Corr's Forgiveness (Chaetdorian Mates Book 1) Read online

  “I am not!” Pushing away from her friend, she stumbled into a dancing couple nearby. “I am perfectly, absolutely, sober.” Hiccup…

  “I think it's safe to say that you have had enough.”

  "No. Really. I'm fine guys. I think I just need to sit down for a while."

  "Maybe stick to water too."

  "Are you saying I can't handle my drink?" Nora teased, pulling herself up onto a stool. "Yeah," she admitted when the room still refused to stop spinning, "maybe water would be good."

  Leaning her elbows upon the table, she watched her friends carry on the party without her. Katie was dancing with Alice, doing her best to keep the smile on their friend's face. No doubt the second Alice sobered up it would vanish and the scared, nervous woman would return. Jessie was at the bar ordering more drinks for the girls… and a glass of water with ice for Nora. That made her smile. She wasn't actively participating in the festivities now but nor was she forgotten. And Hannah was... Hannah was wrapped around some loser with his tongue stuck down her throat. That had happened a lot lately. Nora hoped that she wouldn't repeat the mistake she had made the last time they were out and take this one home. She picked losers just like the rest of them, and the last one hadn't wanted to leave the next morning and Hannah had had to phone the police. Maybe they needed to have another intervention with her.

  An hour later Nora was feeling a little better, but she had the strangest feeling of being watched. She tried to put her fears out of her mind but on the way to collect their coats she saw movement out of the corner of her eye and it set her even more on edge. She quickly grabbed her jacket and high-tailed it out of there.

  Stumbling out into the night, Nora could hardly breathe as she looked around quickly for any sign of Eric. He wasn’t there. It had to have been her imagination. She was seeing things, imagining things.

  "Okay, now I know there is definitely something wrong," Katie sighed, grabbing Nora by the shoulders and turning her to face her. "You just ran out of there like the devil himself was on your ass. What's wrong?"

  "Nothing."

  "Don't lie to us, Nora. If something is-"

  "I think know what's wrong," Alice interrupted, her voice quivering in fright as she pointed down the street.

  Stood only forty metres away, his face a mask of hate and anger, was Eric.

  “What do we do?” Alice cried.

  What did they do? Easy. "Run!"

  Racing across the street, narrowly avoiding the cars and taxis that honked their horns and yelled rudely at them, the girls fled. Nora didn’t look back to check but she was in no doubt that Eric was following them. They needed to get somewhere safe, somewhere they would be protected.

  “The police station is just a few blocks away,” Hannah gasped as she dragged a struggling Alice behind her, doing her best to keep the fragile woman with the group. “If we cut through the alley off James Street we’ll get there faster.”

  The alley that Hannah was talking about was well known for its drug deals and gang related fights, but with Eric on fast pursuit, Nora would take her chances.

  Once they had turned off the main street and into the alley, Nora slowed down and risked a glance behind them. “I think he’s gone,” she gasped, finally coming to a stop. It had been a long time since she had visited the gym and after that little workout she thought it might be time to starting going again. She was so out of shape.

  “Why didn’t you tell us he was back?” Jessie demanded, leaning against the wall as she tried to catch her breath.

  “It was just a few phone calls and text messages.”

  “Just? You have a restraining order against him, Nora. He shouldn’t even be doing that, never mind chasing us down a fucking street in the middle of the night. Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “I did. They didn’t seem to care.” They never seemed to care. Was there any point of even going to the police station? It wasn’t as if they were going to do anything about it.

  Walking back to the entrance of the alley she glanced around the corner, searching to see if he was still hanging around looking for them. “I think he’s gone,” she whispered.

  Just as she made to turn back to join her friends, the sound of heavy steps at the other end of the alley met her ears, a split second later, Alice’s terrified scream rang through the air. Spinning quickly, Nora bit her lip hard in an attempt not to scream herself. With his arm tightly wrapped around Alice’s throat, a knife glistening by his side, Eric sneered. “Think again.”

  Chapter 3

  Everything was going as planned and they were running on schedule. If things progressed as they were they would be back at the ship with all the volunteers settled into their quarters well before sunrise. So why did Torq feel like something was going to happen? That his life and that of his brothers were about to drastically change?

  Leaving his tribe to finish processing the humans that had volunteered their lives and their blood to the Chaetdorian cause, Torq made his way up onto the roof of the building they were currently occupying. He needed some air.

  Stepping out into the darkness, the stars shining dimly above him, he sighed. They were so dull from down here. Up in space the stars shined so bright. He used to love nothing more than to stand before the great viewing panel outside his quarters while his brothers slept and gaze out into the vastness of space. It calmed him, calmed the anger and sadness that came from searching for something he wasn't even sure he deserved.

  Torq was a Slayer, a killer. The Warriors of his kind were the protectors, the fighters. Slayers were nothing like them. They killed and killed and killed. That was their job, what they were made for. How could someone that found taking lives so easy be deserving of something so precious? Because that’s what a mate was... something to be treasured and protected. He wasn't worthy of that. He prayed that he never found his mate - if he indeed had one - as the hatred he feared he'd see in her eyes would truly destroy him.

  He needed to pull himself together. He had work to do, men to command. He didn't have the time to be standing around wallowing. If they were going to leave this world and escape the sun that burned them far too easily, then he needed to get back to work.

  As he turned to head back inside, a scream rang out in the alley below. He knew he should ignore it, go back inside to his brothers and finish the job, but there was something about that scream that made him pause. A moment later he was heading the opposite direction, straight over the side of the building to the alley below.

  Landing almost silently from the three story drop, Torq straightened and found himself stood before a human male. A male who seemed to be holding a female against her will. Other human females were also in the facility, their fear coming off them in waves, but he paid them no attention. No, his focus was solely on the woman before him and the human male that was about to die.

  "What the fuck?" the male uttered in surprise. No doubt it was not just Torq’s sudden drop from above that had shocked him, but also his appearance. Unlike his brothers, Torq had never needed to hide who and what he was. He had kept his full Chaetdorian appearance. Most importantly, he'd kept his markings. Red markings that tended to burn bright when he was angered... just like he was in that moment. For some reason this human male offended him more than anyone ever had before. How dare he touch her? How dare he think to lay his hands upon the precious flesh of what should have been his? If he had deserved such a gift.

  Yeah, this one needed to die.

  Chapter 4

  Where he had come from or who he was, Nora didn't know, nor did she care. All that mattered was that one moment they had been alone - their friend held captive by her psycho ex - and the next some inhuman stranger had dropped out of the sky and was growling at Eric like a beast. A very angry beast. And when she said inhuman, she meant inhuman.

  Larger than any man she had seen before, the stranger towered over Eric. He was all least 7ft 4, and had more muscles than she thought even existed upon the human body
. He also had strange, red, glowing tattoos covering his arms that seemed to be flaring brighter and brighter the longer he stood there.

  "Let go of her now or I will remove your arm myself," he growled.

  Nora wished she could see the stranger’s face. She wanted to know if the face matched the voice. It was deep and masculine, and totally sexy. Judging by Alice's face though she wasn't too sure it did. The poor woman was freaked out. Her eyes were wide with fright as she stared at the man before her. No doubt she was on the verge of passing out. Alice was like Nora when it came to passing out during highly stressful situations. She was actually shocked that she was still standing herself.

  "I don't think so, freak!" Eric snapped back, his words slightly slurred.

  He'd been drinking. He was always more aggressive when he was intoxicated. She should have known. He’d probably been on a bender for the past few days.

  "So be it."

  Moving faster than possible, the stranger dived for Eric, somehow managing to separate Alice from him without injuring the scared woman and leaving her leaning against the wall a good few feet away from where Eric stood screaming, blood splashing upon the floor.

  What the Hell?

  Eric's screams rang through the night as he stared down in disbelief at the stump of his arm. He wasn’t the only one staring; Nora couldn’t believe what she was seeing either. She was also finding it hard to breath. She just stood there gapping in shock at the being before her, who was once again advancing upon the man she had once shared a bed with. "I warned you... now you die." And with only those few words he grabbed Eric by the head and twisted, snapping his neck.

  This couldn’t be happening. They hadn't just witnessed a murder, had they?

  Silence descended as the large man turned from the body laid before him and stepped towards them, and froze. His eyes widened and his nostrils flared. What was he looking at?

  Turning to see what had caught his eye, Nora found Alice huddled upon the floor against the wall, her face white with fear, tears streaming down her face as she gazed upon the so-not-human male.

  Was he even a he? Nora knew he, or it, wasn't human, that much was clear - what with the black orbs for eyes that seemed to glow from within. Was he some kind of government experiment gone wrong? You heard all sorts of things on the net nowadays.

  She made to rush forward to her friend, to comfort her, but he got there first. Crouching down before her friend he leaned forwards and whispered something in her ear. Alice's eyes widened in reaction to what he had said, before her body went limp and her eyes shuttered closed.

  "Hey! What did you do to her?" Katie demanded, rushing forward. Only then did Nora notice the small silver instrument in his hand.

  "I gave her a sleeping draft to make the journey more comfortable for her."

  "Journey? What journey?" Hannah asked, stepping around Eric's bleeding out body with a look of disgust upon her face. "And you can answer a few more questions that I have too... like what and who the fuck are you?"

  "I am Torq," he answered simply.

  Ignoring them completely, he began talking in some strange kind of code into a metal contraction upon his wrist. Some form of communicator, Nora thought. Seconds later, more red tattooed males flooded out of a door into the alley. They stood before him like solders before their Sargent. It was obvious that he was in charge of this group of… whatever they were.

  “What’s happening?” Katie asked, clinging on to Nora’s arm like a vice.

  Moving to her other side, Jessie whispered, "Whatever it is, we stick together. We don’t let them separate us, okay?”

  “Separate us? What do you mean, separate us?”

  “Well, from all the movies I've seen about aliens, all the documentaries I've watched, they always abduct those that see too much.”

  If anyone was going to say something to set Katie off, it would be Jessie. The moment she uttered the word ‘abduct,’ Katie was striding towards the towering alien beings with thunder in her eyes.

  “If you think for one moment you are going to be taking me and my friends anywhere, you have another thing coming.”

  Nora held her breath as she waited for Torq’s reaction to her friend’s angry words. Maybe it was because she had spent so long around aggressive and abusive men that she thought he would truly strike at her friend, but instead he ignored her, instead turning and gathering Alice’s sleeping form in his arms. Standing, he strode over to the men he had called out of the building on his wrist unit. Nora’s heartbeat picked up as she realised that he meant to leave with their friend.

  "Where are you taking her?” she asked, rushing forward. “You can’t just take our friend. Give her to us. We'll take care of her.”

  “Like you did before?”

  It was as if he had slapped her in the face. She had put Alice in danger, put all of them in danger. It was entirely her fault. She felt tears gathering in her eyes. She didn’t want to cry in front of these… whatever they were. She had made a mistake not telling her friends about Eric, but she would learn from it. She wouldn’t put her friends in danger ever again… starting from now. Throwing her shoulders back she glared up at him, her friends coming up beside her in a show of strength and unity. “We will not allow you to take our friend away from us.”

  Nodding, he smiled briefly, before turning his back on them and walking away. Just as they were about to run after him and demand that he hand over their friend, he spoke. “They have seen too much, they are to come with us.”

  Chapter 5

  Something was wrong, very wrong. What that something was Nora had no clue, but there was definitely something. Doing her best to clear her groggy head and force her eyes to stay open, she pushed up from the freezing metal floor and gazed at her surroundings.

  Where am I?

  She was in a strange room where everything was a very bright white. The walls, ceiling and floor were all giving off some kind of strange glow, making the unconscious bodies of her friends stand out upon the floor next to her.

  "Alice?" she gasped, racing over to her friend and shaking her by the shoulders. When Alice refused to wake she scrambled over to the others. "Katie? Jessie? Hannah?" None of them would wake.

  Okay, this was bad, real bad. What had happened to them?

  Doing her best to remember the events of the night before, Nora thought back to the last thing she could remember. They had left the bar, planning to get some food when… they had seen Eric.

  She remembered!

  Eric had chased them and somehow gotten into the alley from the other direction. He’d had a hold of Alice when that thing had appeared, that alien. Torq he had called himself. He'd killed Eric, called more aliens down into the alley, and then…

  Then that bastard had taken Alice with him, while his alien buddies had gathered Nora and her friends into a corner and given them whatever it was that Torq had given Alice in order to put her to sleep. They had been abducted! The question was… where were they now?

  Hearing a strange clicking sound she scrambled to her feet and planted herself before the bodies of her friends, between them and the strange panel she guessed was some kind of door. She didn't know what was on the other side, but what she did know was that she would never let whatever it was touch a single hair on her friends’ heads. Never again would she allow them to be hurt.

  She had expected the door to slide open, maybe even rise up, but what she got completely sent her mind spinning with questions. Before her eyes, the panel seemed to vanish, shimmer into nothingness.

  What the fuck?

  Was she really seeing this? Or was it a dream? It had to be, didn’t it? Doors just didn't vanish into thin air. She was hallucinating, that was it. Maybe she was still drunk?

  But then again, she had discovered that aliens really were real. And going by the one in the newly opened doorway in front of her, too handsome for their own good. So far she had met just a handful of the strange species, and each and every one of them had b
een drool worthy. Though for some reason they just didn’t do it for her. Did she find them attractive? Hell yes! But there was just something missing, some kind of connection she felt should be there. Weird.

  The male before her was massive. Not as large as Torq had been, but huge all the same. There was one difference that really stood out to her though. Whereas Torq and his guys had burning red tattoos, this guy had black.

  “Where are we? Who are you? What do you want with us?” She would have asked more questions but she thought that it might be best to allow him to answer those first before she bombarded him with the rest. She needed answers, now.

  “You are on a Chaetdorian voyager,” he answered simply, as if it was obvious.

  “Excuse me?” What was that meant to mean? “A Ch-what-ian? What is that?”

  Seaming annoyed with her questions, he marched into the room, gripped her by the arm and pulled her towards the door. “You will come with me.”

  Like hell she would!

  When yanking her arm refused to loosen his steel hard grip she began to lash out, kicking and hitting him with her free limbs. Nothing worked. By the time he had dragged her from the room and into some form of lift – one that she did not feel raise or lower, but vibrated softly a moment before the doors opened, just seconds after they closed – she was exhausted and aching from where she'd struck his almost stone-like body. This guy was as solid as marble.

  “I have one,” the male beside her said as they exited the lift, crossed to a door nearby ad entered what she could only describe as some kind of cockpit. “The first human to awake,” he declared, shoving her towards a new male that looked near identical to him. "As you wished.” The sudden loss of his grip sent her crashing to the floor.

  “Thank you, my brother.” Rising from his chair, the new male gazed over her, studying her as if she were some kind of strange being.

  This couldn’t be happening. It was a dream, it had to be. She needed to wake up now... really, really needed to wake up. She tried pinching her arm and when that didn’t work she pinched even harder.