The Warrior's Prize Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

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  The Warrior’s Prize

  By

  Ava Sinclair

  Copyright © 2016 by Stormy Night Publications and Ava Sinclair

  Copyright © 2016 by Stormy Night Publications and Ava Sinclair

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published by Stormy Night Publications and Design, LLC.

  www.StormyNightPublications.com

  Sinclair, Ava

  The Warrior’s Prize

  Cover Design by Korey Mae Johnson

  Images by RomanceNovelCovers/Jimmy Thomas, 123RF/Vadim Sadovski, 123RF/pitris, and 123RF/algolonline

  This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults.

  Dedication

  To Emily Tilton, who is both a nice lady and a brilliant writer.

  Prologue

  “Turn.”

  The voice giving the order was gruff, almost guttural. The guard giving it was masked. Only his eyes showed through the slits. Mean eyes of one who was used to seeing fear, and who enjoyed it.

  “I said ‘turn’!”

  She’d not moved fast enough, and the ropelike lash, glowing green in the dim of the block-walled room, struck across the full of her naked buttocks, propelling her forward. She landed on the rough stone floor and rose to her bruised knees, clutching her bottom, feeling the welt rise under her hands.

  She took a deep breath, and tried to keep the quaver from her voice as she spoke.

  “I demand an audience with Xylon Lacru,” she said. “I demand a chance to have my case reviewed. I am the victim of unlawful incarceration under Intergalactic Code…”

  Her objections were met by laughter. When it died down, she felt a sharp pain at the base of her skull as a guard yanked her up by her hair.

  “The only code that applies to you here is what you’ll find beyond that gate.” The guard was holding her so tightly by the hair that she had no choice but to look toward the rough bars. Beyond them she could see the denizens of the walled city filled with those forced to fend for themselves in a primal society made of inmates—some hardened criminals, others innocent like herself. She’d fought the injustice they faced, had fought her planet’s role in it. And now she was about to be thrown in their midst. Would she die at the hands of the very system she’d tried to expose?

  She fell silent, knowing her objections were useless. She tried to block out the jeering as she was pushed into a line of inmates, males and females, humans and aliens, being bent over one by one for a contraband search. A wave of dizziness overtook her, but she vowed not to let herself faint. She could not show weakness. Not with him watching.

  And she knew he was. She could see the small silver tubes on the wall that moved this way and that, tiny cameras that caught the action and transmitted it to anyone tuning in to the process. She knew back on Earth, the man responsible for sending her here was relishing her distress, that he would continue to do so.

  Her turn came at the bench. She was stretched forward, felt her legs kicked apart. She closed her eyes as a cool probe pushed into her bottom. It was a mercifully quick procedure, save for a few lewd comments from the guards about what they’d like to push up that hole. She ignored them, her face flushed. She stood, her bottom stinging, her side still sore from where they’d implanted the transmitter.

  She entered the line leading to the gate. She was behind a burly female alien—larger than an Earth man—who turned and glared down at her. The alien’s catlike green eyes moved up and down her body, and she knew what it was thinking, that she wouldn’t last.

  Was it worth it? He’d asked her that the day of her conviction, his voice brimming with amusement as she sat in the cell wondering how she’d gone from the fight for galactic justice for the downtrodden to being convicted of poisoning a man she barely knew.

  “Yes,” she said.

  But now, as the gates opened and the prisoners waiting on the other side roared with excitement—or was it rage—at the influx of newcomers, she wasn’t so sure. All she knew was that she had to survive.

  Chapter One

  Heart rate: Elevated

  White blood cell count: Elevated

  Blood Oxygen Saturation Levels: Dropping

  Location: Due North

  Zak Steth looked up from the handheld monitor, noting the projected direction of his quarry. His square jaw set in determination when he realized she was still a good distance away—scared, possibly injured, and nearing the top of the ridge somewhere just above him.

  He stood from where he’d been kneeling beside a small footprint. The length was about the size of his hand, and as he’d looked at it, he’d felt a begrudging respect for the temerity of humans who dared to flee the colony—especially this human. Since taking work tracking down those who dared escape Colony 7, he’d chased down and captured his share of them.

  But this was his first human. It was also his first female.

  That she’d eluded him this long both intrigued and infuriated Zak. As he’d left the monitoring base, his supervisor had made light of this particular hunt. “A female?” He’d been looking at the holoboard showing the three-dimensional intake image of the escaped prisoner—EM9011. She was small, even for an Earthling.

  “You’ll have time to catch her, punish her, and still be back in time for drinks,” his colleague had said. They’d all laughed at that, even Zak.

  But he wasn’t laughing now.

  In the distance, he could hear the high-pitched yip of a barvarine. He’d seen its massive paw print before he’d found the human’s footprint. He’d found something else, too—three drops of her blood. Now the race was on to find her before the predator did, and this was no ordinary predator.

  With massive nasal passages designed to sniff out prey, the creature—or creatures—were already a step ahead of him. But according to the transmitter, the human was a step ahead of them, still alive and moving. He pushed through undergrowth, following the coordinates with renewed purpose. He wasn’t about to let some hunchbacked animal steal his chance for the handsome bounty the penal colony paid for returned prisoners.

  Zak reached for his sidearm and clicked the setting to HiberRay. Experience with barvarines had taught him that a shot from any conventional weapon only enraged the animals. The HiberRay impacted the creature on a molecular level, flooding it with the hormones that triggered rapid onset torpor. The animal did not immediately fall into hibernation; no ray was that strong. But it dulled the creature’s senses long enough to escape or dispatch it.

  He continued the climb, accelerating his pace now. If the barvarine reached the human first, he could kiss his payday goodbye. And that wouldn’t even be the worst of it. The ribbing he’d take for not having caught some helpless little female would plague him for months. There was so little amusement for the guards who spent long hours virtually monitoring the health and location of hundreds of prisoners within the walled city. The rare chase broke the monotony. A failed capture was fodder for those left behind.

  The footing was treacherous on this part of the trail. The narrow pathways that hugged the rocky ridge had given his quarry the advantage. Like most Traoian males, Zak was large and broad. A small, lithe human would have zipped along the lip of rock he now had to carefully navigate. With both hands grasping the ledge, he was unable to look at the tracker. But he didn’t need to. Instinct told him to follow the cries of the predator, which had increased in intensity. The creature was calling its pack mates, letting any within earshot know a kill was pending. He hoped there were none within range, not that it mattered. One could easily do the job.

  He tried to imagine the fear of a human female in the face of the huge creature, with its cavernous nostrils and protruding yellow eyes. If that wasn’t horrifying enough, the front paws functioned as hands that grasped and held victims while a double row of jagged teeth did its work of dispatching it.

  Having navigated the narrow lip of the ledge, Zak quickened his pace. He removed the tracker as he walked, a chill moving through him as he checked it. Up ahead, things had gone silent, and the last known readout indicated that the human’s heartrate was elevated dramatically, indicating pain or fear or both. The barvarine had found her; of that he had no doubt. The tracker also showed erratic movement. Zak cursed, breaking into a run.

  He’d entered a thicket of trees that blotted out the light from overhead. A shrill tone from the device filled him with dread. Zak looked down at the sudden flat line and the words Cessation Of Function. Fury filled him along with something else—disappointment. He’d failed. He’d failed to capture a human female. Worse, he’d failed to save her.

  But still he had his orders. Like all other pe
nal systems built on TraoX39 in a joint partnership with Earth, Colony 7 was frugal. The transmitters implanted in all inmates were reusable. Even if he couldn’t get a full bounty for return of the human, he’d get a quarter of it for returning the transmitter. Zak looked down, noting its coordinates. He wasn’t looking forward to digging the device from the remains of a dead human, but that would be better than trying to remove it from the carcass of a barvarine that had swallowed it. He picked up the pace, hoping he could make it to the scene of the kill before the animal consumed her body.

  The wind howled through the trees overhead. The forests here were ancient, the tops of the trees interlocking to form patterns that were both intricate and awe-inspiring. Zak tried not to think of the human’s last, horrible moments. Had she looked up, he wondered, to note the beauty of the place where she would die?

  Clouds were forming above the trees. The rumble of thunder shook the mountains and lightning flashed overhead, illuminating the lace-like canopy. Storms up here were violent and sudden. Just what he needed. He unsheathed his knife, ready to use both his HiberRay and the blade when he found the beast.

  He ran now, sprinting up the boulder-strewn path, his muscular legs propelling him from rock to rock. His training in the Galactic Legion had given him the advantage of strength and stamina in such terrain; he’d fought in places like this before… Zak pushed those memories from his mind. He would not think on it, even if he did allow himself to relish the familiar rush of excitement danger always brought.

  The blips on the tracking device were becoming more rapid. He was closer, and that was good. He’d run so long that he was just at the verge of getting winded. Zak moved from tree to tree, keeping an ear open for sounds of the barvarine. There were none, but that didn’t mean the animal wasn’t there; in the mountains sometimes winds carried sounds away.

  He could see something dark through the trees—the mouth of a cave. A den, maybe? Zak stopped, cautious, then edged closer in a stalking crouch. Something was in front of the cave, a large mound. By the signal he could tell the transmitter was in the mound. He wasn’t surprised. Barvarines often stashed multiple kills in one location and covered them with debris to prevent detection.

  He could smell the musky animal stench on the moist air, and waited to see if the creature returned. The thunder rumbled louder now as lightning lit the surrounding forest. He hoped the rains would hold off. Digging the tracker out of the prisoner’s body would be unpleasant enough without getting soaked in the process.

  Zak tucked the gun back into his chest strap as he approached the pile of leaves and debris, steeling himself for what he was about to do. It was only when he got to the mound that he realized he’d not been looking at leaves but the brown and gray body of a barvarine itself. It wasn’t a small one, either. The creature at his feet was easily five times his weight.

  No. This can’t be possible, he thought. But it was.

  He stood, looking around, puzzled, now back on high alert. Whatever had killed the beast was still out there. It wasn’t unheard of for a rogue barvarine to kill another in its territory. Perhaps one had ambushed this one after it had taken the human. He circled the carcass, searching the tree line for the telltale hunched shape, but the only thing stirring the surrounding undergrowth was the winds from the threatening storm.

  He returned to the carcass, remembering the transmitter. Zak knelt again, switching the tracker to manual scan. He ran it over the animal’s abdomen, but the signal indicated the transmitter was closer to the front. He furrowed his brow, puzzled as the signal indicated the location was not in the abdomen but on its chest. There was a gash there. Zak moved the skin aside and peered into the wound. There, at the mouth of it—and only visible to someone looking for the tiny device—was the transmitter.

  “No,” he said. He fished it out. It made no sense. The only way the transmitter could be in the wound would be if…

  He stood, puzzlement turning to anger. The human! She’d done this. He didn’t know how; it had to have been blind luck. But the beast was dead and somehow she’d dug the transmitter from her own body and placed it inside the creature’s, which explained the readings. That meant she was still alive, and given that the last known readings indicated blood loss and fatigue, it also meant something else: The hunt was back on.

  Zak clicked a button on the tracker, automatically signaling headquarters that the transmitter had been found. Now he had to find the human.

  Even without the tracker, it was easy to pick up her path. A trail of blood led into the cave. He followed it until the visual trail was lost in a passage that curved away from the entrance to shroud him in total darkness.

  He could hear the rush of water, and suppressed a grunt of surprise when he felt shallow, ice-cold water flowing through his boots. The water of the subterranean springs here was biting cold, but the ground became dry as he entered a wider part of the cavern. Star stones studded the walls and littered the floor here, giving the place a soft, ethereal glow. He slowed down, ducking, and watched. There were multiple passages up ahead, then something else—a flash of light. Someone was moving into the dark middle passage, and using a star stone for a guide. The human!

  Zak took off in the direction of the flash, but halfway to the passage felt a blinding pain impact his temple. He fell, rolled, and was just sitting up when there was another blow, this one to his arm. Blood from the wound to his head trickled into his eye. He reached for his weapon, just as a third sharp blow impacted his forearm.

  And then he saw her. She was on the ground, slumped against a wall, feeding another of her dwindling supply of rocks into a crude slingshot. The light he’d chased had not been a star stone carried by her, but one fired in an attempt to lead him away. Fury overrode his pain, and with a cry designed to unnerve her, he launched himself in the human’s direction.

  It worked. She dropped the rock, but picked up something else. Zak barely missed running directly into the sharpened stick, the beast’s blood still red and sticky on its lethal tip.

  She was on her knees now, turning to point the makeshift spear in his direction. In the glow of the star stones, he could make out her face—heart-shaped and feminine but twisted in fear and hatred, the almond-shaped eyes narrowed. As Zak took a step forward, she tossed her head to keep the cloud of black hair from obscuring her vision.

  “Stay back,” she said. Her voice was shaky. She jabbed at the air with the spear. It was shaky, too. Zak glanced lower. He could see the blood on her side where she’d dug out the transmitter.

  “Let me help you.”

  She moved back against the wall, clutching the spear tighter. “You aren’t here to help me.”

  “You’re injured.” He kept one hand stretched forward. With the other, he sheathed his weapon and moved his hand to the pouch at his side. “I can fix it. I can close the wound.”

  “I don’t want it fixed.”

  “If I don’t fix it, you’ll die.”

  “Maybe I want to die.”

  He shook his head. “It takes a strong will to slay a barvarine. If you wanted to die, you’d have done it outside the cave.”

  Her response was another threatening jab in Zak’s direction. “I’ll kill you, too,” she said. “If I have to. I’ll kill you before I let you take me back. I’ll kill anyone before I let them put something in my body that allows them to track me like an animal.” She shifted, and another rivulet of blood seeped from the wound.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zak said. This was, a course, a lie. But she was a criminal. And a payday. If it took a lie to get her to drop that spear… “I was passing through, saw the body of the …”

  “Liar!” Her anger gave her strength. The spear wasn’t shaking now, and she was bracing herself on the rock wall behind her with one hand. “I’ve been watching you follow me, from the tree line.”

  Zak cursed himself. Of course you were.

  “You’re hurt.” He tried again. “If you’ll just let me…”