ARMOR [New World Book 2] (2 page)

Amy sent her fist into her
attacker’s face, followed with an elbow to his ribs. He let go of her. She spun
about to confront the rest of them. There were three. All three men were large.
Their hair was long and matted as were their scraggly beards. Their clothes
were as disgusting as her own. They stunk, their smell wafted to her assaulting
her nose.

“You want meat, sweetheart,
and I’ll give you meat,” one of the men said with a disgusting leer.

“Dinner and a show, boys,”
another said and guffawed.

A branch had rolled from one
of the fires, only one end it smoldering. A quick twist of it under her ankle
and Amy had tossed it up into her hand. She waved the smoldering tip in front
of them. The men circled her and laughed. One of the men called to the others
that they had found some entertainment. Amy groaned. Three men were bad enough,
but to fight off all fifteen—she was doomed. Still she wasn’t about to give
them the satisfaction of seeing her fear.

“You,” she said, pointing to
the man who had grabbed her hair. “You’re going to die first.”

All three men howled with
renewed laughter. Their derogatory words were beyond insulting. Amy felt her
face flame. She pointed to another man.

“You’ll die next,” she said
matter-of-fact.

“I always go last,” the last
man said and pouted.

“At least third tonight,
Leon,” said the first man.

“How about it, baby doll. You
gonna kill me last?” Leon asked.

Amy sized him up and shook
her head. The man named Leon couldn’t have reached his twenties yet. Amy was
again wondering why many of the shuttles only returned for women the better
part of the last year. The three men before her were young, healthy and virile
and they still weren’t chosen. It was a mystery to them all. The youngest man
before her was cute, tall and strong. What a shame. He should be out at
parties, in college, driving to a movie with his girlfriend. Instead his baby
face was covered in filth as he waited to die. Death was inevitable; how a
person went was up to them—at least right now.

“Walk away and I’ll let you
live,” Amy advised.

The young man chuckled. “No
way, sweet thing.”

Amy swung hard when the
largest of the three made a grab for her. She connected soundly to his head
with her weapon and he went down. The other two gaped in surprise until the man
on the ground bellowed in rage that he was going to kill her when he finished
with her. Once more, Amy swung hard. The second largest grabbed the branch and
Amy went flying. She landed painfully on the ground on her side. The wind was
knocked out of her. She crawled to her knees. They circled her like vultures.
She was scared, and held her fingers splayed before her to ward off the
inevitable attack.

The largest of the three
stood towering over her, fists balled. “This is gonna hurt.” He sneered, pulling
back his fist.

Amy gasped when a black blur
was suddenly before her. For an instant the blur touched her and Amy felt a
jolt of surprise.

The man who was about to
attack her was off the ground, his feet dangling by a foot. His mouth and eyes
were open wide in shocked surprise.

A creature the likes of which
Amy had never seen was standing mere inches from her. It was encased in black,
with fangs protruding from its mouth. For feet it had claws, five thick ones up
front and one at the back where its heel would be. On the side of the creature’s
face was a glowing green tattoo.

One-handed, the massive
creature before her had the large man off the ground. Four of its five long
talons were sunk into the man’s belly. The creature growled showing more of its
ivory-white, inch-long fangs. Amy was too terrified to scream. It was like the
boogeyman meets the monster from the black lagoon all wrapped up in one eerie
creature. In one fluid motion, her would-be attacker was flung like a rag doll
into the wooden fencing. The toss had been so hard the body embedded into the
wood with a solid crunch.

The other two men found their
voices and the second man screamed when he was gored with the talons next. A
vicious slice across the man’s middle and cloth mixed with blood and flesh. The
youngest, Leon, fled.

Amy watched in morbid
fascination as her previous threats played out. They died in sequence.

As blood spewed from the
second man’s mouth, he was sent spiraling into the returning circle of men. Six
were knocked to the ground when his lifeless body crashed into them.

That’s when Amy found her
feet—or rather her belly. She dropped, rolled and was back in her hiding place.
She wiggled her way out and bolted.

Behind her Leon was
scrambling over the fencing of debris. He raced to Amy, flung her backwards and
almost ran over her in his haste to get away from the terrifying creature. Amy
lay stunned on the ground. The beast-like thing jumped over the fence as though
it were a mere trotting post. It landed on all fours inches from her. Amy swore
the ground moved. A small spattering of dust rose then settled around it. The
skin of the creature was ebony and shiny. It cocked its head to the side
studying her. The thing was bald. Bumps were prominent where eyes should have
been. It growled and Amy shook, unable to move.

Oh my God, it’s huge.

“Run,” the creature demanded.

The single word was a heavy
growl and hissed as it passed its fangs. It was a male voice.

Amy scrambled up wondering if
it wanted to play cat and mouse with her. She ran for all she was worth into
the darkness. Her legs pumped madly beneath her. She chanced a quick glance
behind her. The creature wasn’t following her. To her left, she heard a scream
of agony. The creature had found Leon. Amy raced until she thought her lungs
would burst. When she fell, she remained motionless. Gasping sobbing breaths
were dragged into tortured lungs. She rose to her knees and began to crawl.

What was she to do? She
couldn’t let the thing follow her back to the cave. If the men were defenseless
from the beast, her sorry lot of malnourished women and children would be like
shooting fish in a barrel. Bracing herself against a tree Amy found her
footing—as unsteady as it was. The night was filled with agonized cries of
fear. There was no doubt in Amy’s mind that the creature was killing every
single man back at the circle of men.

Amy moved faster. She
practically bounced off each tree trunk in her haste to get away. The creature
knew she was the most defenseless. It was saving her for last. She had to warn
the others. She needed to protect the children.
But how?
The being had
been at least six-and-a-half feet. Fangs like a vampire’s protruded from its
mouth. Just to look at it stopped her dead in her tracks.

The opening to her cave was
closer. She was almost there. A sound high in the trees stopped her. Amy spun
about and looked up. The gray cloud hanging overhead parted for a mere few seconds
to allow the light of the stars to shine.
Oh my God.
It was up in the
trees above her hanging upside down staring at her. Thick talons on its hands
and feet clung to the bark of two trees side-by-side, embedding into the hard
wood as easily as they had sunk into human flesh. One lone talon tapped the
tree trunk as though counting down her remaining seconds of life. Both Amy and
the creature remained frozen except for that single claw. Amy’s heartbeat
thumped, stopped, thumped, stopped. It consumed her—the need to hear her life
drum continue.

The creature jumped from tree
to ground to tree, eating up the distance between them, gaining momentum with
each pounce. In seconds it would have her. Amy screamed. She had never been so
terrified in her life. She bolted like a rabbit. The dark crevice was before
her. She slipped inside, seeing then the fiery shimmer of light, hope. The
pounding thunder of her heart hammered in her ears. Sweat covered her body and
dripped down the back of her neck.

Amy felt something hook her
shirt. She screamed when a huge talon embedded into her clothing. Amy was in
the cave but it still had her. With its foot-long, sharp black talons the reach
of the creature was phenomenal. The other women and children were screaming as
Amy tried to struggle out of her coat. Her zipper was snagged on a corner of
fabric. The creature pulled. The yanking motion ripped her clothing and jerked
her backwards toward the crevice. Her scrambling feet skid across the dry dirt
floor. The women and children pulled her back. Their game of tug-a-war was
turning violent with both sides persistent.

Finally Craig, a young boy of
almost twelve, grabbed a knife and cut Amy from her clothes. All of them went
flying back in a heap onto the cave floor barely missing the fire pit. The
creature’s claw disappeared with its useless prize.

Amy did something she hadn’t
done in ages. She crumpled lower to the ground, with her face in her hands,
feeling defeated with this new threat and sobbed in terror on the dirt. She
remained there a long time as each individual wrapped their arms around her
making a human ball of comfort. How could they ever hope for survival now?

Chapter 1

Dasks stood looking at the
cloth he held in his talon. It fluttered in the breeze. He frowned. The woman
should be in his arms heading back to the ship not sobbing her heart out in a
dank cave. He cocked his head to the side and sniffed into the crevice. He
could smell fear, a lot of it. The scents were odd. Seven female scents he
counted. Then two tiny female scents. The other odor made him growl. There was
a male smell in the cave. Was he hurting her? The woman was Dasks’. He had
found her. Castian law ruled here now, ever since their ship had landed. These
females no longer belonged to the males of their crumpling world. They were
Castian prizes. Dasks bellowed in rage. The sound reverberated off the cave
walls. Every occupant of the cave screamed…including the male.

Good—be afraid, human
male.

The question was how was he
going to get his female to come out? Long talons clicked against the side of
the rock while he thought. Dasks didn’t have much knowledge of females. During
the long ride from his galaxy to the planet Earth they had been given a few
fast lessons by their leader, Cobra. Thankfully a few Earthwomen had crash
landed on Dargon months earlier and each Castian male was given their scent so
they wouldn’t accidently kill one when they reached the surface of Earth.

Earth’s atmosphere didn’t
regulate temperature like Dasks’ planet and those surrounding it. Cobra warned
his warriors that the females would be completely clothed. Normally, a female
was supposed to keep their shoulder bare. It was to indicate if they had mated.
A bare shoulder void of a tattoo meant a female had not been claimed by a
Castian warrior. Cobra had mentioned males of Earth didn’t mark their females
in the same fashion. Therefore the women, even if mated, were not considered so
if not marked. They were fair game.

On Dasks’ own planet, females
had been poisoned to death by Tonans—Castian enemies—almost four hundred years
ago. The murdering bastards had killed both his parents. When Dasks had been
weaned from his mother at three-and-a-half years, his shield of armor no longer
kept her safe. Because Castians mate for life, when his mother died so too did
his father. Dasks was raised by an older brother who had never mated. Dasks was
almost four hundred years old; his brother was eight hundred. His brother,
Segan, never spoke of any females, not even their mother. The older males on
Dasks’ home planet had decided that after their females died there would be no
further talk of them. Why reminisce about something they could never have?

It was fate the shuttle
containing females, or ‘women’ as humans named them as well, crash landed on
Dargon. Dargon was not Dasks’ home world but a neighboring planet where many
Castians had been exiled when Cobra had lost his leadership before regaining
it. The discovery of females was welcome for desperate warriors who thought
never to set eyes on one again. Many of the males on Dargon were just reaching
emotional maturity. When their senses were reminded of females, each warrior
wanted his own mate.

The human females spoke in
the ancient Castian tongue and some surmised that at one time humans were known
to Castians and their language was learned. Thousands of years ago, it was
mentioned that young Castian warriors had traveled to Earth. At that time the
humans were considered too barbaric and were left alone. Earth was considered a
doomed planet long ago and forgotten. Many of the older Castian males were
amazed Earth still harbored life after so long. Earth’s people were too
combative and destructive. With the planets circling Earth or in closer
proximity to their solar system already dead and unable to sustain life, it was
only a matter of time before the same fate befell the Earthers.

It was promising that
Castians and Earth females could mate and produce offspring. Earth’s precarious
predicament was also a bonus. Castian warriors only wanted to save the women
from their planet’s demise. Yet, sniffing into the cave Dasks realized his
female was less than excited to see him. The smell of fear was assaulting and
not something Dasks was used to. Rarely did a Castian warrior or even a filthy
Tonan display the emotion. It was upsetting to Dasks.