Note: once this book is published, I will delete the Prologue and all related contents on this website.

Prologue

Trill

Kilo’s gang hideout, Orange Mountain

“Trill,” a melodic voice called to me that raised my hackles. Shit. Fuck. Just a few minutes to the common room and I would have been free.

“Nialla,” I dipped my head when I turned and saw her just a few feet away from me. The one person I wished I did not fear. Not now when I found not just one, but possibly two mates. I willed myself and my beast to calm down. There are only two people I fear in this gang. Him. And Kilo.

“Hmm, you smelled different.” Nialla placed her hand on my chest and trailed her fingers down to my lower abdomen. When she inhaled, I felt a trickle of perspiration ran down my back.

I remained silent.

Nialla, a willing participant in Purple Tribe’s experiment during her teens, pressed her ample breasts towards me. Rather than feeling aroused, I experienced a strong sense of disgust. Born as a slave to this gang, I knew the horrors of what she and her parents did to the manasties I cared about. 

I was almost a foot taller than her. She pressed her nose against my chest and inhaled deeply. “Something changed.” She looked up sharply at me. To others, she would look very attractive. Even called beautiful by other alien races in our kingdom. But I knew the truth beneath her beautiful facade. Her soul was darker than the deepest caves of the Blue Tribe.

“I must have used a strong soap during my mission,” I said blandly.

I did not move nor flinched when she pressed her sharp nails against my side, drawing my blood. Again. Ever since I was small, and she was only a few years ahead of me, it pleased her to no end to see me bleed. This mission was supposed to be my last. I was supposed to die when the Purple Tribe’s Royal twins found out about my deception.

Instead, my mate found me.

Fuck. Stop thinking about my mate.

“Your heart beat changed.” Nialla narrowed her eyes on me. She dug deeper to my side. I couldn’t hold back the grunt this time. She smirked. “Good,” she rubbed her breasts against me and purred. “Maybe I’ll play with you later.”

I trained my eyes to look at the floor, like a good little slave. I knew what she meant by play. There will be no pleasure. Only pain. I had lived most of my life like this. Yet, my beast wanted to roar and rip Nialla apart. Him and Kilo. Though my beast believed in saving Kilo, I knew better. Kilo was as twisted as Nialla. Who else would rather see our race die by destroying the female eggs? Their reason, to render the High Council and Elders powerless. They believed that doing so would restore the balance on our planet and finally bring peace.

No, I saw them for who they really are. Psychopaths. Plain and simple. The manasties who followed them blindly suffered injustices from the High Council, the Elders, and from their tribe members.

“What changed?” Nialla pressed further into me, her erection pressing against my thigh. My cock stayed limp, as usual. Only two things, no, two someones could make it hard ever again.

“It’s the soap,” I reiterated. Years had taught me how to lie better against Nialla. That was one of her talents. She could tell if someone was lying or telling the truth. Many tribes wanted to lure her to work for them, even the High Council. Her greed and others’ greed cost her mate.

I could feel her peering deeply into my eyes while I maintained my stare to the floor. She would literally pry my head open if she knew I was hiding something. Many assumed my scars were from frontline battles. Some knew the truth. I was Nialla’s pet project, a warm body to seek her experiments. She said she found my brain fascinating. Until I learned to be useful on the battlefield, she stopped experimenting on me. However, I made it a vow to destroy her one day and save the others who fell into her experiments. Many people who couldn’t be saved either died or made the choice to die. There are still a few who we can save.

Maybe now I have a chance. With my mates. One of them, an alpha. The other, a freaking alien female. Maybe I had a silver tribe’s blood in me. It was common knowledge that the Silver Tribe were a close-knit group, but very welcoming to other alien races. It seemed as if they were created with a defective gene that attracted them to procreate with other races. This was also why they were very few compared to the other tribes. Many seek companionships outside our planet. 

The Silver Tribe alpha, when I observed them from the shadows, was fond of the alien female. However, he doesn’t seem to be too compelling to her, unlike me.

I gasped. A searing pain to my other side brought me back from my musing.

A wrong fucking move. To let my guard down in front of Nialla.

“Look what you made me do!” She screeched at my face. I did not feel any pain as a straight thrust of a long dagger pierced into my body. “You weren’t paying attention to me! Have I not taught you the repercussions of what would happen if you dared to ignore me?”

Instead of taking out the protruded dagger, I had to press on it to preserve blood. How long is this torture going to last? For the first time in a long while, I wanted to live.

“Nialla,” Kilo called out. “What is this?” I heard him approach us in hurried steps. “What did he do now?” He sounded exasperated. I noticed Roan beside him when I glanced towards Kilo. I knew better than to run away from two predators in my midst. Roan, though Kilo treated him almost like a brother, differed from Kilo and Nialla. Him I could trust.

“He dared to ignore me while talking to him!” Nialla sneered at me as if what I did was the greatest crime ever committed. There were far darker crimes that happened in this gang. Things I should not remember if I want to live. 

Kilo and Roan looked at me, bleeding at my hips. I willed my ugly face to remain impassive. Kilo addressed Nialla while assessing me. 

“He did a good job, Nialla. The twins could be driven away from the Purple Tribe for good by him. He went as far as taking out their head guard.”

“You meant that head guard left with his tail between his legs,” Nialla laughed. I couldn’t prevent the shiver that ran through my body. All three probably noticed it. It wouldn’t surprise me if other manasties in the vicinity ran for their lives. When Nialla laughs, she spills more blood.

“I need him on another mission, Nialla. Give him back to me,” Kilo said. It sounded like pleading, but I could see the glee in his eyes. It will not cost him anything for Nialla to play with me more. They all knew I had excellent healing capabilities. I would heal just in time for the next mission.

“I brought you a present from my last mission,” Kilo cajoled. I froze. 

It only meant one thing. Fresh meat for Nialla to play with. At Nialla’s current state, I wondered if the manasty will last until night time. Right now, it was early dawn.

Nialla turned fully to Kilo and captured his lips. Kilo responded by grabbing Nialla’s buttocks. 

This act reminded me of my alpha mate. Everyone on this planet knew that Zirc and Roqs yearned to be mates so that the High Council would give them a chance to have a child. I wondered if this was the reason I saved Zirc that fateful day. I saw Zirc about to lose his life and something in me stirred. The sudden urge to sacrifice our life for him surprised both my beast and me. I couldn’t deny, being one of the lost White Tribe member, that my instincts were correct. Zirc was crucial to Roqs, my alpha mate. The White Tribe were 

The two continued to dry hump until Kilo took his lips away from Niala’s exposed nipple. “Let’s go have fun with him. I brought him to your playroom.”

Already? Kilo took him to Nialla’s playroom? I wanted to scream!

Roan read me accurately. When the two left, I wanted to sneak towards the dungeon area, where Nilla’s play room was located. Roan blocked me with his massive body. I was always confident in my abilities. Physically, Roan might be larger than me, but I knew I could beat him. If I wanted to. But I don’t want to reveal my secret ace. Not now when I knew the reason why I kept on living.

“You won’t save him,” Roan murmured close to my ear. “The manasty is already half dead.”

I refused to look him in the eye. My eyes wanted to stare through the floors, to the bottom of this cave where the new slave would be. To see if he could be saved or not.

“You, on the other hand, are still alive.” Roan dropped a hard hand on my shoulder and physically guided me towards the sick bay.

I remained silent. My feet were heavy because I was moving further away from saving another manasty.

Before we entered the sick bay corridor, Roan paused. He sprayed me with a harsh chemical that made me gag. The fuck was this? Was he trying to kill me anyway? Was I a wrong judge of character?

Roan’s blue eyes, that matched his small furs, glinted in the dark shadowed area where we stopped. “He has forgotten what it smelled like when someone is newly mated.”

I froze. Roan knew I was mated? Was he referring to Nialla or Kilo? He read the question in my eyes.

“Take this.” Roan made me grip a small canister tube where the pungent smell came from.

It hit me then. I looked up at Roan and saw him for the first time. I heard about this. How, in Kilo’s camp, someone was supplying a spray that would mask mated pairs from being discovered. I never needed one. Until now.

Was Roan behind this? Was he really a plant from the High Council, the Elders, or from the Blue Tribe? Was it all a ruse when he said he wanted to avenge his dead parents because of machinations from the High Council?

Slowly, my cough subsided, and I slid the small canister into one of the many hidden pouches I personally stitched into my clothes.

“You mated someone out there, Trill,” Roan started. “One thing I don’t tolerate are the unjustified deaths of mated pairs.”

He answered the silent question in my eyes. Nialla, when he was possessed by the evilness in him, would torture and kill one of the mated pairs. Then he would see how long the pair who survived last. Like it thrilled him to know that he could survive without his mate longer than the ones he tortured. When Kilo found out, he assigned the mated pairs to different assignments and locations. Even to other slave camps. Kilo at least believed in the power of numbers. He doesn’t kill indiscriminately.

“Thank -“

Roan pressed a hand to my mouth. “Don’t. Best that we get you patched up. Things are about to get crazy around here,” he declared cryptically.

I felt it too. My White Tribe genes, and therefore my beast, had been screaming at me months ago that something monumental was about to happen to our world.