Taken by the Swarm King Read online

  Taken by the Swarm King

  Fate-Marked Mates of Byroma

  Fiona Sweet

  Contents

  1. Cherish

  2. Varyx

  3. Cherish

  4. Varyx

  5. Cherish

  6. Varyx

  7. Cherish

  8. Varyx

  9. Cherish

  10. Varyx

  11. Cherish

  12. Varyx

  13. Cherish

  14. Varyx

  15. Cherish

  16. Varyx

  17. Cherish

  18. Varyx

  Epilogue: Cherish

  Thank you!

  1

  Cherish

  “I’m hot. It’s too hot out here and I want to go home.”

  Joshu took the back of his hand and dragged it across his forehead in an attempt to wipe away the beads of sweat that had collected above his brow. In the process, he left a line of smudged dirt that remained caked to his skin.

  “Stop grumbling, Joshu. We’re almost there,” I reassured the sour ten year old—my complaining younger brother.

  He tossed me a bitter frown and jutted his lip out into a dramatic pout that was comical enough to make me chuckle.

  “Yeah Joshu, we’re nearly there,” Beccy parroted me like the little adorable copycat shadow she was—and grinned, skipping along as if the unrelenting heat and the blazing sun directly overhead had no effect on her mood whatsoever.

  Joshu was right. It was sinfully hot out here and the sun felt like molten lava searing my shoulders, but we had no choice but to press on. If the nearby well lacked water—I wasn’t sure what we would do.

  We would cross that bridge when we came to it. I took a deep breath. There was no point in fretting over the future when there was plenty to fuss over in the present. That was a word of advice that my mom had always given us, and even if it seemed bleak—it was partially comforting to remind myself of it from time to time.

  Joshu put one foot in front of the other but his posture wilted like a dying flower shriveling up inside itself. He kicked at the dirt with each labored step, the jerkiness of his movements causing the settled dust to plume around us as we trudged along.

  Beccy coughed and hacked, waving her hand in front of her face. She cut Joshu a resentful leer. She was three years younger, but often disregarded Joshu’s behavior and replaced it with more spirited optimism of her own.

  “Joshu, will you please stop kicking at the dirt? You know I have allergies—”

  Joshu rolled his eyes sullenly. “You don’t have allergies, Beccy.”

  “Yes, I do—”

  “Alright, enough.” I interjected through the bickering. “Reserve your energy for drawing the water from the well, not arguing.”

  Both children went silent. We were on our own, and me laying down the law with them was a solemn reminder of that. At the ripe ole age of nineteen, I had no choice but to diplomatically jump into the role of both mother and father after we lost our parents. We were doing our best to play or own roles as orphans as gracefully as possible.

  I’d had to surge into that parenting role so quickly it made my head spin—until I was left reeling. Most of the other girls that were my age, living in my village, were already married—some even with swollen bellies, pregnant with new life growing inside them.

  Sometimes I listened to them chattering together like clucking hens. I would observe the other girls rubbing their round stomach’s with pride as they giddily discussed baby names or how they couldn’t wait to cuddle with their newborn. In those circumstances, I normally just rolled my eyes and kept pushing through my own business—one ticking second at a time.

  I didn’t mind being companionless. I wasn’t really alone. I had Joshu and Beccy, after all. The last thing I needed was for a man to get between me and my brother and sister or treat us with pity—or as second class citizens who needed a metaphorical life raft. I didn’t need anyone to rescue me—or Beccy and Joshu. If I told myself that we were doing just fine and dandy on our own, then that was all the resolve I needed.

  “This is the only time of day we can come out here and you both know it,” I said and looked at the young ones—who blinked and nodded submissively in agreement.

  “I don’t even want to think about the scary things that lurk in the shadows at night,” Beccy said with a shudder, brushing some of the straw colored hair off her red cheek.

  “I know all about the creepy creatures that are just waiting to snatch up a kid in the dark—”

  “That’s enough, Joshu,” I warned and gave him a lecturing look.

  Beccy’s face turned ashen as her imagination mulled over the nightmarish possibilities that might happen if she ever dared to venture out of the village after the dusk had turned the sky into a canvas of ink black.

  “The cold would freeze us out anyway,” I said to steer her wandering imagination in another direction.

  Beccy gave me a meager smile but her eyes brightened with recognizable relief. “That’s true. But why can’t we just get lots of water all at once from a desert oases? Aren’t they always full of water?”

  “I’ve reminded you about this a million times,” I said with a sigh and stepped around a tumbleweed that had stopped rolling right in the middle of the path.

  “The barbarian swarms?” Joshu gave me a curious glance, drawing his palm to his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun.

  “We don’t need to talk about it,” I said with a dismissive wave of my hand, marching our little trio forward.

  Joshu wasn’t wrong. The barbarian swarms wouldn’t let the humans go near the oases in the desert, especially because it had been a deathly dry year.

  “I’ve heard that the native Byromian barbarians to guard the oases day and night. If you even try to go near them, then those savages will breathe fire and burn you to a crisp in seconds,” Joshu said excitedly.

  Beccy shrieked.

  “It’s not true.” I shook my head.

  Beccy gave me an unconvinced look. “I’ve heard it’s not them that breath fire. It’s the giant lizards they ride on. And the barbarians have the same kinds of horns and hooves like the demons from Earth mythology describe.”

  “You need to stop reading so much,” I told her.

  “I think that’s right,” Joshu nodded. “They ride giant two-headed lizards. I had it wrong before. The lizards are what breathe the fire, and the Byromians ride them.”

  I was frustrated. I opened my arms gestured around our environment. “Do you see any of them here?”

  The kids blinked at me with puzzled expressions.

  Joshu rubbed the perspiration off his forehead a second time. “No.”

  “Then you don’t need to worry about it,” I instructed. “Unless you witness it first-hand, then don’t play into the myths.”

  “I wouldn’t want to see it in real life.” Beccy scrunched her nose up as if she had just smelled something foul.

  “We just need to stay on target,” I reminded the youngsters. “It’s … our …turn,” I panted.

  It was getting harder to breathe through the stifling heat. The humidity draped around us like an oppressive cloak. In the village, we shared chores, responsibilities, and duties. It was my turn to check the wells in our vicinity to see if they had any water in them.

  As Beccy and Joshu continued to squabble, I tuned them out, inspecting something on the heat-hazed horizon. My heart sank like a lead weight into my gut. Dark figures were off in the distance, like tiny dots from this perspective, but moving closer to us by the second.

  My heart pounded and an icy sensation surged up and down my spine.

  “Drop your buckets,” I commanded.


  It didn’t matter. They were empty anyway.

  “What?” Beccy and Joshu chimed in unison, giving me alarmed yet inspecting glances.

  I nudged Joshu, the older of the two, on the back to coax him into action.

  “Run back to the village. Warn the others. Something is coming.”

  “What are you going to do?” Beccy asked with a look of horror etched into her features.

  “I’m going to create a signaling fire to warn everyone in the village. If you come across anyone from the village on your way back, tell them to stay as far away as they can.”

  Adrenaline pumped through my veins. Every survival instinct I had kicked into overdrive.

  2

  Varyx

  I rode in the front of the swarm. This was customary—I was the Swarm King. It was my official title, and I wore it proudly and lived up to the expectations with as much honor and nobility as I could.

  About a hundred Byromian men galloped on their gwarn’s behind me—giant lizard beasts whom we used to journey through the desert without exhausting ourselves or depleting our energy.

  My Byromian swarm was trained to battle and would fight on a whim—or any single utterance of encouragement from me. If I said the word, these men were crazy enough to die for me, or any one of their brothers because it was hardwired into their brains. Our blood ran for each other, always.

  We had a reputation among the humans for being barbarians—a term the earthlings used in a derogatory sense but to us, it was a compliment. We were the first inhabitants of the planet and we were willing to fight for our own survival. We would not lay down quietly and die out.

  We roamed the desert day and night, always on the quest for both water and women—human women that we sought after as biological mates. These Byromian men riding behind me were the last of our kind—a single remaining generation prepared to repopulate our dwindling race at any cost.

  “How much farther away is this village?” Rathum, an unruly member of the swarm rode up closer to me with an aggressive scowl on his demanding face.

  “Can’t you see the outskirts yet? It’s hard to miss, spreading out on the horizon?” I gave him a brief glance before pointing abstractly straight ahead.

  “This trip seems to be taking longer than the rest,” Rathum declared with an irked grumble.

  “And you have always been prone to protesting,” I reminded him with a domineering look. Did I need to remind him who was the Swarm King, who was in charge of this whole operation. Rathum should consider himself lucky to be alive and not stripped of his own higher up title in the swarm.

  With my leadership intact and thanks to the gods above, we were all still breathing and trekking ahead—no matter how many challenges and hardships we found along the way.

  Being at the forefront of the operation was stressful but I managed to keep myself collected and calm. If I panicked, then the entire brood behind me would be destined for failure. It was my responsibility to promote the probability of success to my men and keep their spirits uplifted, their chins held high. We would divide and conquer. Our lives literally depended on it. The future of our entire race depended on it.

  “Don’t blame me,” Rathum scoffed. “I’m not the one who lost battle after battle with the Earthling settlers that killed off most of our Byromian cluster. If I had my way—”

  “Well you don’t,” I cut in sharply, my voice thundering through the massive stretch of desert. “What do you want, praise? How dare you speak so ill of your forefathers. I should cut your head off right here for treason.”

  Rathum tightened his jaw and stared straight ahead. As combative as he was by nature, I knew he wasn’t going to dare pick a fight with me as we continued to narrow the gap between us and the village.

  “There are going to be Earthling women in this village, and we need to have our wits about us,” I explained. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll hand down instructions to the captains and get them prepare for the raid.”

  Rathum nodded—albeit curtly, but he got the message loud and clear. I was hard on Rathum and the rest of the captains, but I understood where the seeds of their frustrations took root.

  We were fatigued and filthy. I had a layer of dirt on my skin at least an inch thick. Tensions were high. We were almost out of water. My throat was dry and scratchy, parched and desperate for liquid.

  I would be first to admit that it was far more appealing, and tempting, to head directly to the oasis where there would be a bounty of water, fresh fruit, and fish awaiting us. We could rest and rejuvenate our resolve and strength.

  The only problem was, at this point in the journey, we were closer to the village than the nearest oasis. It didn’t make sense to bypass the village now.

  Tempers were exploding day and night among my men. The lack of food and water hardly helped matters. It had been years since our swarm was last heading in this direction—at this precise mark on the map. It was vital that we stayed the course and kept the same route. If my men refused to heed my advice and follow my directions, they had no place in my swarm.

  I wasn’t always the Swarm King. I’d like to say I’d earned the title after the last battle with the humans. In the last village, our group came across three fate-marked women who biologically matched to three of our Byromian’s.

  The only problem was—the villagers were prepared to put up quite a fight against us. Bold, yes, and many died as a result. It wasn’t customary to obtain three fate-marked women in a single village, a rarity we couldn’t take lightly or let slip through our grasp.

  My father was ruler at this time. I wished I could say that I agreed with how he handled the situation, but sadly, I thought he went about the approach all wrong—and it cost us—significantly. It cost the fate-marked, as well.

  Ordered to give up their women, the villagers refused and stood protectively in front of them, steadily holding their ground and their pride, even if it was by a single thread. At the time, I had to give the human’s credit for their efforts. They were brave to stand against us savage beasts, one of the corrupt nicknames they used for us.

  If they only knew we were trying to help them…

  If they only knew that we were trying to repopulate our own race and they were the key, maybe they would understand, but most of the time they wouldn’t listen for long enough to see the truth and accept it even if it was a punch to their faces.

  My father had died in that battle, and alas, I became Swarm King after a vote among the rankings.

  “You know what we need to do,” Rathum pressed.

  He narrowed his dark eyes into slits and gave me a questioning glance. His black horns glistened in the sun, curling downward over his features and casting a sinister shadow over his face.

  He was shorter than me—by a landslide—but he made up for it with his burly frame and muscular build.

  He was strong, yes, but he had shit for brains. His intelligence, or lack thereof, would often get us into trouble as he was prone to lashing out and being quick tempered. I tolerated Rathum not because I particularly liked him, but because our deceased fathers were good friends.

  “Rathum,” I droned in an impatient voice. “We’ve talked about this.”

  “We could use their food and supplies to get us through the dry times,” Rathum insisted.

  “I don’t want to hear anymore about it,” I commanded.

  Rathum wanted to take the women as slaves and raid their villages for stock and supplies. I only had one agenda when searching these villages—and that was to find biologically matched mates for both myself and my herd of men and use as little violence as possible to get the job done.

  “Need I remind you,” Rathum persisted, getting under my skin, “that Byroma isn’t exactly a hospitable planet. These sweltering deserts are relentless—”

  “Enough,” I bellowed. “I don’t need reminding of everything I see around me.”

  My temper was pressurizing, and my heart pounded. I gripped the reigns
of the gwarn I rode and stiffened, staring at the horizon. We were encroaching on the outer strips of the village and would soon arrive. I didn’t plan on departing empty handed.

  I relaxed my demeanor. “I’m sorry, Rathum, but it goes against tradition. If we don’t get our fate-marked women, then our race is doomed to die out. If the guts of the villages we hit are torn apart and left in ashes and shambles, then what good does it do us?”

  I glanced to my left and studied Rathum. He stared straight ahead. He didn’t argue, which meant he understood—even if it was deep down, that I was right.

  3

  Cherish

  After starting the warning fire and being satisfied by the smoke signal billowing up to the sky, I ran back to the village. I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, until my lungs felt like they were going to collapse, and my thighs burned.

  I was lightheaded with panic, but when I arrived in the village, the entire community had already emerged from their houses to meet the swarm. There was no point in fighting them, we wouldn’t win.

  The villagers weren’t stupid. They knew better than to disrespect the barbarians—having learned the hard way the last time a swarm plowed through the area and innocent lives were lost in a senseless battle.

  Already lined up into rows, the villagers stood banded together, united and silently waiting to comply to keep the order and the peace. The women were at the frontlines of each row, ready and bravely awaiting inspection from the swarm men.

  My heart was in my throat and my stomach churned in a sea of unrest. I scrambled to find Joshu and Beccy, who were currently cowering behind a dune of sand that was tall enough to shield them from any spurt of violence.