The Beasts Boxed Set

Chapter 1-1

Warlord Maxus, Underground Fight Club, Florida, Planet Earth

Warlord Maxus, Underground Fight Club, Florida, Planet EarthHuman blood coated the floor of the fighting cage, sticky beneath my bare feet. Two human males faced me, watching. Waiting. I recognized fear, and these two reeked of it.

Guess they weren’t as stupid as they appeared.

“Go, Rico. f*****g hit him.”

The male issuing the order was called Python John. He stood to the side, behind his friend, Rico. Rico’s broken nose leaked twin red trails of blood onto his lips, where he licked each drop away, grinning as if he enjoyed the taste. “Like blood? Eh, Wolf?”

Wolf. That was the name Snook, the fight club’s owner, had given me after seeing my strangely striped hair. My black and silver streaks were compliments of the Hive Integration Units and Nexus Six. The torture. Pain. Experiments. Years of experiments.

Wolf. Now that I was free, only two things mattered to me. One, finding my mate, and two, eliminating the never-ending stream of Hive Trackers who hunted me. The Hive were relentless. Nexus Six wanted me back under his control. His monster. His killer.

I’d rather be dead.

I didn’t care what the humans called me. Snook paid me to fight and didn’t ask questions. I didn’t want any of these humans asking questions. I wasn’t supposed to be here, on Earth. I was an alien, an Atlan warlord and contaminated Hive Soldier, presumed dead. For now that was exactly the way I wanted it.

“Go ahead. Hit me.” I taunted the humans, knew they were exhausted whereas I was bored, my beast irritated by the distraction from the only thing that mattered—finding her. Our mate.

her.“Shut up, dog boy.” Python John liked to run his mouth more than he wanted to use his fists.

I smiled at him, which made him grit his teeth and glare. Still, he did not attack.

Python John circled to stand shoulder to shoulder with Rico, both males staring at me, working up their courage.

“You first,” Rico ordered. “You go in and I’ll follow.”

“Get on with it.” I held my arms out to my sides, exposing my bare chest and ribs. My fighting shorts clung, snug against my ass and thighs.

Rico held his fists in front of his face and swung his leg out wide, in an arcing kick. I swatted him away, annoyed, and stepped forward. “Fight, you cowards. I don’t have all f*****g day.”

Rico snarled at me and spit on the mat that covered the floor of the fighting cage, his blood bright red. “f**k you, you big motherfucker.”

Oh yes, I’d been around these humans long enough to participate in what they called talking trash. “If I’d f****d your mother, you wouldn’t be so small and weak.”

talking trash. The two males moved to surround me, one on each side. I could pound them into dust within minutes, but that did not please the spectators. Snook wanted his customers happy and drunk and spending money on alcohol, drugs, and placing bets.

As if my thoughts of him had manifested him in the flesh, Snook appeared, walking toward the edge of the cage. He spoke to all three of us.

“Take your time, gentlemen. The betting is just getting started.” Snook looked up at me, catching my eye, and tapped his cheek, a symbol that he wanted me to allow one or both of these fools to strike me a few times. He paid extra for each hit I allowed the humans to land. Annoying, but every human dollar helped me expand my search for my mate. Small price to pay.

I dipped my chin so Snook would know I understood. He grinned and wandered away.

My beast growled, the sound escaping my throat before I could contain it. We wanted to kill that human. Protect the females of this planet. Males like him should be dead already.

Fucking humans. No clue what was important, sacred.

“Come on, wolf man,” Rico goaded me, and I returned my attention to the two men waiting for me to injure them. I took a slow, deep breath and processed a thousand different scents…and froze.

My beast roared inside my skull, fighting for freedom. Insane. Enraged.

That scent, the barest hint of a female.

female.MATE.

MATE.I fell to my knees, the beast so strong that I wrapped my arms around my head and prayed to the gods, to all gods, that my beast would retreat. Revealing myself to these humans would be a disaster. They would hunt me. Call their authorities. Those idiots would do the only thing they could to protect their people. They would call the Interstellar Brides Processing Center and send the Atlan guards and Prillon warriors there to retrieve me. My mating fever would rage. I’d be transported to Atlan and executed within hours.

NO! Mate!

NO! Mate!I held the images in my mind. Atlan prison. Human police. The beast grumbled but retreated, the Hive integrations once more communicating with the more primitive side of me, keeping me sane far longer than any other warlord with Mating Fever that I’d ever heard of.

“What the f**k?” Python John walked around me and launched a kick at my head. His foot connected with my temple. My head jerked to the side. Jumping back, he bounced on the balls of his feet and struck again. His second kick landed on my jaw. My beast growled. If I didn’t stop this asshole, my beast would.

Focus.

Impossible. She was real. I had found her. My mate.

She Someone in this shithole of a fight club, among this scum of humanity, carried my mate’s scent on him. His clothes? His skin?

skin?I groaned and allowed the muscles in my shoulders to twitch. The crowd was screaming, losing their minds now that I appeared to be at a loss. Python John kicked me in the back. I did not move.

Not wishing to take a third blow to the head, I stood and focused on my opponents even as I analyzed my situation. I had not considered that my mate, once I found her, would already belong to another. My beast raged at the thought, fighting to break free. I pounded on my chest like an animal, taunted the two humans in the cage across from me.

Python John and Rico watched me, concern in their eyes. Two kicks to the head, and yet, I ignored them. They were beneath my notice, especially now.

She was close, nearby but not here. Her scent was a whisper to my enhanced senses, barely there. Not inside the fight club. Where was she? Where the f**k was she?

hereinside the fight club. I pulled air into my lungs, searching for the smallest trace of her.

There! Faint, so faint. Flowers and honey and…blood? Metal?

There!What the f**k?

The strange combination went straight to my c**k. My body hardened at the thought of her, even as I nearly convinced myself it was all in my head. A dream. Wishful thinking. Perhaps I was finally losing my mind.

MATE! My beast insisted. He sensed her as well. And she was close. So f*****g close.

MATE!“Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!” A handful of young, overeager males stood near the cage and began the chant. The crowd took up their cry until at least a hundred human males were chanting the name of the animal Snook had insisted I take as my symbol.

“Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!”

Perhaps my female would be close enough to hear their chant, to wonder at the prowess of the male who inspired such fervor. Perhaps she listened now, her p***y growing wet and eager. Her n*****s peaked. Her breasts ripe and round and so sensitive I could make her come by sucking their hard tips into my mouth.

“Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!”

Every person in the area seemed to be cursing or encouraging one or all three of us fighters. They cursed one another, the spectators shouting commands with excitement and rage in equal measure.

I watched them all. I waited. I looked at every face in the area, scanned the voices I could hear with my Hive implants. Filtered the noise with senses both Atlan and Hive.

She was not here. Not in this fight club, not with these humans. The knowledge was both agony and relief.

My beast was getting stronger. More insistent. Even with the added control the Hive implants afforded, I was running out of time. I couldn’t afford to blow this fight, not if I wanted to stay on Earth. But my beast would not wait much longer to hunt our female.

“Come on!” I bellowed the word at my two opponents, hoping to goad them into action so I could end this. I cracked my knuckles and grinned at the two humans.

Both males launched at once. I allowed their strikes, a handful, as the crowd became insane, screaming for more blood. I counted ten strikes. Two small cuts began to bleed on my cheek. That would mean an extra month’s rent, less fighting, more private time with my female.

“Is that it?” I asked, once the flurry of eager punching had ceased.

“f**k. You!” Rico’s nose still bled. If I had to guess, I would say the last elbow I threw had cracked his cheekbone. Added insult to injury. I was toying with them, and they f*****g knew it.

Python John leaped onto my back. “You are a big fucker. You asshole. Now what you gonna do, huh?” The male wrapped his arms around my neck in an attempt to close off my airway. His legs wrapped around my waist, ankles locked.

Rico charged me. I moved at full speed, punching him in the nose just hard enough to send him stumbling backward.

The crowd screamed with bloodlust and I obliged. Reaching behind me, I lifted Python John up over my head like he weighed no more than a small child, and threw him down on the mat, his back hitting with a loud thud.

thudBoth males climbed to their feet, and I had to give them credit for persistence if not intelligence.

They charged. I pummeled both with my fists. Not too hard, I was careful not to kill them. Blood flew through the air; the cage became soaked with the scent. Human skin was so fragile, so very easy to tear.

“Fuck.” Python John spit blood from his mouth to land on the mat near the metal fencing. A piece of his tooth went with it. “Snook don’t pay me enough for this shit.”

John was large for a human. As was Rico. Both well over average for a male from this planet, which meant the tops of their heads nearly reached my chin. Well-muscled. Street fighters. Cruel.

There were no rules in the cage. Anything was allowed short of killing a man.

I’d done enough killing to last several lifetimes.

Rico paced to one side of the cage, moving to my left as he spoke to Python John. “If you’d stop snorting all your money up your nose, you wouldn’t have to fight.”

“f**k you, Rico.” Python John moved opposite Rico, coming around me on my right. He wiped the blood dripping into his right eye away with the back of his wrist.

“You know what to do.” Rico glanced at Python John for confirmation. When his partner dipped his chin in agreement, I almost shouted encouragement. Finally. I could end this and track down that scent. Find her. My mate. The human female who could save me.