Khrel: A Scifi Alien Romance: Albaterra Mates Book 5
Table of Contents
Khrel: Albaterra Mates Book 5
Albaterra Extended Epilogue
Khrel
Lena
Badass Luke
Make Your Own Story
Zuran - Albaterra Mates 6
Zuran
Phoebe
Also by Ashley L. Hunt
About the Author
Khrel: Albaterra Mates Book 5
A Paranormal Scifi Alien Romance Sneak Peak
Ashley L. Hunt
Copyright © 2017 by Ashley L. Hunt
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
For My Loyal And New Fans!
First I would like to thank you so much for downloading this book. I am truly honoured by this!
This is the 1st Complete story in the “Albaterra Mates” series. This can be read as a standalone but you will enjoy the full experience when you will read the other as well!
Rex - Albaterra Mates 1
Duke - Albaterra Mates 2
Lokos - Albaterra Mates 4
Khrel - Albaterra Mates 5
Next Stories are coming up:
Zuran - Albaterra Mates 6
Venan - Albaterra Mates 7
I have also Included a special sneak peak from Albaterra Mates 6 Zuran that you will not find anywhere else!
Fasten your seatbelt and let’s travel to a new world!
Contents
1. Khrel
2. Lena
3. Khrel
4. Lena
5. Khrel
6. Lena
7. Khrel
8. Lena
9. Khrel
10. Lena
11. Khrel
12. Lena
13. Khrel
14. Lena
15. Khrel
16. Lena
17. Khrel
18. Lena
19. Khrel
20. Lena
21. Khrel
22. Lena
23. Khrel
24. Lena
25. Khrel
26. Lena
27. Khrel
28. Lena
29. Khrel
30. Lena
31. Khrel
32. Lena
33. Khrel
34. Lena
Albaterra Extended Epilogue
Badass Luke
Make Your Own Story
Zuran - Albaterra Mates 6
1. Zuran
2. Phoebe
Also by Ashley L. Hunt
About the Author
1
Khrel
I had always loved Pentaba most after the sun dipped below the horizon and the sky became strokes of star-speckled cobalt. The insects plaguing the bogs slowed their afternoon chirpings to gentle lullabies, and the reedy foliage swayed with the breath of the breeze to their tune. The weight of the marshy humidity ebbed into cool dampness, allowing my lungs to fill without hindrance. Even the skinny-trunked swamp trees tamed, their boughs relaxing and their leaves quieting in slumber. It was comfortable, peaceful.
Lately, however, nightfall brought little more than tension and anxiety to my beloved kingdom. The moment the sun’s final rays waned into nothingness, citizens stretching from the northernmost border to the southernmost blockaded their doors and closed their windows, preferring to forego the comfort of whispering winds on their cheeks for a sleep of sound mind. I did not blame them. I had not slept well in months, either.
This particular evening, as Pentabans across the nation were hunkering themselves in for the night, I strolled the outer border of a towering spiked fence. It was constructed with the bodies of seven-year-old swamp trees, each raw trunk sanded flat on either side to lie flush against its neighbors, and I was thus unable to see the small community within its walls. I did not need to see inside. I knew who resided there. I could recall their mangled ghostly faces as clearly as if one had appeared before me, and I knew without being told it was their presence in our land that kept my people disquieted. The screeches and groans that rose from the guarded camp were enough to unsettle even the bravest of A’li-uud.
A face emerged from the darkness, but it was not the twisted blanched face of my mind. It was richly teal and shimmering, the eyes milky and the chin pointed. Strands of luminous silver hair cascaded past the oblong shape to squared, muscled shoulders and drifted to their end just above a carved abdomen. I inclined my head in greeting.
“Good evening, Chief,” he said, returning my nod with one of his own. “It is a rare privilege to see you on patrol.”
He spoke in a series of rapid clacks, his tongue snapping and popping across his palate. If any of the creatures behind the fence were attempting to eavesdrop, they would have heard nothing intelligible, but I understood the language perfectly and responded in kind.
“Hello, Xam. I trust all is well.”
“They are quiet tonight.” He flicked his gaze to the fence beside us. “The humans are relieved, but many of the A’li-uud are unnerved. I personally find their silence ominous.”
“Have they made any requests?”
“Only an additional crate of luffa fruit,” he replied.
I frowned and looked at the fence. It was as still and sturdy as ever, but the reassurance it offered in the nights prior had dissipated in the absence of the disconcerting sounds I had grown accustomed to hearing. I had been amongst the many who opposed the Council’s approval for the camp, and I feared now my doubts would be proven well-founded.
Xam, too, was staring at the barricade, but his eyes were wide and probing as if he intended to see through the solid logs to the activity within. “I do not trust them,” he admitted stonily. His hand flitted around the gaar’kon gun dangling from his hip.
“There are very few who do,” I said, instinctively tapping my own gaar’kon. “The Novai have spent centuries making enemies and neglecting alliances. Every planet they have visited has been reduced to shambles in their wake. I suspect we are the first to live side-by-side with them since they became space-bound.”
“Perhaps for a good reason,” Xam muttered darkly.
“Perhaps,” I agreed. “The Elders feel we have lost our way as a race and we are becoming the very things we scorn. They believe permitting the Novai to establish a colony on Albaterra is a step toward redemption.”
The skepticism on Xam’s face was evident even through the obscurity of eventide, but he maintained measured respect in his tone as he asked, “What do you believe, Chief?”
“I believe in the Elders,” I said at once. “As should you. Their sole dedication is to the preservation and fulfillment of the A’li-uud.”
He lowered his head in acquiescence, but his aura was still pungent with dubiety. I did not attempt to further persuade him. Compared to most Pentabans, Xam’s sentiments toward the Novai were mild, and I bore some of the same misgivings myself. The only reason I kept them subdued was because my role as War Chief required constant support for Sevani, Pentaba’s Elder, and by extension the Council as a whole. If I were to waver, the entire framework of Albaterra’s leadership could crumble apart at the destructive hands of panic and disorder.
As if to demonstrate the potential chaos, a great boom burst from the center of the camp. Smoke rolled in opaque billows toward the leafy canopies above and masked the pockets of visible sky. Screeches rattled the air in wild, raucous resonance, piercing the peace and searing my ears. A second boom closely followed the first before a sequence of cracks and claps erupted with unruly pandemonium, and the screeches doubled in number.
My gaar’kon was in my hand instantly. Despite the commotion behind the wall, the only movement to be seen was the shivering of the swamp trees and the ripples on the murky water of the nearest bog. Xam spun on the spot with his weapon drawn, searching for any sign of threat, but there were none.
“Fetch Qula,” I ordered over the furor. “He is stationed at the Polder Quarter. Remain armed, and do not alarm the humans.”
“You do not intend to investigate alone?” Xam exclaimed, jerking his head toward the fence for emphasis.
“Only until you return with Qula. Go. Now.”
Xam stared at me for a breath, clearly unsure if he should obey my command or stubbornly remain at my aid. I narrowed my eyes dangerously. With a paltry grunt of discontent, he relented and whisked into the night-shadowed trees with his gun poised and ready.
I clutched the gaar’kon close to my body and hovered my finger over the trigger as I sidled along the camp’s curved boundary. The Novai inside were still shrieking, the explosive bangs still fracturing the tranquility of the late hour, but I was unwilling to wait for Xam and Qula to accompany me, especially given the violent nature of the sounds coming from within the walls. It was nearly impossible to see the ground beneath my feet, but the beaded lights on my gun indicated its full charge with flashes of vibrant aqua, and I focused on the tiny halos around them as I walked.
Suddenly, a pallid figure sprang from the brush and landed in front of me near the fence with its eyeless face blank and its blood-red mouth leering. It rolled its head back, emitted a terrible screech to the sky, and pounced. I aimed and pulled the trigger.
2
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Lena
My breath came in quick, short bursts, shooting in and puffing out like a woman in labor. The pain in my chest was sharp and stabbing, but I was able to ignore it long enough to realize a cramp was starting to throb in my side. Reeds and stiff leaves whipped my bare legs as I streaked by them unknowingly, and I was forced to duck to avoid being clotheslined by a low-hanging branch. The only sounds I could hear were the thrums of blood pounding in my ears and the rapid thwacking of my shoes against the mud.
I was running for my life.
Slender tree trunks blurred past me in asymmetrical patterns, and I narrowly missed crashing into a few. The sky overhead, rich and dark in its blueness, poked through the awning of foliage above but provided little illumination on my path. Everything smelled of soil, permeating my nose with earthen density and bathing me in the crude odor until I was certain even the most sensitive of snouts wouldn’t be able to detect me. Humidity lingered in the cool air and mingled with my sweat to glue my clothes to my skin.
Finally, I stopped, resting my hands on my knees and panting. Every inch of my body ached. My legs wobbled unsteadily beneath me, and the searing in my sternum pierced my lungs. It had been a long, long time since I ran like that.
The ground was almost exclusively mud, but I was so tired I didn’t care and dropped onto my rear. It reminded me of home, anyway. Growing up in backwoods Louisiana meant I’d spent a lot of my childhood wearing a thin layer of dirt, and the swampy kingdom of Pentaba was a lot like my youthful stomping grounds. Some of the other colonists complained about the heat and the constant moisture in the air, but I found it comforting.
“God, Lena, you sounded like a herd of wild horses!”
I gasped so violently that I actually choked on a gob of saliva and began sputtering for breath. A pair of legs dropped from the heavens above, followed immediately by a slender torso and a shapely head. Relief gushed through me in spurts as I realized I was looking at the grinning, mischievous face of my roommate, friend, and confidante.
“Oh my God, you scared the crap out of me, Isabelle!” I groaned, palming my chest and feeling my heart beat a tattoo between my fingers. In a wheeze, I added, “What are you doing out here?”
She flipped her silky black ponytail over her shoulder. “I was stargazing in the tree until you came thundering along. What were you running from so fast?”
I sighed as my pulse began to return to normal and glanced down. I’d left a muddy handprint on the breast of my t-shirt. “Myself,” I replied dryly.
“Doesn’t look like you did a very good job,” she joked.
I glanced at her with a strained smile before heaving myself to my feet. My legs were still shaky from the intense pace at which I’d been sprinting, but they supported me enough to stand. “Yeah, well, I tried.”
“Why? What’s wrong?” she asked, her brows knitting with concern.
“Nothing,” I replied automatically. She quirked a well-manicured brow at me, and I sighed again, this time fully and deeply. “I guess I’m just a little lost.”
“I’m not surprised. Tearing around like that without watching where you’re going, you were bound to get lost.”
Isabelle’s humor was normally one of the things that drew me to her. We’d been assigned to share a shanty when we arrived in Pentaba nearly three months ago, and she’d broken the ice with a sarcastic comment about how people who claimed wealth was a state of mind had clearly never lived in a swamp. Two weeks and a hundred conversations later, we’d somehow become friends, and we’d stayed friends ever since. Tonight, however, her wit was lost on me.
“That’s not what I mean,” I said seriously. “I keep wondering how I got to this point in my life, and where I’m supposed to go next. And I feel like a complete fraud. I’m a life coach with no grip on life. Kind of hypocritical, you know?”
Her expression sobered, and she looked at me sternly. “That’s not hypocritical. That’s human. Nobody knows everything all the time.”
“I know. I just—”
My words were cut off by a massive, ground-shaking boom that made the mud around my shoes tremble with its reverberation. Isabelle and I stared at each other, frozen, ears pricked and eyes wide for any sign of danger. As the last undertones of the boom died, a new sound filled the air: hair-raising, ear-piercing screeches. They cut through the night like knives and sent a disturbed shiver up my spine to my scalp, which tingled with alertness.
“The Novai,” Isabelle mouthed.
I nodded.
Another boom shook the ground, this one more powerful than the first. My shoes squelched in the thick, grasping mud as I braced myself, uncertain of what was to come. More barbaric voices joined the first until the air was ripe with unbridled yawps. Beneath them rose a smattering of explosive pops and detonations, and my fight-or-flight response kicked in.
“Run!” I bellowed over the noise.
My feet began pounding against the marshy floor once more, and I heard Isabelle thudding close behind me. I wasn’t sure where I was because I’d been aimlessly sprinting, but I ran where the brush was thinnest, assuming it to be the more-traveled path.
Isabelle’s hand closed over my arm on my backswing, and I nearly fell as I was jolted off-balance. “This way!” she cried, yanking me to the right. I stumbled and tried to claw at her hand to get her attention, to tell her the sounds were coming from that direction, but she continued on as if my scratches were nothing more than whispers of breeze.
“Go back! Go back!” I shouted desperately. I dug my heels into the mud, but they merely skidded through the muck and shot geysers of damp filth up my legs. Isabelle plowed forward relentlessly.
Then, without warning, one of the nightmarish, ghostly Novai leaped from the shadows and tackled me to the ground.
3
Khrel
The blast of bullet-laden light that burst from the end of my gaar’kon caught the grotesque creature squarely in the chest. He seemed to freeze in midair for a split second, limbs askew and mouth wide with his bellowed screech, before he was thrown backward. His lean form slammed against the ground and sent mud spattering in all directions. The awful shrieking died on his lips in lieu of a pained gasp. The moonlight cast a milky glow on his already pallid skin, and I could see shimmering moisture beginning to blossom in the center of his night-black tunic.
Though the cacophony of voices and bangs from inside the camp continued without interruption, my senses had numbed, and I heard only a loud hum instead. We were under strict orders to limit deadly force to extreme circumstances, and while the Novai’s attack would be considered such, I knew it would still result in a number of questions and legal proceedings—not to mention a potential outbreak of vigilante justice from the victim’s tribe. This was far from an ideal situation.
Writhing in the mud, the Novai emitted a hoarse shudder. It was a sound spoken by all races and one I recognized easily: the death rattle. His jaw slackened, his hands twitched, and his eyeless face dropped to the side as the rattle died from his scarlet lips. He was no more.
I had killed before, of course. My many years as a warrior of Pentaba had been peppered with Albaterra invaders and small inter-kingdom battles that regretfully necessitated such violence. It was an act questionable to the A’li-uud creed, but it had been unavoidable at the worst of times. I had followed my orders and protected my people as I was destined to do. Every kill had left me with nightmares and regret, but this one was different. The Novai’s blank face began swimming before my eyes, and I wondered if this was the death that would strip me of my sanity.