Warrior's Song: A Sci-Fi Shifter Romance (Warriors of Vor Book 3) Read online

  Warrior’s Song

  Warriors of Vor

  Tehya Titan

  Warrior’s Song

  Stalked by a crazed fan, pop sensation Janelle Joyce was on the verge of a nervous breakdown when things went from bad to worse. Left bleeding and broken, she’s rescued by the most unlikely source—only to end up as a captive on an alien planet far from home. Determined to stand her ground, she wants nothing to do with these massive warriors, and she has no intentions of letting anyone bite her…

  Chieftain Vischer Roak has been alone for far too long. Dedicated to his people, and sworn to protect the females of his race, he travels to Kings Castle because that is his duty, but he can’t share in his warriors’ optimism. He never imagined one of the human females brought to their planet could be his mate, but when he hears Janelle sing, he knows he’ll do anything to claim her as his own. Her voice is lovely, haunting, able to soothe the savage demon within him, but before he can possess her, he must first prove to his new mate that he is worthy of a warrior’s song.

  WARRIOR’S SONG

  Copyright © 2017 by Tehya Titan

  First E-book Publication: August 2017

  Kindle Edition

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental. It is fiction so facts and events may not be accurate except to the current world the book takes place in.

  PROLOGUE

  Dressed in a pair of black shorts with neon pink polka dots and a matching camisole, Janelle Joyce removed the claw clip from her hair, shivering a little when the long, golden curls tumbled down around her shoulders. Humming under her breath, she applied an expensive cream under her eyes, then a heavy, overnight moisturizer to the rest of her face. While she waited for the thick goo to dry, she brushed her teeth, then tidied up the bathroom of her Hollywood Hills mansion.

  Okay, maybe it wasn’t actually in the Hollywood Hills, and maybe the six-bedroom masterpiece wasn’t quite as big or nice as other homes in the area, but it was close enough to count. Besides, it was a far cry from the single-wide mobile home she’d grown up in outside of nowhere Kansas. To say she’d come from humble beginnings was an understatement, but it was a part of her past the media just loved to hype.

  She liked to think a big part of her success had come from talent and hard work, but in reality, she knew a lot of it had been pure luck. There had been a lot of open-mic nights at music clubs and small-time gigs in less-than-reputable bars. She’d even spent six months stringing her guitar and singing on street corners for spare change before she’d finally gotten her big break.

  It had all happened so fast, she’d barely had time to enjoy it. One minute, she’d been barely scraping by, living on Ramen noodles and bologna sandwiches. The next, she was opening for some of the biggest pop stars in the industry. Now, she was one of those pop stars, performing in front of sold-out stadiums and signing autographs until her fingers cramped.

  Of course, fame came with a price.

  She’d just finished her first international tour, and she’d been riding high on the success of her newest single when she’d received the first phone call. At first, she’d brushed it off, chalking the heavy breathing up to a run-of-the-mill creeper. It hadn’t been the first time a fan had tracked down her personal number. So, she’d mentioned it to her manager, changed her phone number, and gone about her business without much more thought on the matter.

  The second call had changed everything.

  The caller wouldn’t give his name, and he’d made it impossible to track him, but she’d never forget his words.

  “I know what you really are. You’re a siren, beautiful but deadly. I hear your voice in my head all the time. I can’t stand it anymore. It has to stop. I have to make you stop.”

  The next morning, a dozen dead, crumbling roses had arrived on her doorstep.

  Things escalated quickly after that, and for two months, she’d been a complete wreck. More gifts came, always some macabre and disturbing token that left her heart pounding and her hands shaking. There had been more decayed flowers, dead animals, and pictures of her that had been taken without her knowledge or consent.

  Every incident had been reported to the police, and every time, they’d taken her statement, photographed the offending objects, but there wasn’t much they could do to guarantee her safety. Her stalker was always careful to never leave anything identifying behind, and he hadn’t attempted to contact her directly again since his chilling threat.

  Still, everywhere she turned, Janelle felt watched, hunted. She jumped every time her phone buzzed. The sound of the doorbell suddenly had the ability to induce paralyzing panic. Leaving the relative safety of her house reduced her to a simpering, wide-eyed, neurotic mess.

  With a disgusted huff, she twisted open the child-proof cap on an amber bottle and shook one of the tiny white pills into her palm. She detested the need for the prescription sleeping pills, but with all the stress, it was the only way she could fall asleep at night. Clutching the pill, she left the bathroom and headed to the kitchen for a bottle of water.

  Once she’d taken her sleep aid, she settled onto one of the barstools at the center island and stared at nothing in particular as she spun the plastic bottle cap across the granite. Her life was so screwed up, but the worst part of the whole mess was that she had no control. She hated being weak.

  From behind her, a man cleared his throat, and Janelle startled so violently she almost toppled off the barstool. “Damn, Grayson! You scared me half to death.”

  It wasn’t the first time her new bodyguard had snuck up on her, but then again, she was ridiculously distracted these days.

  From the shadowy doorway that led to the back mudroom, Grayson nodded.

  “Okay, well, I’m going to bed.” Standing, she pushed her stool under the counter. “What time do you and Will switch shifts again?” Grayson didn’t answer, and the longer he continued to stare at her in silence, the more fearful she became. “Grayson?”

  Her heart hammered, making it difficult to breathe, as alarm bells blared inside her head. Gripping her water bottle tight enough to make the plastic crackle, she backed away from the kitchen, her brain working furiously to find an escape route. Her security panel was too far away. Her kitchen phone was too close to the man in the shadows.

  The patio.

  Only, it would eat up precious seconds to disengage the lock bar to get the sliding door open. Fuck it. She’d just have to risk it, because there was no way to make it to the front door before the looming shadow caught up to her.

  Just as she made her decision, the man—definitely not Grayson—stepped into the light of the kitchen, his face contorted into a mask of crazed determination. Eyes the color of dark chocolate stared at her from a face that was human in only the most general sense, because there was no humanity in his cold gaze.

  “You should have been asleep by now.”

  Oh, hell no.

  Launching her water bottle across the kitchen, Janelle didn’t wait to see if she’d hit her mark before pivoting on her toes and sprinting for the glass door on the other side of her living room. She kicked the lock bar with her bare foot, nearly weeping with relief when it disengaged with a loud clatter against the glass. Her hands shook violently, but she grasped the wooden handle and wrenched the door open on its tracks. />
  One foot on the flagstone, one still on the carpet, she cried out when cruel fingers twisted in her hair, jerking her backwards so that she landed heavily on the living room carpet. The impact knocked the breath from her, and made lights dance in her vision, but she refused to lay down and die without a fight.

  Flailing wildly, she screamed over and over, hoping one of her neighbors would hear her as she kicked out blindly at her attacker. Her right foot connected with some part of him, somewhere painful going by his low groan, and he loosened his hold just enough for her roll to the side and scramble to her feet.

  Hurrying across her patio, she didn’t dare look over her shoulder. She could make it. She could get away. She was going to live, and her stalker was going to rot in jail for the rest of his fucking life.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  The sound didn’t register at first, and by the time her frantic brain worked out what she was hearing, it was already too late.

  Click.

  The explosion was deafening, and the heat of it seared her back, melting her skin away from the muscles as she was propelled into the air. Janelle screamed in pain and fear as every passing second seemed to last for eternity before she was plunged into cold, clear water.

  She sank lower and lower, until her heels scraped against the bottom of the pool. Tendrils of red floated around her and stained the water, the blood seeping from around the ten-inch shard of glass that protruded from her stomach.

  Great. If she didn’t drown, she was probably going to bleed to death before the ambulance arrived. Above her, burning debris floated across the surface of the pool, while the fire that engulfed her beloved house illuminated the night sky. At least she could say she went down in a blaze of glory.

  The incoherent thought made her smile, even as it became harder to keep her eyes open. Her lungs screamed in protest, and she knew she’d have to breathe soon, but she had no strength to move from her position.

  Water curled around her wrists like icy fingers, and if she didn’t know better, she’d swear the liquid had taken shape right there before her on the bottom of the pool. Of course, that made no sense. She was obviously hallucinating from blood loss and lack of oxygen.

  It couldn’t be real, because guardian angels didn’t exist, and she was absolutely going to die.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Toes curled in the sand near the shore, Janelle pinched the outside of her right thigh.

  Ouch. Okay, still not dreaming.

  No one could blame her for thinking that, though. After the explosion, she’d been rescued and healed by a shimmering, transparent alien race that had swept her across the galaxies and transplanted her on the planet Vor. She’d spent a couple of days handcuffed and terrified out of her mind in a cage made of strange blue wooden planks and a dirty gray floor. If she’d thought that was bad, things had only spiraled farther down the rabbit hole from there.

  Dressed in a cream-colored dress that had barely covered—well, anything—she’d been led from her prison to a coliseum with other humans and paraded in front of what had basically amounted to the Kansas City Chiefs’ entire defensive line. Next, the leader of these giant warriors had shifted into something right out of her nightmares, attacked one of the women, then flown off with her.

  Janelle had been convinced he’d eaten the woman, that she’d never see her again. As it turned out, that wasn’t exactly the case. Oh, the woman—Jordan, she’d found out later—had been devoured, all right, but she’d enjoyed every damn second of it.

  Things hadn’t been so bad since then. Well, other than living on an alien planet surrounded by enormous, aggressive men who wanted to turn her into a baby-making factory and never being able to go home. Rationally, she knew she should be thankful she wasn’t dead, grateful for a second chance at life, even if it wasn’t the life she’d envisioned for herself. It should please her to know that her stalker had died in the explosion, and he would never haunt her steps again.

  And for the most part, she was grateful, but it hadn’t been an easy transition. For the first week, she’d spent half of her time hiding in her room, and the other half looking over her shoulder, waiting for one of those big bastards to go all red-eyed demon and attack her.

  All in the name of fated love, she thought with a snort.

  “Why are they coming here?” She didn’t know how many times she’d asked the question, but it must have been a lot, because the warrior next to her rolled his eyes and grunted.

  “They are arriving to find out if any of the warriors from their clan have mates amongst the humans.”

  Yeah, she knew that. She just hoped if she asked enough times the answer would change.

  She wouldn’t say she’d acclimated to her new life in the few short weeks she’d been there, but things were starting to get better. She left her room more often now, and she didn’t freak out every time one of the warriors spoke to her. Hell, she was even starting to get used to the shade being thrown her way from some of the Vor females. Those chicks really didn’t want the human women on their planet.

  Now, warriors and chieftains from other clans across the planet were coming to appraise the unclaimed females like they were shopping for a used car.

  Fan-fucking-tastic.

  “What if I don’t want a mate?”

  The black stripes that covered Travo’s bronzed skin writhed when he shrugged his massive shoulders. “Not my concern, female.”

  “My name is Janelle.”

  His inky hair fell over one shoulder when he tilted his head to the side. “I know your name.”

  She liked Travo the best out of the warriors. He didn’t ask her endless questions, nor did he stare at her from across a room until she could feel her skin crawling from the attention. On the contrary, he’d been kind to her, and while they operated on completely different wavelengths, he sort of got her.

  These other clans could be filled with savages for all she knew. Maybe they really would want to eat her instead of mate her. For some horribly morbid reason, the thought made her giggle.

  “Are you okay?” Travo asked, his brow furrowed, deepening the valleys between the three ridges across the bridge of his nose.

  Janelle ducked her head as she kicked at the sand with her bare toes. “Yep,” she answered in Travo’s language. “Peachy.”

  Being able to speak and understand the warriors’ native tongue was the one thing she actually enjoyed about the planet. It had been explained to her that while the shiny, water-blob aliens—the Wraiths, the guards had called them—had been healing her from being shish kebabed, they’d basically downloaded the Vor language into her brain.

  She’d always wanted to learn a second language, but she just didn’t have the patience for it. Where were those Wraith things when she’d been failing Spanish II in high school?

  Sighing, she dug her toes deeper into the soft, warm sand as she scrubbed both hands roughly over her face. She didn’t know why the hell she was standing by water like some heroine from a historical romance novel waiting for her sea captain to return home.

  There was a plan, or at least some semblance of one, and it was supposed to make it less stressful for the human women to meet the new warriors from the different clans. Which was great, but sitting around the great hall had made her twitchy and restless.

  “We can go back,” Travo told her, his deep voice quiet. “You may find it less…overwhelming.”

  Janelle shook her head. If the possibility existed that she would be mated to one of these clansmen, she’d rather face it like she did everything else—head on, all in, on her terms. But damn, the waiting was killing her.

  “Maybe they’re not coming,” she said hopefully.

  Travo blew out a long breath. “There is no reason to be afraid, Janelle.” He said her name pointedly, with only a hint of sarcasm. “Our customs may seem strange to you, but I assure you, being claimed by a warrior of Vor is not something to lament. There is no safer place than by your mate’s side. A bonded
warrior will raze planets to protect his female, and he’ll cherish her until his dying breath.” Gently, hesitantly, he settled his massive hand on her shoulder, his strange eyes soft with concern. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  When he presented it like that, it didn’t seem so bad. Hell, her race had written songs and sonnets about that kind of devotion. Still…

  “So, he’ll just want me because I smell good?”

  Dropping his hand, Travo tossed his head back and laughed right from his belly. “No, little one, not just because you smell good to him. He’ll recognize you by scent, true, but the drive to be near you comes from a place much deeper.”

  “Okay, I get it.”

  And she did…kind of. She’d seen the bonded pairs on the planet all cuddled up and cozy together. She’d envied the way the males had watched their mates with adoration and reverence, the way they’d guarded them against any perceived threat. To say she didn’t want that would be a lie, but she just didn’t see how it could happen with a total stranger.

  Love took time. Where she came from, that level of commitment didn’t happen overnight, but she’d seen it on Vor with her own eyes. She just didn’t know if she could trust it.

  Christ, nothing made sense anymore.

  Stooping, she gathered a handful of shiny, opaque stones from the sand, then dropped them one by one into her other palm. Once the last stone clacked against the others, she switched hands and repeated the process.

  She might have felt better if some of the other women had come with her—like the badass former cop, Roxanne—but they’d all thought she was crazy. Maybe they were right. Maybe she’d finally cracked and lost her mind. She supposed that was okay.

  “Look.” Travo pointed out over the water. “They’ve arrived.”

  “Looks like it.”

  She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t the pirate ship sailing toward them. Still several miles out, set against the lavender sky and bathed in the rays of the planet’s blue sun, a massive ship with a sapphire blue hull and six, taut black sails cut through the strange green water at full speed.