by Tana Stone
She tilted her head at him. “Are you wearing one of our universal translator devices? How did you get that, if you don’t live in the village?”
“From the Crestek.” He touched the device again, curious at the name she’d given it—universal translator—and by the fact that her people clearly had more of the magical devices.
Her arched eyebrows rose. “So, not one of ours. That explains why T’Kar didn’t understand us when we found him. Well, he understood Holly, but that was because of their whole mind meld thing.”
He nearly dropped one of the skewers into the fire. “Mind meld?”
Her cheeks flushed pink. “You know. When women hook up with Dothveks, they start to sense what each other is feeling.”
He focused on the fire again, but did not respond. So, this connection had happened with the other offworld females she’d arrived with. Jealousy flashed briefly that this was not unique to him, but he quickly dismissed it. It did not matter that this had happened with the other females. It made her no less his.
He turned her words over in his mind again. “What is ‘hook up’?”
The pink in her cheeks deepened, and she didn’t meet his eyes. “Get together.”
He still did not understand. “Like you and I are together?”
“No.” She shook her head vigorously. “Like bonded, or mated, or claimed, or whatever you Dothveks call it. Physically.”
Now he understood, but he did not understand why her cheeks had flamed. “Is this shameful where you come from?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t know why I’m blushing. You’d think being around Holly would have made me immune to being embarrassed about anything sexual.”
“Holly?”
She shook her head. “My crew mate. My friend. The one with T’Kar.” She folded her arms over her chest. “You know, one of the friends you took me from.”
He ignored the jab, handing her the grilled strip of sand serpent on the stick. “Eat.”
She didn’t even look at the food. “I don’t want to eat. I want you to take me back to the village and my friends.”
“I cannot do that.” Rukken pulled at his own piece of chewy meat with his teeth, tearing off a bit and swallowing.
“You mean you won’t, because I know you can.” She waved one arm toward the dunes. “We just start walking. I know it’s over there, somewhere.”
He swallowed another bite of the slightly smoky serpent meat, as well as his irritation. “I have told you. I cannot take you back. You are meant to be here—with me.”
She stamped one foot, sending a puff of sand into the air. “But I’m not. I’m a member of a bounty-hunter crew. I’m meant to be piloting a ship across the galaxy and hunting down bad guys. No way am I supposed to be stuck in the middle of a sand pit with an alien barbarian for the rest of my life. What am I even supposed to do out here?” She threw her arms wide. “There’s nothing but sand. A tiny tent, and miles of sand.”
When she stopped, her chest was heaving. He stood so quickly, she stumbled back, and he caught her by the arm before she fell. Her cheeks were stained red, and her eyes flashed defiance. If he wasn’t so hurt by her words, he would have had a hard time not throwing her down on the sand and taking her right there.
“You think I am a barbarian? Then I will be a barbarian.” He jerked her so that her body was flush against him and her warmth pulsed into him. She tipped her head back to meet his eyes, her own dark ones shining with unconcealed fury. “You will stay here with me in the middle of this ‘sand pit,’ and you will be my mate. You were meant to be mine. One day, you will know it just as surely as I do. As for what you will do to keep you occupied, female…” He pulled her even closer, and lowered his mouth to the side of her neck, inhaling the scent of her skin and closing his eyes.
Before he could open his eyes, her leg moved up swiftly between his. Her knee made impact with his balls and he released her, falling to his knees and clutching his groin. The blinding pain moved swiftly, and he could do nothing but hold himself and moan. He could not even reach for the female, as she staggered back from him, and he saw through his blurred vision that her feet were dangerously close to the fire.
She spun around to run, but trod squarely on the burning embers, screaming and dancing backward. “Fuck, that’s hot!”
Pulling her own knee into her chest, she fell back hard on the sand, whimpering as she examined her blistered foot and rocked back and forth.
Rukken pushed through the sharp pain that had moved to his lower abdomen and managed to crawl over to her. Lifting her foot, he saw that the ball of her foot was red and raw. “You should not walk in the fire.”
Tears were streaming down her face, as she bit down on her bottom lip. “Thanks for the pro tip, asshole.”
He ignored her insult, tugging her leg toward him, as she tried to wriggle away. She spun around and attempted to crawl on all fours. Exasperated, Rukken gave her bottom a soft slap. “Stop moving, female. You will cause further damage to your foot.”
Her body stiffened as he succeeded in flipping her and pulling her into his lap, cradling her almost like a baby, as he held her foot without touching the scalded skin. His balls still throbbed in pain, but he ignored them, pulling a few yellow parsi tree leaves out of a pouch on his waist and cupping her foot as if it was breakable. Her gaze was suspicious as he placed them over her burn, but the tension in her forehead released after the leaves started to heal her. He knew the pain had subsided when her muscles uncoiled, and she slumped slightly against him.
“Better?” he asked. He still held her small body in his arms, but she was not struggling to get away.
She gazed up at him and tilted her head before nodding. “You helped me even after I kneed you in the balls.”
“You were burned.”
She eyed him as if she couldn’t quite believe his words. “Aren’t you angry?”
“I am disappointed. You promised you would not attempt to run from me if I let you go.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “You know what they say, all’s fair in love and war.”
Now it was his turn to be confused. “I have not heard that before. Which one is this, love or war?”
Her expression challenged him, even as her eyes darkened with an emotion that was not anger. “What do you think?”
Five
Caro saw his pupils flare. She pushed away from him, managing to stand on one foot. “Well, it’s not love, I can tell you that much. You may be able to keep me here, but it’s only a matter of time before my friends and the Dothveks find me. And if you don’t plan on forcing me, I promise you that won’t be happening. Ever.” She wiped the sand off the seat of her cargo pants.
“We will see.” He seemed unconcerned as he turned back to the fire, but she saw a muscle in his jaw tick.
Infuriating asshole, Caro thought, hobbling away from him, the leaves dropping off as she moved. Her foot felt almost like it had never been burned, but she tried not to put too much pressure on it, anyway. She didn’t have far to walk, since the entire camp was comprised of the single peaked tent positioned in front of what looked like a mini oasis—a small, blue pond, a patch of high grass, and some willowy trees with blue bark and fronds bursting from the top. Other than that, it was sand as far as she could see.
She couldn’t help wondering how he’d found this little patch of life. The Dothvek village was centered around a larger oasis, but she hadn’t expected there to be more of them on the desert. Or pint-sized versions.
Caro walked to the edge of the water and sat down, wrapping her arms around her bent knees. She stared across the placid surface of the water, finally dipping her toes in. She was startled by how cool it was. She’d expected a pond in a desert to be hot, but it wasn’t. Wiggling her toes sent ripples from one side to the other, and she watched, mesmerized, as they came back to her, lapping gently against the sand bank.
The water was calming, and the same peace settled over her as when she’d been wa
tching the sun rise over the sand dunes. She’d never thought she missed things like this, but there was something about the natural world that soothed her.
Caro gave her head a small shake. It didn’t matter how much she liked natural ponds, or sunrises over deserts, she still had to get back to her friends and they all still had to find a way off the planet. That had been the plan all along. She ignored the little voice in the back of her head reminding her how happy Danica, Max, and Holly seemed with their new alien mates. She couldn’t think about that now. The captain hadn’t mentioned abandoning the goal of leaving the planet, so she had to operate under the assumption that they weren’t. Besides, hadn’t Holly joked about bringing extra muscle onto the team? The natives had muscles in spades, and that included the one who’d kidnapped her.
She could hear him moving behind her, but she refused to turn around. She wasn’t afraid of him. Not really. If he didn’t hurt her after she kneed him in the balls, she knew he never would, and she also believed him when he said he wouldn’t force himself on her. If there was one thing Dothveks were big on, it was honor. And she could sense that, beneath all his anger and resentment, he still considered himself Dothvek.
She slipped her feet farther in the water, the cold enveloping her toes and ankles. Her burned foot stung for a moment, then the water numbed it. Why did she trust a guy who’d abducted her? It didn’t make any sense, but she did. Just because he’d slapped some magic leaves on her? She hated that his kindness made it harder for her to hate him. The only thing that scared her was her own reaction to him. Her body’s traitorous responses to his touch or his nearness didn’t seem to be something she could control. She could ignore them, though.
“You should eat.”
The deep voice right behind her made her jump, and she pressed a hand to her heart. The barbarian was stealthy, she’d give him that. “I’m not hungry.” It was a lie, and her stomach rumbled almost on cue.
He held a skewer of meat over her shoulder. “You are.”
Caro wasn’t sure why she felt so compelled to push back, but she shook her head. “I don’t want your food. I’m not staying here long enough to need to eat, thank you very much.”
He let out an exasperated breath, and pulled back the skewer.
She didn’t hear him walk away, and before she could react, he’d sat down behind her and wrapped his legs around hers. She jerked around. “What the hell do you think—?”
He popped a bite of food into her open mouth, then clamped his hand over it. “Since you are behaving like a child, I am feeding you like one.”
Caro tried to spit out the chewy, smoky meat, but he held his hand firmly over her mouth. She gagged it down, then struggled in his arms, feeling small and powerless, cocooned in the bulk of his body.
“Another?” he asked, slipping his hand down from her lips.
“No. What the hell is that, anyway?”
“Sand serpent.”
She thought she might retch. “I just ate snake?”
“You should get used to it. Sand serpent is plentiful on the sands, but livestock is not.”
Caro thought of the squat, fuzzy-tailed creatures that ran around in the pens in the Dothvek village, and suspected she’d been eating a lot of them, instead of sand snake. “I don’t need to get used to anything. I’m not staying.”
He ignored her. “I cannot have you weak from hunger, and the heat of the day will drain your energy if you do not eat.”
Caro pressed her lips together. Maybe if she refused to eat, he’d have to take her back to the Dothvek village. If he really thought she was his chosen one, he wouldn’t want her to starve to death, right?
Rukken reached around and cupped her jaw in one hand, squeezing lightly to open her mouth. She pressed her mouth into a hard line and shook her head.
He grunted, pulling at her lower lip with his thumb and trying to press a now-cold piece of snake meat into her mouth. She twisted her head away from him, but he turned it back.
Strangely, she could feel his frustration as strongly as her own. And something else almost as strong. She bucked against him, and he tugged her body into his to hold her steady. Then she really felt it—hard and huge against her ass. She froze.
Shit. That couldn’t be real, could it? Not that she was shocked—aliens who were probably close to seven feet tall were going to be big everywhere—but she hadn’t let herself think about it much. She’d gone out of her way since they’d been rescued by the Dothveks not to think of them as incredibly hot guys, even as her friends had started to pair off with the alien barbarians.
Rukken stiffened, his grip on her jaw loosening. He leaned forward and tucked his head against her neck. “If you eat, I will release my grip on you.”
His words vibrated against her skin and made her shiver. Was not eating more important than getting away from him? She didn’t know how much longer she could take with his body pressed up against hers. Her heart was racing, and her nipples were hard against the fabric of her shirt. She only hoped he couldn’t see her obvious arousal.
“Fine,” she said. So much for her hunger strike.
He slipped the snake meat into her mouth, and she reluctantly chewed. “There. Happy?”
“More than that.” He held another morsel to her lips.
She ate it, the smoky taste not as bad as it had been at first. The texture, though, had not grown on her. A bit of char remained on her lower lip, and he brushed it away with his thumb, his gentle touch making her skin tingle. Why did his touch do that to her?
Rukken hesitated, then ripped another small bite of meat from the skewer and held it to her lips. She took it willingly, so he wouldn’t have to touch her lips. The less she touched him, the better.
After swallowing another few bites and finishing nearly half the snake meat twisted on the pointed stick, Caro pulled her head back. “Enough. I can’t eat another bite.”
He looked from the skewer to her and finally nodded. “That is enough for now.”
She sighed. For now? She hoped to God every meal wasn’t going to end up with him feeding her by hand.
He unwrapped his arms from her and stood, and for a moment, she missed the warmth of his big body.
She scowled at herself. Oh, no. You cannot fall for your kidnapper, she told herself. It doesn’t matter if he’s gorgeous and his touch makes your skin feel like it’s been electrified. He abducted you.
Caro heard him move away, and she allowed herself to breathe freely as she slid her feet back in the water. The last thing she needed was to have feelings for the guy she was trying to escape from. It didn’t matter what he looked like or what he made her feel. She needed to get back to her friends and back to her old life. She’d never had time for love—or even lust—before, and she certainly didn’t now. Her duty was to her crew. The team came first. It was a rule she’d learned when she’d joined the Valox resistance, and one she’d held tight to during all her time on Danica’s crew.
Besides, living alone in the desert with a barbarian had never been in her life plan. She swallowed and cringed at the strange aftertaste of the snake meat. Nope. This was definitely not her idea of a good time.
Six
Bexli paced outside Danica and K’alvek’s tent. Why wasn’t the captain up? Hadn’t they agreed they needed to go after Caro?
She didn’t want to burst into the couple’s tent, but she also didn’t know how much patience she had left. Lycithians weren’t known for their waiting skills. They were shape shifters, for fuck’s sake. If that wasn’t the definition of impatience, she didn’t know what was.
She flicked a hand through her lavender bob. She knew why she was impatient to go after Caro, of course. It was all her fault that her friend was missing. If she’d waited for Caro to get ready before the tahadu, the exiled Dothvek never would have been able to abduct her. The knowledge made her gut roil, and she pressed a hand to her stomach.
Why hadn’t she come back after she chased down Pog? Because she neve
r expected a disgraced Dothvek warrior to sneak into the village and take one of them, that was why. She hadn’t even known there was an exiled Dothvek. None of them had. She guessed it wasn’t information you shared right off the bat, but considering what had happened, Bexli wished the Dothveks had been a little more forthcoming.
She still didn’t understand who the guy was, or why he’d been kicked out of the village, but that fact that he had, and the fact that he’d actually taken Caro by force—no way would the pilot have willingly left—did not do anything for her churning stomach. Bracing her hands on her knees, she leaned over and sucked in a breath. The morning air was still crisp, but the scent of breakfast wafting from the communal fire—the wood crackling as the animal fat sizzled—made her press her lips together.
“We’ll find her,” she whispered to herself. Not only were the sand barbarians good trackers—from what she’d seen—but she knew she and her crew wouldn’t stop until they got Caro back. They were more than crew, they were family. Especially Caro.
The human pilot had been the first one to make her feel welcome when Danica brought her onboard. She’d been dressed in the ridiculously skimpy clothes from the pleasure house she’d escaped from, but Caro had taken her under her wing, given her some of her own clothes to wear, and made her feel like one of the team right off the bat. That was Caro. Always taking care of everyone.
“Screw this.” Bexli straightened. She’d waited long enough. She was going in. If Danica and K’alvek were indisposed, she’d apologize for it later. Before she could barrel into the tent, one of the flaps opened and she almost stumbled backward.
“Hey, Bex.” Danica looked startled to see her standing at the entrance to the tent. “You ready to go?”
