Xarax: Legion Force 3

By Livia Lang

Celia was born and raised in a scorpion-infested desert town. She's stuck there, not knowing how to leave or where she wants to go in life. Every day is the same - long, hot, and boring.

Then one day a mysterious group of men arrive. They are dangerous, confusing, and their leader is the sexiest guy she's ever seen. However, when they reveal that their mission is out of this world - literally - Celia will have to make some big decisions.

Is she ready to go on the adventure of a lifetime and save the planet from a madman? Or limit herself to the small town and comfortable existence she's always known? And can an attraction between a human and an alien ever lead to anything except trouble? 

This is a standalone science fiction romance. Includes a sneak peek at Livia's hit shifter romance: The Wolf of Summer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Livia Lang
• Release date: Oct 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393092469

Book preview

1

I hate this place, Celia sighed, wiping her brow. Viento Frio might be the worst place in the galaxy.

And to be fair, she wasn’t exaggerating. Viento Frio was a monstrosity of arrogance and greed, a sign that rich men thought they could conquer whatever they pleased. Lacking any humility, someone had thought to bring supermarkets and lawns to the middle of the Mojave Desert, ignoring the screaming winds and blistering sun that made the surroundings look like Mars. The feasibility of the project should have been questioned from the very beginning. However, someone had demanded it be done anyway.

A small group of tacky buildings had quickly been propped up by questionable contractors, and a few naive souls had been lured away from busy Southern California to come move to the ‘up-and-coming community’. There had even been a half-hearted attempt to make a public swimming pool for residents to cool off in when the temperature hit one hundred and twenty degrees. However, the lack of shade around the pool made it more like a pot ready to boil lobsters.

Just as quickly as it had sprouted, however, the project was abandoned. The developers quickly ran away to easier places to work, like Florida, and time all but stopped for the brave souls who had tried to tame the desert. The town began the same slow wither into madness that affects everyone who stays too long in the summer sun.

Celia’s parents had been two of the hapless souls led to the promised land of Viento Frio. Tired of the stifling congestion and greed of Los Angeles, they had drifted across the barren wastelands towards a small tin trailer to call their own. Soon after came their small convenience store, another trailer parked in front of their first, that was stocked with all the necessities a small, barely functioning town would need. Last of all came Celia, the first and only child born into Viento Frio’s dusty roads.

The trailer her parents had turned into a convenience store over twenty years before was cramped and hot, but Celia had been proudly running it herself ever since she had graduated from high school two years before. It was filled with items that no one ever bought, as the half-dozen regular customers never needed more than cigarettes, coffee, and cheap sunglasses. The unusually high meth consumption of the town prevented most inhabitants from having the inclination or money to buy much else. However, since the next closest store was over two hours away, Celia’s parents liked the idea of being prepared in case anyone had an emergency. So, the shelves groaned under cans of baby formula, blankets, guides to venomous snakes, and other assorted, useless goods.

I hate this place, she repeated again.

As Celia managed to shove the heavy case of soda onto a low shelf at the back of the shop, she felt a familiar vibration coming through the thin floor. Soon the roar of motorcycle engines could be heard as they came down the lonely freeway, filling the still air with noise and chaos. What had begun as only low rumbling began to coalesce into a distinctive, steady buzz outside of her store. The trailer shook as the motorcycles turned from the road onto the dry patch of ground that served as the store’s parking lot.

A hive had arrived.

She liked to call biker gangs (or ‘motorcycle clubs’ as the more organized groups tried to brand themselves) hives, because the way the engines rumbled and the bikers swirled along the road reminded her of bees. She never told them that though, as she didn’t think the gruff bikers would appreciate being compared to the mindless, sterile drones of a bee queen.

That’s not to say she didn’t like the bikers. They were actually some of her favorite customers; tough but fair, they didn’t try to get discounts on candy bars like the coked-up truckers did. Truckers were crass and always trying to look down her shirt or get her to ‘sit on their lap just a moment’ like they thought they could fool her into thinking they were Santa Claus. If Santa Claus existed, Celia figured he wouldn’t smell like oil and lube and be selling drugs out of the back of his truck…unless something had greatly changed since she was a child.

No, bikers weren’t like that. They were certainly foul-mouthed and quick-tempered, but they had their own samurai-like code, and for the most part they weren’t going to make a lady uncomfortable in her own store. They were good tippers too, knowing her family’s business was always on shaky economic ground. They’d leave a twenty-dollar bill sitting on the counter after a whole crowd of them had come in for cold sodas, tipping their hats to her as they left to go God-knows-where. The crusty old bikers had quite a soft heart underneath, and she always liked when a group came in to the store.

I hope they spend money like water, she murmured, looking at the empty cash register in the corner. She hadn’t had a customer in two days.

With some eagerness, Celia stood up from her struggle with the soda crates to peer out the window. However, as she looked out the dust-encrusted back window, she was greeted with quite a surprise. She didn’t see the normal group of pudgy, middle-aged guys with enormous mustaches and smelly vests.

No, this group of bikers was made up of about a dozen men forming a sea of muscled slabs