Pillaged (Raider Warlords of the Vandar #3) - Tana Stone Page 0,2

they were all too preoccupied to notice the female in the poufy white dress piloting a transport off the battleship.

When the path was clear, I accelerated across the floor and burst into space. The transition from the bright inside of the Zagrath hangar bay to the inky blackness of space was punctuated by red blasts of weapon fire, and it made me flinch. I banked my transport hard and flew underneath the belly of the battleship and away from the fighting.

The hard ball in my stomach relaxed once I’d put some distance between me and the imperial ships, and I realized none were following me. I’d done it. I’d actually escaped from the Zagrath.

“Yes!” I flopped back in my seat and let out a long breath, tears pricking my eyes. I didn’t know where I was going, and for the moment, I didn’t care. All I knew was I didn’t have to marry that awful man or feel his wrinkled hands on me. For the first time in my life, I was free.

Then the ship jolted hard, and stopped moving.

Chapter Two

Toraan

“You are sure?” I spun on my heel to face my majak as he stood at his console, his dark hair falling forward while he studied the readouts.

He gave a single nod and looked up to meet my eyes. “Positive, Raas. There is only a humanoid female on board the Zagrath shuttle.”

I pivoted to stare out the wide glass that stretched across the far end of the command deck. The dull gray of the enemy shuttle was easy to track across the blackness of space, and the ship was not going fast. It hadn’t accelerated much since leaving the enemy battleship, almost as if it were slinking away and trying not to attract attention.

“And not a Zagrath?” I asked.

“The Zagrath are humanoid, but this female is not one of them.”

My fingers buzzed as I drummed them across the iron hilt of my battle axe. Why would a Zagrath transport leave during a battle against two Vandar hordes, and why would it only contain one female? As far as I knew, the empire did not employ female soldiers or pilots, and never anyone who wasn’t a pure-blood Zagrath.

I narrowed my gaze at the small ship, so ill-suited for battle. The female inside was clearly escaping, and using the heat of the battle to slip out undetected. It was a clever strategy, and one that would have worked if my horde had not been hovering unseen just outside the battle.

In the corner of the view screen, bursts of red laser fire lit up the sky, as the battle between my two brothers’ hordes and the Zagrath fleet raged on. I’d determined that the Vandar had the advantage and would soon defeat the enemy, so had chosen not to drop our invisibility shielding. It had been too long since I’d laid eyes on either of my older brothers, and a battle was not the time for a family reunion. At least, not for me.

I could barely remember my brothers. I’d been a child in arms when they’d left—first Kratos to apprentice under our father and then Kaalek to serve a distant Raas in a far-away sector. Neither had returned before I’d joined our uncle as a raider apprentice, and I suspected they would not even recognize the warrior I’d become. Although we shared dark hair, I’d been told I was the only one who’d inherited our mother’s hazel eyes. I pushed thoughts of my mother and brothers aside, and focused on the hunt at hand.

“Continue to follow until we are well away from the enemy battleship,” I ordered, my pulse quickening. “Then lock on, and bring the transport in to our hangar bay.”

My majak cocked an eyebrow almost imperceptibly. “We are bringing a female on board?”

It was no secret among the hordes that my eldest brother, Raas Kratos, had taken a human female as his captive and then made her his Raisa. The news had spread throughout the Vandar hordes as if our ships were networked, instead of spread throughout the galaxy. And then the second oldest of my brothers, Raas Kaalek, had taken the human’s sister as punishment for her setting the empire on Kratos. So, human females were no longer the mystery to Vandar hordes that they had been, although it could not be said they were commonplace, either.

“Yes, Rolan.” I met his gaze and saw curiosity, not challenge. “I want to know why the empire had a human female on