CHAPTER 1 - Sarah

“Again,” Axel barked out as he threw me against the mat.

I slammed into the surface and could swear all of my bones were breaking. Fucking asshole was going to kill me, and it looked like he was enjoying every minute of it.

“Get up, Human,” Axel smirked at me and I tried not to look at his rocking body that was on display. He had taken his shirt off a half an hour ago when we were sparring because I had finally caused the neanderthal to break a sweat.

And from that moment forward I had gotten my ass handed to me.

Don’t judge, you have no idea what it is like to have someone so sinfully delicious with those rippling muscles that look like they belong on a stripper named Hammer.

And his hammer, yeah you could see the massive outline underneath his close-fitting pants. It was indecent, and I was damn thankful for it.

Rising unsteadily to my feet I tried to get back into position. We had been training like this for two weeks and I had successfully risen from dismal failure to horrible liability.

Axel had been less than impressed with my skills and spent every waking moment berating them. To make matters worse, now that we were imprinted I was expected to live with the man. Sure, I could try breaking the rules, but the longer we were apart the more my body would start to break down and then here is the kicker.

Wait for it…

Yeah, I could fucking die without him. DIE, what kind of idiot would put themselves in a situation where you had to be linked to a jackass or death?

According to Von, Axel knew about this before I came to Zeron. What he didn’t mention was that nobody gave me a choice. One day I was drinking it up and hoping to get lucky with the lads and the next I was fighting Hercules.

Have I mentioned I am a pacifist?

“Come at me,” he motioned with his hands and I just stared at him.

He growled as if that would scare me into doing what he wanted. Stupid prick, I wasn’t about to run at him. I had the bruises and t-shirt to prove that was a suicide mission.

“Now, Human!”

“So, my name is Sarah,” I began to circle when he stepped toward me. Counteracting his every move so that we were in some kind of bizarre dance.

“Human! You will never learn unless you do as I say!”

I could see anger tinging his features and I felt a tiny fraction of glee in my gut.

“Yeah, Sarah Carmichael, how do you do? I sell dental supply products in Shakopee, Minnesota. And for some reason, you all have ripped me out of my world and expect me to follow every fucking rule that you give me.”

His eyes narrowed, “Cursing is beneath you.”

I rolled my eyes and in that second he had me pinned up by the neck against the wall. He was so freakishly fast. I kicked with my legs as I felt my airway collapse. Axel wouldn’t kill me, that would harm himself. But he wasn’t above a little torture.

Oh, and the kicker? Since we were imprinted partners, he could put up mind shield that deflected my powers. It was almost like he could channel mine and I should have been able to channel his.

But I was shit at channeling anything besides Food Network and maybe a little HGTV.

Finally, he released me and I fell to the ground gasping as black spots dotted my vision. On my knees, I tried to drag air into my lungs.

“Again,” he barked out.

My arms gave out and I slumped onto the mat face first.

Glamorous I was not at that moment. Okay, in most moments I wasn’t underwear model material. I come in more of a fun size package. Short, quirky, super blonde hair that was actually natural, and dark blue eyes almost black.

I was the girl next door meets the Adam’s Family. A warrior I was not, no matter how many times Axel kicked my ass, choked, slammed and pummeled me I wasn’t cut out for this.

I felt a toe nudge me.

Great, this was his version of sympathy.

“Human, this isn’t the time to rest.”

“Is it time to die, because that sounds great about now.”

Axel had never liked my sense of humor, not even from the start. He picked me up by the back of my body suit and I was hanging in the air like a dead animal.

“You are weak, Human.”

I wanted to say something really snarky back to him, but I was just too damn tired.

You know that moment when the hero picks up the damsel in distress wrapping his chiseled arms around her and holding her close?

Yeah, so Axel totally has the looks and chiseled everything down, but instead of cradling me close he carried me by the back of my suit until he got to our rooms and he could throw me on my bed.

We had to live together, wasn’t that just perfect? I mean who wouldn’t want to live with sex god that hated the very air you breathed.

His bedroom was across the hall and he slammed the door behind him not even checking to see if I was going to be okay.

My hero, jackass.

I laid there for a good twenty minutes until my stench from working out was too overwhelming and I stumbled into the bathing chamber. I ripped the suit off and winced as I looked down at my pale skin. I looked like a banana that had been left on the counter too long.

The bruises would heal and be gone in the morning. Just another perk of becoming SUPER. What they had failed to mention was that even though I could heal myself it still hurt like a bitch when I was injured.

For the millionth time since being zapped here, I wished that I hadn’t been the one carrying that stupid bit of DNA. I almost missed talking to dentists about tooth whitening and that alone told me that I had literally landed in hell.

Because let’s face it. Nobody likes to talk to dentists, not even their wives. Most of them are scurvy bastards that try to take you back to their hotel rooms during conventions. Stupid fuckers. I wasn’t about to break up any unhappy homes, not for someone that looked like Mr. Rogers.

I sank into the heated water and immediately began to feel better. They had minerals in the water that helped to regenerate the body. In truth, there was a lot of cool things that they had here in Zeron. I just didn’t care.

I wanted to go back to the hour and half morning traffic and listening to satellite radio as they disparaged Mondays and often played Nichole vs. The Streets. I wanted to sing along to the Beebs and deny knowing the words to every song. I wanted to be normal again.

But fuck me, I wasn’t normal. I just had to be SUPER.

There was a pounding on the bathroom door, “Human, are you about done?”

I considered not answering him, but I had done that once before, and there was already a new door installed where the old one, that he ripped out, had been.

“Keep your pants on, Grandma!” I yelled as I reached for the soap and lathered up—everything.

He growled but walked away, and I couldn’t be more thankful. The day he barged in and found me in the bath had been one of the worst experiences of my life. He didn’t even pretend to be embarrassed or look away. He just shouted at me.

“You are too thin! Why would they give me such a scrawny partner? You have no boobs, little hips, this is a disgrace.”

You see the thing was that on earth it was all sexy to be waif-like and so my petite body hadn’t be abhorred.

But in those few short sentences, Axel made it perfectly clear that he was not into me whatsoever. I won’t pretend that it didn’t sting a little or a fucking lot. It wasn’t that I wanted him pawing all over me. But he didn’t have to act like he had walked in on his great Aunt Phyllis who was suffering from an outbreak of oozing boils.

I tried to shake it off as I rinsed the soap from my hair and body and let the water go down the drain. Standing I waited for the dryer to begin. It had scared the shit out of me the first time. What kind of heathens didn’t use towels?

Zeronian’s that is who. They do have these wicked cool dryers that had you completely dry including your hair in less than three minutes. And whatever their soap was made out of had been a godsend for my tresses.

I have a lot of hair, but it is fine and thin, so it often tangled. Here my hair would dry perfectly natural as if I had used a large round brush on it. And it stayed that way all day until I washed it again. Or got blood in it from training, which happened more often than I would like to admit.

Once dry I stepped out and realized I hadn’t brought anything to slip on. I eyed the laundry shoot where I had already sent my dirty clothes. They weren’t retrievable and here I was stark naked without a towel in sight.