Choler by Celia Kyle

Description

Choler has yet to find his mate among human females and Thora hasn’t found hers among the Vakhings, but when they meet, sparks fly… from their weapons meeting in battle. Ouch!

There’s this tiny misunderstanding—well, attempted pillaging of women by the Vakhings—that turns into a kinda sorta kidnapping and suddenly Choler is involved in an intergalactic incident. Now he must use every ounce of his negotiating abilities as the Preor Ambassador and defuse the situation to avoid a massive war between Earth and the Vakhings.

Oh, and also convince his mate he’s not the enemy but truly his in every way possible. From the tip of her pert nose to the fullness of her breasts and the perfect roundness of her—ahem. She’s perfect in every way. She just also happens to hate Choler for the whole kidnapping thing. Dammit.

Faced with a tumultuous mating filled with emptiness, Choler must convince Thora he was an innocent bystander, but will she listen and soften her heart toward him?

ChapterOne

The Valkyrie’s observation deck offered solitude and a spectacular view to Thora Odynsdotter. She stood on the metal plating in the oval chamber, hands clasped behind her back and eyes fixed on the wide viewscreen before her.

It appeared as if they traveled through a tunnel of light. Thora was no engineer, so she did not know the mechanics of how their raiding ship traveled between the stars. She only knew it worked, and at times like this—when the ship was about to drop out of faster than light speed—offered the most spectacular views.

A dim, translucent reflection of herself stared back at her from the smooth surface. She tossed one of her long braids over her shoulder pauldron, pausing to remove a stray wisp from her left horn, and sighed.

Thora didn’t care for her reflection. She didn’t find herself ugly. Her piercing blue eyes alone had inspired a dozen poems from other Vakhings. Rather, she was upset she had been born female. If not, she might actually have something to look forward to when the ship left the hyperspace jump.

Something other than the view, of course.

The tunnel of light slowed, resolving itself into a field of stars, white specks floating in an endless celestial sea. The engine’s hum changed under her feet. The view swept along, a shadow falling over the observation lounge as the Valkyrie fell in behind a gray moon.

“We have arrived.” Her muttering barely reached the level of a whisper. She snorted and turned on her heel. Father would expect her to attend him, even though he would hardly let her help.

She moved into a triangular-shaped corridor, the lighting at their lowest level as the ship stalked its next prey. A couple of male Vahking warriors jogged past, both taking a moment to bow their heads respectfully.

As Chieftain’s daughter, she had a certain prestige. She ate the best food, had her every need attended to, and received lavish gifts from Father.

And I would trade it all away, and perhaps one of my eyes, for the chance to prove my worth—to Father, to my twin brother, to them all.

Her twin brother. She could sense him, several decks below in the shuttle bay—a space teeming with excitement. And no wonder as he would almost certainly be leading one of the raiding parties to the surface.

Assuming her father sent raiding parties, but she had a feeling he would.

She passed several more Vahking males on her way to the bridge. All either respectfully bowed their heads or continued with their duties if bowing was not possible. None of them looked at her with any true interest.

To be expected. Any man to court the chieftain’s daughter would have his mettle sorely tested, whether the Blood Song manifested between them or not. Plus, Thora knew she was not the right sort of wife for the typical Vahking man. They preferred docile, submissive and quiet females, no matter what planet they hailed from.

The doors to the bridge slid out of her way, revealing the dimly lit interior. All lights were low to generate the bare minimum power signature. Vahkings worked at several stations around the arrowhead-shaped bridge, all silent.

Her father turned his one-eyed gaze her way. The cybernetic implant on his right eye had an unnatural silvery sheen. She knew it could see better than a normal eye, yet it creeped her out. A robotic black bird—a single replacement for Hugin and Munin, both long dead—perched on his shoulder, cawing from time to time.

“Thora,” he rumbled, scratching his thick beard with one hand and gesturing at the view screen with the other. “Behold. After too many centuries away, the Vahking have returned to Earth.”

Thora nodded, squinting as she took in the data displayed on the view screen. She moved over to a free console and connected to the ship’s network.

“Has the garrison we left behind expanded to conquer the world?” Thora glanced at her father.

“Sadly, no. It appears the Vahking people on Earth have all but vanished. Their genetic stock is still there, somewhere, but they no longer practice the Way as they once did.”

“Then they are lost to us.” She frowned, cycling through more and more information about planet Earth. “Father, the humans have advanced considerably in the time we’ve been gone. Not nearly as much as we have, but still, they might be a greater threat than we anticipate.”

“Bah.” Odyn waved off her concerns with a frenetic gesture. “Away with your dismal thoughts, girl. We have been many months without a decent raid. If the Earth people have all but forgotten the might Vahkings, we must remind them.”

She gave her father a sour look and returned her attention to the control station. “I am also picking up traces of technology far beyond what the humans are currently capable of. I think it’s possible they have formed an alliance with another race.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped. “Who would bother forming an alliance with Earthlings? We tried to make them appear like us, but it didn’t take. They will simply be conquered instead.”

“I still do not think the meager resources we might glean from these folk will be worth the trouble,” she countered, “but if you insist on this course of action, I think you should put me in charge of a raiding party.”

“Out of the question.” His eyes, both natural and metal, narrowed to mere slits. “You are a woman. Women do not lead raiding parties. I barely think you should be on raiding parties. I have indulged you, daughter, and allowed you to train as a shield maiden and eschew marriage, but the time will come when you must do your duty for the Vahking people.”

“That’s a lot of words to say you want to marry me off, Father.”

He had the decency to look abashed. Odyn tapped on his console and spoke into his chest-mounted communication.

“All Raiding parties, stand by.” He turned to his daughter, and his expression softened a bit. “If you wish to make yourself useful, you may take command of the recon drone.”

Thora sighed. “A matter a junior grade yeoman could handle, but very well.”

Thora sighed once more as she punched the commands on the console, which would program and deploy the recon drone. She set it up to stream video and audio live back to the bridge and instructed it to remain close to her brother’s party.

The drone slipped silently out of the dispensary tube, and she directed it over to a group of twelve Vahking warriors standing beside a silver longship shaped like a dragon. The mouth remained open for the gangplank, which was where she found her brother.

Much like her, he had ice-blue eyes and golden blond hair, and a certain fairness in his features that stopped the hearts of females from many different species. He had the arms of a warrior and the face of a practiced lover.

She hated him very much sometimes, though she didn’t like to admit it aloud. He was the good twin, the perfect twin. His horns were a bit longer and thicker than her own, but other than that, the family resemblance was uncanny.

“What is this?” Thor grumbled with a scowl as the camera floated up to become level with his face.

“It is a recon drone, brother,” she said. “I do hope you don’t mind an audience.”

“Mind?” He laughed, his chest expanding to make a great guffaw. Behind him, the drone could pick up the red and orange gridded forcefield keeping the darkness and cold of space at bay. The longships would sail right through it without disrupting a thing thanks to the alloy in their hulls.

“Yes, mind. Having an audience.”

“Why would I mind having an audience? I want many witnesses to our glory. I have chosen a place to strike with both fertile females and feasting in abundance.” Thor roared and his men echoed the sound.

Thora’s lips twisted into a grimace. Much of the Vahking female population was unable to produce offspring. She was a rare exception, but one woman could hardly provide all the needed children of their kind.

“I wish you luck, brother. But do remember the chieftan and I will be watching.”

He laughed and went inside the ship. Soon the entire crew joined him, including her drone.

The longship filled with a dozen rowdy warriors, each boasting of their abilities. Thor was the worst of them all, telling everyone he would find the prettiest, lushest female of all and claim her for his own.

Soon the gangplank retreated and the dragon’s great mouth snapped closed, securing the warriors inside the longship. Once prepared for space travel, the smaller ship rose and exited the Valkyrie with silent engines and headed toward their destination.

It didn’t take very many minutes for the longship to break through the cloud cover, and they received their first view of the human settlement. It appeared to be only of modest size. The drone fed her telemetry data along with the video record, and she struggled to quickly interpret it all.

“I’m not picking up any antiaircraft weaponry of any kind in this area.” She frowned. “Why would they leave themselves so vulnerable?”

“Who knows, and who cares? It makes them ripe for the picking.” Thor let out a mean chuckle.

The shuttle landed in the expansive back greenspace of a large house. Judging by the number of wheeled conveyances parked out front, a lot of humans were inside.

“All right,” Thor hefted his broad ax. “For honor and glory!”

His fellow raiders echoed his sentiment, and then their group charged down the gangplank. Thora sighed and piloted the drone to follow them, wishing she was actually on the planet’s surface.

Thora followed the group as they stormed the large building. Thor kicked in the back door and ran inside. When she got the drone close enough to film what transpired within the walls, it had already descended into total chaos.

More than two dozen women, anywhere from their early thirties to late forties, screamed and fled, running about like mad while Vahkings chased them around. One Vahking held a plump woman over his shoulder, a big smile on his face.

“What manner of libation is this?” Thor picked up a huge crystal bowl filled with crimson fluid and sipped it. He spat out the red fluid and recoiled in horror. “It’s disgusting! And this drinking vessel is unwieldy.”

“That’s because the drinking vessels are the smaller cups on the table right in front of it, you dolt,” Thora snapped. “Would you gather some loot instead of stuffing your face? And look for anything that might tell us more about how the humans have changed over the centuries.”

“That’s boring.” Thor dropped the bowl and let it crash to the hard ground, crystal shattering into thousands of pieces.

She gnashed her teeth in frustration, forced to watch the males be idiots. One of the women had the presence of mind to draw a firearm on the Vahkings. Though it made a loud noise, the puny projectile it fired flattened to a disc on their tough hides and technological advancements.

Soon the Vahkings rushed back out, some of them holding squirming women and others with valuable goods like silver candlesticks and jewelry. One Vahking carried a bulging sack, a tablecloth filled with the food the humans had been feasting on.

“Enough, brother. The others have already returned to the longship. I do not think they even know you’re not with them.”

“Hey, wait for me!” Thor took off running after the others.

She piloted the drone along behind him, hoping he didn’t get his fool self stranded.

Alas, it was too much to hope. The shuttle closed up its gangplank and raised into the air with a whine of its engines while Thor shouted and waved his arms. “Hey, wait! Stop! Where are you going?”

He ran after the shuttle as it sped away. She sent the drone after Thor, imploring him to stop. “Thor, wait, don’t run that way. That’s a busy passageway—”

His blond-haired, horned form rushed into the wide, gray thoroughfare—and then disappeared as a huge wheeled vehicle sped past. The vehicle’s side view mirror clipped her drone and sent it into a wild spin. She suffered a moment of motion sickness right before the drone smashed into pieces on Earth’s hard ground.

“Thor?” She tried to reconnect with the ruined drone to no avail. “Thor, are you all right? Dammit, Thor!”