Tribute Page 17

  “Report,” he said to his number two in command.

  “Inferno Force has repelled them again. Minor damage to our ship’s hull, but nothing slipped past our blockade.”

  Dorn grunted in response, breathing in the faint smoky smell from the hit they’d taken. He knew as long as he led the fleet, nothing would get through. Although they were far from the eight-planet system containing Earth, he and his warriors put their lives at risk each day to keep the viscous Kronock from invading the technologically outmatched planet.

  “Rerouting power back from shields to environmental controls,” one of his officers said, intently focused on the computer screen.

  A steamy bridge was a small price to pay for stronger shields, but he’d welcome some fresh airflow. Dorn swiped a hand across his sweaty brow as he took in the thousands of stars laid out in front of him.

  Even though the Drexians had been defending Earth for over thirty years, almost no one on the blue planet was aware they even existed. That was part of the deal. The heads of government with whom they’d made first contact had insisted that discretion be the cornerstone of the arrangement. They’d thought telling humans about the existence of aliens—one warmongering species intent on invasion and one warrior race determined to stop the other—would create chaos and mass hysteria. So a secret agreement was forged that only a handful of Earthlings knew about.

  “They don’t even think life exists outside their world,” Dorn said under his breath, lost in thought. “Arrogant fools.”

  “Come again, Commander?” the nearest deck officer asked, swiveling around in his chair and away from the monitor in front of him.

  Dorn cleared his throat. “Nothing. Just glad the Kronock are on the run again. Good work, warriors.”

  “Yes, sir.” The officer nodded and spun back around.

  Dorn cast his eyes across the bridge at the Drexians all busy with their assigned tasks. Each wore dark uniform pants, and sleeveless shirts that pulled tight across their arms, exposing myriad tattoos and scars. Their faces were intense and focused on the battle, glowing with a sheen of sweat. The Drexians who signed up to serve in the Inferno Force and defend against the Kronock on the border of enemy territory—called the outskirts—were rougher than your average soldier.

  Being so far away from the rest of the fleet, however, their rules were more relaxed. Dorn cultivated a fight hard, play hard mentality among his crew, and he lived it himself. Disagreements were settled with hand-to-hand combat, and he’d tasted blood—courtesy of his crewmates—more than once. He knew the Drexian High Command would not be pleased to see a bridge full of soldiers not in full uniform, but when he looked at the battle-scarred warriors, Dorn’s chest swelled with pride. His eyes flicked to his own intricate, black tattoos stretching down one bicep--stylized swirls and a shield marking him as Inferno Force. He and his warriors would never let the Kronock through.

  Pride morphed into anger as the thought of his enemy took hold. Violent and concerned only with exploiting other species, the gray-scaled warmongers wanted nothing more than to enslave and destroy. Even though they were technologically superior to humans, Kronock weaponry still hadn’t been able to defeat the sheer firepower and sophisticated tech of the Drexian forces, which was why his people chased the monsters all over the galaxy to prevent them from invading weaker planets. It was how they’d discovered Earth in the first place. He knew many felt it had been a lucky day for both races.

  Dorn spun on his heel and walked to the illuminated star chart that took up one wall of the bridge and traced the history of the war. He dragged a callused finger from the blue dot that represented the Drexian home world across light years to the small solar system so valuable to his people. He tapped the map, and his finger made the screen shimmer with ripples of color.

  The small, blue planet looked tiny and insignificant, thought Dorn. In many ways it was. The planet was overpopulated, and was systematically destroying its own ecosystem, yet they had not achieved light speed, jump capability, or the ability to establish colonies off world. Normally, a planet such as that would not warrant a steady and devoted defense. In the past, the Drexians had relocated alien species that had been targeted by the Kronock, or had assimilated them into their society.

  But Earth was different. Earth females were compatible with Drexian males. Some of them, at least. About half of the female population, according to Drexian scientists. This was why his fleet fought for them. This was why the human governments made the deal—the deal that traded protection of Earth for females.

  Dorn turned from the star chart and watched his warriors move with practiced efficiency on the bridge. If there had been no deal, his crew would not be where it was. Not that Dorn minded fighting. None of them did, but sometimes he wondered if it would ever end.

  After the initial Kronock incursion of the eight-planet solar system—when they’d reached within firing range of Earth before the Drexians had intervened and beaten them back—the enemy had sent a steady stream of ships to their border, but Dorn thought it was more to make sure the Drexians were still holding their blockade in place, than an actual attempt at invasion. The defense forces protecting Earth hadn’t come face-to-face with a Kronock in over thirty years, and although Dorn’s stomach turned at the thought of the huge scaly creatures with elongated, hairless heads his warrior father had told tales about, he couldn’t help feeling that he was fighting a faceless enemy.

  Keep on coming, he thought to himself as he watched his ship target a retreating Kronock ship and fire. Faceless or not, we’ll beat you every time.

  “The last Kronock ship has been pushed back, sir,” his second in command said, looking over his shoulder from where he leaned against a low console.

  “Are all our fighter pilots back?” Dorn asked.

  His second glanced down at the console. “Last one just reported in. No losses.”

  He let out a breath, relieved that his team had suffered no casualties. He couldn’t afford to lose any warriors. Correction, the Drexian race couldn’t afford to lose any warriors.

  As the last of the Kronock ships disappeared from view, Dorn’s shoulders relaxed and he rubbed a hand across his jaw, feeling the day’s worth of stubble he preferred. He had no problem defending Earth; battling the Kronock was in his blood and made him feel alive. However, he had no need or desire for an Earthling mate. Or a mate at all. His fellow Drexians could claim his share of the bounty for him.

  “Fall back to our defensive orbit,” he said, dragging a hand through the dark hair he’d let grow out and fall around his ears.

  It wasn’t that he found the Earth females repulsive. Aside from being small enough for him to break in two, they resembled Drexians in many ways. Bipedal mammals, they only lacked a foot or two in height, nodes along their spines, and a third breast, but he’d heard his Drexian brethren say that what the breasts lacked in quantity they made up for in softness. He’d often imagined what these famously soft breasts felt like, and even now his cock strained against his leg at the thought, and the hard nodes along his spine heated.

  “Commander, you have an incoming transmission,” his communications officer said, looking up from the blinking control panel.

  “Transmit,” Dorn said, glad for the interruption that had taken his mind off the Earth women and their curious breasts he’d never see.

  The officer tilted his head. “It’s on a secure line. From High Command.”

  Dorn sighed. “I’ll take it in my strategy room.”

  He walked off the bridge and into an adjoining room where star charts and battle plans were strewn across a large, round table. Despite their technological sophistication, Dorn preferred mapping his strategy on paper. Drawing lines and charting intercept points helped him think clearly.

  He took a seat across from the single display screen and tapped a button by the chair to start the transmission. The screen crackled to life, and a familiar face looked at him from across the galaxy. With bronze skin and v
ivid green eyes almost identical to his own, the man in the High Command uniform on the monitor grinned when he saw him. If Dorn’s hair had been a lighter shade of brown and cut short, and one of his arms not covered with a dark swirl of tattoos, it might have been difficult to tell the two apart.

  Dorn shook his head and tried not to smile himself. “I should have known it would be you. Nothing better to do than bother me in the middle of a battle?”

  “Is that any way to greet your older brother?” The Drexian gave him a half grin. “Besides, I know you won your battle, and the Kronock are in full retreat.”

  Leave it to Kax to monitor his fleet. Once an older brother, always an older brother. Despite his twinge of annoyance, Dorn was glad to see his brother on screen. The two had always been close, and being so far from him was his one regret about commanding his battleship on the outskirts. Since Kax had left military intelligence and taken their father’s seat at High Command, he rarely ventured to the edge of the defensive blockade anymore.

  “You manage to get your information quickly,” Dorn said, pushing a long sweaty strand of hair off his forehead. “We only just repelled the last of the ships.”

  Kax’s smile faltered, and he took a breath. “Then now is the perfect time.”

  Dorn sat forward, resting his elbows on the table in front of him. He knew his brother’s tell. Kax nervously rubbed his hands together, and an alarm bell sounded in the deep recesses of Dorn’s brain. “The perfect time for what?”

  “You’re being recalled to High Command,” his brother continued. “Well, more specifically, to the Boat.”

  The Boat? Dorn’s mouth went dry. Why was he needed there? The massive space station—officially dubbed the Love Boat and called the Boat for short—had been built to accommodate and orient the Earth brides who were taken from the planet. It sat behind one of the moons of Saturn, hidden from view and space probes, not that those were as much of an issue since humans had stopped focusing resources on space exploration.

  “I don’t understand.” Dorn tried to keep the panic from his voice.

  “You will when you get here.”

  Dorn scowled at the screen. A typical answer from his brother. Did he always have to be so damned secretive? It wasn’t like he was still an intelligence officer.

  Kax shook his head. “I know how you feel about the Boat, but I hope you can put your issues aside.”

  “I don’t have issues,” Dorn said, hating the fact that he sounded like a petulant child. His older brother always did this to him. Put him on the defensive. Got him riled up.

  “You think Earthlings are inferior.”

  Dorn shrugged. “They are. They’ve used their technology to strip their own planet bare. They’re the only creatures I’ve ever seen willfully destroy their own habitat in this manner.”

  “Maybe,” Kax said. “But regardless, of all the species we encountered on our search, they’re the only ones who were biologically compatible.”

  Dorn grunted. “I know all that. The original DNA strand that managed to spread itself across the galaxy or something.”

  Kax angled his head at him. “You never did pay attention when it came to science, but yes, we do share common DNA with the humans. Otherwise we would not look so similar, or be able to successfully mate.”

  Of course, if the Drexians hadn’t stopped producing females, they wouldn’t have needed to search out other compatible species for mating, thought Dorn. But generations of war and defending weaker planets from invaders had depleted their population, and done something to their ability to create females. Almost none had been born in a generation.

  “And these compatible beings still haven’t figured out that we’re taking females?”

  Kax looked affronted. “You act like we’re stealing them. You know very well that this is all done with the full permission of the Earth governments.”

  “Only because they had no choice,” Dorn said. “Once they realized how technologically superior we are and were shown what the Kronock do to planets they invade, they had to agree to our terms, didn’t they?”

  Kax leaned back and blew out a long breath. “You make it sound like we blackmailed them. It’s been a good deal for the humans. We protect Earth and keep the people from discovering about us and the possibility of an alien invasion.”

  “And they let us take their inferior two-breasted females for mates.”

  “Only a select few,” Kax said. “You will not think them so inferior when you see them.”

  “I have no need to see them,” Dorn insisted. “Besides, I’m busy tracking some unusual Kronock movements. I can’t leave.”

  Kax pressed his brows together. “Unusual? In what way?”

  Dorn gave a brusque shake of his head. “It’s hard to explain. I’ve spent years engaging our enemy, but lately they seem to be testing us more than actually trying to win.”

  “Why would they do that?” his brother asked.

  Dorn didn’t want to give voice to what he secretly feared. It was alarmist, and he had no proof, but he felt like the Kronock were waiting to spring something on them. Something big. “I can’t say for sure.”

  “You can share your findings with the station’s captain and the High Command when you arrive. I’m transmitting your official summons to the Boat.”

  Dorn scowled. He had never been there, had never had any reason to go there, but he’d heard it was a holographic wonderland meant to replicate everything most appealing about betrothal. Designers to create wedding gowns, jewelers to deck them out in gemstones, and exact recreations of some of Earth’s most desirable locations. The theory was that if you enticed the females with enough bells and whistles for their marriages, they’d be less upset to be snatched from Earth and mated to an alien. From what he’d heard it worked reasonably well. It helped that they only took women who had no family connections and little reason to stay on Earth.

  Dorn tried to imagine why he’d be needed on the Boat as he studied his brother’s face. He’d never submitted an application for a bride and never intended to. “I’d rather be thrown in the brig.”

  His brother leaned back in his chair and grinned again, this time, followed by a throaty laugh. “You haven’t changed a bit, brother. That’s exactly what I thought you’d say.”

  To keep reading TAMED, click HERE

  Also by Tana Stone

  The Tribute Brides of the Drexian Warriors Series:

  TAMED

  SEIZED

  EXPOSED

  RANSOMED

  FORBIDDEN

  BOUND

  JINGLED (A Holiday Novella)

  CRAVED

  STOLEN

  The Barbarians of the Sand Planet Series:

  BOUNTY

  CAPTIVE

  TORMENT

  TRIBUTE

  SAVAGE

  *TAMED, SEIZED, & EXPOSED are now available as audiobooks!

  TAMED on AUDIBLE

  SEIZED on AUDIBLE

  EXPOSED on AUDIBLE

  About the Author

  Tana Stone is a bestselling sci-fi romance author who loves sexy aliens and independent heroines. Her favorite superhero is Thor (with Jason Momoa’s take on Aquaman a close second), her favorite dessert is key lime pie (okay, fine, all pie), and she loves Star Wars and Star Trek equally. She still laments the loss of Firefly.

  She has one husband, two teenagers, and two neurotic cats. She sometimes wishes she could teleport to a holographic space station like the one in her tribute brides series (or maybe vacation at the oasis with the sand planet barbarians). :-)

  She loves hearing from readers! Email her any questions or comments at tana@tanastone.com.

  Copyright © 2020 by Broadmoor Books

  Cover Design by Croco Designs

  Editing by Tanya Saari

  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 writt
en permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.