Sentinel's Key: Aelaran Warriors, #3

By Elin Wyn

We've escaped with our lives, but we're cut off. Alone.
It's time to bring the battle to the enemy.

But can we defeat them without paying a terrible price?


Sentinel's Key is the final book in a slow burn steamy science fiction romance trilogy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ClockWalk
• Release date: Jan 7, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223564751

Book preview

Sentinel’s Key

SENTINEL’S KEY

AELARAN WARRIORS: BOOK 3

ELIN WYN

CONTENTS

Amina

Kael

Amina

Kael

Amina

Kael

Amina

Kael

Amina

Kael

Amina

Kael

Amina

Kael

Amina

Kael

Amina

Kael

Amina

Kael

Amina

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About the Author

AMINA

Aquick tour of the area revealed the edge of the red dome. It cut off Camp Meriwether from Route 26. How far did it extend up Mount Hood?

I drove carefully. Close up, the dome was transparent. It was indestructible, unmoving, and I didn’t want to crash into it.

We were trapped inside while an alien invasion gathered steam.

Drive back into the woods behind the Blackwater Research Outpost, Kael said. From there, we can reach the gully, and then the cabin.

Our passenger, Misha, stared at him. She’d only seen him for a moment in his true form. Right now he was totally human looking, right?

But she’d seen too many other things that weren’t human, weren’t natural.

Well, if your definition of natural were things from Earth.

You’re not losing your mind, I said helpfully. Promise.

Uh-huh. She still stared at Kael. Was it this new form, or the old one that threw her?

I squeezed Kael’s hand. We’ve got to tell her, I insisted. She’s seen too much to just pretend everything is normal.

He sighed. There’s a portal on Mount Hood, Kael said. It warps spacetime, collapsing what would be a journey of light years to a few moments’ travel. There is an outside force that is taking it over. He paused for a moment. And in the process will conquer your planet.

Well. That was one way to wrap it all up.

Outside force of outer space aliens? Misha asked.

Yep, I said.

Not to get personal, but you looked like an outer space alien a moment ago, Misha pointed out.

Kael sighed. It’s my duty to guard the portal. From both humans who might stumble onto it, and predator races who would use it for their own.

Spacetime portal, she nodded. I knew I should’ve gone into astrophysics. But geology seemed so much sexier.

I gave the BRO facility a large margin. We could see the fenced-off parking lot as we passed behind, into the woods. From there, the ground swooped down into a gully.

Kael had modified my Land Cruiser. It twirled out its tires into long legs as we crawled down the steep sides. Misha’s eyes got big, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she faced out the back passenger window.

Is that a bobcat chasing us?

CB! I said. I forgot we’d left him waiting outside. We hadn’t anticipated being trapped in underground caves, labs and bunkers for so long. Now Kael’s robot, Companion Beta, pursued us, disguised by his own projected aura.

I stopped the truck and rolled down the window. The bobcat made an impossible leap into my lap.

Hey, buddy. Sorry we forgot you.

He bonged, an unhappy sound.

You have a bobcat for a pet? Misha tilted her head. Wait. Was that the one that came into the diner?

Beta is a defense robot, Kael said. He’s undercover. People wouldn’t understand his true form.

Try me, Misha said.

Kael blinked his eyes hard. Inside his head, he had controls for the robots, as well as his cabin, and cameras that covered the area.

CB changed into a floating sphere, metallic purple with a round blue eye. The iris swiveled at Misha.

Misha stared back. It floats?

Gravity manipulation, Kael said. It rides on geodynamo convection currents.

Misha nodded. The Earth’s electromagnetic field, created in the outer metallic core. Okay! I knew geology was the way to go.

I initially believed Kael’s cabin to be a spaceship I was abducted to. Instead, it was a regular old log cabin, with a ton of modifications inside. It stood on the bank of this gully, farther up the slope.

Is that why you’re here, Amina? The alien invasion? Are you a FED or something? I thought you were the head of a private volcanology company.

I scrubbed my hand over my newly shorn head.

I am. The US Geological Survey asked me here, because the data generated by BRO looked suspicious.

Dr. T thought you might be a spy, she said.

Not a very good one, I laughed. BRO is supposedly a private concern, built to give towns surrounding Mount Hood more time to evacuate in case of an eruption. But from the get-go, it seemed way too well-funded. I should have turned tail after I took my initial conflicting data. Instead…

Instead I’d been attacked by hybrids, monsters cobbled together from the DNA of local wildlife. Kael found me, saved my life. Now I was thwarting an alien invasion, uncovering strange monsters.

And falling in love with an alien.

Where have I been? How did I miss a bunch of aliens? I mean, Dr. T did start acting like he was overdosing on allergy meds—but aliens?

Her voice was getting higher and higher. I couldn’t really blame her.

I’m not sure when, but you were stuffed in what looks like a giant plant leaf that makes duplicates of people.

Misha bit her lip. Like all those Dr Ts and Bernadettes swarming after us?

Bernadette. That was the grad student’s name. Yes. Like that.

Are there… more of me? She went pale.

So far, we’ve only seen projections of you, Kael said. Was that reassuring?

Projections?

The alien force, working against us, sent images of you to manipulate us, he said. To play on our weaknesses, confuse us.

Me? Why me?

Maybe because you were the only one at BRO who was friendly? I wondered.

She gazed at the floating metal orb, at the human Kael. Does that mean we’re friends?

Guess so, I said.

Deet.

I eyed CB. The sound usually indicated he’d spotted something on his alien radar.

Deet. Deet.

Is something coming for us? I asked, taking my foot off the gas.

Bong.

Negative.

Deet deet deet.

I looked around, seeing nothing.

Deetdeetdeetdeet.

Stop! Kael said.

I hit the brakes. The truck slowed quickly, but then slammed to a stop, tossing us around the Toyota by the impact. For the first time, I was glad the vehicle was too old to have airbags.

There’s nothing in front of us, I groaned.

Turn on the headlights, Kael said.

When I did, they reflected, but there was nothing there.

The dome.

Shit.

Kael pointed up the slope. We’re cut off from the cabin.

What about the crevice, the portal? I asked.

I’m guessing both of those locations are within the dome. Maybe this is just another step in controlling the portal, he said. There’s a logging road a few hundred yards in the woods. I’m sure Dr. T used it to access the ledge.

Dr. T? Why him? Misha asked.

He’s been voted most likely to be in cahoots with aggressive extraterrestrials, I said.

We’ll have to make do, Kael said. Head up into the trees.

I backed up, a grinding sound where the bumper had hit and now pulled free making me shudder. Make do with what? We have a half-loaded needler, a pulse energy weapon that we hardly understand. That doesn’t seem enough to stave off an invasion.

Pulse energy weapon, Misha said. "Like P.E.W.? Pew-pew!"

"More like pew-pew, a few hundred cubic feet of rock slagged into magma," I said.

Oh, right. The hole in the roof, she said.

As I drove up the far side of the gully, the tires spun out into legs again. We crawled to the top, and deeper into the woods.

This is close enough, Kael said. The road isn’t far from here.

I turned off the engine. What do we do now?

Find a way to get a signal past the dome, Kael said, or the Earth is doomed.

Glad I asked.

KAEL

Iexited the vehicle and walked back to the trunk. The cases had been tossed around by the crash, but when I looked inside one, they seemed undamaged.

Pods?

Amina took two steps back.

An encounter with a pod nearly cost Amina her life. It had certainly cost her her hair, nails, and some skin. Any longer with it and all of her would have been consumed, subsumed.

I didn’t blame her for her fear of genetic pods. Still…

These are genetically pre-programmed, biological universal assemblers. They aren’t after DNA. I took a manipulator scope from the tool belt.

Much of the mountain was already under surveillance by the Seekers I had planted. The dome would likely block those signals. What we needed right now was eyes on Camp Meriwether.

Companion Beta signaled the controls in my brain. I blinked his control array into view. Do you have a cell phone charger?

Sure, but since when did you have a cell phone? Amina asked.

No. Beta is low on power. He needs to charge up.

As I scanned the pods, Amina plugged a charger into the lighter of the truck, then held up the other end. Beta released a cable from his lower hemisphere, letting it snake out and spin a steel cocoon around the end of the charger.

He’s humming, Misha said. It’s kinda cute.

I activated a pod, leaning into the car, then stuck it in the door of a communications device.

The tape deck died eons ago, Amina said.

"It will still have the basic elements