Warlord’s Bounty – Third Scene Of The First Chapter
Warlord’s Bounty, the second story in the Chamele Barbarian Warlords series, will be releasing on May 14th.
I’m sharing the first chapter while we wait.
You can read the first scene here: http://tasteofcyn.com/?p=6815
Today, I’m sharing the third scene.
***
“He’s evading us by staying airborne.” Khan was certain about that. It was what he would do. “I say we ground our fleets and blast the remaining ships out of space.”
It was a drastic measure. There could be casualties amongst the innocent. But it should work.
“I have crafted a less risky plan.” Berke always had a strategy. He didn’t always deem to share it with the rest of them.
“Tell me what I need to do.” Khan didn’t care what the task was. He was ready.
His more-cautious older brother was not. “Murad, did you uncover any information on who has placed the bounties on our heads?”
Khan frowned. This was the first he’d heard of any bounties on their heads.
“All of the bounties originated within the sector. They…or he wants us alive. That’s all I could find out.” And that irked his technologically savvy brother. Khan heard that in his voice.
“Tolui must have funded the bounties.” That was the only being still seeking to harm them.
“That would be my wager also.” Berke shocked Khan by agreeing with him twice in one conversation. “He’s willing to pay to capture us.”
“He wants to kill us himself.” Khan preferred Tolui’s lifespan be ended by his own hand also. “His strategy won’t be successful. No bounty hunter would be foolish enough to enter our sector.”
They’d be blown out of the space. Chameles protected their own.
“Meet foolish bounty hunter number one.” Berke’s tone was dry.
An image of a mid-sized ship was displayed on the viewscreen. It was heading toward their border.
“That was fast.” Murad lifted his eyebrows. “The bounties were posted three planet rotations ago.”
Khan magnified the image of the ship. It was old and in poor repair. Its panels were dented and dull. The guns appeared to be barely functional. “He plans to retrieve us in that?” He snorted. That was insulting.
“Hunt, not retrieve.” Berke corrected him. “Retrievers were slaves to the Humanoid Alliance.” His elder brother’s gaze turned distant. “Bounty hunters are independent. They choose whom and where they hunt.”
What in the universe was his older brother yammering on about? “I’ll interrogate this bounty hunter-not-retriever.” Khan would force him to relay his client’s location.
“When did you suddenly become an expert in bounty hunters?” Murad stared at their older brother. “They don’t operate within our sector.”
“There will be no interrogation of the bounty hunter.” Berke’s eyes hardened once more. “This is my plan.”
He said that as though it explained everything…which it did. Their always-needing-to-be-in-control brother didn’t leave much to chance. He researched all players in any strategy he crafted.
“And she isn’t hunting us.” Berke shook his head. “She is tracking another target.”
“She.” Both Khan and Murad repeated that revelation.
Chamele females were as fierce as the males, often fighting beside them. But, according to Khan’s intelligence, many of the species outside their sector viewed females as weak, didn’t consider them worthy of being warriors.
The bounty hunter’s species must be an exception.
“She is tracking another Chamele?” Khan lifted his eyebrows. “How many of our kind have bounties on their heads?”
“I didn’t say her target was a Chamele.” Berke tapped on his viewscreen.
“Gale, are you there?” The most intoxicating voice Khan had ever heard filled the chamber.
His body responded to it, his muscles flexing, his cock hardening.
That extreme reaction could only mean one thing—the female speaking was his gerel, the one being genetically compatible with him.
She existed. His mind spun from the wonder of that realization. Some warriors never located their gerels.
He had.
“I’m always here.” Another female answered her query. “I don’t gad about the universe like you do.”
Murad’s head lifted. “What the—”
“I wished I gadded about it less.” Khan’s gerel sighed, the sound coiling around his balls and stroking his shaft. “The Vault didn’t reach its destination. That was a dead end.”
“So you’re coming home?” Hope lilted the other female’s, Gale’s words. She cared for Khan’s gerel, wanted to see her.
“Not yet. I got a ping off the target’s ship. It was faint but I was able to track its location.” His female loved the hunt. He heard that in her tones. “It’s close to my current location, but not in an optimal place, unfortunately. I should still be able to get to it.”
“If the site is difficult to access, the Designer likely died en route to it.” Gale offered that logical advice. “The client wants him alive. He’s no use to us in any other state.”
“He’s there and he’s alive.” His gerel’s optimism rang through the transmission lines. “He’s got to be.”
Gale clucked her tongue. “Don’t take unnecessary risks.”
“I never do.”
“You always do, Zeta.”
Zeta. His gerel’s name was Zeta.
“You’re right.” She laughed, her mirth bubbling around him. “Taking risks is part of the fun.”
“It won’t be fun if you die.” The other female disapproved of his female’s fearlessness. “Which reminds me…did you remember to secure the line this time?”
“Of course, I remembered.” His gerel sounded indignant.
“Did you secure both the audio and the video?” Gale pressed the issue. “You know your ship no longer syncs the two.”
The vessel didn’t sync audio and video? Khan stared at the blank viewscreen. How antiquated was it?
“Shit.” His gerel cursed. “I forgot to secure the audio.”
The transmission ended. The silence formed a void inside him, a space where her voice had once been.
“We’re not blowing up the bounty hunter’s ship.” He blurted that thought into the quiet.
Both of his brothers looked at him as though he’d lost his mind…which he supposed he had. The enemy should be his focus, not his gerel.
He would have a lifespan to dedicate to her.
“Blowing up the bounty hunter’s ship wouldn’t suit our purposes.” Berke crossed his arms in front of his chest. “We need her to trap Tolui.”
Khan didn’t like that idea either. “She’s chasing a different target, the Designer being they mentioned.” He paused, some of the pieces falling into place. “That ping was from the ship on Chamele 4, wasn’t it?” Murad’s males had downed it. He shifted his gaze to his brother. “The tracking device was left on it, fully functional.”
Murad rolled his eyes. “The tracking device was buried deep in the sand. It would have taken too long to retrieve.”
That could put them all at risk. Khan pressed his lips together. The signal could attract potential enemies.
He would have insisted his warriors retrieve the tracking device.
“Her target is dead.” Berke met his gaze. “She needs a new target.”
His brother’s plan became clear.
“I’ll be her new target.” Khan claimed that prized role, eager to take action. “We’ll use me as bait. Tolui will rendezvous with her ship, expecting to take delivery of me, and I’ll kill him.”
Read the next installment (Available May 6th): http://tasteofcyn.com/?p=6832
***
Subscribe To My Monthly Newsletter: http://tasteofcyn.com/2014/05/28/newsletter/
Warlord’s Bounty
Wanted: One Barbarian Warrior.
The bigger the bounty, the more dangerous the target.
Khan, a Chamele Warlord, has a huge bounty on his head. His enemy wants him captured and is offering any being in the universe an outrageous number of credits to accomplish that.
Khan wants to be captured, but only if the being apprehending him is a tiny, brown-eyed female with wickedly sharp daggers and an even sharper tongue. His passion for the feisty human can’t be inhibited by restraints. He’ll allow her to subdue him…in a variety of enticing ways.
When she finally collects her credits, he’ll collect his revenge, killing his enemy and claiming his little bounty hunter forever.
Zeta doesn’t do forever. After a lifespan of chasing dangerous beings across galaxies, apprehending and trading them for credits, she doesn’t get involved emotionally…with anyone.
Khan might be fierce and sexy and the most dominant male she has ever encountered, but the barbarian is also her target, and once she sates herself with his body, she’ll betray him.
That’s her job.
* * *
Warlord’s Bounty is based on a much shorter story sharing the same title.
(If you already have the shorter story, please contact me.)
It is a STANDALONE Alien Barbarian SciFi Romance set in a dark, gritty, sometimes violent universe.
Pre-order Now:
Amazon US:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PN8ZKK1
Amazon UK:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07PN8ZKK1
Apple/iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/warlords-bounty/id1456156354
B&N:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1113984150
Kobo:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/warlord-s-bounty-1
Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/928431
Topics: Coming Soon | Comments Off on Warlord’s Bounty – Third Scene Of The First Chapter
Warlord’s Bounty – Second Scene Of The First Chapter
Warlord’s Bounty, the second story in the Chamele Barbarian Warlords series, will be releasing on May 14th.
I’m sharing the first chapter.
You can read the first scene here: http://tasteofcyn.com/?p=6815
Today, I’m sharing the second scene.
***
Khan tossed the private viewscreen on the console.
“How many were on board the fighter?” He asked his Head of Communications. “And did they have mates?”
Chameles bonded for life. When one mate’s lifespan ended, the other mate died within planet rotations, their hearts unable to tolerate the separation. He’d met only one exception to that reality.
His Head of Communications swallowed hard. “The three warriors were the fighter’s full crew, my lord. Two of them were mated. One had a little girl.”
Three warriors had died, two mates would soon die, and a child would be orphaned. The tension in Khan’s form increased.
“Provide for them.” He stood. It irked him that he didn’t have to specify how to provide for the mates, for the child. Too many warriors had been lost over the solar cycles. “I will be in my private working chambers.”
He stalked toward the doors to that space, his tread silent as it always was.
Warriors stepped out of his way, bowing their heads respectfully.
Khan wasn’t a stranger to losses in battle or the trickery of enemies. The Succession Wars had been long and bloody and defined by betrayal.
His parents had been older when they had miraculously conceived three heirs in three consecutive solar cycles. Berke, his older brother, hadn’t yet reached the official ruling transition age at the time of their deaths.
Aunts, uncles, cousins, and close friends, sensing opportunity, had vied for the role of Warlord, a role that rightfully belonged to Berke. Inhabitants of the sector chose sides. Either they pledged loyalty to Khan’s older brother or they were deemed to be the enemy.
He entered his working chambers. The massive viewscreen on the far wall displayed an image of the solar system, the four Chamele planets orbiting around a single sun. The other vertical surfaces were decorated with swords, battle-axes, lances, daggers, and various bladed weapons. All of them were functional.
Khan wanted to use them against Tolui.
He had wielded them against many of his relatives and friends. Being the best fighter in the system, he had faced the would-be usurpers in battle, had been forced to end the lifespans of beings he had once cared for and respected. In the heat of combat, it had been kill or be killed.
After those battles were won, the survivors were given the option to swear fealty to Berke or be executed. Khan had learned early on that there were no other options.
Incarcerating the enemy gave the other rebels beings to rally around. Freeing them meant fighting them again in a future battle.
They made their choice. He delivered the consequences, spilling the blood of many beings to earn Berke his place.
His older brother had deemed to share the responsibility of Warlord, saving the ice planet of Chamele 1 for himself, giving Chamele 3 to their younger brother Murad to rule, and granting Khan Chamele 2, the greenest, lushest planet. The hunting planet of Chamele 4 was governed by the three of them.
Only one threat to their rule remained—Tolui and his followers. Once the rogue Chamele was eliminated, there would be peace in the sector.
Peace didn’t appeal to Khan. He was a warrior, enjoyed fighting, didn’t look forward to long stretches of boring tranquility, the endless planet rotations of administration that were associated with ruling.
But boredom was preferable to the grief and anger and frustration currently swirling inside him.
And he did want to end Tolui’s lifespan. The male was a pain in his ass, had been wreaking havoc, making a mockery of his protection.
Khan opened communications with his brothers.
“Are you trying to outscowl Berke?” Murad was the first to respond, his grinning face appearing on the viewscreen. “I wager you don’t succeed.”
“I received another message from that tricky Son of a Gechii, Tolui.” Khan didn’t have the time or patience for his brother’s teasing. He sent the male their enemy’s communication.
Murad’s grin wavered. “I doubt the message is traceable. The male covers his tracks well. But I’ll see what I can do.”
Khan grunted, his irritation with the situation and with Tolui escalating. He wanted to kill the male but they had to find him first.
“You didn’t respond to him, did you?” Murad asked a question he should have already known the answer to.
“Words were a poor substitute for my fists.” Khan cracked his knuckles, wishing he could crack the enemy’s skull as easily.
“Which means you did respond.” His younger brother sighed. “I’ll ensure he doesn’t hack into your systems.”
Khan didn’t care about his systems. His warriors were being targeted, killed. That was a bigger priority for him.
Berke remotely joined them. There was a permanent frown on his stark countenance. “This isn’t our scheduled transmission.”
“Blast our scheduled transmission.” Khan’s anger flared once again. “Tolui downed one of my fighters, killing three of my warriors. Two were mated. One had a young daughter.”
Murad winced. Berke’s eyes cooled to ice.
“We have to find the slippery ass. Now.” Khan tilted his body toward them. “And we have to stop him. Permanently.”
“How do we find him?” Murad stated the problem none of them had the solution for. “We still have very little information about him. No one claims to know him or any of his followers. It is like he was manufactured out of the air.”
“That’s unee shit and you know it.” Khan’s claws pricked at his skin, his urge to fight, to kill, almost overwhelming his restraint. “He’s a Chamele.”
Witnesses had seen him at a distance. Tolui had the long black hair, golden skin, height, and the muscular build of their kind. And he dressed like them, wearing boots and an ass covering consisting of a band of leather around the waist and more strips of leather hanging to his knees.
“Someone has to know him.” Khan’s body vibrated with anger. “Not sharing that information is akin to betrayal.”
That he couldn’t identify who was betraying them infuriated him. It put everyone he cared about in danger.
Three loyal warriors had died this planet rotation, the lifespans of five beings in total had ended. His mother and father were dead.
He would not lose any more warriors, would not lose his brothers.
“Chameles have been torn apart by these wars.” Berke’s voice was flat. “It will take solar cycles to earn everyone’s trust.”
“Either beings are loyal or they’re the enemy.” Khan balled his fingers into huge fists. “There’s no other status.”
“Not every situation is either right or wrong.” His older brother shook his head. “Life isn’t that simple.”
It was for him. Khan jutted his jaw.
“Tolui wants to negotiate.” Murad put the male’s latest message on their viewscreens. “We could meet with him. We might uncover information we could use to locate him.”
“We don’t negotiate with the enemy.” They had tried that in the past, only to be ambushed, barely escaping with their lifespans. “And Tolui is the enemy. That is simple.” Khan’s gaze slid to Berke. “He killed my warriors.”
“I agree with you.” His older brother surprised him with that declaration. “Negotiating would serve no purpose. Tolui will be prepared. He won’t allow anything to slip during the meeting and it could put us all at risk.”
Silence stretched.
Khan paced around the perimeter of the chamber, unable to remain still, needing to do something, anything. His warriors were dying.
“I’ve been looking for patterns regarding the locations.” Murad, the more analytic, data-focused of the three of them, broke the quiet. “I haven’t seen any logic to it. The attacks have been evenly distributed between all three planets, throughout all regions. There’s no way to predict where he will strike next.”
Read the next installment (Available April 29th): http://tasteofcyn.com/?p=6825
***
Subscribe To My Monthly Newsletter: http://tasteofcyn.com/2014/05/28/newsletter/
Warlord’s Bounty
Wanted: One Barbarian Warrior.
The bigger the bounty, the more dangerous the target.
Khan, a Chamele Warlord, has a huge bounty on his head. His enemy wants him captured and is offering any being in the universe an outrageous number of credits to accomplish that.
Khan wants to be captured, but only if the being apprehending him is a tiny, brown-eyed female with wickedly sharp daggers and an even sharper tongue. His passion for the feisty human can’t be inhibited by restraints. He’ll allow her to subdue him…in a variety of enticing ways.
When she finally collects her credits, he’ll collect his revenge, killing his enemy and claiming his little bounty hunter forever.
Zeta doesn’t do forever. After a lifespan of chasing dangerous beings across galaxies, apprehending and trading them for credits, she doesn’t get involved emotionally…with anyone.
Khan might be fierce and sexy and the most dominant male she has ever encountered, but the barbarian is also her target, and once she sates herself with his body, she’ll betray him.
That’s her job.
* * *
Warlord’s Bounty is based on a much shorter story sharing the same title.
(If you already have the shorter story, please contact me.)
It is a STANDALONE Alien Barbarian SciFi Romance set in a dark, gritty, sometimes violent universe.
Pre-order Now:
Amazon US:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PN8ZKK1
Amazon UK:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07PN8ZKK1
Apple/iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/warlords-bounty/id1456156354
B&N:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1113984150
Kobo:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/warlord-s-bounty-1
Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/928431
Topics: Coming Soon | Comments Off on Warlord’s Bounty – Second Scene Of The First Chapter
Warlord’s Bounty – First Scene Of The First Chapter
Warlord’s Bounty, the second story in the Chamele Barbarian Warlords series, will be releasing on May 14th.
I thought I’d share the first chapter while we wait.
Today, I’m sharing the first scene.
***
Chapter One
Khan, one of three Warlords in the Chamele sector, divided all of the beings within his terrain into two groups—those loyal to him and to his brothers and those he deemed to be his enemies.
Loyal beings were to be protected and cared for. Enemies were to be hunted down and killed…once they were located.
One adversary was proving to be frustratingly elusive.
“Where are you, you slippery Son of a Gechii?” Khan stood in the center of his command chamber, his booted feet braced apart, his hands on his leather-clad hips. He stared up at a flattened view of Chamele 2, the planet he was responsible for ruling.
His warriors worked energetically around him, all of them seeking to find Tolui, the rogue Chamele guilty of abducting females and children from their homes, stealing and downing ships.
“Show the locations of every sighting.” Khan gave that instruction to his Head of Strategy.
“Showing the locations of every sighting, my lord.” The older male tapped on a private viewscreen.
Dots appeared on the map.
There were too many of them. Khan pressed his lips together, wanting to take action now, immediately stop the Warlord wannabe.
He had to find Tolui first. Searching for a pattern in the sightings, he saw none. “Calculate the time required to—”
“My lord.” His Head of Communications interrupted him. “One of our fighters is tracking an unidentified ship.”
That ship must belong to their enemy. Finally, something was happening. Excitement coursed through Khan. “Share the live feed.”
Since the last attack, his Head of Ship and Weapons Design had installed recording devices on all of the ships’ bridges. He could see and hear what the warriors onboard observed.
It was almost like being there. Almost.
Khan preferred to be on the front lines, leading the charge. Ruling a planet was exasperatingly passive, too hands-off for his liking.
An image of a female Chamele warrior dominated the main viewscreen. Two other females sat behind her.
“Don’t let him escape.” Her voice filled the chamber. “Continue hailing him.”
“Hailing him, Captain.” One of the other females confirmed the order.
“Show me what they’re seeing.” Khan wanted to view the enemy, not his three warriors.
The image switched to that of a ship. He immediately recognized the model.
“That’s an AXT594.” One of those ships had recently been stolen from his fleet. “Its top speed is faster than that of the fighter.” It wasn’t as nimble, couldn’t navigate the narrow twists and turns of the ravine as quickly. “Why doesn’t it increase its elevation, escape the confines of the cliffs, fly in a straight line?”
“It might be malfunctioning, my lord.” His Head of Strategy proposed a possibility. “An engine could be damaged.”
“Hmmm…” That could be the reason but Khan’s gut said it wasn’t. “Show me an aerial view of the ravine. Indicate their current location.”
The image shifted. He leaned forward, studying it. The ravine meandered, heading to the northeast.
Its course had been unbroken thus far. There were no alternate routes. But that would soon change. The fighter quickly approached a fork in the ravine.
“Zondoo.” His body stiffened.
A second enemy ship could be waiting on the path not taken. The fighter would be pinned between the two vessels.
“It’s a trap.” Khan yelled that revelation, gripping the edge of the console. “Tell them to abort. Abort.”
His Head of Communications relayed that order.
“We’re gaining on them, sir.” The fighter’s captain must have been high on the chase. Trained warriors didn’t argue with commands. “We can—shit. Where did she come from?”
Metal bent under Khan’s fingers. Judging by the captain’s tone, the fighter had passed the fork and was now wedged between two enemy ships. “Tell her to increase their elevation. Now.”
That might not work but it was their only chance.
“Incoming missiles.” One of the warriors on the fighter made that announcement.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Another warrior peppered the transmission with profanities. The image on the fighter’s main viewscreen veered to the right as they desperately tried to avoid impact.
That action was too little, too late. The vessel jerked. Metal screeched.
“We’ve been hit.” The pilot’s voice held the calmness of a being who had seen many battles, who had faced death too many times. The images on the fighter’s main viewscreen spun faster and faster. “We’re going—”
The boom temporarily deafened Khan. The image went black.
Silence filled the chamber. The warriors around him gaped, their primitive countenances turning pale.
“We’ve lost contact with the fighter.” His Head of Communications stated the brutal reality.
The fighter had been downed.
“Shit.” Khan sat with a thump in the chair positioned behind him.
Three warriors, at the minimum, had been on that ship.
He swiped his hands over his face, the burden of that loss, that failure, weighing on his shoulders.
He was their Warlord. It was his duty to protect them.
A message appeared on the private viewscreen placed on the console before him. He gripped the device, opened the communication.
Footage played. Missiles hit a fighter ship, carving away thrusters, panels. The vessel spun closer and closer to a rock facing.
Bile burned the back of his throat. He knew what would soon happen, was as powerless now as he had been then to stop it.
The fighter hit the hard stone and exploded. Plumes of orange-and-red flames engulfed the ship.
No one could have survived that.
Text appeared under the footage. Are you ready to negotiate now?
It wasn’t signed but Khan had no doubt who had sent that message.
Tolui.
The rogue male had targeted the fighter ship, had ended the lifespan of at least three of Khan’s warriors. Rage swept over him, savage and intense.
Unable to contain it, he threw back his head and roared. Emotion poured out of him, an unbreaking stream of torment, of grief, of anger. His body shook with its ferocity.
His warriors gulped air and stared at him, their countenances ashen. He didn’t lose his temper often.
Tolui had pushed his patience.
The male would die. Painfully.
Khan gathered his control. Resolve straightened his spine. He would stop the rebel Chamele’s random strikes…permanently.
Your fight is with me. He jabbed the private viewscreen with his fingers as he sent that message to his enemy. Face me like a warrior. Let’s end this.
He sent it, knowing the male wouldn’t accept that challenge.
Tolui preferred to sneak around, favoring stealth attacks over honorable battles.
Read the next installment (Available April 22nd): http://tasteofcyn.com/?p=6820
***
Subscribe To My Monthly Newsletter: http://tasteofcyn.com/2014/05/28/newsletter/
Warlord’s Bounty
Wanted: One Barbarian Warrior.
The bigger the bounty, the more dangerous the target.
Khan, a Chamele Warlord, has a huge bounty on his head. His enemy wants him captured and is offering any being in the universe an outrageous number of credits to accomplish that.
Khan wants to be captured, but only if the being apprehending him is a tiny, brown-eyed female with wickedly sharp daggers and an even sharper tongue. His passion for the feisty human can’t be inhibited by restraints. He’ll allow her to subdue him…in a variety of enticing ways.
When she finally collects her credits, he’ll collect his revenge, killing his enemy and claiming his little bounty hunter forever.
Zeta doesn’t do forever. After a lifespan of chasing dangerous beings across galaxies, apprehending and trading them for credits, she doesn’t get involved emotionally…with anyone.
Khan might be fierce and sexy and the most dominant male she has ever encountered, but the barbarian is also her target, and once she sates herself with his body, she’ll betray him.
That’s her job.
* * *
Warlord’s Bounty is based on a much shorter story sharing the same title.
(If you already have the shorter story, please contact me.)
It is a STANDALONE Alien Barbarian SciFi Romance set in a dark, gritty, sometimes violent universe.
Pre-order Now:
Amazon US:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PN8ZKK1
Amazon UK:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07PN8ZKK1
Apple/iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/warlords-bounty/id1456156354
B&N:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1113984150
Kobo:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/warlord-s-bounty-1
Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/928431
Topics: Coming Soon | Comments Off on Warlord’s Bounty – First Scene Of The First Chapter
