My whole world is gone because of this creature. The machines hadn’t been some sort of advanced AI race. This creature had been its pilot.

They’d come here and taken everything.

Everything I’d known.

My whole family.

My friends.

My world.

“Why?” I whisper, the word almost inaudible before my voice rises. “WHY?!”

The word tears from my throat with as much emotion as I’m suddenly feeling.

My body shakes with the heartbreak of what I’ve witnessed over the past few months. Pain racks through my body, shaking my frail form.

I don’t know when I reach for it, but there’s a rock in my good hand.

I raise it and slam it down on the dead alien.

Once.

Twice.

Three times my arm rises and falls as I scream.

“Why?!”

Tears choke me as everything I have lost comes pouring out.

Sam appears beside me, her eyes wide. She doesn’t stop me but tears are streaming down her face too and only when my arm rises and doesn’t fall once more do I stop.

Someone is holding my arm and I know it is him even without looking up.

His suit writhes against my skin a little but the strangeness of it is dim compared to the heartbreak killing my soul.

I stare at the battered being in front of me, still choking on my own emotions.

All my family is dead.

Humanity is hanging by a thread.

And this thing is responsible for it all.

I hear some clicks and thrums and the alien’s body is kicked so hard, it sails toward the water.

I look up, my eyes clouded with tears to meet the unreadable lava eyes of the alien above me.

I cannot read emotions in that alien gaze of his. His red eyes…dark skin… He looks like the exact thing I am taught to fear.

The world has really turned upside down.

Nothing is the same. Nothing will ever be the same again.

Because I am torn.

Destroyed.

Speechless.

And the devil is holding my hand.

Chapter Eleven

FER’RO

The little female’s aggression makes us thrum with pleasure.

As she slams the small rock into the Gryken’s body, I do not stop her.

None of us do.

We can sense her distress. Her pain.

Her anger.

It mirrors ours.

She crushes the Gryken in the same way it has crushed countless worlds.

It deserves every blow she puts on it. It is only a pity it is not still alive to feel the pain.

I kick its battered body toward the water and it lands not too far from it.

The female has released some of what aches her inside, but she is spent.

I can see it in how her body sags.

“Plant it,” I say, and Ga’Var clicks in agreement.

He and some of my brethren move away toward the Gryken’s body but others remain.

My gaze flicks over them.

None have returned to our ship. Possibly, they are awaiting my command to do so.

Unofficially, I have become their leader. A role I do not want, but one I will perform with great honor.

If my race can help rid the universe of the Gryken, I will do all that is in my power to make sure that happens.

I hear Ga’Var hiss as he lifts the Gryken’s battered body. One of his hackles pierces right through it.

Both female’s stare with wide eyes as he impales it with a metal pole and slams the pole into the earth below.

A barbaric act, but one that sends a message nonetheless.

They are our enemy—ours and these beings before us.

My gaze flicks back to the female and I hope she understands the message.

We are not her enemy.

San’ten clicks sharply from behind them and they jerk.

I can tell their sense of perception is not very good. They are not very aware of the movements around them or how my brethren struggle to fight their instincts because of the scent of their fear.

“This one,” he clicks, his gaze falling on the female lying flat on the ground. “This one is infested.”

A hiss leaves my lips that I’m too slow to hold back.

I knew as much.

That is what the Gryken’s do.

They forcefully breed, cloning themselves in the wombs of other species.

In their short life-span, they kill many, many females, oftentimes tearing the female apart in the process of their birth into this world.

I saw it happen with my own eyes to the females of my world.

My hackles have risen again without me realizing.

I only know the image I’m projecting when I see it reflected in the brown-haired female’s eyes.

She lets go of the other and scrambles over to the infested one as if she understands we are speaking about her.

She is not capable of fighting us, yet she attempts to guard another.

Does she even know what the other female harbors? What is growing inside her?

We have to kill it.

San’ten clicks at her and makes to move toward her but the female shrieks and kicks at him.

I hear a low thrum from someone else—impressed by the female’s will.

It reflects my own feelings.

She’d impressed me from the moment she pointed her stick weapon at me.

I set my hackles down and click at San’ten.

“Wait.”

He casts his gaze my way, his symbiotes writhing a little. Annoyed.

“It is growing by the day,” he clicks. “Why wait? We should kill it now.”

“There is still time.” My gaze bores into his dark eyes till his ba’clan settle down and his hackles flatten.

The brown-haired female is looking between us now and I notice she meets my gaze more often than not.

Perhaps I am becoming less terrifying.

Taking a step forward, I crouch to her level and her dark-haired friend scoots away and almost backs into Ga’Var, who has returned from the water.

“The Gryken is planted. The message clear.”

He clicks at me and I click approval back.

The brown-haired female’s gaze is darting between Ga’Var and me now and at her attention to us, I hear him thrum.

Immediately, I hiss at him.

I do not know why.

He blinks at me, but his thrum stops.

For a moment, I blink at him too before pulling my gaze away.

She is still staring at us, those expressive eyes of hers confused and a little frightened.

But her fear scent isn’t as strong as the night before.

It is bearable now.

“What is your designation?” I rasp. Her language is strange on my tongue. Too many syllables.

She blinks at me, those wide eyes getting a little bigger.

“M—my name?” She glances at the other female who has moved slowly away from Ga’Var. “You want to know my name?”

My ears twitch at the sound of her voice. A thrum starts in my throat that I stop before the others can hear.

“Yes.”

She glances at the other female again. “My name is Adira. Adira Mosely.”

The name is surprisingly short for the amount of syllables in her language. I turn it over in my mind.

“Adee’rah’mohs’lee.”

She blinks at me as if she cannot believe I am speaking to her and her lips twitch and turn up a little. “Just Adira is fine.”

Adee’ra.

“And you? What is your name?”

I pause for a moment. She has given me the shortened version of hers. So I will do the same for her.

“Fer’ro.”

She blinks at me but her eyes are not as wide as before.

She glances at the other female and they exchange something in their gazes that I do not understand.

Hope?

“Nice to meet you, Fer’ro. Welcome to Earth.”

ADIRA

They did not let the dead alien rest on the ground for long.

With hisses and snarls, clicks and thrums, they pierced the octopi-like alien thing with a sharpened pole and planted it near the edge of the lake like some sort of effigy.

It is like a ritual, one celebrating the death of the thing, and I do not know if they do it for me and Sam or for themselves.