Mate Her

Evernight
Publishing ®

www.evernightpublishing.com

Copyright©
2014
Jenika
Snow

 
ISBN: 978-1-77233-058-8

Cover Artist: Sour Cherry
Designs

Editor:
Karyn
White

ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED

WARNING: The unauthorized
reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.
 
No part of this book may be used or
reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction.
All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual
events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

DEDICATION

Thank you
Evernight
and Stacey for being so great every step of the
way.
Thank you to my family for always being there and putting up with
my time being diverted on working on another story. And, of course, thank you
to the readers for being so supportive and wonderful.

MATE HER

Warriors of
Hades, 2

Jenika
Snow

Copyright © 2014

Chapter One

Minka
was going to die. She knew that with every part of her, and the fear of reality
had her stumbling. She fell forward, her feet getting tangled in a grouping of
thick vines, and braced her hands forward. She landed on the ground hard, and a
scream of agony left her as her wrist
bent
backward.
The sickening snap of her bone breaking in two came through, and the nausea of
the pain rose up like the violent, dangerous monster coming after her.
Minka
looked behind her; sweat dripping into her eyes as
fear and adrenaline pumped through her veins at a fast, angry rate. Despite the
clearly broken wrist, she pulled herself off the ground and stumbled forward
again. This time she kept her balance, pushed the pain back, and moved forward.
The rage-filled roar that came from behind her was coming in closer, and she
knew she had to pick up her speed. The creature that followed her, a
Razorra
Beast that was big and nasty, with scales and talons
as long as her legs and fangs as thick as her ankles, was starving, and she was
the meal it wanted for this evening. It was one of the many dangerous predators
that were native to this part of the planet she was on. Although
Arambria
was a planet able to sustain human life, it was
also deadly at every turn. When the small ship she had been on with a handful
of other humans—a rare species anymore—set for the selling block in the alien
slave auctions, had detoured onto this planet she had prayed to whomever would
listen that she would just die right then and there. She would much rather die
than be the slave to a disgusting creature that would that would probably
torture and maim her. And then as the cargo ship she had been on had docked on
the planet to gather some supplies, all hell had broken loose.
Razzora
Beasts, creatures of monstrous size that
overpopulated this planet, had attacked the ship as soon as it had landed. It
didn’t matter why the creatures had attacked, because she had used the
distraction to escape while her captors had been engaged in combat. Many of the
other humans had escaped with her, and although there were deaths among them as
they fled for their lives, they kept pushing forward. In the end, five humans
had survived, her included, and they now lived in a deserted cave they had
found nestled between an outcropping of jagged rocks. She didn’t know how long
she had been here, and had been going off of the rising and setting of the
three suns of this planet. Twenty times they had risen and set, and that was
twenty times too long. This planet might be able to sustain human life, but
humans were not meant to live on this wretched planet. Finding edible food had
caused sickness in a few of them, but they didn’t die, and now they were more
conscious of what to search for to eat. There was also a fresh spring that ran
through the cave, which was a lifesaver.

Minka
ran harder and cradled her injured arm to her chest. Sweat covered her from
head to toe, and strands of her long, tangled rats’ nest of dark hair stuck to
her forehead. She just needed to get to the cave where the rest of her group
was. Today she had been one of the people to get food for the others, and
Jobe
, the man assigned to go with her, had saved her life
by distracting the creature. But she had heard his death scream, knew he was in
the beast’s belly right now, and if she didn’t get to the
cave
,which
was too small for the animal to get in, then
she would be joining
Jobe
very soon. The thick
branches of these blue and black trees scraped along her arms, and she screamed
out as the acid from the leaves touched her flesh. The poison bubbled along her
skin, and as much as she wanted to rub it away the only thing that would
neutralize the toxicity was water, and that was in the cave. She strived not to
trip again, but the foliage was so damn thick and tangled. Her nerves were
shot, and fear was stealing her breath.

“Help me.” She cried out, seeing the cave in the
distance, and the jagged outcropping of the entrance that would save her life.
There were three heads that poked out of the entrance. They looked right at
her, right at the danger that surrounded her, yet they turned and left her to die
alone. They moved back in the safety of the cave, forgot about her, and now she
knew where she stood. She may not have been cordial with any of them, because
this situation they were in had them fending for themselves. But she had been
closer with
Jobe
. He had given his life for her,
shared meals with her, and she had been with him sexually once because she had
needed an outlet for her emotions. Maybe sex was far from what they should have
done at a time like this, but this was all any of them had … each other. At
least that was how she’d felt. Clearly the others couldn’t give two damns about
her.

But then
Minka
felt the
sting of something land in her neck. She reached up, felt the hard, thorn-like
quill of the
Razzora
, and knew she was done for. The
creature used it to numb and paralyze its prey, and in a matter of minutes
she’d be lying on the floor, aware of what was happening, but not able to do
anything but wait for the inevitable.

****

Brawn moved through the thick trees, trying to
gather prey for his and his brothers’ meal for tonight.
Thorque
and
Lukin
were back at the ship, steadfastly trying
to repair it. After one of the engines took a beating during hyper speed they
were forced to detour to this godforsaken shit of a planet until the part could
be fixed. But they were making good progress, and they should be on their way
to their home planet of Hades before the next nightfall. The toxic
Bolla
trees opened up, and the clearing showed a field of
Daggina
flowers with their thorn-like petals that shot out
as a defense mechanism for anything that threatened them. Brawn unfurled his
wings, let them stretch out the fourteen-foot span, and felt the power move through
him. In one giant flap of his wings he rose above the tree line and scanned the
surroundings. The planet was lush with foliage, but it was a carnivorous world,
one that took from anything that set foot on it. He scanned his surroundings,
trying to find something more edible than the shit plants they had found. He needed
meat, but as far as he could scent the animals he had come across were not
edible, not unless he and his brothers wanted a lot of pain while eating and
digesting their food.

He flapped his wings, let the wind run over his
skin, and needed to get home where the heat would protect him as well as help
regulate his body temperature. His kind was made for the hot, fiery
temperatures of Hades, for the flames and lava, and the black
Azteccena
Mountains that covered his world. They could
survive in this cooler climate for a short time, but not for long, and with
each passing day they stayed away from their planet, or the very least out of
their temperature controlled ship, they grew weaker. A Warrior of Hades was
never weak, never let something as simple as the fucking temperature let them
off their guard. But some things were left out of their hands, and so they
tried to keep themselves out of situations where they were vulnerable, even to
a weaker species. They killed, maimed, and fought for what was theirs. Their
kind was feared amongst the galaxy for their ruthlessness, and for their
cunning ability to fight until the end. But the battles they had fought had
been when others thought to take control of Hades. Of course they had ventured
off of their planet for battles when it was needed, and although they fought to
their last breath, Hades warriors always killed immediately so their weakness
for temperature didn’t make them vulnerable.

He scanned his surroundings again and again,
training his superior eyesight on anything that moved that could be his prey.
And then there he saw it, a nasty fucking
Razzora
Beast plowing through the
Bolla
trees, tearing them
down in its clear haste to get whatever it was chasing. Brawn looked in the
direction of where the soon-to-be meal of the creature was, and zeroed in on
the spot. There, lying on the ground with a dart in her neck was a human
female. It only took Brawn a second to react. He used the power behind his
wings, spread them out to their full length, and flew in her direction. The
beast was getting closer to her, and although Brawn shouldn’t interfere or care
if she was about to die, there was something in his gut that told him he needed
to get to her. He dove down, moved through the timberline of the trees, and
right before the
Razzora
reached her, he landed on
the ground beside her. He had her in his arms and was getting ready to be
airborne again when the
Razzora
broke through the
last tree. The creature roared out when it realized Brawn was taking its meal.