He let out a bark of laughter. I held him for a moment longer before pulling back. “I’m staying with you until this is over.”
He sighed. “Rogue, I’m in control right now, but the delirium comes and goes. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“And you won’t.” I released him and walked up to the glass. “You got a shower?”
Xavier nodded. “Yeah …”
“Okay, well we’re gonna need one, and some food and water afterwards. He needs to stay hydrated and fed so the shit can come out of his system.”
The two Athions exchanged glances, and I threw up my hands at their hesitation.
Tide sighed and nodded. “Fine, but he’ll have to come back to lock-up and stay here until he’s detoxed.”
“Fine. Then I’ll stay with him.”
Tide’s jaw clenched. “Is she always this difficult?” he asked Xavier.
Xavier smiled. “No. She just gives a shit. And you can’t fault that.”
I returned Xavier’s smile, grateful that he got it.
The doors slid open, and I slipped my hand into Vex’s and led him out.
* * *
The shower was on the floor above in one of the cabins. By the time we got there, Vex was flagging. He’d paled, and his steps had slowed.
I slipped an arm around his waist and took his weight. “Xavier, can you get something high energy, something with sugar, please?”
He nodded and headed out of the cabin.
Tide remained in the doorway as I adjusted the shower spray. It was tepid, but it would do.
Vex leaned against the wall by the cubicle. “Well, this sucks.”
I grasped the edge of his shirt and tugged it up to expose the hard ridges of muscles in his abdomen. “Up.”
He raised his arms, and I yanked the shirt off.
He canted his head. “You going to take off my pants?”
I arched a brow and unbuttoned the trousers. His hand covered mine. “I can manage.”
I nodded and retreated from the room to give him some privacy, taking Tide with me.
“How much do you know about the Trad?” he asked.
“Enough to know that he won’t hurt me. Enough to know that he did what he needed to do to survive.”
“How long was he held?”
“A decade.”
He exhaled heavily.
I locked gazes with him. “You can’t lock him up again. You can’t liberate a man to lock him up again. It isn’t right, and he doesn’t deserve to be treated like a criminal.”
“You do realize he probably is one.”
“Maybe he is? Maybe he did something bad, but he saved my life and as far as I’m concerned, he’s paid his dues in that arena ten times over.”
“Fine. You can stay in this cabin with him. There’s an alarm under the dresser if he has a turn. Use it. Don’t be a hero.”
There was a clatter from the room, and I rushed in to find Vex leaning into the spray, head bowed. His body was wreathed in mist from the spray. He staggered as if his knees were giving way, and I stepped into the cubicle with him, bracing him up as the water hit me full force. My hair was plastered to my scalp in seconds and my clothes soaked. He met my eyes with bleary ones of his own.
“I can manage,” he reiterated.
“No. No, you can’t.” I grabbed the bottle of wash and poured a bit into my hand, ignoring the icky feel of wet clothes stuck to my skin. Keeping him braced with one hand, I used the other to rub the wash over his chest and shoulders, and then down his abs. Fuck he felt good, hard and ridged and toned in all the right places. I swallowed the lump in my throat and reached around to massage his back so I was practically hugging him.
He braced his palms against the glass either side of me and dropped his head into the crook of my neck. I massaged the soap into his hair next, running my fingers through it; he moaned into my neck. Hair done, there was no avoiding the next bit; my hands ran over his ass and skimmed over his hips round to the front. I bit the insides of my cheeks to stem my gasp as I ran the wash over his manhood.
“Shit, Rogue.” His voice was a growl as he shoved me away. His hand was on my neck, holding me in the spray, and his eyes pinned me in a blaze of violet.
“You’re wet,” he said.
“Yeah, kinda standard if you get in a shower.”
He shook his head. “I mean, you’re wet.” His hand cupped me through my clothes, and my breath stalled.
Oh, fuck, there was nothing weak about this man anymore. It was as if my desire had given him a surge of energy. He reached for the hem of my top and peeled it up and off me. The water cascaded over my breasts and down my stomach, and he devoured me with his gaze. My body was aching, throbbing for him, but this wasn’t the unnatural heat, this was just me. This was my want and my need. My hand went to my waistband, but he stopped me and gathered me up so his chest was pressed to mine and our mouths were inches apart.
“I’m not myself,” he muttered against my lips. “Neither are you. Not after … After what you lost. But I … Fuck, Rogue, I want you so bad it hurts.” He pressed his groin against me. “But for now.” He kissed me hard, he kissed me like I was a fucking oasis, like I was the last slice of heaven in the burning pits of hell. He kissed me until my head swam and my limbs were liquid, and then he set me on my feet and raked my hair back off my face.
“Go dry off.” He gently shoved me out of the cubicle, and I went. Weak-kneed and dazed, I fucking went.
* * *
The fever hit him an hour later, and I lay with him, soothed his brow with cool water, and watched over him until it finally broke several hours later. As his temperature went down, Vex finally slipped into a restful sleep.
My legs ached from curling in a cramped position on the bed with him in my arms, so I gently extricated myself and stretched. The joggers and tee that the Athions had loaned me were far too big, and I was practically swimming in them, but it felt good and safe to be so thoroughly covered in clothes for once. I headed out of the cabin, needing to walk off the tightness in my limbs. The door swished open with the press of a button, and I bit back a yelp as a body blocked my path.
“It’s okay.” Xavier stepped out of the way to let me out. His silver hair was pulled back off his face in a knot at the top of his head, and without the flowing locks to soften them, his sharp, inquisitive features looked decidedly hawkish and predatory. He peered over my head. “How is he?”
The door closed behind me. “Better. His fever broke. I think we’re in the final stretch of his withdrawal now.”
Xavier sighed. “Thank god for Trad metabolism, eh?”
“I guess.”
He reached up to tuck a tendril of hair behind my ear. “You should get some sleep too.”
My eyes were level with his throat, and this close, I had to lift my chin to look into his face. “Too wired.”
He smiled, and his pale eyes slowly lit up. “I want to show you something.” He slipped his hand into mine, as if it was the most natural gesture, and led me away from the cabin, down the curving corridor, and up a short flight of steps. A door greeted us, but it swished open at his touch and then we were stepping into space swirling in a miasma of color. It was all around us, shooting past us in liquid globules. My breath caught, and my hand tightened around his as we stepped into the room that sat under a dome of glass.
“What is it?”
He chuckled. “Space. Or Space in hyperdrive.”
“It’s … beautiful.”
“I know. I come here sometimes to watch the stars. We call it the observatory. Space travel can feel claustrophobic, and most of our ships have rooms like this to allow the passengers to feel less constricted, to allow them to connect with the outside.”
I’d been taken from my planet, drugged, and transported across the expanse and held in cell after cell for months. To be standing here in the midst of such vastness loosened the knot that I hadn’t known was wound around my heart.
My eyes grew h
ot. “Thank you.”
He squeezed my hand. “You’re welcome.”
“I’m truly free?”
There was a slight hesitation before Xavier replied, but his answer was saturated with tender warmth. “Yes. And once we get to Athion, you can choose what you want to do. Go back to Earth or … or stay …”
My lips curled in a wry smile. “Stay?” I arched a brow at him. “And what purpose would I serve? Your planet wants fertile females. I’m no good to you guys, and to be honest, even if I was, I’m not the maternal type.” I shrugged. “It’s why I didn’t volunteer to come to Athion when my government opened up the option.”
He scanned my face, and his throat bobbed. He nodded. “Earth it will be, then. There are ships back and forth to Earth regularly. We’ll take some more blood samples when we get to Athion, and then … then we’ll send you home.”
I exhaled. It was truly over. I was headed to a safe place, and soon after that, I’d be home.
I should be happy, so why was there a hole opening in the pit of my stomach?
“There you are,” Lore said from the doorway. “What part of sentry duty don’t you understand?”
Xavier rolled his eyes.
I bit back my annoyance. “Vex isn’t a threat.”
Lore pressed his lips together. “He’s a Trad, a criminal, and he’s in withdrawal. There are protocols that will be followed. We’re going to be stuck on this ship for the next four weeks, so I suggest you get used to taking orders.”
Something niggled the back of my mind. Four weeks … Oh, God. I’d be stuck on a ship with four males when my next heat cycle hit. No cells, no training room, no arena to help take the edge off.
How the heck was I going to survive that?
12
Xavier
I stride onto the bridge to find Lore and Tide deep in mumbled conversation. They look up as I enter.
Tide locks gazes with me. “You lied to her.”
I bite the insides of my cheeks. “What would you have me do? Tell her we plan to get her to Athion and lock her in a fucking lab. You want me to tell her we plan to experiment on her until we have a replica of the Trad drug, and that we intend to use it to try and synthesize our own drug, one that will render all humans infertile for Trads? You want to tell her she’ll be probed and pricked in the hopes of what we all know is a fucking longshot. That all her pain could amount to nothing?”
Tide’s jaw flexes. “Ever since we discovered the existence of the drug and these one percenters, we’ve been looking for an opportunity such as this. If we don’t do this, then the others … The others will have died for nothing.”
The others. Five other human women. Five one percenters we’ve managed to find in the last four years, and the procedures used on them by our scientists have killed them.
My hands curl into fists. “You know this is wrong, don’t you? You know it. What do you think the humans would say if they found out about these experiments?”
Lore’s lip curls slightly. “You think they don’t know? You think they don’t want the kidnapping to stop? A vaccine that would make human females useless to Trads is just what they need, and trust me, they’re willing to sacrifice a handful of lives to save the many. They’ll do what it takes to stop themselves going extinct, because that’s where this is headed. If the kidnappings don’t stop, there won’t be enough females for them, or for us, even with the fertility drug the government is adding to its food sources without the humans knowing.”
“What?”
Lore turns away. “I don’t agree, fuck, I don’t like it, but we do what we have to for the greater good.”
Lore is tight with the head of Biotech back on Athion. He should be, the guy’s his uncle. But the inside information that usually comes in so useful to us in our line of work, snitching for the government, makes my stomach turn.
I need them to understand. “Rogue deserves more than this …”
The guys are silent, their expressions dark and resolute.
I have thirty days to change their minds, to get them on board and make them realize she is more than just a science project, that she deserves more.
Thirty days, and the clock is ticking.
To be continued …
Continue the adventure in Rebel
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Other books by Debbie Cassidy
The Gatekeeper Chronicles
Coauthored with Jasmine Walt
Marked by Sin
Hunted by Sin
Claimed by Sin
The Witch Blood Chronicles
(Spin-off to the Gatekeeper Chronicles)
Binding Magick
Defying Magick
Embracing Magick
Unleashing Magick
The Fearless Destiny Series
Beyond Everlight
Into Evernight
Under Twilight
The Chronicles of Midnight
Protector of Midnight
Champion of Midnight
Secrets of Midnight
Shades of Midnight
Savior of Midnight
Chronicles of Arcana
City of Demons
City of the Lost
City of the Everdark
City of War
For the Blood
For the Blood
For the Power
For the Reign
For the Hunt - Novella
Heart of Darkness
Captive of Darkness
Bane of Winter
The Oblivion Heart
Deadworld
Deadworld
Dead City
Dead Sea
Dead End
Planet Athion
Rogue
Rebel
Survivor
Novellas
Blood Blade
Grotesque – A Vampire Diary Kindle World book
About the Author
Debbie Cassidy lives in England, Bedfordshire, with her three kids and very supportive husband. Coffee and chocolate biscuits are her writing fuels of choice, and she is still working on getting that perfect tower of solitude built in her back garden. Obsessed with building new worlds and reading about them, she spends her spare time daydreaming and conversing with the characters in her head – in a totally non psychotic way of course. She writes High Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Space Fantasy, and Reverse Harem. Connect with Debbie via her website at debbiecassidyauthor.com or twitter @authordcassidy. Or sign up to her Newsletter to stay in the know.
Rogue: Survivor’s Heart book 1: Planet Athion Page 9
