Taken

by Alison Aimes

  Even her attempts to paint each sexual act as a victory over Hollisworth—since it wasn’t him inside her—had rung hollow.

  It never felt like a win. Only another cut to her soul.

  Because she knew the truth. Whether it was him or someone else, she was still controlled by her husband’s legacy. Still forced to spread her legs and whore just as he’d designed her to do.

  And she’d never be free of him until she ripped his nanotechnology from her body once and for all.

  She tried to breath over the rising tide of panic.

  She had to find a way to get her pill. To steal that bit of ore and escape before she was forced to beg another brute who hated her to do the unthinkable.

  “Could…could we stop for more water?” She stifled a low moan.

  “No.”

  He was intent on a certain destination. She was sure of it. As sure as she was that wherever they were headed, it wouldn’t bode well for her.

  Lips flattening to a grim line, she tried again. “Is it always like this down here?”

  Complete silence.

  Now that she was fed and quenched, he seemed to have lost interest in her again.

  “Please. I…I need a break.” She knew she was pushing her luck, but what choice did she have? She needed the bind between them to go slack so she could grab her pill. The alternative was too horrific to contemplate. “Just a short rest to—”

  The binds at her wrist squeezed as he yanked forward and down.

  The instant her butt hit her heels, she reared backward, her bound arms swinging up to protect her face, bracing for the blow.

  Only, the pain never came.

  Her gaze flew to her captor.

  He studied her back, his brows drawn into a low V. His hands, still clutched tight around his weapon, were nowhere near her.

  Heat singed her face and neck.

  She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter what he thought, but as she lowered her hands back to her lap she couldn’t meet his stare.

  Then, a cry for mercy, followed by ugly grunts, issued from the other side of the rocky, high outcropping. All other concerns vanished.

  She knew those sounds.

  Ice pebbled on her skin.

  She’d wished for a distraction, but not for this. Never this.

  A calloused hand slapped over her mouth, trapping the protest in her throat.

  “No sound.” Her captor’s deep voice rasped against her ear. “There are at least seven inmates on the other side of this rock. They don’t know we’re here and we need to keep it that way.”

  Her heart slammed hard against her ribs, but she managed a nod.

  His hand dropped away.

  She sucked down a frantic, tight breath.

  She’d seen her captor take down three attackers with no problem, but seven? Not good odds at all.

  “Give me a weapon,” she mouthed. “I can fight, too.”

  Maddening amusement flared in his gaze. “So you can stab me in the back? I don’t think so.”

  “We can’t just sit by and do nothing.”

  Expression icing over, he dragged her forward until they were nose to nose. “The only thing principles will get you down here is dead. Do I need to gag you, or are you going to be a good captive and shut the hell up?”

  Her mouth slammed shut.

  He nodded with satisfaction. “We wait.”

  She hated him all over again.

  He was a monster. A beast with no humanity.

  The cries from the other side grew worse.

  A bead of sweat wormed down her spine, her skin flashing hot and cold, her breathing growing labored as memories she kept buried clawed their way to the forefront, demanding their due. She tried to think about what Bella was doing. Where they might be looking for her. Compute the amount of ore needed to make her serum.

  Nothing worked.

  The cries morphed into higher pitched squeals. Just like her own.

  Except she’d begged. She’d screamed. And eventually, hating herself, she’d spread her legs wide and promised to obey when—

  “There are 427 kilolengths of tunnels down here. We call it the maze.” The sudden shock of warm lips against the shell of her ear was a stark contrast to the ice on her skin.

  Her head whipped sideways and up.

  Her captor was staring. Those piercing blue eyes taking in every weakness she didn’t want him to see: her too-fast inhalations, the tremors running down her spine, the way her nails raked over her bare arm as if she could reach inside and tear away the poisonous shame beneath.

  “The labor camp is divided into twenty-one different sectors. One eating sector, fifteen active mining sites and numerous dead zones. You were brought into sector one, the neutral zone. All fresh meat arrives there, though only a handful make it to shift-time.”

  Surprise whispered through her. She knew him well enough by now to know he didn’t volunteer information easily.

  “The labor camp is a labyrinth full of twists and turns,” he continued. “But it also offers up an infinite number of places to hide.”

  “Have you explored it all?” Helpless to stop herself, she slid closer, letting the warmth of his skin seep into hers.

  A few heartbeats ago, she’d hated his strength. Now she was desperate for it.

  “Every barren inch.” A muscle flexed in his square jaw, but he didn’t pull away.

  Even when her thigh landed squarely against his own. Her uniform-covered leg pressing hard against bare, sculpted muscle.

  Flesh and blood and feeling.

  A man.

  With some mercy left inside, after all.

  Their gazes tangled.

  Awareness prickled along her skin. Unfamiliar—and unwelcome.

  Desperate to contain it, she tore her gaze from his. “What about the ventilation shaft we passed two turns back? Has that been explored?”

  His eyes narrowed, as if he hadn’t expected her to notice the man-made opening. “Yes.” Voice low, he stretched his arm outward, drawing attention to the puckered, star-like scars along his inner forearm. “Every access point out of this place is rigged with fifteen-nanosegment timed laser bursts that will incinerate a grown man in the blink of an eye. The transport hold is similarly wired and, as of now, it can’t be overridden. The instant it begins moving topside it flashes hot enough to burn all living things to ash.” He dropped his arm. “I’ve tested each and every one personally. There are no weaknesses there.”

  She shuddered at the image of how he’d gotten those burns. “There has to be some way.”

  He shrugged. “Even if getting past all that were possible, the tracker inserted into us when we’re knocked out and taken below makes escape impossible. Try to flee and the droids will find you and shoot. Refuse to work and the tracker will implode. Fail to meet your quota and the tracker will implode.”

  She forced in a low, slow breath, refusing to let panic take hold at the reminder of another unwelcome technology forced into her body without her consent.

  “The tracker’s in your bloodstream now,” he continued. “Dormant until you’re called to work. Then it will start to burn beneath the skin, and won’t stop until your quota’s been met. It also works as a beacon for the droids. And, before you ask, the thing’s too small and moving too fast through the bloodstream to cut out.” He rubbed at a raised scar. “Believe me, we’ve tried.”

  “Actually,” the words bubbled up before she’d given it much thought, “it’s not necessary to cut into the skin to destroy the tracker. The right serum will neutralize it without any kind of invasive surgical technique.”

  He shot her a surprised look.

  Heat danced across her face. “I wasn’t lying before. I know trackers.” And while Hollisworth and his scientists were busy experimenting and making new advances, she’d been busy as well. “I’ve figured out how to best neutralize them. I just need the materials.”

  His expression never changed, but his slow appraisal sent he
r belly on a slow roll.

  Still, she refused to get her hopes raised. He’d already made it clear he saw her as bait. Nothing more.

  “Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. But I’ll take my chances with what I know.” His answer proved her right. “What’s worked for us is staying one step ahead of the droids. Taking them out one by one, and outrunning those we can’t. Zig, then zag. The drones can only lock on the trackers once they get a visual. But you’ve got to stay alert. I’ve seen it happen many times. Fools think they’re safe and then—bam! They get zapped. By the time they’ve recovered, they’re already some other inmate’s plaything and escape is further away than ever.”

  This time her shudder was impossible to stave off. “You really make it sound as if this place is inescapable.”

  “It was…before this rotation.” Because of his plans for her.

  The reminder raised the hair at the back of her neck.

  Even better, it staunched the traitorous foolishness building inside.

  It seemed to have a similar effect on her captor, as well.

  The warm anchor of his thigh disappeared as he shifted into a crouch. “We’ve waited long enough. The others are distracted now.” He drew his biggest ax from its holster. “Stay behind me.”

  “Behind you?” She blinked, trying to catch up.

  But he was already uncoiling from his crouch. “Now!”

  Dragged behind, she sprung up too, her roped hands swinging awkwardly in front of her.

  Blood splattered onto the cave walls, darkening the reddish rock to purplish black, her captor’s back muscles flexing as his pickax connected with one attacker after another, too fast for the seven distracted rapists to marshal a defense.

  She’d been 100 percent wrong. Seven-to-one odds were completely doable, if you were this man.

  Horror and awe whispered through her in equal parts.

  “Don’t look.” A tug on her wrists had her stumbling forward. Despite his words, her gaze skimmed over the dead…until she found the victim.

  He lay on the ground, his knees curled beneath him, blood pouring from a wound over his eye. Another from between his legs.

  Her steps faltered. She recognized the man.

  The Death tattoo marked him clearly as one of the prisoners from the transport hold.

  He’d been so cocky, so fearless. In less than a few hours, this place had turned him into a victim, chewing him up and spitting him back out.

  Bile burned her throat. Pity, too.

  Because whatever he’d once been, he was like her now. Broken. Coated in shame. Polluted by the taint of human cruelty that could never be erased from the skin, no matter how many laser showers you took.

  “It’s okay.” Her bound hands reached for him, determined to offer the kind of understanding no one had ever given her.

  Until the very man she sought to help reared up, his fist flying toward her chin. “Your turn, bitch.”

  10

  “No!” Thick muscled arms closed round Ava’s waist and yanked her back, her attacker’s fist skimming harmlessly past her cheek as she smashed into familiar warm steel.

  Her captor’s boot kicked out.

  Death flew backwards, crashing into the wall headfirst, the unnatural crack of his neck echoing down the cavern.

  “What did I tell you?” Massive hands wrapped around her forearms and spun her, her tiptoes barely reaching the ground. “You can’t let down your guard here,” her captor roared. “Not even for an instant.”

  Stunned, she could only blink.

  Everything down here was mixed up. As unstable as the shifting plates beneath her feet. Those who should have been her allies were her enemies. While the killer who saw her only as bait kept protecting her time and again.

  Nothing made sense.

  Living with Hollisworth at his compound had been like an eclipse, the slow, steady encroachment of darkness stealing over her soul. But there’d been rules. And clear expectations.

  Down here? Nothing made sense. Nothing could be counted on. Everything was raw, ferocious chaos. Flashes of random, brutal savagery that stunned and disoriented. Being a bride and a breeder was of no use. Neither was being a chemist. Down here, all that mattered was brute strength, and she had none.

  “Did he touch you?” Her captor’s words were a rough bark, jerking her from her thoughts. “Hurt you?”

  “No.” The single word was a croaked whisper.

  “People get fucked down here every nanosegment of every rotation.” He half shoved, half carried her through an opening even smaller than the last, hiding them from sight as rough hands flexed around her shoulders. “It doesn’t make them any less dangerous. Hell, if anything, it makes them more so.”

  Her back hit the rocky wall. Her captor’s brutish, beautiful face appeared inches from her own.

  “He…he seemed so broken.” Her explanation sounded naïve even to her own ears. And breathless. Too breathless. The heat cycling up another dreaded level.

  She needed that damn pill and she needed it now.

  “You can’t waste time on pity,” he snarled. “It will only get you killed that much faster.”

  “I don’t want to live like that.” She’d spent too many years thinking only of herself and how to avoid pain at any expense. Too many years becoming the shiny, numb ornament Hollisworth wanted her to be. “Too many of my kind have lived that way, and I won’t be one of them.”

  He stilled, his gaze boring into her—as if seeing her for the first time.

  Her breathing hitched, afraid of what he’d perceive.

  “You can’t be any other way down here.” He shook her once, but the anger had seeped from his voice. Replaced by a cold resignation that hurt to hear. “Not if you want to stay alive.”

  But staying alive and living weren’t the same thing. She’d learned that well under Hollisworth’s tutelage.

  “I-I need to get out of here.” The weight of rock and dirt pressed down on her chest, flattening her lungs and stealing her breath.

  His hold tightened. “The panic will pass. Just breathe.”

  Shame seared through her. He thought she was having a simple panic attack.

  But this was a thousand times worse. She was losing it. Slipping into what Hollisworth and his nanotechnology had made her. Good for one thing.

  Her fingers clenched as she fought to stop herself from yanking at the closures of her uniform, from pressing her burning flesh against her captor’s, from wrapping her thighs around his hips.

  The shame of it made her dizzy. That thing—that bundle of carnal urges and sexual heat—was not who she was. Not who she wanted to be.

  “Shhh.” The press of his thumb against her lower lip was a shock of heat, and her first clue that she’d begun making low, needy sounds in the back of her throat. “Breathe in and out. In and out.”

  She willed her lungs to listen.

  “It’s not all bad down here, captive.” His voice rumbled once more down her spine. “There’s beauty here, too. You just have to know where to look.”

  He grasped her chin as if he had the right, titling her gaze upward.

  She sucked in an awed breath.

  In her panic, she hadn’t registered her surroundings. But she did now. Flickering, glowing lights bobbed at the end of silken threads from the cave ceiling as far as the eye could see, twinkling like stars in the night sky. The chemist in her knew instantly what they were. But it was the woman in her that responded to them now. Exquisite. Magical. Ripe with possibility. They made her feel as if she were above ground and free. As if she could go anywhere and be anything she wanted.

  “They’re alive down here. Alive and thriving.” His words brushed across her skin like a caress. His mouth hovering a fraction above the frantic pulse at her neck. “Remember that when it starts to feel like too much. Beautiful, fragile things survive down here despite all the odds.”

  Astonishment whispered through her.

  He was handing her hope.

/>   Never once in all her years with Hollisworth had he ever done anything like that.

  A new, unfamiliar sensation mixed with the heat.

  More vivid than anything she’d experienced before.

  “You can’t let this place get to you.” The husky timbre of her captor’s voice pulled her like a magnet.

  Her gaze shifted from the ceiling to find crystal blue eyes locked on her—and blazing with that now-familiar heat.

  She’d dismissed him as a cold, savage beast, but his actions suggested he was far more.

  Her breath caught, a warm tug starting low in her lower belly, every nerve firing to alert as awareness crackled along her skin. Different than the hormonal fever. More organic. Real.

  He wanted her.

  But even more astonishing, a part of her wanted him, too.

  The slow, sensual glide of his thumb along her lower lip sending tingles of pleasure down her spine. No fear. No repulsion. Just the slow, rising burn of want.

  Ensnared, she leaned into his touch.

  “Anytime you feel the walls closing in, look up.” His voice wove around her like a siren, his thumb never ceasing its slow, sensual claim as it glided down the tendon of her neck to toy with the hollows of her throat. “There’s no more beautiful night sky in the world. Even back on New Earth.”

  Was this what men and women usually did? Was this seduction?

  For an insane heartbeat, she wanted it to be him who saved her from the breeder heat. Who fought with her to thwart Hollisworth’s twisted legacy.

  As if her fingers had a will of their own, her bound hand rose.

  Slowly, oh so slowly, she reached out. Fingers trembling, they brushed his strong jaw. The rough bristle against her fingertips another shock of tantalizing sensation. The Councilman had been smooth and hairless. Like a child. The beast was all male. Primitive. Fierce. Determined. Terrifying. But that was what was needed down here to survive, a being as brutal and beautiful as their surroundings.

  “Is that how you endure this place?” She barely recognized the throaty yearning in her voice. “Find something beautiful to hold on to?”