Claiming His Human (Rogues) - Jenika Snow Page 0,2

able to pick up heartbeats, if any, in dwellings.

“Although they are so deep within the mountain that the heartbeats are faint, almost non-discernable.”

“How many?” Tolcan asked again.

“Maybe ten humans within one small cave.”

“How many fertile females?” Tolcan asked, staring at the opening of the cave. They’d have to go in, because even if there was only one fertile human female they couldn’t risk losing her.

“The scanner picks up at least three.”

If they could be bred, then they were fertile to their kind. The Rogues, a species of humanoid aliens that had come here three decades ago, were in need of females to help populate their kind. They had their own Rogue females, but not nearly enough to help colonize this planet. This was their home now, and mating with the humans meant they could build armies and create warriors.

“How many human males that can be used in the labor camps?”

“According to the scanner all but two are of prime age.”

He nodded but continued to focus on the cave. The labor camps were to have healthy, viable males to work. They were used to build equipment, set up camps, and other things the Rogues deemed lesser. The Rogues could have lived with the humans, could have been civilized, but when they were met with hostility and violence, the only way to retaliate, to survive, was to show they were stronger. In Tolcan’s eyes the years that had passed were enough to have everyone reevaluating what was happening, and to try to work together. But it wasn’t his call. He was an Enforcer, a warrior for his kind, and the Royal class were the ones that called the shots.

Until there were others that stood up for feeling the same way, or the Royals were overturned, nothing would change. But that was not something Tolcan would address by himself, not unless he wanted to be strung up and made an example of. And if that happened he wouldn’t be able to help his species prosper and grow.

He was trained, bred to be the male he was today, and it wasn’t until he had landed on Earth and seen how the Royals had disregarded the human life that wasn’t corrupt, that he realized his kind were acting exactly like the brute monsters the humans called them. There was strength in numbers, but so far, for these last thirty years, his kind was fine with how things were going, how Earth was their new home, and how the humans were inferior to them.

“Send Lycin and Petre to the perimeter of the mountain opening. You and I will take the cave. We can handle a handful of humans easily, but be mindful of those fertile females. I don’t want them harmed in any way during the extraction.”

Stellan entered the codes that would send direct links to the other Enforcers, and give them the orders he’d just initiated.

“Let’s move out,” Tolcan said, and he and Stellan headed down the mountain and toward the cave entrance.

They had their tranq guns at the ready, which when fired would stun their enemy, or in this case the humans, enough that they couldn’t cause harm to the Rogues or themselves, as some had tried to do numerous times.

“I’ll take the front, you watch the back. Make sure there aren’t any humans lingering on the outside that the scanners happened to miss.”

Stellan nodded.

They moved through the cave, their vision far superior to humans’, as was every other sense about a Rogue. Not only were they seven feet in height, far taller than the average human, they also were bigger, more muscular, and their intelligence made humans’ look like rats’. But then humans’ technology hadn’t been as primitive as they would have thought. What they lacked in strategic skills and engineering superior weaponry, they made up for in lethal doses of violence.

A Rogue saw perfectly in the dark, smelled things from a mile away, and had the strength of ten grown adult, fit human males. They didn’t need the humans as labor, but it allowed them to focus on creating new weapons, planning raids to hunt for more humans in hiding. It was the grunt work the humans did, the work they were able to accomplish without breaking their backs.

They followed the tunnel in the cave for about a quarter of a mile, going lower into the mountain. The air became somewhat moist, and the scent of dirt and of vegetation that grew on the walls filled Tolcan’s nose. Then, as they rounded