Prison Moon_Ice Heart

by Alexandra Marell

  The thin crescent, riding low in the sky looked suspiciously like a butter yellow version of the moon she knew, though lacking the distinct features that made it look like a face. A mirror image of the same crescent shape but with a deep orange glow, hung below it. Larger in the sky a hazy half circle hugged he horizon, like a sinking sun. Whatever they were, they did little to light the murky sky.

  “Yes, this is a moon. Those bodies in the sky are also moons, though smaller subsatellites within orbital influence of this larger body. The larger body is Turos 3, the home planet.”

  “Moons can have moons. Who knew? “Is that a moon, too?” A smaller, blinking object had appeared twice on the climb. More angular than the moons, it almost seemed to be following them.

  She stopped for breath, scanning the slope for the darker shapes indicating the mouths of cavern cut in the rock.

  “That’s a recording and spying device. The Corporation and their subscribers, the hackers and web pirates will be watching our every step through those camera boxes.”

  “Even in the caves?” Janie swallowed down the lump of dread clogging her throat, remembering the beady spying eyes of the cameras watching their prison cages.

  “Perhaps, but doubtful. I will be able to destroy any fixed cameras but the remote boxes would require a substantial missile to bring one down.”

  As if in answer, the hovering box executed a sharp turn, rising in the air well out of range. The size of the tall American fridge in the tea room kitchen, it would take a lucky strike to bring one down.

  “I’m fed up of being watched,” she said shivering. “Let’s move on and get under cover.”

  “We’ll try that cave ahead.” Kelskar edged around a curve in the path and overhanging rock. “It looks well hidden, with a water source nearby. You will conceal yourself in the lee of those rocks. I will scout it out. Don’t move unless I give word.”

  “Are you sure it’s empty?” She didn’t want to leave him or have to watch him surprise a sleeping bear, or worse a gang of feral inmates primed to attack by the Corporation.

  “Nothing is certain, Janie. But I hear no noise, no sounds of challenge or impending ambush.” He pointed to a stack of jagged boulders that might hide her if she crouched. “Go.”

  They’d reached a flat ledge, wider than the path. Only up here, at the bend of the path could anyone see the tall dark slash in the rocks, half hidden by a huddle of trees.

  “If you’re attacked, what do I do?”

  “I won’t be. Believe me when I say a gladiator must have a second sense for these things if he wishes to remain alive. And I’m still alive, Janie.”

  “Well make sure you stay that way.” She scuttled behind the boulders, feeling a little silly despite the brooding danger. No plan B. The cave was either empty or not and anything larger than a fluffy rabbit would probably kill her before she had time to scream.

  Janie covered her mouth with both hands. He’d warned her not to scream.

  Kelskar’s dark shape moved, merged with the dark and then the cave swallowed him.

  Chapter Seven

  A tight entrance for a man of his stature. Kelskar turned sideways, squeezing body and weapons into the tall slit in the rocks. The larger entrance lay through another opening to the left so the slit acted as door that might shield them from prying eyes.

  Good for defence, terrible for a quick escape if anyone decided to smoke or starve them out. Groping along the rough, dry wall, his night vision served him well in the dim interior, though he missed the enhanced senses granted by the chip. Several steps in, he encountered a series of flat stones large enough to serve as a living platform and bed. He’d slept on worse.

  Towards the back of the cave a slim beam of light from somewhere high above illuminated thick hanging creepers that might take a man’s weight. His, or an intruder’s. Turning slowly, Kelskar kicked at something with his boot. Picking it up, he ran a finger over the short bone, grey and brittle with age. A darker patch beyond the stone may have been the remnant of a fire, using the opening above as a natural chimney.

  Somewhere in his past he learned how to survive the rigours of forest and wilderness. Fragments of returning memory told of arduous training to hone muscle and mind that he might kill for food and protection. Granted him flashes of a man who gave orders and made decisions that impacted lives. He found the back of the cave, determined there were no further entry points, no current occupants and made his way to the entrance.

  Every instinct told him his fall from grace had been from great a height. That once his name commanded authority. But then he or someone in his circle took a wrong step, saw or became privy to something they shouldn’t have.

  And that cost him his family and his freedom.

  Remembering his past would be a hurt far worse than the scabbing sores working the implanted armour from his body. With full remembering would come a desperate need for revenge. A need he would be unable to fulfil trapped here on this prison moon.

  “Janie.” He whispered her name, reluctant to make any unnecessary sound in this danger-haunted place.

  “Here.” Two eyes and the crown of Janie’s dark head lifted above the covering rocks. “Is it safe?”

  “Yes, come out slowly. Sound will carry in the still of night and there are beings here with more acute senses than mine. Take care.”

  If he knew her by scent, other males would too. Still others would know she had not recently been claimed or taken by a male. And that her lingering male markers were not his. Some species had a good nose for an unclaimed female.

  He should leave no distance between them.

  Claim her now before some other male did. Primitive thoughts raced through Kelskar’s mind. How to explain all this and retain her trust in him to protect her? He’d never taken a woman in anger or force, of that he was certain.

  She stayed low, like him, shuffling in a crouching walk to the cave entrance. “You first,” he said, pinning her shoulders to turn and guide her through the slit. No problem for one small as she, Janie disappeared into the gloom.

  Kelskar tore off two sturdy branches from a nearby bush and dragged them over the ground to mask their steps. They did little to conceal the entrance to the cave as he squeezed in behind her. Janie uncurled, standing to her full height. A small shape in the gloom.

  “Home sweet home,” she said and gave him a forced, tremulous smile. His gut twisted with need so overwhelming, it stopped his breath.

  Need to protect her, to claim her. To keep her alive. And the greater need to atone for bringing her to this.

  When he moved, she moved too, stepping into his embrace like a lover in perfect trust with her male. Softening into his hard strength with a tired sigh. This rapport, this knowing they built over the days of close quarter had become a sacred thing. The key to her survival. He would do nothing to jeopardise that.

  “I could murder a curry,” she mumbled into his coat. “So hungry.”

  “Too late and too dark to go hunting tonight.” He stroked her hair, saddened that she must undergo this initiation by fire. Had she ever killed her own meat? Humans from planet Earth hunted, but mostly for sport now. He had bested wild beasts sacrificed for baying crowds in the arena. Though Janie had courage, he did not sense a killer inside.

  She stepped away, tipping her head to study his face. He kept her with him, arms trapped at his sides. He could make her want him with no more encouragement than a brush of his lips to the sensitive spot beneath her ear, his thumb circling her nipple under the sturdy jacket. A promise of sanctuary in his arms and a strong back to stand against the terrors of the night.

  “Do you even know what a curry is?” A hint of mild amusement lit her face. A remarkable capacity to see humour in the most dire of situations, this woman. He admired her for that.

  “Another of your strange, Earth expressions?” Touching his face to her hair, he inhaled the natural oil scent, the lingering overtones of some cleanser she might have used before capt
ivity and pulled her closer to press against his hard length. A mutual attraction not only because of their forced proximity, Janie let go a shaky breath and rose on tiptoe to meet him. Lowering his head, he moved her collar aside and dipped to taste the juncture where her neck curved into her shoulder.

  Janie moaned softly, falling easily in step with this silent, age-old dance between male and female.

  She sniffed delicately.

  “Wow, we smell bad,” she said on an ardour-damping giggle. “We need to find a waterfall and take a shower, like they do in those survival documentaries.”

  He gave a short dry laugh of his own, rumbling the sound against her skin, refusing to be sidetracked. A claiming by degrees if that’s what it took. Starting with his scent on her, a clear signal to any marauding males. Not as good as his seed inside of her, but that would come.

  That would have to come.

  “Janie, listen to me.” His voice held more than a hint of desperation. He sketched tight circles on her back. More than a claiming, he wanted her and she him, if only to damp down the explosion that had been building between them in the past few days of captivity. Release the safety valve now, get this done and then plan their strategy for staying alive without this distraction between them.

  “I know,” she said, pushing her face into the oiled coat. “I want to, but it’s not a good idea right now. Not when we need focus.”

  How did he explain her nearness, this need to claim her for her own safety, for himself was the very thing robbing him of valuable focus?

  Tenderly, he ghosted fingers over her hair, letting them rest possessively on her nape. “Janie, this may be our only time of respite. I may die protecting you.” He stilled her protest with a kiss, using his height to advantage. “No, listen to me. It’s time to start believing. Your planet Earth is a long way away, you will never see it again. This is your life now, with me.”

  He let the words percolate, watching her resistance battle with reality. Hoped she might believe the danger, if not the whole story.

  “Mistaken identity, yes that happens. Sick people who get their rocks off watching others fight, I get that too. But you still want me to believe I’ve been abducted by aliens and left on some prison moon far out in space?”

  “Start believing now,” he said. “Before you have no choice but to believe. You matched on the scanners because in some distant way you’re kin to the female they took you for.”

  “No, now you’re really talking crazy, let me go.” Janie stiffened, trying to break his hold. No, she was going nowhere. They were having this conversation or they would both die here on this forsaken place.

  “Search your memory, your past for signs. Someone disappeared, went missing without a trace. It happens to Earthlings all the time. Where do you think they go?”

  Janie stopped struggling, going so still she hardly breathed.

  “How did you know that?”

  He’d exposed a nerve. Painful, but she must confront this now.

  “Someone in your life disappeared. Who was it?”

  “Last seen walking on a beach, thirty-three years ago,” she said without pause. “They held a memorial service for her every year until Mum died five years ago.”

  “Tell me who she was.” Wrapped in his own grief, he’d forgotten that others too endured the pain of loss.

  “Mum’s twin sister. They found her coat and one shoe by some rocks, but never a body. Missing presumed drowned. She was only seventeen.” Janie ceased her struggling. “They never found her.”

  “Would it help if I told you she may still be alive?”

  Alive and a slave somewhere on one of the planets blazing in the sky above? Madame Lakmi may even have been her child, but that revelation could wait until Janie had absorbed this shock.

  She picked at his lapel, worrying a loose thread. “They found her necklace, broken on the sand. Mum said she never took that off. Whatever happened to her, she didn’t go willingly. Oh God, is that how they think I’m related to this Lakmi?”

  He let her go. Janie staggered away from him with the violence of pushing him away. Turned her back, fingers curled into fists at her side. “She was taken by aliens? You almost make me a believer, Kelskar.”

  There must be no distance between them. Especially not now. Curling his body around hers, arms crossed over her breasts, he held her close, thoughts of urgent claiming pushed aside, for now.

  “For both our sakes, believe, Janie.” His lips were very close to her ear, the words for her alone. “You and me. That is the future. No, don’t turn around, you need to hear this.”

  Full disclosure. Only then could they safely more forward.

  “I aided in your betrayal. Not from free choice, but that excuses nothing. When my obedience chip malfunctioned I did everything in my power to right the wrong I did you. I will continue to do that as long as I have breath and the strength to move.”

  “You were in on this from the start?”

  Again he felt her resistance. No effort involved in containing her puny struggles. “Janie, perhaps I have too many sins on my soul to ask for absolution. My returning memory will confirm or reject that. For a man like me, redemption may yet remain a dream. But regardless of this attraction between us, the revulsion you might feel, we must contract together to survive this place. Do you understand me?”

  She required time to absorb his words. He gave it. Long moments swaying together in the dim, musty cave that might be discovered at any time by violent lone felons seeking to establish dynasties. By warlord-banded gangs looking for females to trade or add to the harem. He knew how this place worked. She did not.

  “If they had some hold over you then what happened here wasn’t your fault.” Janie leaned into him, a small gesture that said trust better than any words. “Some people are beyond redemption, but I don’t believe you’re one of them.”

  There was more. He waited.

  “This spark between us, I feel it too. You should scare me, but you don’t.”

  One of her trapped palms lay flat against his taut thigh. An artist hand that shaped beautiful things for people to enjoy. He wanted so desperately to keep her innocent, to preserve the soft sensitivity of those hands and keep that beauty in his life.

  Would such fancy notions ever have a place here? He didn’t think so. Janie must change her natural disposition and find the killer within. He could teach her to do that.

  “I never wished to frighten you.”

  “You don’t. Kelskar, I’m glad you’re here with me. You make me feel safe.”

  She awoke to hard ground, hard muscle and the harsh breath of a dreamer fighting imaginary sleep-induced battles. Lifting his banding arm, Janie arched her back and wriggled clear of a sharp stone poking into her thigh.

  “I’m awake.” Kelskar snapped open his eyes, rising smoothly onto one elbow to study the cave entrance. A move so automatic as to be second nature. He’d positioned them away from obvious sight behind a turn in the cave wall, weapons at his side in readiness. His heavy coat served as a blanket for them both. Little they could do for the unyielding rock bed beneath them.

  “You were talking in your sleep. Are you...?”

  “Yes, nothing to fear, I’m still with you.”

  He sat up with the same smooth grace, lifting one bent arm behind his head to pull it down with the other to stretch it out like an athlete limbering up. Like he might have done in preparation for the cage and arena where they forced him to fight. Every small gesture gave her another piece of his shattered puzzle.

  “The chip is dormant. I still know who I am.” He took her chin, lifting her face for a swift brush of lips. Must know she worried constantly about the lapses into forgetfulness when his identity, his past escaped him. Hooking a hand behind his neck, she kept him with her, rising into the kiss that sent sparks of longing through her heart and chest, down her belly, pulsing between her legs.

  His growing beard, the prickly scabs on his cheeks and chin grazed her
face. Only one curved wedge of the scalp protection remained. The rest had been rejected or fallen victim to violent assaults with the cell wall. With his patchy, growing out hair, the lesions at the attachment points, he looked a mess. She didn’t care. Appearance so often lied. Justin’s movie star looks, his flamboyant artistry, were nothing compared to the honesty she saw in Kelskar’s eyes. Even in the times he seemed to forget her, she sensed no subterfuge.

  Pressing her lips together, Janie sank onto her heels. Which meant it really was time to start believing this story he spun of prison moons and alien abductions, of her DNA being flung into the far reaches of the galaxy.

  To believe in his honesty, to trust this man she had to believe it all.

  “There’s a stream behind the outcrop. Dehydration will slow our senses. Come.”

  He rose to his great height, throwing the coat behind like dark wings to slip deftly into his lifted arms. Never any wasted energy, unless banging his head against walls in desperate attempts to fend off his plaguing madness. Janie massaged her shoulders and arms, her neck, muscles abused by lying on the seams and collar of her heavy jacket. Kelskar gave her a tight sympathetic smile.

  Damn, but that faint tilt of his lips did terrible shivery things to her insides. She shook herself, tilting her neck, lifting her arms in a stretch to fend off the growing lust. So she’d woken up horny? Who wouldn’t, waking up next to him?

  She wanted him and it was already more than stranger sex.

  Kelskar’s smile became more knowing. The touch of his knuckle to her cheek a gentle signal that said yes, it would happen. Whatever became of them, this one thing was inevitable. She swallowed down the dry knot of need as he strapped on his weapons, breathing steady and even to slow her thumping heart.

  How long since she’d taken her pill? Too long for contraception to still be effective. She nodded, glad of the dampening thought. A pregnancy here would be a disaster of epic proportions.

  “Didn’t realise how thirsty I was.” She moved with him to the cave entrance, keeping behind when he motioned her to wait while he surveyed the terrain. They’d been lucky not to be jumped in the night by creature or man. Kelskar had insisted he would keep watch until dawn, but even a man like him needed sleep and this quiet time might not last long.