Authors: April Zyon
Adira's Mate
Evernight
Publishing ®
Copyright©
2015 April
Zyon
ISBN: 978-1-77233-305-3
Cover Artist: Jay
Aheer
Editor: Jessica Ruth
ALL
RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or
distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.
No part of this book may be used or
reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters,
and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,
organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
To my editor, Jessica Ruth, thank you for all
that you have taught me during this editing process. You are truly a gem.
To my readers, this one's for you.
ADIRA’S
MATE
Space Wars, 1
April
Zyon
Copyright
© 2015
Chapter One
The voices were getting closer.
“
…
can
see
with
this one here.
Designated C-12, this prisoner is a
Craegin
female.
We’re unsure of her age, but guess it to be around twenty or so years upon
capture.”
“
How long have you had her here?”
“
She was our first successful
capture. She’s been here for six years now. Our research involving her was
highly instrumental in ensuring an easier capture of our other subjects.
Keeping her alive was a struggle, though. Our world’s atmosphere affects the
Craegins
oddly. We’ve been able to get close to a
reasonable facsimile of their world’s atmosphere, though. It’s not precise, so
it keeps them weak, not all bad in our opinion.”
“
Not
at all, Doctor.
This is very impressive, as have been all your reports over the last few years.
We’ve learned more through your experimentation on these vile creatures than in
any conflict. Do you think we could use our atmosphere as a weapon?”
“
Perhaps
one day, Vice-Admiral, but at this time we’re still unclear as to what on our
world causes the reaction.
We know their world is darker than ours, of course. They circle a red dwarf
while we are circling a white. Their eyes don’t like the additional light our
world has, so that’s always something to consider. They are used to a much
darker climate. In the light of our world they are practically blinded.”
“
I had read that in one of your
reports.
Unfortunately
we’ve yet to come up with a way of using it
effectively
. They are technologically more
advanced than we are, so we need something of a long-range weapon to regain the
balance.”
“
Perfectly
understandable, Vice-Admiral.
If you’ll come this
way
I’ll show you some of the things we’ve been testing on our prisoners. I think
you’ll particularly like the…”
The voices faded off down a
corridor. Now that the
Craegin
being held captive
against
the laws
of
the
Imarian
people had been shown off, the zoo tour
would go on to other fun parts.
Rubbing at his eyes,
Fintan
Daykin let out a breath. He’d lost track of the days
he’d
been
on the
Imarian
home world. He knew for a fact they
were on an island off one of their main continents. The only way on or off the
island was either by one of their watercraft or in one of their crawlers. If he
could get to one of the little shuttle crafts, he might have a prayer of
getting off the island and even off the planet.
Not that they were going to let
him just walk out of there. No, he knew they had another round of torture
disguised as testing for the afternoon. The guards had been all too happy to
share that news with him. According to the one, Fin was in for a world of pain.
A fact that didn’t surprise him in the least.
Since his arrival he’d been
poked, prodded, electrocuted, had items shoved places no item should ever go,
and of course had hands of all sorts touching his entire body. If not for the
fact that they drugged him to move him between his cell and the room for the
testing, he’d have found a way to kill them all. On the plus side he was
building up a pretty good resistance to their vile concoctions. He didn’t know
what that would mean to him in the long run, but right then it gave him hope
that he might be able to break free one day soon.
He’d prefer immediately, but
wasn’t about to hold his breath on that hope. Not when he was already having
trouble breathing on the hellish
Imarian
world. The
air grated into his lungs, making them hurt with every breath. They were
pumping something into his cell, though, something that eased that pain, but it
wasn’t nearly enough.
How a
Craegin
female had endured six years of such hell, he’d never know. But she was
undoubtedly the stronger of the two of them. Then again he also knew if you
were to endure something long enough you could grow accustomed to it. Fin could
only hope he didn’t stick around long enough to become accustomed to the thin,
brackish
Imarian
air. Oh what he wouldn’t give to
take in a deep lungful of
Craegin
air.
Thick, humid, and so very fragrant.
The sound of the lock on his cell
door turning yanked him from his musings. Bracing himself, he flinched at the
dart that hit him. He yanked it from his leg, but the drug was already speeding
through his system.
“
Time
for the doctors to play with you again,
Craegin
freak.”
Fin may have made a slightly
impossible physical suggestion, but he truly couldn’t be sure. Not with how the
world was fading out around the edges, turning black. Then the floor rushed up
to meet his face.
****
He woke up naked and strapped
down to one of the examination tables. Easing his lids up,
Fintan
took stock of where he was. Not one of the observation rooms, thankfully. Only
those in the room with him would be witness to his humiliation.
Fin could see, and feel, a number
of leads attached to him. Including on places nothing of the sort should ever
be placed. It took every ounce of his training not to flinch at the feeling of
a sticky pad on his ball sack, and whatever the fuck was wrapped around his
cock. He knew now he really wasn’t going to have all that great of a day.
“
All right, we’re set here. Give
him the serum, and let’s wake him up. We have a long afternoon of testing to
get done so we can include these latest findings in the packet for the
vice-admiral before he leaves today.”
A sharp stick
in his arm.
He counted in his head for a time before giving a low, sluggish-sounding groan.
“
Get on the monitoring equipment.
We need to see how much juice he can take before we start on the pain testing.”
Letting out another groan, he
rolled his head slightly. He’d been right. This was not going to be a good day.
****
When he woke next, he was being
dragged through a hallway back to his cell. His entire muscular structure was
still twitching from the massive amounts of electricity they’d pumped through
his body. Fin had to hide a flinch at the memory of when they’d focused all
that through only one part, one very sensitive part, of his anatomy. He hadn’t
been able to hold in the scream of pain then, but he seriously doubted if his
superiors would ever fault him for that.
Slowly he licked his lips as he
tried to gain his bearings. The lights were dimmed, which meant it was after
sunset on the planet. The night shift of guards would be on, good. That meant
fewer of them to have to get through in his present weakened condition. He just
needed the right moment, and a burst of energy, to take these two
Imarians
down.
One man stumbled with a curse.
“Hold up. He’s bloody heavy,” the guy muttered. “Let’s put him down for a
second. I think I wrenched my shoulder.”
They dropped him to the floor
without any warning. Biting his tongue, he held the grunt of pain in. Holy hell
did his body hurt. Flashes were coming to him of what had happened after the
electrical treatments had ended. Blades, shallow cuts, burning, ice, so much
pain wracking through his body.
“
You okay?” the other guard asked.
“
Yeah, I think so. I may need to
get that cute little intern to give me a massage, though,” the first guy said.
“
Still seeing her?”
“
Hell yeah, did you see the tits
on her? They’re much better without that nasty smock covering them up.”
“
How is she in bed?”
“
A
wild woman.
And the way she can suck a cock, damn, it’s unreal.”
All right
then,
that
was more information than he had needed to know. Taking a few deep
breaths, he let his anger build. When they reached for him again he let them
haul him back up, using that momentum to regain his feet, and punched the first
guy in the nose. As he howled, holding on to his face, Fin went after the
second guy fast.
He wasn’t going to play by any
rules either. He fought dirty, especially when he could already feel his
strength beginning to wane once more. Knee to the balls, fist the throat.
Whipping around to guard number one, he threw a fist into the guy’s throat to
silence his high-pitched whining.
With a hand to the wall, he took
a moment to regain his breath. He was in much worse condition than he’d
thought. But he couldn’t stop now, not when freedom was only feet away. Quickly
he grabbed up the guards one at a time and hid them in a supply closet. He
collected their weapons and got changed into a pair of the medical scrubs kept
in the storage closet. Pulling on one of the lab coats, he stuffed the weapons
into the pockets. Fin froze for a moment; he thought that he heard a sound. His
hand moved to the weapon once more, his ears listening to every single sound in
the area surrounding him. The dim lighting in the area was working against him.
While he might see better than most, the abuse that his body had suffered was
enough that it was creating issues for him to focus in the dangerous halls of
his enemies.
Map, he needed one of the maps. Finally
Fin spotted a map hanging on one of the walls, his stupid enemies having to
have maps to get around their own facilities. He made his way to it quickly,
keeping an eye out for any of the cameras. Thankfully there weren’t any down in
the areas surrounding the cells. In the cells there were four each, and in the
areas around the exam and surgical bays. But from what he could tell, there
weren’t any in the halls leading to and from, which was odd, considering the
size and scope of the facility. Soon he had his path mapped out in his head. He
only hoped he wasn’t mistaken, that there weren’t any cameras in the halls. It
was the only unknown he had to deal with since the only time he’d ever traveled
these halls was when he’d been under the influence of heavy sedatives.
Better dead while trying to
escape than cut into little bits on a sterile table, to his way of thinking.
Either way he’d be free and no longer under their control. Maybe he’d get lucky
and he could kill a few of them on the way out.