Wings of the Seraph: Outcast - Prologue

Hey, guys. Here's a little teaser before I post a chapter one preview later. Reinbach is almost finished with the cover, so I'll probably put them out together tomorrow. Because this is relatively short, I'll just past it into Patreon and combine it with Ch1 in a PDF tomorrow. 

While outlining and drafting the book I kept wondering if I should do a prologue with a psychic vision, given that Jorem had some visions in TAP, but considering Cole is a precog it seems pretty appropriate. 

Chapter One will include some flying, some drama, and some new characters. Is anyone interested in a sexy Kreen doctor?? =)

---

Prologue - Outcast

“Cole? Cole!”

The voice was so faint it sounded like a ghost crying out from another world. I opened my eyes and searched for the speaker, and it was only then I realized I was trapped beneath a pile of rubble. A battle raged nearby; the whine of pulsefire drowned out everything except the rhythmic pounding of distant explosions. Had we been attacked? Where was Raxyl? Where was Kaveri?

“Cole!”

Gritting my teeth, I clawed at the dirt and tried to wriggle free. One of my arms was completely pinned, and by the time I wrenched it loose my hand and elbow were a bloody mess. But strangely enough, there was no pain—I could barely feel anything at all, actually, except from the sudden ball of panic rising in my throat. 

“Cole! You need to stay focused, sweetheart. You need to stay calm. Just follow the sound of my voice.”

It was so dark I could barely see two centimeters in front of my face, and I had to hold my breath to keep from choking on the acrid smoke. I still had no idea who was calling out to me, but for lack of any better alternatives I decided to crawl towards her. Gritting my teeth, I focused on putting one hand after the other until I finally caught a glimpse of daylight up ahead. 

“Can you hear me, Cole? Can you see me, sweetheart?”

“I can hear you,” I croaked. My voice sounded strange to my ears, almost like it was also coming from a great distance. 

“Then just keep coming, Cole. Just keep…oh, no.” The voice trailed off for a moment, but I swore I heard the sounds of movement. “I won’t let them take you, Cole. Just stay where you are, sweetheart. Stay right there.”

I ignored her and continued crawling. The light grew brighter and brighter, but just before I reached it I heard the whine of a pulse rifle, the shrieking of a small child…and then silence. 

I didn’t stop moving. I continued dragging myself forward towards the light, desperate to figure out what the hell was going on. But when I finally emerged from the rubble, I was more confused than ever. 

“What…?” I breathed. 

I was lying amidst the smoldering ruins of a city that had been almost completely leveled. The sky was green with smoke, and nearly every building in sight had been reduced to a smoking crater. Corpses littered the area around me, and as far as I could tell they were all human. Most of them were wearing blue and gold military-style uniforms—uniforms that were haggard and filthy, as if they hadn’t been changed or cleaned in days. 

“Cole…”

The voice seemed even farther away now. None of the bodies had moved, but I felt compelled to crawl towards the closest one anyway. Even through the smoky haze, I could tell that the corpse belonged to a young human woman about my age. I might not have recognized the planet, the city, or the ethereal voice in the distance, but I knew exactly what this woman’s face would look like even before I turned her over. 

How could I not? I had seen in her in my dreams almost night for a week straight. 

“Who the hell are you?” I asked. “What do you want with me?”

She didn’t respond, of course. She never did. 

I sank back on my haunches and shook my head. The woman was in her early twenties with soft features, a slender nose, and shoulder-length blonde hair. Her eyelids were dusted with purple shadow that precisely matched her lipstick, both of which were made more striking by the ghostly pallor of her skin. Her beauty was haunting, mostly because every time I saw her she was dead. 

Except for today. I reached out to touch her cheek, and the instant our skin made contact her eyes shot open. They started right at me, green and terrified, as if they had seen something deep within my soul…

I awoke with a start, and my vision was so clouded it took me a solid thirty seconds to remember that I wasn’t on my bunk in the Wild Gazack. I wasn’t whipping through hyperspace en route to another job, and Raxyl wasn’t in the cockpit waiting for me with snide commentary about how I always slept in too late. 

I also wasn’t alone. 

Kaveri stirred next to me, her soft, naked body still pressed tightly against mine. She made an adorable cooing sound but didn’t actually wake, and I slowly stroked my hand through her black hair. Almost four weeks had passed since she had delivered us into the arms of her so-called friends here on Varsus II, and I hadn’t learned a damn thing about controlling my precognitive abilities or flying starfighters. I had been having more nightmares, though, which probably meant one of two things: either my latent psionic abilities were finally starting to assert themselves, or I was slowly going insane. 

Those options aren’t mutually exclusive.

“Cole?” One of Kaveri’s luminescent blue eyes had cracked open, and her brow creased with concern. “Did you have another dream?”

I sighed softly. “Yeah, but it’s no big deal. Probably just those kajniv wings from dinner exacting their revenge.”

Her other eye opened, and her cranial tendrils began twitching nervously. “Did you see the same woman again?”

I briefly considered saying no, but lying to a telepath seemed pointless. “Yes. I was on the same planet, too.”

Kaveri leaned up. “This must be another premonition.”

“It doesn’t feel like one,” I said. “I usually only have a few seconds of warning before something happens.”

“Well, it has to mean something. You need to tell master Mosaad.”

Somehow, I resisted the urge to scoff. “Why? He hasn’t shown any interest in helping me control my powers before. And he still won’t let me anywhere near the Valkyries.”

“You just have it to give it some time,” she said, smiling. “There aren’t many psionic ships left in the whole galaxy, let alone out here in the Far Rim. He can’t afford to let all the adepts fly a Valkyrie—he needs to be absolutely sure they are ready.”

“This has nothing to do with being ‘ready.’ I’m the best pilot on this base and everyone knows it.”

I grimaced at the sourness in my voice. I had never been a patient man, as Raxyl would readily attest, but something about this place and the people here had gotten under my skin even more quickly than normal. A month ago, I had watched in amazement as a squad of Valkyries had stood head-to-head with a Convectorate battleship and forced it to retreat, and I had immediately started dreaming about what it would feel like to sit in the cockpit of a true psionic starfighter. Kaveri had assured me that her mentor, a legendary Blade of the Seraph named Wynn Mosaad, would teach me everything I needed to know about Valkyries and my powers. 

I was still waiting. 

“You need to tell him,” Kaveri said again. “He’s the only one here who can help you.”

I closed my eyes and tried to recall the details of what I had just seen. The images didn’t rapidly fade away like a normal dream; I could still see everything just as vividly as if I had actually been there. The problem was that I didn’t where “there” was, and I didn’t recognize the girl with the green eyes, either. All I knew was that all of it seemed incredibly familiar, more like I was seeing specters of the past than having a vision of the future…

I snapped out of my reverie as a flash of lightning illuminated the room. The wall-spanning transparent steel window behind our bed offered a breathtaking view of the Havali Mountains…or would have if it weren’t dark and raining ninety-five percent of the time on this god-forsaken planet. Raxyl and I had run errands out of this place for years back when it had been controlled by the pirate lord Gol Zabras, but I had never realized just how dark and oppressive Varsus was until I had actually lived here. 

“Maybe I’ll talk to him later,” I said, slouching back down onto the pillow. “In the meantime, you should get some sleep. I don’t know how you have any energy left considering how often you run through that training program of yours.”

“Blades of the Seraph are known for their endurance,” Kaveri said, grinning and running her fingers across my chest. Her knee slid up my leg until it gently brushed against my cock. “Though as it turns out, so are you.”

I smiled back and traced my finger along her cheek. This planet might have been terrible, and my experience in the academy so far might have been disappointing…but despite all that, I was currently sitting next to a naked Velothi Succubus who was literally attuned to my libido on a genetic level. I had fucked her so many times over the past month that I was surprised my cock hadn’t shriveled up and fallen off. She was easily the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and she was as eager and hungry for sex as the most hormone-addled teenage boy. 

Complaining about anything else in my life seemed incredibly petty as long as I was sharing a bed with her. Rich and powerful men traded entire star systems to have their own Succubus, and Kaveri had been bred to serve as the Dominion Emperor’s personal concubine. I wasn’t just lucky—I was cosmically blessed. 

“We’re supposed to be up in a few hours,” I said.

“Then I really need something to help me fall back asleep,” Kaveri replied coyly as her knee continued past my erect member and settled on my stomach. A moment later, I felt her tail curl between my legs and constrict my cock like a serpent. 

I groaned in delight and nibbled at my lip. “I’m honestly not sure I have anything left for you.”

“You haven't let me down yet.”

Kaveri stretched out and brought her lips to mine. Her tongue was as warm and soft as ever, and I was seriously tempted to just lie back and let her do all the work. She wouldn’t complain; her Succubus conditioning would ensure that. As long as her Imprinted mate was enjoying himself, her brain would be drowning in endorphins. Arousal was as reflexive for her as breathing. 

Still, as entertaining as it was to watch her inhale my cock and guzzle my seed, ultimately nothing could compete with the velvet, smoldering cradle that was her cunt. I kissed her for another few seconds, then roughly grabbed her waist and pushed her over onto her bed. She squeaked in delight when I wedged myself between her legs and again when I pinned her arms behind her head. Her eyes rolled back in delight when I slipped inside her, and she whimpered in joy after each and every thrust. 

I still couldn’t believe how different she felt every time I plunged into her. Perhaps it was just my imagination, or perhaps he Succubus condoning was designed to give her Imprinted master a unique experience every time her took her. Whatever the reason, it seemed impossible for me to contain myself for more than a few minutes no matter how many times I had already spilled inside her or on her that day. 

Tonight was no exception. Her legs locked around my back, and her tail curled around her ankles like a bow-tie ensuring I couldn’t escape. Pushing her arms as flat as I could behind her head, I pounded into her again and again until her whimpers eventually became so loud and frantic she actually bit down on one of her tendrils to muffle her cries…

And with that, I exploded. I didn’t know how, but even after a month of what sometimes felt like constant sex I still had plenty left to give her. She rhythmically bucked her hips to milk me dry, and once I was finally spent she pulled my lips back down to hers and held me close. 

All of this and you still aren’t content. All of this and a part of you still wants to run to the Gazack and blast out of here. 

I waited until Kaveri had fallen back asleep before I gingerly slipped out of the bed. I stood naked in front of the window, my palm pressed flat against the transparent metal, wondering why the only reflection I saw amidst the flickering lightning was that of a green-eyed woman I had never met.