Wray

Wray

By M.K. Eidem

I’d like to thank my family for all their
support during this exciting time of my life. I couldn’t have done
it without you. I’d also like to thank all my friends that have
been there for me, answering questions and helping guide me, Judy,
Susan, Sally, Julie, Reece, Fern, Beth and Narelle. Thanks
ladies!

Science Fiction Romance

Wray: Tornians
Series

M.K. Eidem

Copyright © 2014 by Michelle K. Eidem

First E-Book Publication August 2014

Smashwords Edition

Cover Design by Judy Bullard

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dead, actual events, locale, or organizations is strictly
coincidental.

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Synopsis

Emperor Wray Vasteri was the ruler of the
Tornian Empire. His House has ruled the Empire ever since the great
infection, which struck over five hundred years ago and he feared
he would be the last. The number of compatible females
was
dwindling faster than anyone knew. If they could
not find compatible females soon, their entire civilization
would
cease to exist. It was the reason he
agreed to meet
with
Liron, the Emperor of
the Kaliszian Empire in Kaliszian space. It was the only reason
they had crossed paths with a Ganglian ship leaving Tornian space,
and it was the only reason that the small female was discovered.
Could she be what they had been searching for?

Wray found himself drawn to the small female
he’d found beaten and abused on the Ganglian ship. She resembled a
Tornian female, but was much smaller. Could she be what he had been
searching for?

Kim Teel has had a hard life, at least she
thought
she had, until her parents were suddenly killed and
then her sister and brother in law disappeared. At nineteen, she
realized she’d been protected from all of life’s hardships. She had
been cared for and loved her entire life had come to expect it. She
was
terribly
spoiled. Determined to change
her ways
,
Kim went looking for her sister,
only to be captured by the Ganglians and it was then she
learned
what happened to the ‘unprotected’
females of the universe.

Wray and Kim are both doing the same thing,
trying to survive. But what they find is that there are more
important things than just survival. And once they learn that, the
universe changes forever.

The Tornian sun shone down brightly,
nurturing the lush gardens of House Torino. A gentle breeze blew,
carrying the fragrance of freshly blooming flowers with it. Birds
circled and sang to the females on the patio.

Kim noticed none of it; her attention
captured by her daughter nursing at her breast. It had been nearly
three months since she presented Destiny and Kim was still in awe
that this precious creature had come from her.

‘
She is so beautiful.’
Kim thought,
running her knuckle along the soft skin of Destiny’s chubby cheek.
She’d inherited her manno’s beautiful bronze skin along with his
thick black hair. Only when the sun struck it, were the red
highlights she had inherited from her mother, seen.

Destiny was pure Vasteri… until she opened
her eyes and gazed up at her mother with Kim’s own eyes. Wray had
been ecstatic when her eyes changed from the Vasteri gray she had
at her presentation to Kim’s green eyes.

At first, Kim had been worried that Wray
would be upset, but she should have known better. Already Wray’s
tiny daughter had the Emperor of all the Civilized Universes
wrapped around her tiny finger. When she smiled at her manno, his
chest would puff up twice its normal size but when she cried... he
would turn panicked eyes to Kim and call for the Healer.

Every male that came into contact with her
reacted the same way, not that Wray ever allowed many near his
daughter. Already he was the overprotective manno, and Kim couldn’t
imagine what it would be like when Destiny became a teenager.

Smiling softly down at her daughter, Kim let
her thoughts drift back to when she had been a teenager… to how her
life had changed.

Kim lay still on the cold floor of the
cabinet where stinky bastard had stuffed her, the inky blackness
pressing against her. How had her life come to this? Sure, she had
done some stupid things in her life, been rotten to her older
sister, hadn't appreciated her parents until they were gone but
really, did that mean she deserved
this
? With the numbing
cold seeping deep into her bones, she was ready to give up and
thought back over her short life.

She had been a typical kid, demanding,
selfish, taking for granted all those things her parents had
provided. The car, the cell phone, the bed, the food, the warmth.
Oh God! What she wouldn't give to be warm just
one
more
time.

A drunk driver, on a perfect summer day, had
taken it all away. Her parents had died, and he had walked away
without a scratch. Sixteen and an orphan. Her older sister Jennifer
had tried to fill in but Kim would have none of it. Jennifer had
always been the good daughter, the perfect child.

"Why can't you be more like Jennifer?"
Her mother would say.

"Jennifer would never have done that."
Her dad would tell her.

Not that she had ever
been
neglected or abused. Oh, she
thought
she
had, when they had taken away her cell phone or not given her gas
money. She knew better now; actually, she had known it for quite a
while, but it had taken
this
to drive the point home
really.

The courts had forced her to stay with
Jennifer and her husband, Todd until she turned eighteen, and she
made life hell for all of them. So on her eighteenth birthday Kim
let out all her anger and pain, spewing such hurtful words at her
sister that even here, in this place, even with everything that had
happened to her, it shamed her.

It had taken her nearly six months of living
on her own, of believing she was an adult, to finally realize that
she really
was
that spoiled rotten, selfish brat her
brother-in-law had called her. She wasn’t the only one to lose
their parents. Jennifer had too, but Jen hadn’t let it break her.
Instead, she had tried to help Kim.

It was on that day that Kim grew up and
straightened up. Life wasn’t fair. It wasn’t easy, but it was only
as bad as
you
let it be. As you
believed,
it was. Her
mom had always told her that, she just hadn’t believed her. She
still had Jennifer and Todd, and she was going to do everything in
her power to make them believe she had changed.

She had rushed over to their apartment
wanting to apologize, to beg their forgiveness, but it was empty. A
neighbor finally told her that they had gone on some ‘weekend
warriors’ wilderness retreat with a group of Todd's old college
buddies and wouldn’t be back until Monday. Kim hadn’t wanted to
wait that long, so she called Jen’s cell phone, but it went
straight to voicemail.

Kim had apologized. She had begged Jen to
call her, telling her that she loved her and didn't want to lose
the only family she had left... Jennifer never called back. It
wasn't until
no one
from the “weekend warrior” group didn’t
report to work on Monday that anyone got concerned.

A massive search had been completed in the
area where they were supposed to have been, but the only thing they
found was Jennifer's cell phone, with Kim's voicemail still on it,
unheard.

How the fuck do a dozen people go
missing?

Six months later, frustrated at the lack of
results, Kim had trekked up that godforsaken mountain, to the spot
where they had found Jen's phone. Why anyone would voluntarily go
up there, Kim had no idea. She was a city girl through and through,
wild meant the zoo and roughing it meant you had to use a
port-a-potty at an outdoor music festival.

The flash of fur in the trees had startled
her at first. What was it? Deer? Squirrel? She hadn't had a clue.
Then there had been the strange hissing-clicking sound and finally
the stench. Skunk! Ewww! As she backed away slowly, the stench had
only grown stronger, turning she found... Bigfoot? No, not tall
enough... that was her last thought before the creature raised its
hairy fist and knocked her out.

Kim had woken up in a cold, dimly light room
and had no clue where she was. When the door opened and the same
hairy thing entered, she hadn't known what it wanted, couldn’t
understand what it was hissing at her. She had found out quickly
enough, though, when it had thrown her to the metal floor, used its
claws to shred her clothes and proceeded to rape her.

She’d fought, oh God, how she had fought, but
those stupid kickboxing/dancing/exercising videos hadn't done her
any good. It only pissed the hissing bastard off when she finally
managed to hit him in the nose. He had dug his claws in deeper then
and seemed to smile when she screamed in pain.

Stinky bastard had continued to hurt her. He
raped her so many times she’d lost count, sometimes he would let
other hairy aliens watch, but they were never allowed to touch. One
tried once, and stinky bastard gutted him in front of her.

It hadn’t taken her long to realize she was
on some kind of an alien ship and that now she really
was
alone. No one on Earth was going to look for her. No one there was
even going to care what happened to her. Her body was black, blue
and bloody, and it couldn’t take anymore. It was time to give
up.

Growls suddenly covered the hissing-clicking
that had been growing louder and caught her attention for a moment.
Growls, now that was something new. It reminded her of her dog,
Warrior. Her parents had been promising her one for years and
finally for her tenth birthday, she made them keep their
promise.

They had gone to a public shelter that had
recently broken up a puppy mill. It wasn’t one of the puppies that
had captured her heart though. It had been the massive dog, hidden
in the back, caged all by itself.

He was discovered at the same mill, and no
one had known what to do with him. It seemed that the owners had
been breeding fight dogs along with the Shih Tzu’s, and they’d been
using Warrior to sire them. Warrior had been a hundred and twenty
pounds of solid muscle covered with dark fur, his growl was vicious
and he had a mouth full of sharp teeth. Everyone had been terrified
of him, everyone but Kim. Maybe it was because she had never been
harmed in her life, maybe it was because of her age, but for some
reason she just
knew
he would never hurt her. Before anyone
could stop her, she had opened his cage, stepped inside and sat
down, waiting for him to come to her.

The workers and her parents had gone crazy.
They’d been sure he would attack and kill her. Instead, he'd
growled and snarled at her, snapping his teeth. He would take two
steps towards her then quickly backed away, his massive body
quivering. When she'd held out her hand, he'd flinch, as if he
expected her to strike him, when she hadn’t, he moved a little
closer, sniffing her hand.

Kim had just looked into his dark gray eyes
and seen the truth. He was scared. This massive dog was scared of
her
, scared that
she
would hurt
him
. She'd
promised him then and there that he would be safe with her.
Promised that he would never be hurt again. He'd licked her hand in
response. When she'd petted him, he'd rolled onto his back,
silently begging her to scratch his belly and that’s when she
realized that was all he wanted... for someone to care for him, to
see
him,
to love
him,
and Kim had.