by Mary Auclair
The stranger. She felt his hot breath on her nape.
“Are you okay?” His male voice again, deep and calm, vibrating down deep inside her. Then, with discernible alarm, “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s nothing.” Rose reached and patted at the small cut on her forehead. “A scratch.”
She turned to face him, with all intentions to thank him like she’d never thanked anyone before. Her words stumbled on each other and were lost before they escaped her lips.
The first things her eyes focused on were the bars. A cage. The stranger, her savior, stared from the other side, his shining bright blue irises fixed on her like on prey. His appearance struck her across the brain like a blow.
He was completely bald, and his ear-less head was smooth and round. The features on his face were sharp and angular, with prominent cheekbones and brows, accentuated by a straight nose marred by three ridges. His was a sensuous face, direct and challenging, the face of a man used to the reaction of others to his superior strength. His mouth was stretched in a superior smile, and Rose’s eyes caught on his full, fleshy lips, parted to show a row of pearly white teeth. And fangs. He had two long, sharp fangs where humans had merely harmless canines. His midnight blue skin shimmered in the dusty light, and as the air cleared progressively, so did the fog in Rose’s head.
Her eyes traveled across the landscape of tiny scars marking his skin in a regular pattern over his cheeks, forehead, and along his jaw. He wore pants, but no shirt, and his exposed torso was a tangle of lean muscles, bulging with strength going down to his waist. He was a fine man, with power and raw testosterone leaking from every pore of his being. Supremely masculine, attractive to no end, and definitively not human.
Oh, my God.
She knew what he was.
“You’re Eok.” The words stumbled from her lips in a whisper, as if she spoke them any louder, they would bite her tongue.
“And you’re human.” His eyes traveled up and down her body in a slow assessment. “A pretty sight, and a surprising one too.”
Rose stared at the formidable creature and had never been more grateful for a cage in her life. Eoks were the most feared warrior nation in the Ring—and beyond. Monsters, that was what they were. Killers, merciless and cold-blooded, leaving entire towns empty of life wherever they set foot.
Too close, she was way too close to him. She scrambled to undo the belts holding her in place in the seat and fell down on the ground on all fours as the restraints clicked free. In a few ungraceful steps, she was far enough that her racing mind was able to formulate a rational thought. Slowly, Rose turned to face her companion again.
The Eok stood there, boldly intimidating. His long, well-muscled arms were folded across his torso as he watched her with unruffled calm.
Her cheeks burned with sudden shame at her brutal and somewhat childish reaction. Rose wiped her palms on her pants, taking a few seconds to collect her thoughts before scrambling to her feet, her dignity heavily battered. She had reacted like a scared little girl, not exactly what she wanted to project. She couldn’t afford to show weakness, not ever. Not to him. Again, Rose lifted her gaze and studied the Eok.
He was wearing pants made from the same material as Rose’s tunic and pants. He was a slave, then, like her. That was reassuring because if he was a slave, the cage had been built for his spectacular strength and it would contain him. The insidious possibility of the cage being compromised by the impact crawled under her skin, but she pushed it away. If the Eok ever got out of that cage, she was as good as dead—at least, if she trusted the Eok stories.
Rose stared blankly at the Eok, trying her best to hide the undercurrent of terror that still crawled under her skin. Weakness made her angry and she welcomed the familiar feeling, hoping it would quench her impulse to run away screaming.
“Scared of me, are you?” The Eok’s lips twisted upward in an arrogant smile.
“You’re the one in a cage.” Rose crossed her arms on her chest, and wished she could smack the smirk from his lethal, handsome face. “Maybe you’re the one who should be scared of me.”
“Oh, I’m terrified.” His smile widened, and damn her if she didn’t feel a stirring in her stomach. And maybe lower, too. “Pretty Things like you are creatures of nightmares.”
Rose snorted and chose not to answer. Pointedly ignoring him, she tore her eyes away from the Eok and stared at the blazing sunshine that poured inside the pod from the impact point. She had other things to do that were way more important than arguing with him.
“Do you know where we are?”
“No idea.” He shrugged, and the muscles on his chest rippled with strength. “They kept me in this cage for a long, long time. I have no idea what part of the Ring we were in when your charming feet stepped into my prison.”
Her mind ran wild with the information. He was locked up in that seven by seven feet cage, alone and in the dark. There was no way to know what a long, long time meant, but by the way he said it, she knew it was long enough that she would have gone mad by now. Her heart broke for him, to think what torture it was for a force of nature such as him to be trapped inside the confines of a cage. A single week of the cell in the Cattelan’s ship and she had been ready to rip someone’s throat out.
He must want out so badly it hurts.
Rose swallowed, breaking her dangerous train of thought. She didn’t have time to think about the Eok’s feelings.
“Are the Cattelans going to be able to find us? Will they even try?” She hated the uncertainty in her tone but she couldn’t help it.
“The pod was programmed to go to the nearest planet capable of sustaining life.” The Eok spoke calmly, but his blazing gaze never left her. “As for locating the pod, the slavers are scanning every nearby planet as we speak. They’re not going to let their ticket to ten lifetimes of riches get away without a thorough search. They will find us, sooner or later. Sooner, probably.”
“We’re screwed, then.” Her shoulders slumped. “I’m not getting caught again. Not alive.”
“There’s another way.” The Eok leaned against the cage, his muscular forearms resting between the bars. “I can disable the locating chip inside the pod. It won’t mean they’re not already on our trail, but it’s a start. No signal, no locating the pod.”
“Okay, sounds like a plan.” Rose tried not to sound too eager. She couldn’t have him thinking she needed him, even if she undoubtedly did. “What do I need to do?”
“You’re not doing anything.” The Eok lifted his chin. “You’re going to help me get out, and I’ll disable the signal.”
“Like hell you are.” She chuckled. How stupid did he think she was? “Nice try, but you’re going to stay right where you are. Tell me what to do.”
“There’s no way they trained you on micro-computronics.” His smile turned feral, all the warmth drained from his expression. “Guiding you will take too long; we don’t have that kind of time.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to begin to open that cage.” Rose opened her arms and lifted her brows. “You have no choice but to tell me what to do.”
“Get out. Bring me a rock.” The words were sharp and unyielding. It wasn’t a request; it was an order. “I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Fat chance.” Rose shook her head and forced herself to sustain Karian’s smoldering glare. “I’m not letting you out.”
“You need me.” His brows set in a straight line, and his eyes reduced to fiery slits.
“And you’re on the wrong side of those bars. Guess you don’t have all the leverage after all.”
“You’re feisty. I like that.”
The Eok’s smile stretched, but turned cold and deadly, revealing a perfect row of sparkling white teeth with two sharp, elongated canines. A shiver of fear skittered across her backbone. She had an inkling he knew exactly what he was doing, exposing his fangs like that. And even if she hated admitting it, it worked pretty well.
“What’s your na
me, Pretty Thing?”
“My name’s Rose, not Pretty Thing.” She carefully stepped over some shrapnel and turned to the caged Eok. He was still leaning on the bars, his alien eyes unreadable. “What’s yours?”
“Karian, son of Enlon, of the Erynian tribe.”
“Well, Karian, son of Enlon, consider yourself my prisoner.”
With one last look at the Eok warrior, Rose turned and walked outside the pod.
CHAPTER 4
ROSE
Rose walked back toward the shining surface of the pod, sweat pouring down her back between her shoulder blades, the blazing heat of descending twin red suns hammering on her body mercilessly. As the shadows grew, so did her thirst, dehydration making her mind muddy.
Her situation was dropping from shitty to all-out-disastrous by the second.
The pod had landed in a vast plain of what appeared to be an endless desert. Looming like the jagged teeth of some ancient, long dead monster were tall, cylindrical looking peaks of rocks, sprouting from the ground in every direction. A steep mountain hovered nearby, casting its inviting shadow towards the pod. It seemed close, but Rose knew that was only a false impression, and the distance separating her from the potential refuge was huge, the road deadly. They were lucky to have landed in the plain, for if the pod had hit one of the mountains, the impact would have killed everyone inside.
From the dry, wrinkled dirt grew shriveled-up shrubs, poking from the pale sand in round bushes, their wiry, intricate branches screaming of thirst. The vegetation was sparse and vast, with only a few tall shoots, round and yellow, breaking the monotony of the shrubs. Needing a break, Rose stopped in front of a group of shoots to study them. They looked like wild wheat, but were at least six or seven feet tall, depending on the maturity of the plant. Their stalks were a good three inches in diameter, and topped with bushy crowns of spidery, wicked needles. Carefully, Rose snapped a particularly tall and wide stalk with her knee, discarding the top on the ground. It was hard, but not as hard as wood, and it was so dry that it broke easily when she bent it.
Disappointment filled her as she inspected the stalk. She had hoped to find moisture in it, but it was dry and its center was hollow.
At least it’s going to make a fine walking stick, she thought. I could even sharpen it into a spear.
The thought was a good one, but it didn’t cheer her up as it should have. As she walked back, carrying her find, her feet crushed ageless clumps of dry earth, sending clouds of dust in the windless air, making it even harder to breathe. The red suns above her head were cruel and hot, radiating waves upon waves of dry, scorching heat on her head. Her clothing offered little protection from the elements, and she longed for her old clothes. Her forearms were red, and Rose knew she would be in agony from sunburn by nightfall. She shouldn’t have walked so far from the pod, not without protection. But she had been desperate, and walking helped calm her mind.
When she finally stepped into the shade of the pod, Rose blinked a few times until her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Her body welcomed the immediate relief from the suns’ relentless heat, but thirst still scorched her throat. The pod was cooler than the outside desert, but not by much. The Eok—Karian—was still standing, leaning on the bars of his cage. He watched her with a despicable, arrogant smile on his handsome, despicable face. She wondered if he stayed like this, unmoving, like a reptile waiting for wandering prey. His glowing eyes reflected the little light that penetrated the pod, and he didn’t miss a single one of her movements. Or maybe it was only the stress of the situation that made her paranoid.
It’s not because I’m paranoid that the man locked in a cage in my escape pod isn’t out to get me.
To possibly eat her alive, or whatever devious, violent things Eok warriors did. Rose chuckled at the thought, and Karian raised his brows in question. She cast him an assessing look, then sighed with resignation. Dangerous or not, he was her only companion, and ignoring his presence was pointless.
“We need water, and fast. Food, too, but it can wait a few days. And medication for sunburn, if we can find any.” The list of their needs made her heart sink. They needed so much, and she had no answer for any of them. She stared blankly at the sterile expanse of the steel ceiling panels. “We’re in a desert.”
“If you’d bothered to ask, I could have told you as much.” Karian’s tone didn’t leave much doubt about what he was thinking. He thought she was a fool.
“And how did you figure it out?” Rose raised her eyebrows, too curious and too desperate to take offense.
“The heat and lack of humidity made it clear.” Karian shook his head. “Don’t bother trying to find the population, either. It’s an uninhabited planet. Escape pods aren’t designed to be discreet. If there were people in a five-hundred-mile radius, they would have been on us in the first two hours.”
“Well, then, I guess I made sure of it.” Rose was maybe desperate, but his patronizing tone was getting on her nerves.
“It was reckless. More than that, it was stupid.” Karian scowled, the gesture transforming his features into a fearsome mask. “Don’t do anything like that again.”
“You’re not exactly in a position to order me around.” She scowled back, ignoring the fluttering of fear in her stomach at the sight of Karian’s anger. “And there I was, about to think you had a good side.”
“Pretty Thing, you have no idea how good being by my side can be.” He smirked that awful, arrogant smile she was beginning to be familiar with. “Come closer, and I’ll show you.”
I’ll wipe that smirk off your face, you’ll see.
Not that she would be reckless enough to get close to him.
“Not a chance. You can keep your deadly hands to yourself.”
Karian chuckled, unfazed by her answer. This male was as arrogant as he was handsome. He towered over her, watchful as a mountain lion ready to pounce. Great. Her luck kept getting better and better. She was stranded on a desert planet, with no way home, and the most dangerous being in the known universe was caged in her only shelter. All she had was a dry stalk she could fashion into a spear to protect herself.
“You don’t have to go out there by yourself.” His words came, soft and dangerous like his voice. Seducing. “If you help me out, I’ll take care of you. I owe you for freeing us.”
Rose stopped and stared at him as hard as she could. The thought of him roaming free around the pod sent shivers of fear across her spine. Yes, she did save him, but only because she needed to escape, a fact they both were aware of. She couldn’t rely on his sense of honor for her survival. Eoks might not even have a sense of honor.
“It’s an escape pod. That means people planned to be stranded in here for a while,” Rose said. A slow smile spread on her lips. Yes, that was right. “There have to be some supplies in here. Water. Food. Maybe even weapons.”
She spoke aloud, more because it helped her think than anything. Karian was her involuntary audience. Too bad for him if he didn’t like it. She scanned the pod with a new set of eyes. The cubic habitat had six seats lined up against the walls. Those seats were the only things that could be used to hide something in the bare space. Except for her new friend’s cage, but she doubted the Cattelans hid emergency rations in a prisoner’s cage. So the rations had to be hidden somewhere inside or under those seats.
She started right away, looking under each seat, pulling the cushions out, throwing everything around carelessly. She was a hurricane, leaving only destruction in her wake. Soon, the pod’s floor was a mess of shredded fabric and filling. Still no traces of food or water. Nothing.
“It’s not possible,” she whispered, more for herself than Karian. “There has to be something.”
This was an escape pod. There had to be emergency supplies stashed in there, at least a few days’ worth of water, and some food. Frustration welled into her as time went by and she found nothing. The dryness in her throat turned to a scorching heat and her tongue felt swollen in her mouth. Her hea
d hurt and her eyes were itchy. She needed water, and she needed it now.
In his cage, Karian tilted his head to the side, but the rest of his body remained still.
“What about you?” Rose turned and glared at him, lifting her chin in defiance. “You need to drink and eat, too. It’s in your best interest to tell me where to find the supplies. I’ll share whatever I find with you.”
“I can survive without water for five weeks, a month at least. Food, I can go without for six months.” His voice was neutral, but his words sent shivers under her skin. “What about you, Pretty Thing?”
She stared at him, blood draining from her face. He could outlive her by months. She searched, but there was nothing she could find to justify not telling him the truth. She had nothing to lose.
“I have three days, probably less in this heat. I’m already dehydrated.” Then it dawned on her. “If you have any idea where the rescue rations are, you’d better tell me. I die while you’re still in the cage, and you’re no better off than me.”
“I’ll make a deal with you, Pretty Thing.” Karian gave her a wicked, sexy smirk. “You go back out and grab a rock at least as big as your head and give it to me so I can smash my way out, and I’ll tell you where the rations are stocked. It’s a win-win situation if there ever was one. You gain your survival, and I gain my freedom.”
“Like hell. What’s going to stop you from doing the same to me as the Cattelans were planning?”
The words hung in the air between them. His sapphire blue eyes never faltered. He kept studying her, staring, searching for a weakness. She had a full buffet of them, he could just pick and choose. Rose chuckled, a low, sarcastic growl deep in her parched throat, and walked to the only remaining seat, the one beside the Eok’s cage. She should have planned better, but there it was: she had torn every seat from the walls except that one. Maybe her subconscious just remembered how safe she had felt in his arms before knowing what he was.
