“Fly-away piece of rodding got me when the jet broke apart,” Seztan said.
Rujali tore a strip from the leg of his pants, wadded it up, and pressed it against the wound to stem the bleeding.
Setzan hissed. His body stiffened. Rujali put his hand to his brother’s shoulder in an attempt at comfort.
Setzan covered the material with his hand, holding it in place. His skin was streaked with wet blood. “They attacked the jet. It should have been indestructible.”
It was true. Their jet was the finest, made on their planet for the royal line using the best military grade materials and technology. Yet they’d still been brought down.
Rujali should not have put Riley in danger like that, but he’d been reckless to get the crystal. He was smarter than this. They were smarter than this. The weight of guilt pressed on his shoulders.
“There was an enormous pulse of energy. It fried the wires. I had no control.” He hadn’t had time to even change into full manual mode before the wing had listed to the side and gouged into the earth.
“That amount of energy would have been huge to bring it down. We’ve blasted through asteroid fields with little to no damage,” Klaej said.
“How could they have such power all the way out here?” Setzan said.
Rujali stretched next to Setzan, the cold from the ground seeping through his clothing. “They have the crystal, brother.”
It had to be that. There was no other reason. This planet was an outpost, poor in natural resources. Certainly there was nothing here to generate such power. If it wasn’t for the fact it was logistically placed, it would still be a barren wasteland.
“There is no integrated power net as is usual for progressive planets, and the trade centers that are here are run independently from locally generated power sources. There is no other reason. Besides, we know they have the crystal. We tracked it to this cave system,” Rujali said.
Klaej’s face tensed. “Then it’s worse than we originally thought. If they have the capacity to harness the power of the crystal to bring down our jet down, then…”
“Yes, brother. I know.”
Then they had the power to bring down entire planets. The Ozar Crystal was powerful—the greatest secret of their planet. Not only was the crystal essential for their people to initiate the mate-bond and have precious children, it could be used as a serious weapon to keep their planet safe.
“Where do you think these scaled ones come from?” Setzan said. “I’ve never seen a species like them before. Well, not before I saw Riley.”
“They appeared at the same time,” Klaej said.
A heaviness formed in the pit of Rujali’s stomach. The appearance of two species they’d never seen before at the same time. It was more than a coincidence.
“She said she didn’t know how she got here,” he said. “Abducted from her planet. You can’t make up being that terrified and confused.”
“Clearly she is innocent. We would have detected any sort of dishonesty in her as our mate,” Setzan said.
The tension eased.
“You’re right. Riley has no idea how she came to be here, but the fact she was taken meant she was important to these scaled ones in some way. Why else go to the effort of kidnapping her?” Rujali said
“I have no idea why,” Klaej said. “But maybe she is important to them the way she is so important to us.”
“How do you mean?” Setzan said.
“We knew immediately that she was our mate. The one and only being in this universe that can bring us together as a Quad. It was instinctive. Maybe she’s important to them for a similar reason.”
“She is not their mate!” Setzan roared.
“I didn’t think she was, but there is something about her they want. The attack on our jet might not have been circumstantial. They might have attacked because they knew she was on board,” Klaej said.
Rujali’s head throbbed from his injury. Despite the fact the scaled ones had subdued them, they had still spent time looking into every nook and cranny of the jet while the brothers had been secured in the bedroom. “They took us because they didn’t find what they were looking for.”
“How would they even know Riley was on board?” Setzan asked.
“That little drumas turd. When I’m free, I’m going to kill him. Slowly,” Klaej said between clenched teeth.
“What are you talking about?” Setzan said.
“The Norvegicus. He was the only one that knew about Riley, the fact we’d found her, or had a clue how important she was to us. He saw it all,” Klaej said.
Rujali hadn’t liked leaving like they did, but Riley had needed medical attention after they’d found her in the refuse container and he’d allowed his attention to wander. Another oversight that shouldn’t have happened.
He frowned. “I’ll kill him again after you.”
“Then he’ll die three times over,” Setzan said.
“Where do you think she is?” Klaej said.
Rujali’s gut twisted. He’d had so many ups and downs since he’d met their mate. Maybe that was all a part of it. When they found her again, there was no way he was letting her out of his sight.
“If she’s not lying injured somewhere,” he said, “hopefully she’s on her way back to the spaceport. She’ll be able to find shelter there.”
“Do you think she’ll be safe?” Setzan said.
“If there’s one thing I know about our mate, it’s that she’s a survivor. She came here hurt and confused and still managed to escape us. No mean feat,” Rujali said. He came to his feet and ploughed his fingers through his hair.
“And rendered Klaej helpless with the analgesic,” Setzan said.
“She took me by surprise,” Klaej said, his brows rising high on his bald head.
“Sure,” Setzan added with a smirk.
“I think our mate has more skills than we give her credit for. I can only hope that she’s not stupid enough to try and help us. Even with such impressive skills, she stands no chance against so many scaled ones. Not if they’ve been able to harness the power of the crystal.” Rujali pulled against the immovable bars as frustration bubbled up.
“Do you really think she’ll try and come for us?” Setzan said.
“If she does, she’ll be in for a spanking of a lifetime once we’ve gotten her safe,” Klaej said.
“That’s if she doesn’t get you with the analgesic again. It seems to be overly easy for her to get the best of you,” Setzan said.
“Bug off, brother. She could just have easily gotten you as well,” Klaej said.
Setzan grunted. “But I’m not as dimwitted as you.”
“Shut it, you piece of drumas turd.”
Rujali sighed and leaned his head back against the wall, watching his pulse beat heavily behind his eyelids in time with the throbbing in his head. They could do nothing while contained in this cell. It was just a waiting game. Once the scaled ones came for them again, he would be ready. They had fought their way out of other scrapes and they would do so again.
Hopefully.
He could only hope that Riley was safe. Once they got out of here, they would track her down. She had to be somewhere. She had a knack for looking after herself. That was one consolation.
Logically, she should get herself to safety. If Riley was a female from their Homeland, they knew she wouldn’t dream of endangering herself. But she wasn’t from their Homeland and she’d shown just how independent she actually was.
She wasn’t like anything he’d encountered before, and damn if that didn’t turn him on so fast his cock went from limp to ramrod stiff in an instant.
As much as he hoped Riley wouldn’t put herself in danger, part of him wasn’t sure what she was capable of.
Chapter Thirteen
Riley
At least the craft had enough juice left in it to power some low-level lighting, otherwise it would have been pitch black.
Riley silently moved through the jet’s corri
dors. She needed to weapon up. Attempting to rescue her men empty-handed was paramount to stupidity of the highest order. Not when she had no idea what she was up against. Her men? Since when had she begun to consider them her men?
They were colleagues, put in harm’s way because of her. They’d aided her and she would return the favor. That was all, she a good solider never left anyone behind. As for her men..? She set the startling thought aside, needing to keep her mind clear.
At least she had adrenaline on her side. As she’d lain all day in the burning sun getting turned into a deep-fried french fry, she’d had time to think. And think. And get angrier.
Not only had these reptile creatures abducted her for reasons as yet unknown, they’d captured and injured men who’d been the only people on this ass-end of a planet to help her.
If she had anything to do about it, they were going to pay. Dearly.
Just seeing her men injured like they were, and then treated so roughly without reason was enough to press her buttons. It seemed the universe was filled with the same sort of people as the likes she’d encountered while fighting the worst kind of battles, and she’d reached her limit.
Being a soldier, she stood up for herself, stood up for innocents, and brought creatures like that to justice. Just because she wasn’t on Earth meant that had to stop.
She was just being a soldier and that was what soldiers did. They helped get people back. Any people. Not just her men. Not that she wanted to be cocooned between them again, sandwiched between hard muscles and harder cocks. Definitely not that she wanted to experience their brand of lovemaking that brought her endless orgasms until she just about passed out. Not the caring. Not the thoughtfulness. Not that part of her that felt so connected it might be that they were an extension of herself, because that didn’t make sense. At. All.
No. This was all about justice and doing what soldiers were trained to do. Clear and simple.
If she thought about any of the other reasons too much, it made things a little too messy to cope with, because that would mean she might never get back home. Not want to. And that meant she’d inadvertently given a part of her heart she’d vowed to remain intact.
She found her way into Rujali’s room, to the little hidden cavity and the arsenal inside. It required a little more pushing than the last time, but the door hissed open revealing all of that goodness.
Her heart did a little flip as she reached for the sword. The handle fit into her palm like a handshake. She flipped it in an experimental arc. The balance was superb.
She found a hip holster with multiple attachments. She slung it around her waist—twice—and filled the holsters with side arms. Next she clipped a shoulder harness around her torso and slipped the blade into the sheath at her back, leaving the handle high enough to lift it out easily. The wisp of metal on leather made goosebumps break out over her body. It felt so good.
Once she got her men out from wherever they were, she would have plenty of weapons to share with them. Soon she was weighed down with as much as she could carry of the arsenal and she hadn’t even dented the contents of the cabinet.
“Men after my own heart,” she muttered, and stalled when she realized what she’d said.
She headed out of the room. She needed to drink something or she wasn’t going to last long enough to share said weapons. There was barely enough saliva in her mouth to coat her tongue. The craft was a mess of twisted metal and crumpled walls. When she came to the irreparable rent in the fuselage, it was clear this machine was never going to fly again.
She clung to a section of the wall and half stepped, half jumped the gap. There had to be a kitchen somewhere in this wreck.
She passed half open doors that were a mass of limp wires. “Huh. Finally see how those things operate.”
She recognized a sink and a tap in the next room. A kitchen. Thank God. It took a moment to find the switch and then she bent underneath the stream of crisp, clear water and let it run down her throat. It was better than manna from Heaven.
She set about tapping the walls. More hidden cabinets hissed open. She was getting used to this technology. Inside a cabinet rested some bars wrapped in a plastic-type material. She grabbed one and ripped off the plastic, letting it drop to the floor, and then sniffed the bar. It smelt like nothing. After an experimental lick, a mild savory flavor coated her tongue. She took a bite. It was chewy like a muesli bar, but not distasteful. Better than army rations.
She leaned against the bench, hand over her stomach, and let out a long, slow breath. She hadn’t realized how hungry she had been until she was finally sated. How long had it been since she’d eaten a meal? Hours had run into days, her life completely wrung inside out. Even now, she had no idea where she stood. The only thing she was sure of, was that she was going to seek retribution from the creatures that had abducted her and thrown her into all of this.
Her sole focus now was on what she had to do. Her foot brushed something loose in the floor of the corridor. She bent to find the object and her hand curved around a cold, hard familiar device. The tool she’d used on Klaej. She knew he still suffered the effects and that it just didn’t automatically go away. If he’d been seriously hurt because she’d rendered him paralyzed, she would never forgive herself.
That line of thinking was going to get her nowhere right now. She shoved the guilt away. There would be time for that later. She slipped the device into the waistband of her pants and continued down the short corridor.
Coming to the enormous rent, she peered around the corner. The night was eerily quiet. There were no animal noises. No hooting or whistling or rustling. Only the sound of a brisk breeze. In the distance, the airport glowed, a subdued halo of light against the deep stars of the universal sky.
She jumped to the ground and stuck to the shadows of the craft, which wasn’t hard because the only source of lighting was from the stars in the sky. There was no moon. Now that the heat of the sun had disappeared, a dewy chill filled the air.
The cave loomed like a toothless, open mouth. Nothing stretched between the craft and the cave but flat open ground. She waited, sucking in shallow breaths, but the cave mouth was dead. Not a flicker of light or movement.
She waited twice as long as she thought was needed, her blood firing with the unspent burn of adrenaline, until finally she clutched a rifle-looking weapon against her chest.
With a glance in either direction, she took off at a run toward the cave.
She padded to a halt just outside the entrance, her back to the cool rock, fingers molded to the rifle. She took quick breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth, waiting for any attention she may have caused. No movement. She darted a quick glance inside. Nothing but thick, solid obscurity. She slid around the curve of the wall and into the darkness.
Back pressed against the wall, she waited for her eyes to adjust. The air was more chilled in here. The silence inside made her ears ring with the absence of the wind. She slid farther inside, following the wall. She felt her way with her fingertips, creeping carefully deeper into the cave. Any sound she made would be compounded in the stillness.
She glanced over her shoulder, noting the entrance to the cave as a dot of night sky in the distance. The cave was huge, but completely empty. She had seen the Reptiles take her men inside, but where could they have gone?
They had to be here somewhere, behind a hidden door or in an offshoot somewhere. If only she had some lighting. She hated being totally blind.
The wall gave way into an abrupt turn. Riley edged forward, a hand out in front of her, but she felt nothing. A few steps was all she was willing to take when she couldn’t see anything. The risk of getting lost in the darkness was a huge. She carefully retraced her steps until she felt rock at her back. There was no alternative but to follow the line of the cave if she didn’t want to become lost.
She stepped around the corner. Even losing sight of the small dot of the entrance was disturbing. She hated dark spaces, yet she forc
ed herself forward, setting aside her discomfort.
A murmur of voices echoed towards her. She flattened her back against the rock, ignoring her sweaty palms. The voices continued to talk. She inched forward. The darkness gave way to a weak illumination that highlighted the jagged wall.
“Shut it, you piece of drumas turd.”
Her heart stumbled. That was definitely Klaej! Keeping herself in check, she forced back the urge to run to him. There still might be danger and she couldn’t risk being caught.
She peeked around the corner. All three of the men were stuffed into a little alcove, caged in with bars. They were alive, if not a bit pissed off. She’d take that any day over not finding them again. After another check for any reptilian monsters, she bolted over to the cage. Her fingers clenched around the bars.
“Rujali!” Her gaze bounced to Setzan, and then Klaej who was slumped against the back wall. Her heart lurched. Blood coated the side of Rujali’s face. Setzan held his side, his hand coated in blood, and Klaej’s skin was full-blown crimson.
Rujali’s face opened in surprise. He charged to the bars and his fingers wrapped around hers as his gaze roved over her. It felt so good. Strong. Comforting.
Her chest eased.
“What are you doing here, mate? You should be somewhere safe? Are you injured?” Rujali’s powerful voice boomed around her.
Her mind spun with the barrage of questions. He was so concerned about her, when they all looked pretty banged up themselves. She shoved aside the guilt that sat like a dead weight in the pit of her stomach. This was no time to get caught up with emotions.
Then why is the relief seeing them alive making your hands shake, soldier? Pull it together and get the job done.
“I’m fine, but you’re hurt. All of you. And caged.” She tested the bars, ignoring the dryness of her mouth and her weak knees. They were immovable. There didn’t seem to even be a door, let alone a lock she could smash. “How the hell did you get in there?”
“Get back to safety. This instant.” Setzan had crawled beside Rujali. She reached through the bars to put her hand around his. More comfort washed through her.
The Ozar Triad Page 10
