Orange and blue were on opposite ends of the pit. Yellow and blue on the same side. Shit. The Trads looked to Xavier and then sauntered off toward the tool racks. I followed Vex and Xavier to the racks. Marlon and Killion followed close behind.
“What now? Do you have reception?” Marlon asked.
Xavier shook his head. “Static. I need to climb up.” He looked into the pit. Blue was on high ground and yellow wasn’t too far below.
The two Trads were hovering, their faces anxious. Xavier walked toward them and leaned in to whisper something; they nodded and walked away. Vex helped me strap the basket to my back.
I caught Xavier’s eye as he returned. “What did you say to them?”
He grabbed a basket. “See the metal platform directly opposite us, a level above?”
I glanced across the chasm. “Yeah.”
“I told them to wait for my signal and then head toward it. There are troughs there.“
“And what will the signal be?” Killion asked.
Xavier grinned. “I’ll flash you.”
For a moment I thought he meant he’d take off his clothes, but then he tapped the torch on his hat, his gaze knowing. My cheeks heated. He’d touched me, and I’d let him, and damn if I didn’t want him to do it again.
Vex steered me away, toward the steps that would take us up to the blue platform above. The basket was wicker and light, but the hand drill and scooper were heavier. I went first, holding on to the rails, not looking down. Shit, it was a long drop. Vex’s bulk behind me was both a reassuring presence and a nerve-wracking one because each step had the stairway rattling as if it was ready to come away from the wall at any moment. What if the bolts came loose, what if … No. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment and then focused upward. I could do this.
We reached the blue-roped platform where two other workers were already hard at work, their rust-colored jumpsuits discolored with sweat. They didn’t even look our way, but the color of their skin told me they were Athion.
Vex pressed the tip of his drill to the rock face. “We best get to work.”
* * *
The minutes blurred together as I drilled and scooped. My basket got heavier. It would be time to empty it soon. What was taking Xavier so long?
Light danced across the rock face in front of me.
Vex paused in his drilling, and we both turned to look down at the yellow section. Xavier was looking up at us. He nodded and then headed toward the steps that would take him up to the platform that was our rendezvous point. Below him and across the chasm, the Trads were making their way to the platform where Xavier was headed.
Vex touched me lightly on the arm, and we both turned to the steps just as the main doors opened and a familiar figure stepped in.
Marick.
My heart stilled in my chest.
“Keep moving,” Vex said.
The metal frame juddered beneath our feet as we headed down the steps that would connect us to the rendezvous platform.
“Don’t look at him,” Vex instructed.
I kept my head down, moving quickly, aware that Marick was scanning the pit, looking for us.
We hit the rendezvous platform at the same time as Marlon and Killion but before the two Trads. They weren’t far behind, though. Xavier’s helmet was off, and his finger was pressed to the comm unit embedded beneath his ear.
“Almost ready. Yes, civilians. Yes. Six. I know. I know. Count of three? Okay?”
“Hey! Hey!” Marick’s voice echoed across the chasm. My head whipped around to see him clutching a megaphone to his mouth. “What are you doing? Get back to your stations.”
“Now!” Xavier reached for me. His body began to glow.
“Shoot him. He’s about to phase,” Marick shouted in horror.
Xavier’s fingers grazed my arm, and then a blast of light whizzed past me and hit him in the chest, sending him flying back. His body convulsed on the ground as guards surrounded us.
I hit the metal grill with my knees beside Xavier, and then my hands were on him, smoothing over his chest. He was intact, stunned but alive, thank goodness.
“What is this?” Marick appeared on the other side of the platforms suspended on some kind of hover platform with its own railings. “A spy?” His gaze was on Xavier. “An escape plan?”
He sounded delighted. Damn things must be boring on this rock for Marick to be jazzed up about a possible prison break. His hover platform drew closer, and the guards tightened formation around us.
“Good news, good news,” Marick muttered to himself. “House Ryzer is going down.”
I met his gaze. “You’re a disloyal bastard, you know that, Marick?”
“Yes, you’ve said, and you were right. I have no interest in House Ryzer. I’m team Zantar.” His attention slipped to Vex. “And Zantar will be getting back their prize soon enough in a rematch now that I’m house manager.”
“What?” Marlon said.
Marick’s smile was smug. “You’re looking at Zantar’s new manager. I just transferred.” He held a small black device. “I was simply coming to say goodbye, and I thought I could do it with a bang, accidentally of course, but now I have the perfect excuse.”
His gaze was on me, on the collar at my neck. My hand went to the metal.
“You think I’m done with you, Rogue? You think I’ll ever be done with you after what you did?”
Ice flooded my veins, but I raised my chin. “You fucking deserved it, you sick fuck.”
His smile widened. “Call me a sick fuck again.”
He was going to press that button regardless so what the heck. “You sick fu—”
A wet boom echoed across the chasm, Killion let out a bellow, and Vex cursed. My body shook as my hands went to my face. I was here. I was still here, then who? Killion yelled again and again. I turned my head slowly to where Marlon had been standing a moment ago, my heart in my mouth, because I knew … I fucking knew. His body was down, and where his head had been … Oh, fuck.
A keening whimper filled the air.
Where was that coming from? Me. It was coming from me.
Marick laughed. “Did that hurt, Rogue? Did it?”
Marick’s face swam in my vision as I turned my back to him. I wanted to scream, to shout, to curse him, but the words were trapped in my throat, frozen in place. Killion’s sobs echoed around me as he rocked beside his lover’s body.
“How about this one?”
Another wet explosion and Killion’s sobs were cut off. There was silence in the cavern, ominous and thick.
Vex’s face had drained of color, and Xavier had gone very still on the ground beside me.
“Rogue, don’t.” Vex’s voice was hoarse.
But I wasn’t in control of my neck muscles; they forced my head to turn stiffly and jerkily in Killion’s direction. But my friend was no longer sitting up. His body was slumped over Marlon’s, and his head was a red explosion of brain tissue.
Marick was laughing, full-on head-thrown-back gleeful laughter, and the fist squeezing my throat loosened. Rage rushed through me like a tidal wave, and then I was on my feet and rushing toward Marick.
His eyes widened in shock and a stab of bloody satisfaction ripped through me, but then a band of steel snagged my waist, and I was lifted off my feet and away from the Trad.
Vex hugged me tight. “Stop. Don’t. Rogue, please. He wants you alive. Stay alive.”
Heat blasted the back of my eyes and nose, it crawled up my throat and erupted in a fiery scream that left me raw. Vex held me as I thrashed and kicked.
Marick raised the black control once more. He was going to kill another one of my team. My body went limp.
“Don’t. Please.”
Vex’s arms tightened around my waist.
Marick canted his head. “Sorry? What did you say?”
I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat. “Please, don’t hurt them.”
Xavier was on his feet now, his hand cradling his abdomen.
“Where is it?” Marick snapped at Xavier.
Xavier shook his head and doubled over. “Damn, it hurts.” His hand went to his head as if in pain.
Marick jerked his head at one of the guards. “Scan him and find the teleportation device. Rip it out of him if you have to. We’ll find out exactly who you’re working for and why you’re here in our special accommodations.” His eyes gleamed wickedly.
The guard approached Xavier, but before they could get close Xavier was leaping toward me, his hand wrapped around my wrist, and then the world was filled with light.
11
“She’s coming to. Vitals are good. Burns on the neck are healing fine too.”
I opened my eyes to Xavier’s pale blue eyes filled with concern. His lips cracked a smile. “You’re awake, good.”
My body was tingling, and my head felt fuzzy, and for a moment there was nothing but confusion, and then the memories flooded me. Marlon and Killion dead. Marick laughing and then my rage and fear and the light.
I tried to sit up, but a large hand landed on my chest, pushing me back down. I stared down at the lean fingers, the neatly manicured nails, and the pale blue skin. Not Xavier’s hand. Panic surged through me, and I grabbed the wrist on instinct and twisted it sharply.
A deep voice cursed, and the hand was whipped from my grasp but not before I got a good look at its owner.
“Calm it, Rogue.” Xavier leaned across me, blocking me from the other lean Athion with eyes like embers. “You’re safe now.”
I allowed my pulse to slow while I scanned my surroundings—silver chrome edged in indigo. “We’re on your ship.”
“Yes.” Xavier leaned in and pressed his forehead to mine. “We’re safe. We got away, and we’re in hyperdrive. They can’t come after us.” His hand was on my shoulder, and his thumb made soothing circles on my skin. “They can’t get you now.”
Safe. I was safe. I … Marlon and Killion and Anton and … “The others? Where are the Trads? Where’s Vex?”
Xavier released me gently, his mouth turned down. “I couldn’t get to the two Trads, but Vex was holding on to you when I grabbed you. He’s here. He’s safe.”
The other Athion snorted in derision, and my gaze snapped to his. I sat up and swung my legs off the gurney.
“You got a problem with that?” My tone was flat.
The ember-eyed Athion opened his mouth to respond, but Xavier interrupted. “No. He doesn’t.”
“Xavier …” There was warning in the other male’s tone.
Xavier pressed his lips together. “We have days to discuss this, Lore.”
“Or we can just float him,” Lore said.
Float him? “What the fuck—”
“No,” Xavier snapped. He gripped my shoulders. “Look at me.”
I tore my gaze from Lore’s stern face.
“I won’t let them float him. I promise you,” Xavier assured me.
“I need to see him.”
Lore made a strangled sound. “You do realize that his kind are why you were on that asteroid in the first place, right? Why you were taken from your people?”
“His kind?” I hopped off the gurney and stepped around Xavier to come face to face with the wiry Athion. “His kind abandoned him to a fucking fighting pit. They locked him up and held him captive. He did nothing wrong.”
Lore frowned. “From what I gather, the pits are home to criminals. He must have committed an atrocity to be there.”
“And what about me? What did I do to deserve to be there? Am I a fucking criminal too?”
His frown deepened. “That wasn’t what I meant.”
“What he meant was that he’s sorry for your loss,” a new voice interrupted.
I looked to the door to find another Athion, this one tall and broad. His skin was an aqua blue, and his eyes were a silvery gray that sat eerily in his face. His hair was so dark it was almost black and cut close to his scalp, forcing his features to stand out sharply. He looked like a damn marble statue, if marble were blue, and his clothes hugged him in all the right places.
“My loss?” My voice cracked. “What do you know about it?”
He glanced at Xavier. “Enough to understand that you’re hurting right now. We’ve all lost people, loved ones … friends.” He walked into the room. “We just want to make sure you’re kept safe. My name is Tide.”
I touched the patch on my arm. “You took blood?”
Lore nodded. “Standard protocol.”
I shrugged. “Is it not standard protocol to wait till the subject is conscious and ask for bloody consent?”
“Would you have had us wait to remove the collar too?” Lore bit back.
Ooh, he was going to get on my nerves, this one. I bit back on the desire to nut punch him.
Xavier stepped closer. “Rogue, come on. We’re not the enemy.”
The anger seeped out of me. He was right, of course, he was right, but Marlon and Killion were gone. Anton was gone, and all I needed right now, all I wanted with every fiber of my being, was to see Vex.
I took a shuddering breath. “Vex isn’t my enemy either. He isn’t anyone’s enemy. I want to see him.”
Lore and Tide exchanged glances, but it was Xavier who spoke. “You were unconscious for almost forty-eight hours, Rogue. The teleportation had an unanticipated effect on your human body.”
“So?”
“Vex is … He’s not himself right now. He’s going through withdrawal.”
What was he talking about? “Withdrawal? He’s not a junkie.”
“From the drug that was in his system,” Lore provided.
“The one they fed him for years in his gruel,” Xavier reminded me gently.
Oh, God. Oh, shit. “You left him to deal with that alone?”
I glared at Xavier. “He saved my life before Anton did. In the arena, Vex saved me, and then he shielded me from Marick. He kept me safe.” I straightened my spine. “Take me to him. Now.”
Tide sighed and nodded. “Very well, follow me.”
“Are you serious?” Lore asked him.
Tide leveled him with a stern look. “You’re too smart to ask such a dumb question.”
And then he led the way out of the med bay.
* * *
I barely noted the details of the ship as Tide led Xavier and me from the med bay, across a dimly lit corridor, down a flight of steps, and into a whitewashed room that looked onto another room where Vex paced. He was dressed in a white shirt and loose-fitting black pants. The shirt was practically see-through with sweat, his hair was plastered to his forehead, and he paced the room beyond in evident agitation.
I rushed to the window. “Vex!”
“He can’t hear you,” Xavier said. “He can’t see you.”
Vex walked over to the glass and glared right through me. He was hurting, it was in his amethyst eyes, in the pupils that were dilated and fixed.
“Let me in.”
“No.”
I turned to Tide. “Are you in charge?”
He stared down at me levelly. “I am.”
“Then let me in, or I swear, when we get to Athion, I’ll testify that you abused me. A trio of desperate men on a ship for days with a human.” I raised my chin. “I’ll make them believe it.”
Xavier sucked in a breath. “Damn, Rogue. You are ruthless.”
I didn’t break eye contact with Tide. “You know it.”
Tide was the first to look away. “He’ll hurt you.”
“I can handle myself.”
“I can attest to that,” Xavier said. “I saw her go berserker in the arena, but Rogue, this is different. If he attacks you—"
“I won’t hesitate to defend myself. Look. He’s not a monster, and right now, he’s in pain and alone. Just let me be there for him.” I looked from Xavier to Tide. “If it were Xavier in there, suffering, wouldn’t you do this for him?”
Tide didn’t respond. Instead, he reached around me and swiped his hand over a panel
by the window. The whole thing flickered, and then Vex was looking right at me.
“He can hear and see you now,” Tide said.
Vex blinked and pressed his palm to the glass. “You’re okay?”
I nodded. “But you aren’t.” I looked to Tide. “Open the door.”
He moved to unlock it.
“Don’t,” Vex said.
Tide paused and arched a brow.
Vex tucked in his chin. “I don’t … I don’t know if I can control myself around her.”
Tide looked to me.
This might be the worst idea, but all I knew was that I needed to be in there with him. I pushed away from the glass and walked to the door. “Open it, please.”
“Rogue, no,” Vex said.
But the door was sliding open, and I was in the room with Vex.
He backed away, his chest rising and falling, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled me.
But I wasn’t in heat anymore. My libido was calm even though my heart was thudding ten to the dozen.
His shoulders relaxed, and then I was bridging the gap between us to wrap my arms around his waist. His body rippled with tension, and he froze as I nestled against his sweat-soaked frame, and then slowly, carefully, he wrapped his arms around me.
“You’re fucking crazy, you know that?” The words were a gruff whisper.
“Yeah, and you need a shower.”
Rogue: Survivor’s Heart book 1: Planet Athion Page 8
