Title: Badari Warrior’s Baby (Sectors New Allies Series Book 8)
Author: Veronica Scott
Genre: Scifi Romance
Book Blurb:
Dr. Megan Garrison, mate to the Badari Warrior pack’s senior enforcer Mateer, is perilously close to the due date of their baby when she’s kidnapped by human malcontents in Sanctuary Valley. The kidnappers threaten to harm her and intend to ransom the half human-half Badari child to the evil Khagrish scientists in return for their own lives.
Mateer and his fellow Badari launch a desperate effort to save his mate and child but the situation is made more complicated as Megan goes into labor. Can they rescue her in time to save mother and child?
A 25K word novella…can be read as a standalone.
Genetically engineered soldiers of the far future, the Badari were created by alien enemies to fight humans. But then the scientists kidnapped an entire human colony from the Sectors to use as subjects in twisted experiments…the Badari and the humans made common cause, rebelled and escaped the labs. Now they live side by side in a sanctuary valley protected by a powerful Artificial Intelligence, and wage unceasing war on the aliens.
Excerpt:
Why is the baby reaching out to me? Without realizing he’d done so, Mateer shoved back his chair and was on his feet, talons deployed. Something was wrong in the baby’s perception of her world right now, which meant something amiss with Megan. Chip was seeking her father as the other source of comfort in her limited awareness.
Everyone was staring at him.
“Megan needs help now,” he said with a snarl in his voice and sprinted from the room, heading for the hospital as fast as he could run. In his head he heard Aydarr issuing an alert to the entire pack wherever they were in the valley and then the Alpha was right behind him, coming to assist. Mateer tried to send calm reassurance to the child that he was on his way. Frustration over the baby’s inability to communicate in words ate at him, even as he recognized the ridiculousness of his expecting an unborn child to parse sentences.
He reached the clinic in record time, bursting through the door, taking note of Rik the nurse sprawled on the floor in a spreading pool of blood. His priority was his mate and since he knew others were close behind him who would take care of the injured human, he didn’t break stride but ran to Megan’s office. The room was in disarray, desk and chair shoved aside.
Camron and Gemma hurried down the hall from the meeting room at the other end of the building. “What is it? What’s wrong? Aydarr told me to get her here right away to help.” The soldier gestured at his mate who was the second doctor in the valley.
Gut churning with fear for his mate, Mateer waved them off. “Megan’s gone.” He checked his mate bond, glowing in his heart and mind and found the radiance strangely muted, as if Megan was a long distance away, but there’d been no time for her to be transported anywhere by whoever had entered the clinic.
“Harker,” Gemma said, eyes wide as she gawked at the disorder in the office. “He was her last appointment today.”
“Even he wouldn’t dare kidnap Megan, would he?” Talons and fangs deploying, Camron was appalled and ready to fight whoever had done this. “We have to find them.”
Mateer raised his head and breathed deeply of the air, seeking his mate’s scent, which for the past few months had also been underlaid by the perfume of the growing baby. He followed the faint dual trail to the side entrance and outside. Moving faster, he found himself heading toward the landing field, which made no sense. Harker wouldn’t have access to the flyers, which were heavily guarded.
Fire fight at the landing field! Jadrian’s message blasted into Mateer’s head as the night lit up in the off limits area of the valley. He redoubled his speed only to see one of their captured Khagrish craft rise from the ground and shoot off across the sky, heading for the valley rim.
Can we block the flyer from leaving the valley? He sent the desperate question to Aydarr.
The Alpha’s response was grim. Not without crashing it. We can’t take a chance with Megan presumably on board.
Mateer arrived at the landing field to discover a scene of chaos. A Badari soldier was injured, prone on the pavement, with the healers already working on him. A dead human lay close by and another injured man was screaming in pain. Blaster in hand, Gabe, one of their trusted human pilots, ran to meet Mateer.
“I don’t know what’s going on here,” he said, “Ten heavily armed humans with an antigrav litter in tow shot at the guards, forced Walt to go with them at gunpoint to be the pilot, and took off. I could tell the woman in the litter was Megan—what the seven hells is going on?”
Mateer grabbed him by the arm, remembering to pull back his talons in the nick of time. “Take me aloft, we have to follow them now.”
He and Gabe sprinted to the nearest flyer, several other Badari warriors joining them per Mateer’s telepathic order. Gabe got them airborne in record time and arrowing through the sky out of the valley. The enforcer sat uncomfortably squashed into the co-pilot’s chair as Gabe redlined the flyer’s engines.
“What happened?” Mateer asked. Gabe was a superb pilot, more than skilled enough to fly the craft and provide a rapid debrief.
“Walt and I just finished a training run and we were heading for the dining hall. I was supposed to meet my mate there and the three of us were going to have dinner. I was walking across to catch up to Walt when this squad of men came running onto the landing field, shot the guards and headed toward the nearest flyer. The ambush was executed with military precision. The men grabbed Walt, might have wounded him, and dragged him with them. I saw the group had a litter, so while I returned fire, I had to be careful. I did account for one of the bad guys but the element of surprise worked for them. They got away with the flyer.” Gabe fiddled with the controls and got a slight increase in power. “We have any idea where they’re going?”
Mateer shook his head, trying over and over to reach Megan, but her mind was foggy and nonresponsive to the telepathic link. The mate bond remained subdued and his sense of the baby was she was reacting negatively to stimulus in her environment but so far okay. He couldn’t get his heart to stop pounding and when he extended his hand, talons deployed, there was a subtle tremor. Neither thing was like him. He was one of the top warriors in the pack, cold and deliberate in combat, with countless kills to his credit.
But this is my mate and my child. My life.
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What makes your featured book a must-read?
A heartwarming quick read about the first Badari-human child and what her devoted father and his pack brothers will do to ensure her safe arrival.
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Author Biography:
USA Today Bestselling Author
Veronica Scott grew up in a house with a library as its heart. Dad loved science fiction, Mom loved ancient history and Veronica thought there needed to be more romance in everything. When she ran out of books to read, she started writing her own stories.
Seven time winner of the SFR Galaxy Award, as well as a National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award, Veronica is also the proud recipient of a NASA Exceptional Service Medal relating to her former day job, not her romances!
She read the part of Star Trek Crew Member in the official audiobook production of Harlan Ellison’s “The City On the Edge of Forever.”
Social Media Links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/vscotttheauthor