The Lereni Trade, page 1
The Lereni Trade
(A Novella Beyond Starfire Angels)
She grew up disregarded by all and put her attention into studying, but Krissa longed for friends. In her lonely life, an alien abduction was the last place she expected to find them. But it's not by chance that they've found her. Her Lereni captors have plans for her as an exchange to save their world from its ruthless conquerors, the Tah'Na. Only her life can free them, but not even they know why she is worth the freedom of a whole planet. A possible clue rests on her wrist, a stone bearing a symbol from another alien race. One Lereni will show her what friendship means and defy his commander to save her, but they may all need angelic intervention.
The Lereni Trade
(Beyond Starfire Angels Novella)
By Melanie Nilles
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters, locations, events, etc. portrayed in this ebook are purely coincidence.
Published by Prairie Star Publishing; Bismarck, North Dakota. Smashwords Edition.
Ebook copyright
The Lereni Trade © 2015 by Melanie Nilles
All rights reserved. Please visit www.melanienilles.com for permissions.
Cover Art by Melanie Nilles
Base image © Mopic at Dreamstime.com — Earth Seen from Inside a Space Station
All rights reserved.
All images, fonts, and other elements purchased or free for commercial use.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
_______________
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Author
Chapter 1
The bitter night condensed each breath into clouds and turned her throat to burning ice. Quickly they followed behind her, steps shushing through tall grass growing louder as they closed in.
Krissa risked a glance back and caught the two shapes nearly upon her. Loose dark hair blew into her face and she brushed it aside in time to swerve around a tree and brush barely visible in moonlight against the dark gray of nighttime snow.
Under the wash of a half-moon, she barely made out the footing or contours of snow drifts.
Her toe caught on something bitingly solid beneath a bank of snow.
The sudden stop to her momentum sent her sprawling into a frozen bed of leaves and dead grasses. She put her gloved hands out to break her fall and avoided bruising her face, but it couldn't spare her the pain that twinged in her ankle.
At the sound of steps slowing, she twisted around, wincing from the pain but pulling her legs up to crab-crawl backwards from their approach.
The two figures dove for her and two sets of strong arms hoisted her up effortlessly between them. "Gotcha!"
"You're not gonna tell anyone." The voice from the taller of the two shadows was sinister.
"I didn't see anything. I have nothing to tell. I don't know who you are." She'd only been hiding beside the barn to get out of the party. It hadn't been her idea to be there, but she'd felt like an unwanted freak. That she had been there to witness their vandalism was only coincidence.
"Do you know what Dean would do to us if he found out what we did to his car?"
"No! He won't find out. Really." At the sharp yank of her hair, she gasped and reached back. Fingers locked into her hair, unmoving from her desperate attempts to pry them off.
"No. He won't." The deeper voice of the two carried a resolute darkness that sent panic through her. He grabbed her arms and twisted them behind her.
"I didn't see anything. I swear." She tried to pull free but the pain in her shoulder stopped her. "Please." She barely choked out the word. "Please. Let me go." Why had she let her roommates convince her to join them? Why couldn't they have taken her home earlier when she had asked? None of the guys wanted anything to do with her; they never had. And all these two wanted was to hurt her.
Behind her, the other said, "Get it done. Let's get back to the party. I want to see the look on his face."
Get what done? Krissa held her breath, afraid of what might come next and imagining the worst.
In the quiet of the woods, the crunch of a step to their left froze them all.
It paused and stillness fell once again.
"Who's there?" the first asked with a note of threat.
Krissa peered through the gloom but saw only a vague shadow, but all were shadows in the trees.
A second later, a blur of movement sent the man before her sprawling.
He caught himself from hitting his head and whirled to jump to his feet again. "What—"
Behind her, the steel arms released. She stepped away and whirled to see him standing with his hands ready between two dark figures against the faint gray of moonlight on snow. Where had they come from?
Four shadowy figures surrounded them, the closest standing over the unconscious form of the first guy. She hadn't even noticed them attacking him.
"What are—"
A flash of light silenced the remaining attacker. He crumpled into a pile of snow.
Krissa blinked away dark spots from the moment of brightness.
"Who are you?" she asked cautiously and did a full turn to see them all. While stepping away from three shadows closing in, she bumped into something and spun.
In the wan light of the moon, black gleamed from a chest too broad for a woman.
Black…Army? Special Forces? What did they want with her? Were they trying to save her? They hadn't touched her since knocking out her attackers, or killing them. But that made little sense, a useless waste of their efforts. Still, she was relieved for the saving.
"Thanks?"
They made no move towards her, nor any sound, but stood like statues. She shivered and tucked her coat close around her neck.
"Um…Okay…Bye, then." She lifted her eyes, expecting a helmet for the outline against the sky.
Eyes flashed with reflected light inches over her.
Her breath caught in her throat. Something about the shape of that head wasn't right.
She took a step back, aware of the others—
A hand whipped out to grasp her wrist.
Before she could scream, she was yanked against armor. A second hand covered her mouth. Her heart pounded in her ears, but when she made an effort to pull away, she couldn't move.
Not again. This wasn't her day.
Soft fuzz tickled her nose, blown by the rapid breath that finally returned through her terror. Tears of frustration burned in her eyes and she ceased her struggles.
A whisper of a voice spoke in a strange language and was answered from nearby—one of the others.
Slowly, the hand released from her mouth, leaving her trembling and unable to move even as the warm armor shifted away. A metallic click came from one of the others, and her worthless life flashed before her—finding out she'd been adopted, ridiculed by high school classmates for her weirdness and intelligence, and clinging to the hope of a college education to make a life for herself the only way she could, only to have no true friends even then. No one cared.
But death didn't come. Rather, bodies closed in around her, the air thickening in their midst, while they conversed in low voices.
A hand settled firmly on her shoulder and a voice spoke in a strange language that rose in what sounded like a question from the one behind her, the one who had muffled her scream.
The snap of a voice from her left made her jump. That movement was enough to send pain radiating through her ankle. She winced and took her weight off but fell backward into the stranger and what felt like a plate of warm, shaped metal.
Several more exchanges among the four.
"Who are you? What do you want?" Were they military? Why didn't they speak English?
Although she couldn't understand, the tone of the nearest dark shape had a tenderness that soothed her questions. In the darkness, the shape shifted down below her. A second later, arms lifted her.
Krissa blinked and looked up but saw only a shadow in the dark. Two eyes gleamed briefly, but the backlight of the moon left the face too dark to make out.
"Who are you? Why are you doing this? What do you want from me? Are you trying to help? I wish I could understand."
One of the others gave a sharp command and they started moving through the trees. She clutched at the one carrying her to avoid falling, despite the steady arms about her.
"Where are you taking me?" Did they understand anything she said, or were they as uncertain of her as she was of them?
They said nothing but moved in silence through the woods. She twisted to see the others around her but could make out nothing about them in the shadows to which they stayed.
As a test, she made a small attempt to push away. A sharp yank of her against the hard shell said her attempts would not be tolerated. Uncertain what to do, she fell still, until they reached a clearing from the trees and paused. A few motions from the hands of the others indicated caution.
After a whisper from one of them, they stole through the moonlit clearing.
But Krissa wasn't concerned with them.
Under the wash of pale moonlight across the clearing lurked the dark outline of some sort of ship, but that couldn't be right.
"What is that?" Suspicions haunted her mind. Impossible.
When they stepped from shadow into th
Her breath caught in her throat. She swallowed her anxieties to lift her eyes.
Although it was dark, she made out vague features and they weren't quite human.
"Holy…What are you?" She pushed away with her full strength, but his arms steeled without him breaking stride.
Afraid of what this meant, she struggled harder than ever to escape. "Let me go!"
Arms held firm, sparking a greater determination to escape. She had to flee, find help.
Amid her flopping around, he lowered her and let her regain her feet.
Perfect. Her chance to act—
Ow!
Pain speared through her right ankle upon standing and collapsed her to her hands and knees with the dire reality of her situation. She would never escape with that injury, least of all from four of them.
Why was this happening?
"What do you want?" Frustrations bubbled up to drown her, and the tears ran cold on her cheeks. As much as she wanted to be away from there, she didn't want to leave like this. Why couldn't it be angels? Where were the rumored angels she'd heard about? Apparently, she wasn't worth bothering for anyone, until she was in the way.
They stood around her, but the soft ruffle of fabric on her left accompanied bending knees. A hand on her forehead made her twitch away.
"Don't touch me!"
Soft words only made her tremble in dread of what they wanted with her. They were accompanied by the combing of hair from her face, clearing her view, and the caress of her cheek to wipe away the tear streak. She slapped the hand away.
"Why me?" She wanted to trust that he wouldn't hurt her, but it could all have been a trick, like calming an animal before caging it. Was she a prisoner?
She blinked and dared to look up to an alien face half hidden in shadow. It was no use; even if he had been human, she couldn't read his expression.
"Torik!" The word barked from one of the others prompted the kneeler to look up and respond in their strange language.
She sniffed and looked up to the depths of shadows on a human-like face that appeared to be set in a scowl. That one frightened her. Instinctively, she shifted herself closer to the one addressed as Torik.
Torik said something to the other, his hand light on her shoulder.
The one standing over her huffed and bared sharp teeth gleaming in moonlight. A second later, he crossed his arms and growled a statement. Definitely not from around there.
Still kneeling by her, Torik murmured something that sounded like a gentle question. She twisted to see his smooth palm held up as if in offering.
He waited rather than force her, not what she would expect of someone wanting to abduct her. She wanted to trust him. He hadn't hurt her and seemed to be sincere in wanting to help, or maybe she desperately needed to believe in kindness.
Hesitant, she set her hand in his. His fingers closed around hers. With a nod of approval—or so she hoped it was—he stood and pulled her to her feet. She avoided weight on the injured ankle.
"Ka narwal shi?" he repeated.
"I don't understand."
At that, he held up his hands as if carrying her. That he asked first indicated a consideration for her that eased her trepidations; although she didn't want to go with them.
"Take me home?" She pointed into the woods on a remote hope and all heads turned. Silence surrounded them as if they had stopped breathing.
After several seconds, they returned their attention to her and exchanged several words.
Krissa looked around at the shadowed faces watching her and sighed. "I guess that's not your intention."
His head tilted in a way that seemed to be confusion.
Seeing no better alternative but to freeze while hobbling back to the house, she dropped her head in despair.
He scooped her up once more, his warmth the only consolation in the cold night that he might actually care. It would make him better than most of the humans she had known all her life.
The irony didn't escape her and teased a smile, brief as it was amid the fear of what would come.
The relaxing sway of his body with each step lulled her into a strange sense of peace.
It ended too soon at the rude beacon of light.
She opened her eyes and squinted in the shine and the lean of his body as she was pressed back into him. He carried her up a ramp into their ship. It had to be.
The fear returned with the realization that they would take her away from her home, her world, and her family. She might have been an outsider, but it was her home.
And yet, she wondered if this might hold promise for a new start. This Torik wasn't repulsed by her. For the first time, someone had helped her without making her feel like an inconvenience.
"Torik. Nek farasz." The deep voice came from somewhere aside.
The one holding her replied and gently set her down at the top of the ramp.
Multiple sets of steps thumped on the ramp behind her, until a hand clamped on her arm.
"Korr." The gruff voice matched the one who had addressed Torik. The hand on her arm was firm and pinching, not the lighter touch of Torik. Was this one Korr? "Rashan mil."
"Kracha!"
The sharpness of the voice caught her like a command. Sharp points dug into her arms and she gasped and writhed to get free, but they only dug deeper. She looked down at a claw, the sharp points pressing through her coat sleeve. This was where it all ended. They had only lulled her into submission to get her on board.
She followed the arm…
And caught her breath at the sight of the faces watching her. She hadn't expected human faces; she hadn't known what to expect. The species had a regal bearing for being so alien while being almost human with a vague resemblance of something feline. Their faces were bare of hair around eyes, flattened noses, and mouths, but beyond, the colored hair formed a fuzz over the rest of their heads with strips of longer hair down the middle. Their bodies were tall and muscular, and their faces had the thickness of masculinity that she had assumed. Were they all male? How could she tell the difference? Did they even have genders or maybe they were androgenous.
She pushed away the curiosities to focus on the immediate situation.
In the green of the eyes, the pupils contracted into vertical ovals. It was the double canine teeth when one of them opened his mouth to speak that seemed the most threatening, marking them as carnivores, predators.
"Karik." The voice was less harsh and came from one of the nearby creatures, the one with the softness about him that she recognized.
A growl and a bark answered from the one holding her. Krissa flinched and pulled, but tiny claw points poked into her arm.
After a brief, curt exchange of words, the one holding her shoved her into the one with the gentler manners. He pointed at himself and said, "Torik."
So, he was the one who had helped her and that was his name or title. She breathed easier now that she saw his face and the softer features compared to the hardness of the others.
Words she didn't understand were barked from the one who had threatened to take her from Torik with a harshness that made her flinch. An air of tension thickened around Torik in spite of the calm visage. Movement behind Torik preceded a hiss from the ramp, which raised to cut her off from that world. It might have been cruel to her in many ways, but it had been her home.
Had been.
"Karik." Torik pointed at the one who had spoken harshly.
"Krissa," she said while pointing at herself.
Karik turned and snarled with flattened ears that reminded her of a cat. Startled, she backed into Torik. She got it—the one giving the orders was called Karik and she should avoid him at all costs.
Karik snapped a rapid string in that strange language. Responses came from behind Torik.
When Karik turned and crossed the hold area with all its containers, Torik pressed his hand to her back, nudging her that direction.
Follow him? No. That way lay the threat of mauling. She wanted to live.
The hand flat to the small of her back pressed more insistently, forcing her to step forward through the path amid the containers tied down with straps and nets. A brief step on the injured ankle made her hiss through her teeth.
