from the Coletti hunters for what seemed like an eternity. I wanted a sanctuary where Zarek’s warriors couldn’t touch us, and I believed Jagger’s assurances that Domagal was a Coletti free zone. I was soooo wrong.
The minute I stepped off the ship I knew I had made a huge mistake. Jagger Kendon was one big, scary dude with freakish, silver bionic eyes. With a menacing smile, he came right out and told me he was a Bjarke assassin. He even bragged he knew eight hundred and one ways to kill someone. Once Jagger thought I was properly intimidated, he continued his spiel. To keep his family safe, he had bought Domagal from a prospector who mysteriously died after signing the title over to him. Mysteriously, my ass. Jagger’s mental shields weren’t all that great, and I caught a fleeting image of him ejecting the screaming prospector out an airlock.
With a chilling smile, the assassin told me how he turned Domagal into a fortress called Pirates Keep. According to him, the mining tunnels now held a pleasure house, a casino, a thief’s marketplace and living quarters for his army. Most of his customers were outlaws, bounty hunters and miners from surrounding systems.
Pirates Keep wasn’t what I would call a “family friendly” business, but hey, I wasn’t an assassin. I was getting ready to zap him when he dropped another bombshell. “Three years ago, a Rodan invader ate my daughter.” Jagger handed me a piece of a bloody uniform. “This belonged to the Rodan who killed Aizza. You are going to use your magic to find him.”
Say what? I was a healer not a miracle worker, but one look at the fury burning on Jagger’s face, and I nodded reluctantly. I hated the Rodan as much as he did, and I had no desire to be kicked out of an airlock.
Using a locater spell, I soon discovered a Rodan scientist named Mallox was responsible for his daughter’s death. Tracking him down was another matter entirely. Mallox was a ghost, and I wasn’t the only one looking for him. It took me three months to track shipments of medical supplies to a trading post on Thedus. Jagger and his soldiers investigated and found a hidden laboratory, but no Mallox. In a fit of rage, he destroyed everything within a two-mile radius of the lab.
Eight months into my hunt, Jagger hired Badon, a Coletti mercenary, to be his second-in-command. Not only did my Coletti free zone go poof, but one look at Badon’s muddy aura, and I knew he was trouble. Would Jagger listen to my concerns? Hell no. The big, bad assassin thought he was invincible.
By sheer accident I located another base, but this one was full of monstrous clones Mallox had created. Jagger took great delight in destroying them. To celebrate, Jagger threw a huge party and, oh yay, I was the guest of honor. I was enjoying the shindig until out of the blue Badon just up and stabbed Jagger in the gut. “Mallox sends his regards.”
At the same time Rodan soldiers swarmed into the casino, and chaos erupted. I ported Jagger to a medical storage room in the third tunnel and stabilized him. His injury was too severe for me to heal. I needed to get him to a medic. The only way to do that was to stop the Rodan attack. I wrapped a cloaking spell around Jagger and teleported back to the casino.
I found the Rodan eating people alive! A cr
Badon suddenly appeared in front of me. Zap! A stun beam hit me in the chest. While I spasmed helplessly on the floor, Badon stared down at me. “Where is Jagger?”
With agony searing every nerve ending in my body, I gave him the one-finger salute. Not a smart move, but I wasn’t telling that bastard squat. Badon kept repeating his question and stunning me over and over and over again. The last thing I remembered was Ella’s screams.
I woke up shackled to the wall of a holding cell. A low moan brought my head around. A male with half his face missing was lying beside me. He took a shuddering breath and stopped moving. Fuck! Was that my future?
The door slid open and in stomped Badon. “Where is Jagger?”
“Don’t you know?”
He backhanded me. “I have decided to claim you. Not only will it anger the Overlord, but your powers will be useful. By the time I am done training you, you will eagerly obey me.” He hit the button on the belt of his battle suit, and it retracted until he was naked.
Oh, gross! He had puffy man-boobs! I thought his broom-like nose hairs were the most disgusting things I had ever seen, but nope, his boobies won hands down. “Am I supposed to be impressed? I eyed his badly scarred body. “Looks like you lost a lot of fights.”
His lecherous gaze slid over me. “I have never fucked a human female before.”
And he wasn’t starting now. I whispered my limp dick spell.
“Soon you will be screaming my name.” A slit opened in Badon’s abdomen and a dead snake with wilted worms around the head fell out and just hung there.
I bit back a grin. Dang. His man parts were kinda pitiful.
Badon stared down at his pride and joy for a long moment. “What did you do?”
“Me? Nothing, but you might want to get a medic to look at that.”
“You will fix me now.” He kicked me in the ribs.
I felt them break and fought back a scream.
He grabbed my right breast and twisted it viciously. “Undo your spell.”
“Can’t.”
“Then you die.” Badon struck me again and again and again. Pain hazed my mind, I could barely breathe, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t summon my powers.
A Rodan soldier rushed into the cell. “There is an Askole battle fleet approaching.” His gaze fixed on Badon’s flaccid dick, and a bark of laughter escaped from him.
Badon pulled his pistol and vaporized the soldier. “Did you summon the Askole?”
My answer was a moan.
“This is not finished.” Badon engaged his battle armor and stormed out.
Oh yay, I was beat half to death and stuck on an asteroid with a homicidal maniac who needed more than a little blue pill to fix his problems. Plus, there was an injured Bjarke assassin who would execute me if I didn’t find his daughter’s killer. To top it all off, my sister shows up with an Askole battle group. I bet the Coletti fleet had followed them here. I had a bad feeling there was no escaping my fate this time.
Ella appeared in my cell with an enormous Coletti warrior right behind her. Fuck a duck. Could my life get any worse?
Chapter One
Ella and I found ourselves back in Sedona courtesy of the Coletti Empire when we discovered Marion, an elderly witch, had gone over to the dark side. How she had teamed up with Mallox to create monstrous hybrids was a mystery to us. Not only did the bitch transform into a half-human Kotsor spider and try to kill us, but she also booby-trapped the area with magical bombs.
The minute we got rid of the traitorous witch; Ella went into labor. Which left me with the fun job of disarming the twenty-four booby traps I had located in and around Marion’s big red barn. The psychotic witch had locked two injured Coletti warriors inside and cleverly concealed her traps. I could almost hear her evil cackle in my head. “You cannot save them.”
“Wanna bet,” was my answer. The first four traps had been easy to disarm. The rest not so much. Sweat dripped into my eyes as I concentrated on neutralizing the twentieth exceptionally deadly spell. Marion’s magic had been warped by her transformation into a monster. Now it was like trying to work a Rubik’s Cube inside a Chinese puzzle box attached to a nuclear bomb. Scary, right? I mean, one wrong word and kaboom! Even with my spiffy armor, I’d be dead along with most of the folks in Sedona, Arizona. God, I hoped this was the right spell. I said a prayer, squeezed my eyes shut and chanted, “Viri nomen.”
“This is a battle zone. Why are you not wearing your helmet?” Vorian demanded.
I sighed. Ever since Ella rescued me from Domagal, my life had been in a freefall. Zarek had made it very clear I belonged to the Coletti Empire now and Vorian was my partner aka jailer. The first chance I got I was ditching the bossy War Commander. “Because I’m listening for the boom,” I snapped.
“What boom?”
My eyes popped opened when I realized nothing had exploded. “I’ll be damned! We’re alive!”
“Was there some doubt?” Vorian retracted his helmet.
A slightly hysterical laugh escaped me. “You could say that, but hey, my luck held.”
There was a short disbelieving silence, then Vorian drawled ominously, “You do know how to disarm magical bombs?”
“Sorta.” If I told him I was winging it, he’d probably freak.”
Vorian’s eyebrows shot up. “What kind of answer is sorta?”
“You can’t handle the truth.”
“Try me,” Vorian growled.
“Okay. I’ve never deactivated bombs before.”
The War Commander stared at me for a long moment. “I see. Has Ella ever defused a magical bomb?”
“Nope. We’ve never had a witch go rogue either.”
“How many booby traps are left?”
“Four.” I rolled my shoulders, trying to ease my tense muscles. “And to make things even more exciting, these suckers are tricky little devils to disarm.”
Alarm flashed across Vorian’s face. “Is there another witch who knows how to deactivate magical bombs?”
“Vivian, but the Tai-Kok ate her about four years ago.” I gave him a bright smile. “Relax, I haven’t blown us up. Yet.”
“Why did you not tell me this sooner?”
“You’re my enemy. I don’t trust you, and I’m the one disarming the bombs, not you, so back off,” I shot back.
Vorian took a step toward me, and I didn’t like the look in his eyes. “You will keep me informed about everything you do. Are we clear?”
“Stop!” I pointed at a huge spiderweb hugging the ground. “That’s a trip wire.”
A muscle twitched in Vorian’s jaw. “And if it goes off?”
“Everything within a five-mile radius will be vaporized and our fancy battle armor won’t save us.” I pointed at the horde of Askole and Coletti warriors waiting nearby. “Send them back to their ships. There’s nothing they can do to help, and you should go with them.”
“I do not run. Can you deactivate the other bombs?”
“I’ve gotta, or those warriors are going to die. Marion injected them with Kotsor poison. I’ve stabilized them for now, but their blood needs to be purified and that can only be done in a regen tube.”
Vorian raised his eyes heavenward.
“Are you praying?” Call me curious.
“I was informing the Overlord of the situation and I do not think prayers will help.”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
Vorian rubbed a hand over his face. “Try not to blow us up.”
“I can’t make any promises. You’re sure you want to stay?”
“We are partners.”
“I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.”
“I am not Badon. I will never strike you. Your welfare is important to me.”
I shot him a skeptical look. “Uh huh. You’re only saying that because witches are immune to your mind control shit.”
