Thieves In Paradise

by Bernadette Gardner

  "Deal."

  It was no deal, of course, but it was worth playing along for now. She'd let him win so he would feel superior, then she'd have him right where she wanted him. “Deal."

  * * * *

  Kol nearly dismissed the first tiny movement of the shuttle as his imagination. After all, ever since his last vision, his mind had been conjuring all sorts of unusual and blatantly sexual images involving the female. It stood to reason that his perception of reality might be skewed.

  His muscles had gone stiff with the effort not to turn in his chair and look at her. She'd kept her bargain thus far and remained still and silent, but while he had been passing the time watching the wind screen sealant harden, she'd no doubt been plotting her escape.

  When the first distant rumble sounded and the shuttle tilted forward by barely a degree, he assumed he must have nodded off. Jerking himself upright, he settled his gaze on the landscape beyond the shuttle's nose.

  "Did you feel that?” the female asked, breaking her silence.

  The question worried him. Had the shuttle actually moved?

  Another rumble and tilt, and this time a torrent of mud spilled down the slope on either side of the shuttle, carrying with it some smaller plants and trees from the denuded forest.

  Kol rose and so did the female. “What's happening?” There was a sharp edge of panic in her voice that Kol refused to admit he shared.

  Landslide.

  The word came to mind almost like a vision, galvanizing him. He braced for it, and barely a second later the entire hillside let loose. The shuttle, the surrounding trees and a good number of rocks careened down the slope in a wave of mud.

  The female let out a sharp, truncated scream and stumbled forward when the shuttle pitched nose first into the maelstrom. Kol barely turned in time to catch her, and together they landed on the ship's control console.

  Instinctively he wrapped his arms around her, hoping the contact wouldn't bring on another disturbing sexual vision. It was bad enough she'd settled against him, chest to chest, her bound hands wedged between them and her thighs spread and clamped on either side of his hips.

  She stared up at him with huge, frightened eyes. “We're going to die."

  Had the actual descent been any longer, he might have agreed, but the shuttle came to rest fairly quickly at the bottom of the slope, prevented from hurling into the ravine beyond by the trunks of two of the larger trees.

  The impact of branches, rocks, and mud lasted another several minutes during which Kol and his prisoner clung to each other, not daring to breathe.

  The silence that followed the landslide was so complete, Kol wondered if he'd gone deaf. It took a moment for him to realize that he no longer heard the drumming of rain on the shuttle's hull. As quickly as it had begun, the storm ended. Bright sunlight washed through the leafless forest and illuminated the dim interior of the shuttle as Kol extricated himself from the female's grasp. He met her shocked gaze and raised a brow. “Why did you have to pick this planet to crash on?"

  * * * *

  Well, at least he was talking more and swearing a lot. And he'd unfastened the cuffs, which shocked Charity completely. Either he no longer cared if she escaped, or he assumed she'd be too frightened to make the attempt.

  She now stood outside the shuttle, which had sunk to the hilts of its landing struts in the quickly drying mud. A tumble of uprooted trunks and small boulders obscured the ship's aft exhaust ports, and its nose was wedged between two bowed trees.

  No matter how impressive his muscles were, there was no way the Antarean was ever going to get this ship off the ground.

  "The Valencian authorities can have a ship here in four days,” he said when he emerged from the shuttle a final time. He'd been in and out a half dozen times in the last few minutes, carrying supplies from the storage bins and setting them on the ground.

  Overhead, the leaves of each plant and tree had begun to unfurl from their tight coils, slowly recreating the deep green canopy and dark shadows of a true forest.

  As each leaf opened, a few specs of yellow dust dislodged from within and floated to the ground, making the air thick with swirling motes. The sweet smelling pollen made Charity's nose itch and her throat scratchy.

  "Four days is outrageous. I can have someone here in three, and we can be dining in the finest restaurant on Gossamer inside a week. If you let me have my personal communicator back, I can arrange everything."

  He set a med kit and two bottles of water on a nearby rock and swung his upper body in her direction. “You're a possession of the Commonwealth of Valencia until your trial. You're not going anywhere but back to the Magistrate."

  Charity huffed. “At least can we stay inside the shuttle? What if the carnivore comes back?” She rubbed her nose and tried to stifle a sneeze. “Not to mention this dust can't be good for our lungs."

  "The ground is still unstable. If the rain returns we could end up at the bottom of the ravine. We're safer out here for now."

  Discouraged, Charity settled herself on a fallen branch. The Antarean turned back to his task, which now included sorting food rations into two piles and measuring the level of fresh water in each of the bottles.

  She contemplated running now, while he was distracted, but without her communicator, stunner and the selenite, she wouldn't get far. Her contact on Gossamer would certainly have no reason to retrieve her. She had to hope the Antarean would get lazy during the course of the next four days and afford her an opportunity to steal back her possessions.

  She stared at the bounty hunter and realized she didn't even know his name. That knowledge would go a long way toward establishing the rapport she needed to get him to trust her. Crossing her legs at the knee and resting her chin on her fist, she slipped back into her friendly voice. “So what should I call you? I mean, if we're going to be stuck together for four days, it might be nice if I knew—"

  "A'Kosu is the name of my tribe. You may call me that.” Once again, he didn't look at her when he answered.

  "You don't have a name of your own?” An eddy of golden pollen wafted into her eyes then, causing her to blink. He probably thought she was fluttering her lashes at him, assuming he bothered to glance in her direction.

  "Names are personal among Antareans. Only friends and family call me by my given name."

  "Ah. Well, that puts me in my place.” She pouted. “Then I guess you can call me Miz Foster."

  He continued sorting rations as if the universe depended on it. “Your designation is Prisoner A721643."

  "That's a bit long, don't you think, Ah-ko-soo?"

  "It will do. Here.” He handed her one of the water bottles. “Use it sparingly. We can only afford to go a short distance from the shuttle in search of fresh water, so this may be all you get unless there's a stream nearby."

  "This isn't even two liters. How am I supposed to wash all this mud off me?” He had to be kidding. The two of them could not survive on less than two liters of water each for four days. It would take more than that just to get the gunk out of her hair.

  "Leave the mud on. It will protect your skin from insects."

  Charity stared. “You must be joking. Sit around in mud for four days? It itches like hell and I feel filthy. I need a bath desperately, or I'll go insane."

  Now he did look at her, a slow, curious scan from head to toe and, damn it all, if Charity's skin didn't tingle all over. Her face heated and, by the Goddess, her nipples tightened beneath her mud-stiffened flight shirt.

  "If you use that water to bathe, you may not get anything else to drink until we're rescued. You'll suffer severe dehydration."

  Charity huffed. “At least I'll be clean.” With that, she popped open the top of her bottle and spilled some of the precious liquid out into her palm. After some vigorous rubbing, which did nothing but re-activate the dried mud, she felt foolish and utterly miserable. “And for you it's a rescue. For me, it's a death sentence."

  The Antarean made no comment, s
o Charity felt obliged to continue. “Why can't you just go away? You have the selenite. Just tell Gremin I'm dead and I'll never bother him again."

  "My contract is to bring you back to Valencia alive, or return with incontrovertible evidence of your death."

  "How about a lock of hair?"

  "A small appendage would be the least I could manage. Chose something for me to sever and I'll be happy to let the rest of you escape.” There it was again, that bare hint of amusement.

  She raised a brow, held out her left hand, and wiggled her fingers just to call his bluff. “Go ahead then. Take one."

  He froze and his pale blue gaze seemed to impale her. “You would forfeit a body part in order to escape?"

  "Gremin will do a lot worse to me. You do realize his issue with me is personal. He's going to lock me and up and torture me because I embarrassed him at the High Aces game.” Charity managed to inject a thread of panic into her voice. “What you offer seems like a bargain compared to what I'll face when he gets his hands on me."

  He held silent for a moment, contemplating, and Charity sniffled for effect. “I suppose I deserve a long, lingering death, though, after the life I've led."

  His hand traveled toward the knife sheathed at his belt, and for a second Charity thought he might actually make good on his offer. Then he took a sharp breath and shook himself a bit, as if he'd come back to reality from a different place. “I have no desire to injure you or to lie to my employer. The authorities on Valencia will see that you're treated fairly and serve only the designated sentence for your crime."

  "Gremin is the authority on Valencia. If he wants me beaten, starved, chained to a wall in some dark dungeon for the rest of my life, he'll do it."

  "Then perhaps you shouldn't have stolen from him."

  His dismissal of her was swift and absolute, and he turned on his booted heel and stalked back into the shuttle without another word.

  Charity stared after him, wishing looks could kill. The fact was, she'd have used that ploy under any circumstance to garner sympathy, but in this case, everything she'd said about Gremin was true.

  * * * *

  Kol leaned on the shuttle's control console and drew in a series of calming breaths. Another useless vision had assaulted him outside, seemingly brought on by his perusal of the female's body. This time he wasn't fucking her, though his cock had gone rigid just the same. Worse than carnal intercourse, he'd seen her golden hair, shining and free of mud, splayed across his naked chest. One of her delicate hands rested on his abdomen and her supple body lay twined with his. Her breathing was deep and steady as if she were peacefully asleep. Whether he'd imagined it or it had been part of the vision, Kol actually remembered the musky scent of arousal that seemed to surround them.

  Why? Was it merely hormonal? Soon, he would return to his tribe to choose an Antarean mate, and though he'd engaged in sex with females before, he would never consider such an unacceptable liaison as this.

  Could he last four days in her presence without these disturbing visions coming to pass? Even if he managed that, these maddening premonitions had already distracted him to the point that he'd left her alone, unbound, and with access to their entire food and water supply. He'd never let a vision interfere with his duties before, and he couldn't allow his confusion over these erotic glimpses into an impossible future cause his mission to fail.

  Composing himself with several more deep breaths, he emerged from the shuttle to find her sipping water and staring up at the rapidly expanding canopy of leaves overhead.

  With her throat arched, her chin high and her breasts jutting under the mud-splattered shirt, she looked like a wild creature from ancient fantasy—a sprite or wood nymph, easily camouflaged in the forest. Even beneath a layer of dirt, she was beautiful ... odd that Kol would find her attractive, but he did. And he despised himself for it.

  She shifted her gaze at his approach. “What? Did you expect me to run off?"

  "It occurred to me that you might try to escape."

  "To where? Look, A'Kosu, let's face it. There's nowhere for me to go as long you have all my supplies. My life depends on you and if you're determined to hand me over to the Magistrate, there's nothing I can do to avoid that at the moment."

  He didn't buy that for a minute. She was too clever not to be planning something. Kol eyed her, wishing he could purge his latest vision from his mind. “You will not convince me to trust you, no matter what you do."

  She dismissed him with a wave of her muddy hand. “I'd settle for a little sympathy. I'm going to die on Valencia, and my blood will be on your hands."

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  CHAPTER 4

  Nothing Charity said or did penetrated the bounty hunter's emotional armor. He seemed to have no heart in that muscular chest of his and not an ounce of compassion for her plight. Nor could he be bought with the promise of financial security.

  By nightfall, she'd given up trying to talk to him. He remained aloof and stubbornly loyal to Gremin, even after she explained all the ways the esteemed Magistrate of Valencia had cheated not only his own people but those of the poorer Rim colonies who depended on selenite to fuel their power stations.

  It was no use.

  While he stripped layers of bark from several dead trees and lashed them together with thin lengths of twine that he'd rescued from within the shuttle, she'd dozed curled between two shattered branches of a fallen log. She imagined he was making some type of shelter to protect them from the relentless fall of yellow dust from the unfurling leaves, but she really didn't care. At this point, a roof over her head would do little to assuage her misery.

  When she drifted out of a fitful sleep, her first thought was of escape, but any hope of getting away died the moment she realized he was standing over her, his stunner primed and aimed at a spot above her head.

  She froze and her breath halted in her lungs.

  "Don't move,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

  Had her lungs worked, she might have managed a scathing reply, but the low rumbling from above her stifled any coherent response.

  She recognized the sound and the smell of the feline carnivore. Now that the storm had ended, the creature had come out looking for its abandoned prey.

  Swallowing the hard lump of fear that had settled in her throat, Charity tilted her head back a fraction to catch a glimpse of the creature which stood on the log above her head.

  It mewed, a questioning sound that ended in a low growl.

  "The stunner doesn't work, remember?” Charity whispered the question through dry lips, drawing the Antarean's gaze down to her.

  "This one is smaller. A female, I think."

  "So?"

  "Stay on the ground and move very slowly. Get behind me."

  "A second ago you told me not to move."

  "That was just a warning so you wouldn't startle it. Now I want you out of the way."

  In the dim moonlight that filtered through the leaves, A'Kosu's face was a mix of silver planes and deep shadows. As always, he betrayed no emotions, but Charity sensed the tension in his stance.

  This time they were trapped. With the shuttle and the rubble from the landslide at their backs and the ravine before them, there was no place they could go to escape the carnivore's attack.

  Charity drew in a slow breath and prepared herself to move. Her limbs were stiff and heavy from sleep and she hoped she'd be able to navigate the dark forest floor without landing on her face.

  With deliberate care, she extricated herself from the indentation between the branches. She would have kept moving toward the relative safety behind A'Kosu's massive form had there not been another of the big, cat-like creatures taking up position behind him.

  This one, obviously the male by its size, padded silently into the small clearing between the shuttle and the trees.

  "We have trouble,” Charity breathed, wishing she had a dagger like the Antarean. With two of the creatures working in sync, neither of them
stood a chance of survival.

  A'Kosu straightened his spine and his eyes darted from side to side when he became aware of the second animal. The female carnivore growled now, a sultry sound that Charity guessed contained a warning for the male.

  Was there enough to go around, or would the two creatures battle over rights to the prey they'd apparently each been stalking?

  "Stay low.” A'Kosu warned and Charity flattened herself to the ground just as the female leapt.

  Above her the bounty hunter ducked, though he didn't fire the stunner. Charity squeezed her eyes shut and prayed to the Goddess for a swift and relatively painless end.

  Her last breath left her lungs when A'Kosu landed on top of her. Disoriented by the force of the impact, her only coherent thought was at least she wouldn't have to worry anymore about whatever punishment Gar Gremin might have in store for her.

  * * * *

  Kol threw himself over his captive as the smaller carnivore charged. He braced for the searing pain of huge claws tearing into his flesh and hoped his end would be quick and marginally dignified. Being eaten alive was no way to pass from this life into the next.

  The ground shook with the impact of the smaller creature as she landed before the male. She'd leapt over Kol and the woman, right into her rival's path.

  Kol remained completely still, willing himself not to breathe. Beneath him, the prisoner trembled, even though each place where his bare skin touched hers seemed to burn. Beside them, the two predators clashed. The beasts fought, biting and rolling in the dirt, snarling and lashing at each other with massive, bloody claws.

  With the predators occupied, Kol chanced a movement. He rose and with one hand, lifted the woman and pulled her inside the shuttle. Unstable as its perch on the edge of the ravine was, it afforded some protection. Neither of the beasts was small enough to fit through the hatch.

  Once inside he pushed her to the floor, then clipped the useless stunner to his belt and drew his dagger. “They can't get to us in here."