Apparition

Prologue

The massive horse was flying across the terrain in the
brilliant light of the planet’s two suns. A female rider clung tightly to the
neck of the stunning beast. There was no saddle or bridle. Doss had almost
missed her. Long pale legs clung tightly to the horse’s glistening sleek fur.
Only a glimpse of her small calves and light white ass showed as she bobbed up
and down with the rhythm of the horse. Even from a distance, Doss knew the
horse was a stallion. Black as night from the top of his nose to the tip of his
tail, the horse’s long mane flowed with the woman’s dark riot of waist-long
curls. She was almost totally hidden from view.

Doss watched with a grimace. The sour taste of disgust
flooded his mouth, causing him to spit through his two-inch long white fangs. A
male
Tonan
warrior was in hot pursuit of the human
female. Doss could hear her expelled gasps of air. The little female was
terrified. Even from this distance, Doss could smell it on her. The horse was
determined. Pounding
hoofbeats
rent the air. The
horse snorted in defiance. Long legs ate up the ground as though he was
actually flying. He was fast, powerful and in his prime. He looked pissed.

The gray
Tonan
, encased in
body armor that molded to his muscular physique was racing from tree to ground
to tree, eating up the distance between them. His long-fingered talons gripped
the trees when he leaped. The tan-colored bark yielded as the talons sank with
their grip then released; the springy tree bark bounced back into place. His
thick-footed claws also sank deeply into the yielding sponge-like bark and
terrain. The long gray tail snapped and cracked like a whip with each flying
leap to harry the beast. The beast wouldn’t be harried. Doss smelled the
Tonan’s
determination. He was angry, volatile. The woman
and stallion were in grave danger.

The sure-footed horse was quick; the
Tonan
was quicker. When the
Tonan
jumped, he landed in front of the stallion. Without missing a beat, the
stallion wrapped his massive body around the
Tonan
,
sinking low in his spinning turn. The girl’s knee scraped the soft earth, but
she clung tight. Her face was obscured by the mane, but Doss heard her sharp
intake of breath. A lesser rider would have fallen off. It was obvious the
female and the stallion were known to one another. They moved well together.

Doss was already in motion. He had been when he first
spotted the woman and the horse being chased. Doss hated filthy
Tonans
and he admired horses. They were a welcome addition
to the planet and something he had never seen before. They were one of the
nicer things the humans had brought to his home planet. Doss was far too heavy
to ride the animals—even the powerhouse stallion before him. Whether or not
encased in his body armor, he weighed hundreds of pounds. The armor absorbed
into his skin when not in use. It had been a part of him ever since he could
remember.
A ‘gift’ from his
Castian
warrior father.
A worthless male who had abandoned his
Tonan
mother, who had never offered the gift of
immortality.
A male too cowardly to fight for his
female.
No one, not even his father, wanted to lay claim to a bastard
Tonian
hybrid.

A full-blooded
Tonan
female
was a rarity on its own even before the females were killed.
Tonan
males didn’t like the idea of giving a piece of their
armor to a babe. They were too selfish and cruel. They wouldn’t mate and risk
dying if their females did. Because of their idiocy, most of their women aged
and died off hundreds of years earlier. Doss’ mother was one of the last.
Castian
females had wanted nothing to do with
Tonan
males. It enraged the
Tonans
who also come into must every four hundred years; their hate compounded with no
release. They had wanted revenge. But
Castian
women
were far too well-protected by their mates. At least they had been. A
Tonan
spy had poisoned all the water on the
Castians
’ neighboring planet
Bagron
and on Doss’ home planet, killing the females and their male spouses who mated
for life. Any visiting female was doomed.

Since then the water had been purged for the human
females to be used as bait for the
Tonans
’ captive
prisoners, the hated
Castian
warriors. Doss wasn’t
certain of the entire circumstance but when human males first landed there were
many until the ratio of male to female was small. The
Tonans
soon realized the value and the uses they could garner from human females.
Human males were approached with offerings of power and were promised positions
in the
Tonan
ranks if they gathered their females and
brought them to the planet. The
Tonans
had agreed to
share their immortality and armor with these stupid males. The foolish greedy
human males had agreed and found out soon enough why
Tonan
tails grew so long with their lies.

The human shuttles were small and didn’t garner
Castian
interest, especially since the
Castians
had been fighting amongst themselves when the humans first appeared. The
Castian
leader, Cobra, had lost power on his planet for a
short time and had been exiled. The foolish younger
Castians
had been imprisoned by the
Tonans
with the help of
human females. None of the warriors had seen a female; they went into must and
their own lust was the warriors’ downfall. Cobra had since regained power and
now all focus was on defeating the
Tonans
and
capturing the human females.

Doss was alone—he had been for almost seven hundred
years. It was hard for him to fit in anywhere. He wasn’t cruel like the
Tonans
; he had no tail as he told no lies. That made him
suspicious. The
Castians
seldom came to his
planet—except to launch an occasional attack. Since being abandoned by a father
he never met, Doss had no illusion as to how cruel his father’s kind must be as
well.

His dearest mother lived to be one hundred and
twenty-two. In the end, she had been so old and frail. Doss couldn’t save her.
The healing waters and their newly discovered abilities had yet to be invented
at the time.
Castians
had come upon the chemical by
accident to rid themselves of
slocks
—frog-like red
creatures with fangs that invaded the water and forced their armor up.
Castians
had no need to be healed because of their
protective armor; the discovery the water healed came after the first human
female had been cured of her hurts. The information had come from a
Tonan
spy.

Doss thought it wouldn’t have mattered regardless. The
healing waters couldn’t stop the aging process. His armor wouldn’t protect his
mother and only companion. She had died in his arms in the secluded cave they
called home since cast out after his birth, sentencing him to a life of
immortal aloneness. As much as he had loved her, Doss hated her for that. But
because his love overshadowed the hate, he let the
Tonans
and
Castians
bear the brunt of his anguish. His
mother hadn’t abandoned him, ridiculed him—they had. She had taught him what
love was…and sacrifice.

The scene before him once again caught Doss’ attention.
The
Tonan
bellowed in rage as the stallion made a
successful turn around him. The horse was almost free of the
Tonan’s
reach—almost. The talons of the
Tonan
came down in a fast arc trying to slit the stallion’s belly open. Doss was
there. The almost white-gray of his armor was a blur, an apparition to most
when he was moving.

Gray armor clashed with pale, sleek gray-white armor.
The sound was explosive. The
Tonan
was flipped back
off his feet into an airborne summersault. Doss scented the warrior’s stunned
surprise and rage. The stallion winged Doss’ shoulder. Since Doss was fully
armored and had sunk his claws into the sponge-like ground, he was unshakable.
The stallion went down. Doss couldn’t stop what was happening. The
Tonan
had regained his footing already and would have
attacked Doss if he hadn’t keep watch.

The female human flew off to the side, rolling and hit
a tree. She screamed as she bounced then fell forward, the breath knocked out
of her. She was lucky the planet sported a sponge-like terrain. Doss had
learned of something called a ‘concrete jungle’ on Earth.
A
substance similar to metal, hard and unyielding.
If the ground were any
harder, she would have been killed. The stallion was up in a heartbeat,
unharmed and looking furious. He reared while standing over the prone girl. His
eyes were wild. The beast meant business. He was ready to kill for the female.

“Filthy hybrid,” the
Tonan
snapped.

“Filthy
Tonan
,” Doss snapped
back.

“The female is mine.” The
Tonan’s
long tail cracked like a whip and the stallion screamed in rage when the female
cried out in terror. She lifted her arms to wrap around her head protectively.
Doss could see red welts on her back. The sight angered him; no doubt she had
been beaten by that filthy whip.

“It would appear she belongs to the stallion,” Doss
replied.

The stallion was tossing his head while standing guard
over the female. His flanks were covered in a frothy sweat. It was apparent he
had been running a long time. His neck was arched and he stomped his hooves
down in a crushing angry gesture. He was careful of his charge beneath him. The
female was curled into a small ball. The stallion screamed again. He bucked and
a sharp back hoof shot out for emphasis. He was an impressive sight, but Doss
knew ultimately the stallion would die if he were to fight a
Tonan
warrior.

The
Tonan
would rip his fine
black flesh to pieces. Doss couldn’t let that happen. Animals, real animals,
were few and far between on his exiled planet the humans had named
Ulsy
. The planet had never been named before, no one had
cared either way, and so it stuck. It seemed fitting as the humans had said it
was the shortened version of ‘you’ll see.’ Years ago the poisoned water had
been a death sentence to all females, animals and bugs included.

“Are you not tired of holograms?” Doss demanded. “The
animal is real live flesh. Are you so sick and twisted you would wage war on a
horse, a simple animal?”

“Keep the stallion, but I want the female,” the
Tonan
said.

“The stallion is mine,” a small desperate voice cried.

The female was now up on her elbows and knees. She
faltered then tried to stand. She appeared weak; her shapely legs were long and
wobbly like a young foal’s. Her hair was a wild riot of ringlets and curls. She
was completely disheveled, filthy. The one side of her face sported an odd
color of bluish black and yellow on an area of her cheek and temple. A memory
flickered, she was bruised, hurt, something had struck her…or someone. It had
been over seven hundred years since Doss had seen a bruise on a female, he
himself had never bruised.

Doss had an odd thought—she looked healthy but pale.
The planet sported two
suns
and he knew humans
tanned. He doubted she had been a captive for long but perhaps had kept herself
hidden from view. Shuttles to the planet had stopped ages ago and she couldn’t
have been recently captured from dying Earth—she was too healthy. Near the end
of the shuttles the women were thin and sickly looking. Any captives brought
from Earth were also malnourished, tired and seemed defeated. This female was
far from defeated. Doss scented spirit.

The
Tonan
pointed a long
sharp talon toward her. “I own you.”

“I’m not an object. No one owns me,” she said through
clenched teeth. “I won’t be used by those filthy
Castian
bastards as a sex toy. And I sure as hell don’t want your filthy kind touching
me either. I hate all of you; you’ve taken everything from me. Well you can’t
have Caveat. He’s all I have left.”

She crawled out from under the stallion while she spat
her words at the
Tonan
, almost writhing in her anger.

Caveat
.
Latin, a fine name and indeed a horse to beware of
.
Doss
regarded the female. She stood proudly and didn’t bother to attempt to cover
her nudity. Her fists were clenched. She had slender arms. Her long black hair
did flow to her waist. She was slim, but not painfully so; she was big breasted
with rounded hips. Her dark as night eyes flashed with fury and fear as she
looked from the
Tonan
to Doss and back again.

The female had been in their healing waters at some
point in time; she was devoid of body hair. The
Tonan
traitor, who had since been caught by
Castians
and
killed, had given
Tonans
a great deal of information
about human females. Doss had been privy to some. Because he could control and
mask his emotions, he was hard to spot or sense when suspended from trees. The
things he had learned were fascinating.