Page 51 of Bred By Sor'en

My eyes widen in horror seconds before I’m overrun by a cracking shadow. Melion swathes me as I shuffle to my feet, the warmth of my blood trickling down my neck from my busted chin. “Where is Sor’en!?”

Nothing, he can’t answer me.

Fear, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before, boils in my chest. “Melion, help Sor’en. He’s out there!”

The tornado swirls and I get the sense I’m moving. I didn’t even know he could do that. Hot air brushes me from all sides as I’m hauled, no doubt, back to the house. “Stop! There are females out there! We have to get them inside!”

A horrible sound reaches me through the darkness.

It is much like the roars of my mate, but in thehundreds. A chill runs down my spine.

They’re fighting.

Suddenly, blinding white takes over the darkness as I fall roughly onto the ground in the middle of the sunken living room of our home. “Melion, there are females in the field!”

He vibrates with rage as he stands guard in front of me. But my eyes are glued to the windows, the frenzy of Xyrelith males there. Their strange shimmering weapons, glimmering like starfall swords as their crafts take them to the sky, to the top of the dome. I scream as the ship fires, destroying a large patch of field, nearly half of the smaller vessel inside now. “Melion, please!”

His white, glowing orbs suddenly go unfocused as I round him, his orbs unseeing, not tracking me in the way they typically do. “Melion?”

Another loud boom echoes through the dome. A lithe, feminine scream rips through the night. This one is distinctly Xyrelith. My heart caves as I turn, watching as the nose of the craft opens, deploying several smaller pods filled with a large species.

Poachers.

I wave my bloody palm in front of Melion’s eyes. When there’s no reaction, I’m running, scrambling up the kitchen storage cabinets and back out of the skylight before he gets back from wherever he went. I drop from the roof of our home with a poorly executed roll, my shoulder jarring hard with the ground. But I don’t let it slow me down. I’m on my feet and running for the far field, toward tuffs of white blowing hair huddled together.

Sor’en, be okay.

Please be okay.

My lungs ache as I push myself to run harder, run faster, refusing to take my eyes off the females. Refusing to watch the skies for my mate. It sounds like war above me, like the dome opened up and Armageddon entered. Worse yet? It's getting closer to the ground. I’m almost to their huddle, their tops pulled down, exposing their backs as they hold each other like a tiny little dome of their own. My hand flies forward to tug them with me, to bring them back to the house, when a weight hits me like a runaway port cart, slamming me into the ground. I scream, waiting for the pain of the blow, but it never comes.

My eyes are wrenched open as my chin is jerked up, Sor’en’s enraged face inches from mine as he roars. “Do not touch them! Never fucking touch them when they’re scared! Melion, take her!”

“Wait, no!”

I’m dropped as Melion reaches my side, swirling with rage as I watch my blood splattered mate, leaping higher than I’ve ever seen as an unmanned craft wizzes by, his palms catch the bottom-most lip as he swings himself up, unsheathing twin shimmering blades from his back. A sob, a pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt, rips from me as I lose sight of him in the fray.

I’m crying, sobbing as I scramble back toward the group of females still huddled in their protective dome. It’s only then that I see it… the toxins coating their backs, wet and dripping in deadly rivets. Realization of how close I just came to death quiets my panicked sobbing.

“Come on, we have to get to the house!” I call out to them, staying a safe distance away.

One pokes her head from the huddle, quickly gathering the others. They’re careful not to touch me as we run back to my home. Melion creates something of a swirling border on all sides. I know they could phase there in an instant, but they stick with me instead. Tears fall even harder down all our faces seconds before a craft slams into the ground in front of us, a species I can’t place bolting from it toward our group without hesitation. Half of his pod isn’t buried in the ground.

I don’t even get a scream out before Melion swallows him up.

I spread my arms in front of the other females like a fucking idiot, despite them being far more capable of protecting me than me protecting them. It's a brainless reflex that I almost stop myself from keeping up, but my mind blanks as bits of flesh and sinew spew from Melion’s swirl, covering them and me, but mostly me, thanks to the stance.

When he dissipates, there is nothing left of the creature that was within him.

When everyone moves again, my mind can’t seem to keep up, my feet rooted to the ground, staring at the splatter of whatever creature was there moments ago.

“Human, we must go!” one of the females pleads.

My mouth is open, my mind blank.

Melion gets tired of waiting, and soon I’m in his swirl again and heaved back into the house, my knees meeting the white flooring roughly.

I don’t know how long we sit there, or how long the sounds of battle wage outside.