Page 27 of Ravenous Alien Mate

“My sweet Leah,” he said. “It appears as though you’re going to need more practice.”

Chapter 22

Jav’s duties with the Vash’arr took him away from Leah on occasion, but for the most part he was never away from her for more than two days at a time. Luckily, all of the recent classified missions conducted by the Vash’arr had taken place on Earth. He and his team were skilled at finding their targets and eliminating them quickly or bringing them back to Mars to face questioning and judgment.

Today was such a day when Jav’s unit was bringing several human male prisoners back to Mars for an interrogation. The six human men, all members of a small resistance group that had taken to targeting Martian Affair buildings on Earth, were being taken to the dungeons deep beneath the main levels of the palace.

The moons hovered high in the sky and the stars sparkled brightly overhead as Jav and his unit marched the human males into a side entrance of the palace. King Vaath wished to bear witness to the interrogations, otherwise the Vash’arr would have conducted their questioning while still aboard their spacecraft during the trip back to Mars.

Violent visions danced in Jav’s mind. He longed to crush the skulls of these human men, to make them suffer for having harmed others. Their attacks on the Martian Affairs buildings had left three dead—all human female clerks who’d worked in the mail order bride processing centers.

But before he could make them pay for their sins, it was necessary to learn whether or not more attacks were being planned soon. Jav believed that with enough force applied during questioning, he could get each and every one of the human men to confess all. By the time he was finished with them, they would be telling him all their secrets, even those that were of no consequence, in the hopes that he would show them mercy.

He would show no such mercy.

Threats against Marttiaxoxalians were serious, and his people did not take kindly to attacks. The group of men were responsible for setting fire to at least four Martian Affairs buildings, all of them in Zone 12, which happened to be the zone Leah had once called home.

It especially angered him, knowing that if the resistance group had decided to strike on the night of Leah’s departure from Earth, she might’ve been harmed during the attack. He tightened his grip on the back of the human male he was dragging toward the dungeons.

“Please,” the man said, “Please, don’t hurt me. I’ll tell you everything,” the man whispered, shooting Jav a wide-eyed look of fear.

“Don’t tell these motherfuckers anything!” another captive yelled behind them, and a moment later Jav heard the sound of a bone cracking. The man screamed and started sobbing, his brave words dying in his throat.

In Jav’s experience, human men liked to behave in an arrogant manner during the beginning of their time in the dungeons. They would shout obscenities and refuse to divulge even the smallest detail to the Vash’arr or the palace guards who were questioning them. But apply the right amount of pain and the human males would reveal all.

Marttiaxoxalian males, in contrast, rarely ever broke under the pain of torture. Most warriors of Jav’s kind possessed the self-discipline to endure any agony their enemies inflicted. Jav had no respect for these human males, as he knew they would soon betray their own people by revealing secrets of their illegal resistance group.

Jav dragged his prisoner into a cold, damp cell and shoved him to the floor. The man curled up in the corner, trembling and muttering to himself in his native tongue. He was crying and it sounded as though he might be praying.

King Vaath’s voice echoed in the corridor. “How many?”

“Six taken alive,” came Rem’s familiar voice. Though Rem wasn’t a member of the Vash’arr, he was a formidable warrior and often assisted with Vash’arr operations. He had a talent for understanding the workings of humanmade weaponry, as well as destroying it. During the war against Earth, he’d deactivated a nuclear weapon that would’ve caused utter devastation upon a large force of Marttiaxoxalians, Jav among them.

It was quickly decided that Jav would question his prisoner first. He entered the cell and closed the door behind him, though Prince Vaath and others would be able to witness the interrogation by looking at the screens outside the room.

“Your name,” Jav demanded, coming to stand over the sobbing human male. He crossed his arms and glared down at the man.

When the prisoner took too long to answer, Jav delivered a powerful kick to his ribs. The human fell over, gasping and writhing on the floor. His pained moans filled the cell.

“Your name.”

“Steven.” The man held his hands up as if in surrender. “Please, I-I’ll tell you what you want to know, just don’t tell the others from my group that I was the one to snitch. Maybe we can make a deal, you and I? I give you what you want, and you’ll let me walk out of here with my life.”

The human man called Steven disgusted Jav. What a pathetic, cowardly fool.

“All you can hope for is a quick death.”

“Please, I’ll tell you everything about the resistance on Earth. I-I’ll even tell you about a threat on your soil. A threat to the Martian king.”

Alarm filled Jav, though he was careful not to allow his emotions to show on his face. He always stayed calm but calculating during an interrogation. He would threaten and inflict pain, but he would not start beating a male in a senseless fit of rage.

He crouched down and grabbed the male by the scruff of his neck, digging his fingers deep in the male’s flesh. “Start with the threat to the Martian king.”

Steven’s eyes widened and he nodded with enthusiasm, apparently believing that by asking his next question, Jav was agreeing to show the human male mercy.

“Well, you see, I’ve heard that one of our women—a human female from Earth—has come to your planet as a secret agent. I don’t know her name, honest I don’t, but I’m certain the rumors are true. Heard it from my friend Will who’s friends with a resistance leader.”

“What else do you know about this?” Jav tightened his hold on the man’s neck, until he felt the warmth of blood on his fingers.

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