Marauder Cygnus: A Scifi Alien Shifter Romance (Mating Wars Book 1) (12 page)

J
in meets back with us
. “I got the mom and kid into a building that seems safe. No pirates there, only some of our people. If we find more civilians out and about, we can bring them back there.”

“Good,” Aura says. “Now follow me.”

I lead us to Old Shuang’s. It’s a shop that gives me fair prices for scrap, and Old Shuang is the Rust Bucket civilian I trust most. The pirates have pulled back and holed up in the tallest buildings near the center of the city. They’ve taken a lot of hostages with them, and the tunnel was blown out before all of our people and raiders got through.

It’s a deadlock now, and we worry that trying to force our way into the buildings would mean more dead hostages — not to mention how many people we’d lose attacking an entrenched position.

Cygnus has taken a regular rifle, and he tells me his bio-suit is all but done. It will take a lot more sticks of jerky and servings of bacon and eggs to power it back up again.

We make slow progress, and Cygnus is hyper-protective of me. We can’t move away from one piece of cover until he’s 100% sure it’s clear, and then he shields me with his big, teal-armored body while we run from cover point to cover point.

When we finally reach Old Shuang’s, the door is locked. Cygnus kicks the door in, and he and Jin secure the first few rooms while I wait.

“Old Shuang!” I shout out. “Are you here?”

“Aura!” he shouts, “Get out of here, it’s—”

HIs voice cuts out.

Cygnus and Jin move toward the location of his voice. We’re surrounded by shelves of equipment, though judging by the appearance of the room, a lot of it has been looted.

Old Shuang had called out from the back room, so the three of us head in that direction.

“Wait here,” Cygnus says. “Something is wrong. I can feel it.”

Jin nods, and the two of them disappear into the storeroom.

I wait nervously outside. I comb the room for useful weapons or equipment, but it’s mostly just junk. Anything useful has been looted.

A quick burst of gunfire erupts from the back room, and I start to run toward it. I worry Cygnus has been ambushed.

Something hard grabs my waist, and I’m lifted off the floor in mid-stride.

“I knew setting up in a shithole like this would get the scrap queen to come to me.”

It’s Scorpio’s voice.

I squirm in his arms, and I try to hit him in the balls with my foot, but I have no leverage. He drags me toward the door.

Cygnus roars out from the backroom, and he raises the gun toward us.

Scorpio pulls me up in front of him and crouches low behind me.

“You really wanna’ risk that, Ziggy?” Scorpio says, laughing.

Jin points his gun as well, but he’s shaking and covered in blood.

Scorpio used Old Shuang as a decoy, and I was dumb enough to fall for it. It’s bad enough I got myself captured, but I got a good man killed as well. Maybe Cygnus really would have been better off without me?

“So you want to turn into a bear?” Cygnus asks. “And then you’ll let her go?”

Four more pirates flood inside the room. They raise their guns, and now Cygnus and Jin are completely outgunned.

“I wanted to turn into a bear, yeah,” Scorpio says. “But that was before I saw you shoot that purple shite out of your hands. Now I want that suit.”

I
call the suit away
. It fades to black and shimmers, and it quickly peels itself off my body. It tries to roll into a sphere, but the suit clings to my bullet wound. It’s dug itself deep into me to disinfect the wound and pull out the bullet, and since it’s in the middle of its work, it refuses to finish pulling away completely.

“Come on!” Scorpio yells, pressing his gun up against Aura’s chin.

I will kill this man. Not only does my shame debt require it, but justice demands it.

I grab the suit with both hands, just centimeters from the wound. I tear at it, and it rips out. The bullet pops out of the wound. Covered in teal blood, it drops to the floor and trails drops of blood behind it as it rolls. More blood begins to ooze out of the gaping wound. I cover it with my hand to stem the bleeding.

The suit rolls up into a tight sphere, and I throw it underhand across the floor.

It rolls toward Scorpio, and the moment I see his eyes glance down at it, I shift to bear form and lunge at him.

The suit swarms around Scorpio as I’m mid-lunge, and it hardens itself against my claws.

I feel my claws break as I hit the suit with full force, and then gunfire breaks out.

Aura is down on the ground, crawling toward the open door. The shooters are unloading onto the counter, and Jin has dived behind it.

Scorpio was shielded from my swipe, but the force of impact sends him rolling back into the wall.

While the shooters unload on Jin, I raise both claws and swipe, killing two of them instantly.

With their blood still hot and wet under my broken claws, the other two drop their guns and try to escape.

I jump on top of one of the pirates and maul him. Jin pops up and shoots the other one between the eyes, killing him instantly.

Scorpio—still fully bio-suited—is crawling away from me, toward Jin.

Jin unloads his gun into Scorpio, but the suit absorbs the few remaining bullets in his magazine.

Aura comes back inside and throws a gun down beside me.

I shift back to Marauder form and grab the weapon.

Scorpio fires a plasma beam into the counter, and Jin rolls away as the counter melts apart.

I begin to empty the gun into Scorpio’s back, and the bullets knock him flat on his face. I know that each bullet the suit absorbs will use up some of Scorpio’s energy, and the suit will grow hungrier.

Scorpio cackles wildly, then throws a hot beam right at me.

The gun melts in my hands, and I barely have time to dodge it and grab Aura.

Scorpio moves toward me with both hands raised, and Jin charges him with the butt of his rifle.

He slams the back of the gun into Scorpio’s head, but the suit hardens. The attack does nothing.

Scorpio grabs Jin and flings him into the air. The suit gives Scorpio enough strength that Jin flies into the wall so hard that it cracks and crumbles. He hits the ground, but doesn’t get back up.

Scorpio turns back toward me and laughs. “Just you and me now. I reckon we have a fair fight now that I’ve got this—”

I jump into him, shifting back into bear form in mid-air.

The mass of my bear form is enough to throw Scorpio to the ground, but when I see his open palm point at me, I shift back to Marauder form to turn myself a smaller target. When I dodge, I see Aura fall to the ground.

“Get out!” I shout to her. “Please!”

“I’m not gonna’ hurt her,” Scorpio says. He smiles a wicked grin. “I’m just gonna’ kill her.”

He points his hand at her, and I dive in front.

The plasma burns as it hits me. I feel my skin melt away, but just before it obliterates my inner organs, Scorpio’s eyes bulge, and he falls backward.

The beam cuts up my shoulder, and it hits the roof, tearing through it. The beam cuts off, and Scorpio falls flat on his back.

“Fuck,” Scorpio says. “I’m fucking starving!”

My chest and shoulder are both a burned and bloody mess, but the beam shot at least cauterized the bullet wound. I can barely move through the pain, but I see Aura safe behind me. Scorpio is flailing on the ground grunting and wailing.

He points his hand at me as I approach, but nothing happens.

Aura comes up behind me and clutches my arm. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He wanted the bio-suit,” I say. “And he got it. But human metabolism isn’t efficient enough, so it’s eating him alive.”

Scorpio clutches at his stomach, and he looks up at me with his one bloodshot eye. Tears are streaming down his face, and snot is filling his beard. “You fucking…b….”

His voice falls to a moan, and he writhes on the ground for a few more moments before falling still.

Aura runs behind the counter to check on Jin. “He’s alive.”

I nod. Jin is strong, and so is Aura. My human female. The mother of my future child. I see her. And now I will win this battle, and every battle to come.

C
ygnus
and I watch our daughter Sara play on the farm. She’s only two years old, but being half-Marauder and half-human—Seraph—means she can clear a whole stock of corn in Martian gravity.

Our farms are domed and outside now rather than underground. The orbitals have not accepted us yet, but they are not openly hostile.

Sara laughs and giggles, her voice unobstructed by a facemask. Another gift from her father’s genes.

Her ears are more elf-like than bear-like—a mix between human and Marauder.

Her skin is more a pale violet than purple, and in the pale Martian sunlight, her skin sometimes looks almost human.

“Sara,” I shout, “Come back, you’re getting too far away.”

She giggles louder, and jumps further away.

“She’s as stubborn as her father,” Cygnus says.

Great Brother Cygnus. Much to my dismay, the name has stuck.

But I’m Aura, the Great Mother. That name has stuck as well, and together Cygnus and I rule most of the cities along the south pole. Hundreds join our cause every day, but the equator and everything North of it is hostile to our cause.

“Have you heard from Aegus?” I ask. “Seriously, Sara, get back here!”

“No,” Cygnus says. “We have to trust he’s made it. I’ll go get her.”

Trust. I’d received one short message from my sister. At least I know she’s still alive, but I have to trust her to take care of herself.

Cygnus leaps off the hill and rushes down toward the rows of corn. He’s much faster than his daughter, and after a minute or so he’s snatched her out of the air. He slings her over his shoulder, and she pounds on his broad shoulders as he carries her back toward me.

Just as he begins to climb the hill again, he stops suddenly. He hushes Sara and looks off in the distance. My eyesight isn’t as good as Cygnus’s, but I think I see a figure disappear behind a far-off hill.

“Was that Uncle Aegus?” Sara asks as Cygnus climbs the hill.

“It might have been,” Cygnus says. “But let’s get you both inside now.”

Cygnus nods to me and smiles. He puts his hand on the small of my back, and we climb the hill back toward our home.

“I see you, Cygnus,” I whisper.

Sara pouts at me and clicks her ears.

“And you too, sweetie.”

J
oin
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A
n arrogant ex-SEAL
, and the prince charming I deserve...

Greybear Bjornberg
is an ex-SEAL turned bodyguard. He’s tall and chiseled as a mountain, unstoppably powerful, and fiercely protective. Guarding people for cold hard cash is growing old, and he’s longing for the warm embrace of his mate—if he can ever find her. When his boss ships him off to Ireland to track down a killer, he figures it’s just another job. He loads his gun and hops on a plane, but when he runs across Nessa Cliffmoor and her luscious curves, he knows he won’t be firing blanks.

Nessa Cliffmoor
is the heir to her clan’s throne. She’s an Irish dragon shifter with fiery red hair and a temper to match. When a traitor poisons her father, her clan wants to marry her off to an outsider and steal the crown. Just when she thinks she’s all alone, Greybear Bjornberg swears to protect her. He’s cocky and a total brute, but with those bulging muscles and that chiseled jaw, how can she refuse?

They join forces to fight for Nessa’s legacy, and their romance erupts and heats up hotter than dragon’s fire. Soon, Graybear will have much more to fight for, as the fate of the Cliffmoor clan rests on the shoulders of his unborn child.

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