by Mary Auclair
Mother and Father had often talked about the food that was served in the breeding facility. She pulled her finger to her mouth, and immediately wished she hadn’t. The nutritious sludge was overly sweet, with a nauseating metallic under-taste. It was nutritive, with exactly everything a living being needed on a daily basis, but it was a horrible way to feed. She shivered, thinking about her parents’ life in the breeding facility, the boredom of the claustrophobic existence. It was a long, hellish existence, one she was thankful she didn’t remember.
The pod reminded Rose of the tales of that life, and it chilled her despite the searing heat.
“It’s awful, but it’s going to give us strength.” She spoke, more for herself than the Eok. She took a sip of the slop and felt her stomach rebel, but held it down. “Tomorrow, I’ll go out again. Maybe I’ll find food this time.”
“You’re losing your time, and mine.” Karian eyed the nutritious sludge, distaste obvious on his features. “I could hunt much better food, regardless of where we landed. If you let me.”
“I don’t need you to hunt for me,” Rose answered with a chuckle. This didn’t sit well with him. Karian watched her with squinted eyes. She knew it angered him, but she didn’t give a damn. She’d been a huntress all her life, she didn’t need his patronizing. “I’ve hunted scarier beasts than you.”
Now that was a lie, and a big one. Rose had never even seen anything scarier than the Eok, never even imagined anything that terrifying could exist.
“And where would a Pretty Thing like you have learned to hunt?” Karian scoffed. It was clear he knew how intimidating he was, and that nothing she had ever seen compared to him, not even a bit. “Did they show you movies in the lab? Gave you a stuffed animal or two to practice? Your future owner would have thought it adorable. A tiny, harmless, trained huntress to play with.”
“I’m not from the breeding facility.” The words slipped from her mouth, and she immediately wished she hadn’t said them. The existence of the wild human community was a secret. Her entire family’s existence depended on its secrecy.
“You’re a wild human?” Karian looked at Rose with renewed interest. “I thought you were long extinct.”
“That was the whole point,” Rose answered bitterly. “We hid, all these years. No one was supposed to know we existed.”
“A wild human female, not trained to be docile and meek.” He said the words like they were candy melting on his tongue. Karian and Rose’s gazes locked, and she was swallowed in the strange beauty of his eyes. “Do you have any idea how valuable you are? The Cattelans are never going to stop hunting you.”
“I’m never going to see my family again.” As she said the words, a blanket of sadness wrapped itself around her shoulders. The weight of what she had lost settled on her mind, and she fought the enclosing panic. “All that matters now is that I stay out of their hands long enough for my people to leave, to get far enough that no one will ever find them. Arrik was right about one thing. There are ways to make a person talk, and he’s greedy enough to do whatever it takes to make me betray them. In time, even I will break.”
It chilled the marrow inside her bones, but it was the truth. Arrik had more tricks up his sleeve than taking her body by force. Torture wasn’t above the Cattelans’ arsenal of tools, and Rose was lucid enough to understand that past a certain point, she would do anything to stop the pain. Even give up those who were worth more to her than her own life. For that reason alone, she couldn’t allow herself to be captured again. Not alive, anyway.
“I’m sorry for your family.” At first, she thought he was only mocking her, but when she lifted her gaze to him, there was no mockery in his face. Karian’s strange eyes glowed, and she didn’t know if it was only in her mind, but she thought she saw genuine sadness in him.
“I was stupid, and I’m paying the price. Now everyone I ever cared about is in danger.” She shook her head in negation.
“How were you captured?”
Rose thought about the event leading to her capture. She didn’t know why, but she wanted to tell the Eok what had happened. Maybe it was because he was a slave, like her. Maybe she was stupid to yearn for his company, for his conversation, but she did. She yearned for him in all the wrong ways, and that kiss hadn’t helped. If anything, it made the yearning more unbearable.
“We had a blizzard that lasted four days. We ran out of rabbit meat by the second, and by the fourth, we were so hungry we started to eat the bark from the nearby saplings.” Rose closed her eyes and allowed the memory of her family, hollow despair marking their faces, the flame playing cruel tricks on the protruding bones in their skeletal faces in the darkness of the mudhouse. “Aliena was sick. She was going to die without food. I couldn’t wait anymore, I had to go on a hunt, at least make the run to check my snares. Mostly, I was just scared and angry. I couldn’t stay and watch her die, doing nothing.”
Silence settled between them. Karian didn’t talk, didn’t try to pry more from her. He let her continue at her own pace, allowing the painfulness of that day to come back.
“I was on my way back with three rabbits.” Karian’s blank face told Rose that the name of the animal didn’t make sense to him. “They’re small animals, good prey, plentiful. I wasn’t paying enough attention. We had been hungry for so long, all I could think about was the faces of my little brothers when they saw the food. By the time I saw him, it was already too late.”
“You risked your life for them.” The concern in Karian’s voice was too close to being genuine. It threatened everything she fought to believe. “You shouldn’t carry that weight on your shoulders alone. Let me help you.”
Rose paused, closing her eyes against the images that imposed themselves in her mind. The faces of her loved ones came to her mind, painfully clear. Aliena; her brothers Dunkan and Illian; her mother. She was never going to see them again. The pain was almost too much to bear. It took all her willpower not to allow tears to come to her eyes. Betraying her feelings wasn’t going to make things any easier for her, it was only going to make her appear easy prey in the eyes of the Eok.
“I’m past help.” For maybe the first time, she allowed herself to say what she felt deep inside, past the survival stubbornness that kept her going. “My only chance at a free life was on Earth.”
A long silence stretched. Rose forced herself to open her eyes. She lost herself in Karian’s eyes, wondering what feelings were brewing under the iridescent shine of his strange stare. Did he care, or was he indifferent to her suffering? She couldn’t read anything on his alien face.
“They’ll starve now,” she said in a whisper. “There’s no one left to hunt for them.”
“No Eok mate would have to hunt to survive. If there are no males left in a family, others provide for the widow and children, as is only honorable.” Karian scrutinized her face, searching for answers she couldn’t give. “Doesn’t your species have males to hunt and protect you?”
“We had my dad.” Her voice broke, but she held her head high.
“What happened to him?” Karian asked, with a voice softer than she thought he was capable of.
“He left to raid the breeding facility with other men from the village.” When Karian frowned, Rose felt the need to explain her father’s actions. “When they escaped, my father had to leave his sister, along with her children. That day, he chose to save my mother and me, leaving them behind. He wanted to go back ever since. He left nine weeks ago and didn’t come back.” She closed her eyes again. The very thought made her stomach churn and her guts twist in angry knots. “In the beginning, Aliena and I managed fine. She’s every bit as good a huntress as I am, but she got sick. I was the last one who knew how to survive.”
Tears rose up in her eyes, and even if she had wanted to keep talking, she couldn’t. Her throat was clamped shut, and all of a sudden, the fear, the anger, all those emotions she had been able to keep in check, drowned her. She let them wash over her like a tide, swallowing everythi
ng in their wake. Rose rolled her legs up to her chest then wrapped her arms around them, curling in a tight little ball, then hid her face on her knees, letting her curly hair fall on each side of her head like a curtain.
Then she cried. She cried for her lost freedom, for her lost family, for everything that would happen to her loved ones and that she would never know about.
A long time passed in silence as she wept, but eventually, the tears dried up and fatigue rolled over her. She hadn’t slept more than an hour at a time since her capture, and not at all since the pod landed. As her mind drifted into oblivion, she barely registered Karian’s hands reaching through the bars of the cage, petting her head gently as she drifted off.
CHAPTER 6
KARIAN
Rose slept on the seat beside him, her head in her hands and her long brown curls cascading over her shoulders, hiding her face. She snored softly, the sound regular and as sweet as she was.
He liked her name. Rose. It fell off his tongue like a caress, reminiscent of things fresh and fragile. He should really make an effort to use it instead of calling her Pretty Thing. She didn’t like it at all. It angered her and, truth be told, that was one of the reasons he used it. She was even more attractive when she was angry, with her gray eyes shining like a storm sky and her cheeks flushed and red. She looked like a flower. Karian closed his eyes, remembering the feeling of those soft, pliable lips under his. How much sweeter would it be to have them against his skin, down his body? The thought made his seed stem stir and swell against the light fabric of his pants. Rose was every bit as delicious as a human female was fabled to be.
Get a hold of yourself! You’re worse than a youngster before his Rite.
The human was off-limits, no matter how much he wanted her. In fact, she was off-limits because he wanted her too much. He wasn’t going to allow his unnatural attraction for this female to rule over what reason dictated to him. He couldn’t let his lust blind him, make him lose sight of what really mattered.
She was so stubborn and unyielding. She refused to release him from the cage, even though he gave her every reason to. That she was so spirited should make him angry and less attracted to her, but it only made her more desirable. A surge of frustration overcame him and Karian kicked at some nearby debris, sending it flying across the pod. He had to get this female to release him from the cage, and contact his Eok brothers.
That didn’t mean he wouldn’t repay his debt. No, Karian was going to help that courageous, helpless human and repay her for the life she saved.
Her generosity surprised him. Rose shared the little food she had found in the pod with him, a perfect stranger. More, a feared warrior. She even gave up her water rations, a resource her soft, pliable body needed desperately. There was steel in that soul, and whatever strength her body lacked, she made up for in her mind. She was a skeleton of steel wrapped in a cover of soft, lush flesh. It left him awed. It left him aching for her like nothing else before. Never had he felt such admiration for a female.
She would make a strong mate, and a fierce mother.
No. I have to stop. What is wrong with me?
His eyes slid to the corner where she had left the key. It shone softly in the low light, taunting him. After ten years, freedom was an itch he couldn’t scratch, just inches from his grasp. Karian had been imprisoned for so long, he almost forgot what it felt like to walk outside, feel the sun on his face, let it warm his body to the bones.
He could feel what Rose had given him coursing through his body, making him strong again. He hadn’t realized how weakened he had become before drinking that water, eating that food. Karian’s flesh was a sponge, his veins filling with the added supply of new blood, and his muscles quivered in anticipation, rejoicing in the energy from the tasteless sludge of nutrition.
An hour had passed since Rose fell asleep. He let her take as much rest as they could afford, but time was out. Karian had to disable the distress signal and re-wire it for Eokim, or the Cattelans were going to come for them. There would be no second chance. Once Rose was in their hands, she was never coming back. The idea of losing her made his insides churn with bile. He wasn’t going to allow anything bad to happen to her. On his life, he wouldn’t.
“Rose, wake up.” Karian trailed his finger down the round fullness of her cheek.
Midnight God, save me. Her skin is soft, so soft.
“There’s not much time left.”
The human groaned and whimpered, then she lifted her face to him. She blinked, shedding the sleep away, becoming instantly aware. She looked right through him with those big, stormy eyes, so deep they made him think he could touch the sky by kissing her lips.
“Our time is up. Give me the key, now.” When Rose pressed her lips together and the soft gray of her eyes turned cold, he sighed with impatience. Didn’t she see he was only trying to be reasonable? “If I don’t re-wire the distress signal right away, you’ll have escaped for nothing.”
She looked at him, her face closed off and unreadable. A hand went up to her hair in an instinctive gesture, trying without success to tame the mass of curls.
“What makes you think I’ve changed my mind?”
“Don’t be stubborn, human. I’ve let you have your way long enough.”
“Just because the slavers find the pod doesn’t mean I’m going to get caught. I’m not the one in a cage.”
She smiled at him, in a way no female dared smile at an Eok warrior. It made him want to grab her delicate little neck and kiss those mocking, full lips. It made him want to lay atop her, make her his in all the ways that mattered. It made him want to see those eyes darken with desire and heat. It made him want to be savage and tender at the same time, and make her whimper in ecstasy.
With a supreme effort, Karian pushed the dangerous thoughts away, aware of how obsessive his attraction was becoming.
“If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done so already.” Those lips. Karian’s eyes refused to look away. He wanted to kiss them again. “For both our sakes, let me out.”
Rose looked at him a long time, the smile gone from her face, the fatigue and danger of their situation making her brows crease with lines of worry. She put her head between her hands again, shielding her face away. When she looked up, her gray eyes were lined with steel.
“I’ll let you out. You win.” She bit her lower lip, hard, then licked the blood pearling where the skin had broken. Her pink tongue appeared and disappeared, and his seed stem stirred once more. “But I warn you, Karian. Betray me, and I’ll kill you. Even Eok warriors have to sleep sometimes. I’ll bide my time, and I’ll kill you.”
She staggered to her feet and walked to where the key lay. She picked it up and played with it between her fingers for what felt like an eternity, her back turned to him. Her threat hovered in his mind. She dared threaten him, an Eok warrior, ten times superior to any other race in the art of combat? No, no other female was comparable to this one. So brave, and so foolish, too. What did she think she could do against him?
When she turned again to face him, something pulled at him, deep inside, where the primal urge to take a female resided. In his mouth, he felt an unfamiliar tingling where his tongue touched his fangs. Bewilderment gave way to amazement as Karian passed his tongue over the sharp tip of his fang. A sudden surge of heat dashed through his body as the drop of potent venom penetrated his bloodstream. Understanding slashed through the lust, and he swallowed, working hard to contain his instincts.
He knew what it was. This was the Mating Venom, a unique compound secreted by an Eok warrior’s body in a purely instinctive manner when he encountered a female he wanted to make his mate. In all his years, Karian had never had the Mating Venom come to threaten to take his sanity away.
It shouldn’t surprise him, though. Not with the way his body responded to her.
Blinking the confusion away, Karian realized he had been staring at her the entire time. Rose swallowed, and Karian stared at that movement, all the way
to the swell of her breasts. A savage rush of lust traveled up his limbs, running faster than adrenaline in his veins, compelling him to take the female, make her his. With a control few males could maintain, Karian held still, fighting the basic urge of the Mating. He couldn’t afford to allow the compulsion to take control over him.
“I will let you out on one condition.” Rose squared her slender shoulders and looked at him, her gaze unwavering. “If we manage to escape the Cattelans, you have to help me get back to Earth.”
“Why would you want to go back?” Karian frowned, not liking where the conversation was leading. Why did she want to go back to a place where she starved and was cold, unprovided for? Another insidious thought crept into his mind, one he feared would only grow to become more important in the near future if his body continued to produce the Mating Venom. Would he be able to let her go? Trying his best to hide his reluctance, he talked. “I owe you. I will provide and care for you forever. A life for a life, that’s the honorable thing to do.”
“I don’t want you to provide for me. I want to go back home so I can save my family, my village.” She lifted the key to eye level, extending her arm to show it to him. “It’s my offer. Take it or leave it.”
Karian stared at Rose for what felt like an eternity. She was infuriating, unreasonable. He wanted to shake some sense into her and, at the same time, her strength forced his admiration. He hadn’t met many people, male or female, who forced his admiration. It stirred emotions deep inside him, in a part of his heart he’d thought long tamed and docile. He’d been wrong.
That’s only the Mating Venom speaking. I’ll be back to normal soon enough, as soon as she’s safely home and far away from me.
