Taken by The Alpha Warlord
Warlords of Farian Book 2
Bailey Dark
Copyright © 2019 by Bailey Dark
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 written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
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One
Vania
The wind whipped my hair back in unruly brown curls as I pummeled the dummy. The storm was sinking into the valley with a ferocity that was knocking my breath out of me as much as the workout.
“One, two, one, two,” I gasped, sharp intakes, timed perfectly. Guttural utterances of a disciplined strategy as I thumped the sackcloth figure around.
Right hook left jab, right uppercut, right hook, left jab, left hook, right jab, roundhouse kick in an eight-blow pattern to finish him off as the lightning struck a defiant glory while thunder roared and the dummy crashed to the ground.
I flexed my fists in and out in time with my breath and swiped the sweat from my brow. I bent over the dummy and grunted as I lugged it back upright. The jeers of the watching soldiers made the hairs on the back of my neck raise slightly. So I stood with my back to the dummy, hearing the men and women on the neighboring peak’s training clearing ring, much more highly trained than me, laughing at my attempts to best the sackcloth adversary.
I looked out over the Farian valley, the grey dusk setting sooner as the storm clouds overwhelmed the rice paddies below, the terraced gardens on the distant purple mountains. Trails wound through the mountains from training ring to training ring in gentle clearings, small huts with the bare minimum of training essentials (weaponry, first aid items, tools), petrified wood had long ago been stacked as fences to line the stark edges that dropped for hundreds of feet into gorges against the descent to chilly rapid-bound rivers below. The training surface beneath my feet was hard and made of small pebbles that ground, bloody, into my knees when I fell. I waited, I breathed deeply… then lightning struck, and I spun jumped in the air and kicked the dummy to the ground again, just as the thunder spun a magnetic crescendo.
For a moment after the thunder’s echo stopped, that silence was glorious, and that’s all I wanted: their glorious silence.
I didn’t really fit in with my new home on Farian, and I certainly couldn’t go back to Earth. I was here to stay with my bestie Daphne, after all, Queen and Destin to Kajo, Curan Beast King of the Warlords of Farian.
Kajo had defeated Rhone six months ago, saved my life, taken Daphne as his Destin, and somehow imbued us both with something new and spectacular. We weren’t quite Curan, but we were no longer human, either. I was no longer really Vania Bridger, originally from White Plains, New York. I was something bigger than that, now. I looked at my fists, wrapped for training in well-used fabric binds, stained with sweat and blood and a few tears, too. I was something stronger, now.
Daphne was in her element: Queen of us all. A divine goddess. I rarely even saw her anymore. We would occasionally have lunch, like the old days. Or slip away for Taco Tuesdays with a type of tortilla-like bread and an alcohol that made a poor substitute for tequila but certainly got us drunk enough to satisfy.
Otherwise, I spent my time training in Jase’s army. Jase was one of Kajo’s Commanders. He was an Alpha Warlord in his own right and held a small empire in the southern Curan lands. Cocky, dominating, and dark, Jase was rarely seen without his 3 main bodyguard Trio: Aimer, LeiLei, and Cassala. They were the strongest women in the Curan army. Some rumors said they were also his lovers, some said he kept a strict professional distance. I had never seen anything but firm, commanding leadership from him towards them. It was certainly notable that he kept his closest confidantes as women. They were skilled with all weaponry, could pilot all manner of ships, and were brilliant strategists; or, so I had heard. I had yet to go to war with Jase’s army.
I had heard that Jase asked Kajo personally if I could train with his army. That made me uncomfortable—to say the least. I didn’t want to be some oddity, some unique collectible for this Warlord. Just some Earthling prize to be collected.
I might be okay being a tool to be weaponized, though… I raised my eyebrows as I looked at the sparking sky and the fallen dummy. I did enjoy the power coursing through my veins, even though I was still just barely tapping into the Curan telekinesis and telepathy, unruly and ungainly as it was, somehow slightly gifted to me through the magic Kajo had used when he bound my body back together as I lay dying on that battlefield, as he sewed me back together and then the weeks I spent healing. I had a webbing of scars across my chest to prove it.
I had poured myself into the training with Jase’s army once I healed. I was getting pretty good. I couldn’t wait to go up against one of his Trio, but he never had them train against me. Maybe I just wasn’t worth their time.
Yet.
As lightning flashed again, I did a backflip over the slain dummy and then jogged to my water bottle, conscious of the silent soldiers watching me. Rain unleashed from the sky just as I reached the overhang of the clearing’s hut, but not before I
