Shadowed (Valos of Sonhadra Book 6) Read online

  Shadowed

  Valos of Sonhadra

  Book 6

  Isabel Wroth

  Copyright © 2018 By Isabel Wroth

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real events, people, or places are entirely coincidental. All rights reserved.

  This book may not be reproduced or distributed in any format without the permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations used for review.

  All quotations used in this book are part of public domain works and/or translated copies existing in public domain. The author acknowledges the trademarked status of products referred to in this book. Trademarks have been used without permission.

  This book contains mature content, including graphic sex, language, and violence. Please do not continue reading if you are under the age of 18 or if this type of content is disturbing to you.

  ONE

  DEJA MARTELL HADN’T ever picked up the habit, but if she’d had a cigarette right now, she would have been smoking it with vengeful glee.

  She stood on an alien planet, dispassionately watching the two women who had spent the last six years torturing her, being ripped to shreds by the very first alien lifeforms humanity had come in contact with.

  It was momentarily satisfying to know those lifeforms were hostile.

  Make that extremely hostile.

  As karmic as it felt to watch the six legged beasts devouring Dr. Travis and Kiona, the ultraviolet lenses of her goggles providing stunning clarity to witness the scene, Deja needed to find something to climb up that would offer her enough height to get the lay of the land.

  She had very little protection from the sun in the way of clothing, and no knowledge to say how much time remained until sunrise. Injured, with no supplies, and zero interest in taking a stroll back to the crash site, her only hope of survival was finding another escape pod.

  Assuming any others had landed safely.

  Turning in a quick circle, Deja could just make out what looked to be some kind of structure, and it was definitely high enough for her to climb. The question was, did she have time to make it before the shrieking beasts decided to hunt down dessert?

  Deja glanced over her shoulder one last time, her heart pounding and her breath sawing in and out of her lungs so loudly she expected to see one of the six legged monsters come up over the rise at any moment.

  She had to move. Now. But where? To her left was a flat, wide open plateau that stretched for miles. To her right was a grassy field, dense and thick with vegetation.

  If she ran across the plain, she would be able to avoid pitfalls or dangers, but the predators would also have no trouble running her to ground.

  The grass at least would provide her with some cover, she hoped.

  She ran, every jarring step and shift of her blood soaked pant leg against her calf excruciating. Pain sliced over her face, the stalks of tall grass slashing at her unprotected skin and Deja brought her arm up to shield against the knife like blades.

  She stopped, shoulders sagging as she gazed at the structure before her. Not ruins. Statues. Three enormous stone warriors that might be tall enough to get a good view of her surroundings, but they certainly wouldn't prevent the beasts from climbing up after her.

  She was weakening, her body processing the adrenaline too quickly as the pain became her everything. Every breath, every heartbeat, every thought.

  With tears in her eyes, she reached up and found handholds in the statue to pull herself up. Again, and again, another toe hold, another ledge to curl her fingers in, until she was clinging to the statue with her shoes curled into the ledge of its belt and her face resting against the chest plate.

  The cut on her cheek oozed fresh blood, the hot slide of it down her face such a contrast to where it lay against the cool stone.

  A flash of bright light made her jerk her head back, gasping to see the rock directly in front of her turning a vibrant glowing white. The smear of blood disappeared into the rock face, spreading out like it was filling an intricate web of previously empty veins and capillaries. It expanded across the chest for at least two of her own hand spans.

  The statue moved.

  The stone armor grated together as it came to life, an enormous hand catching her as she flung herself back with a scream. The statue raised its other arm in a huge arch, and Deja cringed, certain she would be crushed to a pulp. But the sound of bone crunching followed by a squeal of pain made her crack an eye open in time to see one of the aliens go sailing back into the darkness.

  The alien predators suddenly leapt out of the grass all at once, shrieking with rage. The statue curled its hand around her, pressing Deja to its chest protectively while it stomped and crushed the monsters until they were no more than smears on the grass.

  When the statue appeared satisfied that there weren’t any more predators lying in wait, it wiped the blood and gore from its hand and lifted her up to eye level.

  On the verge of becoming delirious with pain, Deja stared, terrified to realize someone, or something, was at home inside the enormous sculpture.

  Through the carved slits of its helmet, Deja saw two swirling purple nebulas where eyes should be. The statue spoke to her then, it’s voice deep and multi-layered, hypnotic, beautiful. Deja couldn’t understand its words but its voice was soothing, rumbling like a thunderstorm over her abused body.

  The stone giant gently lifted her bleeding arm, turning with her so it could smear more of her blood on the other two statues. Her muscles relaxed as everything started spinning, from pain, blood loss, disbelief, and who knew what else she might have been exposed to on this alien world. As soon as her blood touched the stone of the other two, the same web of light spread across their armored chests. They shifted and came to life too, sighing as though they had been holding their breaths for decades.

  The three of them circled around and stared at her. Words were exchanged between them, and then the one carrying her took off walking, cradling her in both hands like it was afraid of breaking her. A fifteen foot tall statue treating her with care was good.

  Wasn't it?

  The temperature dropped to near freezing, and just when Deja thought she had passed out, she saw swirling motes of light. Wavering in and out of consciousness, she noticed how every step the statue took created more ripples, some of that light even moved across her cheek.

  It didn't burn or hurt, so Deja risked it and clumsily took her protective goggles off, her eyes adjusting to the soothing darkness almost immediately.

  The light beneath their feet had been sparkles of violet and white through the UV lenses, but without them it was like they were walking on a rainbow. The ripples were less liquid and more like dust being kicked up, so that the vibrant sparkles floated through the air like smoke, the shadows and darkness making the colors seem that much brighter.

  "Pretty." She whispered in awe, the colors blurring together as unconsciousness swallowed her whole.

  DEJA'S EYES SNAPPED open, gasping for air as panic clawed at her throat. Kiona had turned the lights on in her cell! It was flooded with light, and any second her skin would begin to sizzle and...

  No. Wait. That wasn't right.

  The events of the last day or so began to speed through her mind. Her blood pressure spiked up as memories assailed her.

  The Concord-

  Deja's ears rang from the prolonged zap Kiona had given her with the stun baton. She had thought the shuddering and wobbling had been her body convulsing from the baton's harsh energy.

  Except the shudders turned to violent thrashing, alarms had painted the room red, and panicked commands to get to the life pods had come over the PA system. Something had gone
wrong on the Interplanetary Prison Station Concord. Dr. Travis was screaming as she yanked Deja off the table, commanding Officer Kiona Walker to help her.

  The radiation lab was its own independent chamber that could be detached in case a door seal or something broke and threatened to flood the entire station with cosmic radiation. It had four secure life support tubes, one that Kiona shoved Deja into before running to detach the lab from the main hull of the station.

  The crash-

  The pressure and speed of the radiation lab being flung into open space made Deja feel as though the entire weight of the station was pressing her back into the tube blasting the lab-turned-lifeboat farther and faster into space, spitting them out with enough force to send them into the gravity well of a planet, and straight down to the surface.

  She remembered seeing the flames licking at the small porthole window, then a dizzying view of clouds and vegetation.

  She must have blacked out at that point, because the next thing she remembered was waking up screaming as unfiltered rays of light began to burn through the exposed skin of her calf where her jumpsuit had ridden up.

  The pod had been damaged, the life support tube shattered all around her, and the door gaped open letting in cool air along with a bright beam of sunlight. Her screaming had woken Dr. Travis first, then Kiona, and not wanting her precious experiment to go to waste, Dr. Travis had thrown an emergency blanket over Deja.

  "Walker! Get up! Get on the com. Find out if anyone else is alive."

  Kiona hissed and groaned, the sound of safety glass tinkling as she hauled herself out of her tube. "Where are we?"

  "How the hell should I know! Get up!" Dr. Travis snarled, her steps taking her somewhere else, and while Kiona tried to raise anyone on the emergency coms. Beneath her metallic blanket, Deja could hear Dr. Travis muttering to herself. "Unbelievable. Oxygen levels...comparable, little denser than normal, but breathable! Where the hell are we? How did we even get here? I swear, if Ludwick did this with his black hole experiments, I'll kill him."

  Travis lifted the edge of her shroud to stab Deja in the arm with something, a stimulant from the feel of it, moving on like nothing had happened as she continued on to take stock of their supplies.

  It was warm wherever they were, enough that trapped under the thermal blanket like she was, Deja had sweat buckets. Hours went by, her tormentors distracted trying to get in radio contact with any other survivors, meant neither of them noticed how she crawled out and into the darkness as soon as the sun had gone down.

  Hunched over, using the thick grass cover of the open plain the lab had crash landed on, Deja moved as quietly as possible away from the fire Kiona had made. She admitted it was not the smartest plan, but anything was preferable to remaining a prisoner, a slave, to Dr. Travis' experiments.

  Every step was excruciating, her pant leg soaked with blood, stuck to the painful burn that stretched from her ankle up to her calf. But that was secondary to the fear that rose within her as the most terrifyingly inhuman shrieks cut through the air.

  Alien monsters devouring Kiona and Dr. Travis-

  At first she had thought Dr. Travis had lost her mind upon discovering Deja gone. But then she had heard Kiona's shrill yelling, their sounds of terror almost puny in comparison to the monstrous squalls.

  With the bright light of the two crescent moons above, Deja had been able to watch the alien creatures as they oozed out of the darkness, seemingly attracted to the light of the fire Kiona had made.

  Their long, serpentine bodies cut through the tall grass like fish through water. The lenses on Deja's goggles could see through the ultraviolet spectrum, which meant the creatures showed up with an insidious glow, the waxy whiteness of their flesh and the whip like movements of their muscular tails illuminated perfectly.

  The clawed feet on each of their six legs allowed them to move silently across the grassy plain despite their enormous size. From her position up on a hill, Deja watched the way the aliens darted in and out, slashing, clawing, biting. Playing with their food.

  Stone warriors coming to life, taking her...somewhere. Here?

  Overwhelmed with the replay of memories, Deja sat up slowly to look around at the unfamiliar room she was in. The sensation of the sheer black sheet sliding down over her bare breasts made her gasp. Lifting up the material, she found herself totally naked. Seriously?

  "Why am I naked?" Deja murmured. The sound of her own voice echoed and bounced off the cavernous area, startling her.

  Frightened and flustered as she was, it took her a minute to realize the light illuminating the room was coming from the strange table she was sitting on. Her breathing unsteady, Deja spread her hand out on the surface to explore the smooth texture. It looked like some kind of crystal, a pale pink color shot through with ribbons of darker purple.

  It was stunning, at least one meter wide and well over four meters long. The purplish glow surrounded her, touching every part of her, yet didn’t burn her skin. Her leg, which had been so badly seared that the skin had cracked open, was completely healed and silken to the touch. It wasn't even tender.

  The light reflected off the stone walls of the octagonal shaped space, revealing that aside from what looked like a rack of clothing close by her, the room was empty. The ceiling curved up at least thirty feet high overhead and as she stared, images of stars and planets appeared out of the intricately carved motif.

  Deja remembered a program she had seen as a child about the beautiful cathedrals and underground cisterns of what had once been Eastern Europe. This place definitely reminded her of those masterfully crafted stone structures.

  Cautiously, Deja scooted to the edge of the table and eased her way off, yelping in surprise when a blossom of light pulsed beneath her foot. She wound up launching herself off the other side of the table, landing on her ass in a heap on the floor. Every strand of muscle froze in terror as she sat in a puddle of light. Cold sweat trickled down her spine, the fear of the excruciating pain she was certain would soon start to attack her far too fragile system making her dizzy. Her racing heartbeat kept the time for her, but after what felt like hours, nothing happened.

  No pain.

  No burning.

  No skin melting agony.

  Confused, shaken, Deja slowly picked herself up and stood, noticing the luminescent glow shrank down to the space around her feet like it was alive and sensed her body heat. She gathered up the sheet and wrapped it around her nakedness, tiptoeing across the floor at a snail’s pace to where the rack of clothes stood.

  Given medical attention, provided with clothing, that had to mean wherever she was, the beings who had brought her here had some level of decency. Compassion even. Right? Though as she began to peruse the options provided for her, Deja wondered about the decency bit.

  The materials were unfamiliar to her; all of it black, some sheer, others dripping with gemstones in a rainbow of color. No bras or underwear, no footwear, the items provided looked exotic, erotic, and expensive. Three things Deja never would have gone for when she had still been free to choose her own clothing.

  She had no idea when the giants would be back with the person or persons in charge, so it became a choice of what she wanted covered most, and how much time it would take her to figure out how to get into the odd outfits.

  Deja wound up choosing a strange dress with a piece of jewel encrusted fabric intended to cover her from her breasts to her chin, and down to her wrists. It wasn't a solid piece of fabric, looking more like it was made of webbing of some kind, the more solid pieces covered in gems.

  It was a bit big in the chest area, the sleeves too long by at least another arm length, but otherwise it fit alright. From beneath her breasts and down the back, the 'skirt' hung free to her feet in long pieces of fringe held close to her skin by a woven belt she assumed was meant to settle around her hips.

  The skirt covered the back and front of her body, but her sides were completely bare.

  Basically, the impo
rtant bits were sort of covered up, but everything else could be seen.

  Deja had just settled the belt around her hips when the enormous doors opened, and the three giant beings that entered made the sepulchral space seem like a closet.

  TWO

  ~DEJA

  The shortest of the three stone warriors who approached had to have been fifteen feet tall. All of them wore black armor brushed with veins of blue, green, and deep gold, the colors vibrant and flashing in the light as they came towards her.

  Some of the armor pieces were thick and crumbling at the edges, others shiny and new looking, like they had just decided to replace the pieces that had grown too oxidized or old instead of choosing a new set of armor entirely.

  Deja stood rooted in place, uncertain if these beings would continue to be friendly, or if they were robot soldiers of some kind. The 'short' one knelt a few feet away from the lighted table, folding his hands over his bent knee.

  She had no idea if these things were male or not, but their size and the breadth of their armored shoulders had her making that assumption.

  The kneeling warrior was now close enough for her to see the burning purple of his eyes. Those eyes, yes. This was the one who had come to life and cradled her against his chest while demolishing the shrieking monsters.

  He spoke to her in a deep rumble that made her entire body vibrate, the sound both ominous and oddly soothing to listen to.

  Deja intended to say, "I can't understand you." but it came out in a barely audible croak.

  The one kneeling in front of her lifted his hand from his knee to point at his chest.

  "Ehbin, Izax. Eye-zax." When he pointed that same finger to her, Deja shook her head in confusion.

  Patient and calm, the warrior pointed to himself again and repeated the same words. Pointed to the bigger warrior to his left and said, "Keh, Arkhan," then to his right, "vah keh Azurryn. Izax, Arkhan, Azurryn, vah desh?"

  Lips dry with uncertainty, Deja looked at the warriors in turn, realizing when he pointed at her and his voice gone up in an obvious inflection of a question, the one on his knees was trying to introduce himself and his friends. He was asking for her name.