by Loki Renard
“I know you’re worried about that,” she said with a smirk. “That’s why you’re so jumpy with that gun. Wouldn’t it be nice to sleep without worrying that an execution squad will one day fly through the windows and kill you where you stand?”
“Pet…” he growled. She didn’t let him finish his thought.
“It must be awful,” she said in mock sympathetic tones. “To have to be afraid of the sky itself. When you look up, you can’t see clouds. You know beyond the bright blue, armies are amassing and they’re coming for you, and you alone.”
His brows rose as she spoke the malevolent words. He wasn’t frightened like she wanted him to be. He was something else… annoyed, probably.
“They say hell has no fury like a woman scorned,” he said. “But they never saw you in a cage, did they, pet? Alright. New deal. You lie down and be quiet for the rest of the night, or you won’t have this nice cage to sleep in. I’ll put you down in the cells.”
“You’re a bastard,” she growled, furious that her words were so ineffective on him.
“I’m a bastard who is going to sleep. You can sleep there, or you can keep this up and go down to the cells.”
He dropped the curtain down again and walked away, clearly thinking he’d won the battle.
Full of an anger that she could not adequately express, Celeste picked up her bowl again and began banging it on the bars twice as hard and twice as loud. She paused just long enough to hear him sigh before he threw off the cover of the cage, opened the door, and reached for her.
“No!” She grabbed at the bars, refusing to be pulled out. “Leave me alone!”
Alistair let out a cold laugh. “It’s far too late to leave you alone, pet. You wanted attention, now you have it.”
Celeste tightened her fingers around the bars, steadfastly resolute in winning at least one exchange with Alistair.
“You’re going to get hurt if you don’t let go,” he warned.
“I don’t care!”
His fingers descended on her bare midsection, tickling her tummy. She let go for a moment, then he grabbed her again and then she grabbed the bars again and then he pulled and she let go and they both went tumbling back out of the cage and onto the floor. Celeste landed on top of Alistair, her naked flesh pressed against his.
“You are an absolute brat,” he said, cradling her in his arms, his chest shaking under her.
It took her a moment to realize that he was actually laughing. She found herself starting to smile too as he palmed her bottom.
“You are in so much trouble,” he said as he got to his feet. “You’re a disobedient little wretch who needs discipline almost more than you need air.”
He picked her up under his arm and Celeste let out a little squeal. “What are you doing?”
“Taking you down to the cells.”
“But… you were laughing!”
He slapped her butt with his other hand. “You’re cute,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t get consequences.”
“Please, don’t take me to the cells,” she begged, as he proceeded to do just that. “I’ll be…”
“Don’t say you’ll be good,” he replied. “Because we both know you won’t be.”
It was colder in the elevator, and even cooler in the halls that led to the cells. Celeste squirmed in Alistair’s grasp as they passed by soldiers and guards who for the most part did not dare look at her naked form pressed as it was against Alistair’s equally naked body. He didn’t seem concerned by his lack of clothing, but she definitely was.
“Alistair…”
His palm clapped against her bottom. “We’re not on first-name terms right now, pet.”
It was so unfair. Unfair to be in this much trouble. Unfair that he was so strict about consequences, unfair that she was going to be alone in a cold cell, unfair that he had the power to do this to her. She was tired and rebellious and increasingly angry, and none of it mattered because Alistair was about to deposit her into a cell.
“Keep an eye on this one,” Alistair said to the guard as he shut the door behind her. The guard’s voice was muffled; some submissive response, she was sure.
She sat down on the bench and waited, thinking that surely he would not leave her there for an entire night. As the minutes ticked by, she realized that he had, in fact, decided to follow through on his threat. Though she was furious, she knew she couldn’t really be angry at him. He was being precisely what he had said he would be. Her plan to manipulate the situation had failed. They were playing a kind of chess now, in which she tried to grasp what little control she could over the situation, and he tried to show her that she had none.
However, Alistair had just made one significant mistake—he had let her out of his sight. This was an opportunity she would not miss.
“Owwww!” She whined in pain, her voice rising to octaves and pitches that would have shattered glass if there were any to hand. As it was, it floated through the vents in the door and out into the guard’s room beyond.
As she had suspected, her cry of misery brought the guard to the door. He opened a viewing slot and she saw two concerned eyes peering through.
“What’s wrong?”
“My stomach. I think… I’m… oh!” She pretended to fall into a dead faint.
The prospect of having his commander’s pet die on his watch brought the guard rushing into the cell. Celeste waited until he bent down next to her, then she grabbed the firearm from his holster and pointed it directly at his face. The young man’s eyes went wide as he realized what had just happened.
“Take off your clothes,” she said in steely determined tones.
“Huh?”
“Take off your clothes, and give me your com unit.”
The soldier did as he was told. He took off his uniform pants and tunic and she put them on. They were large on her, but being clothed made her feel infinitely more powerful.
She held his com unit up to his face. “Now radio Alistair and tell him that I have been taken to the sick bay. Tell him it’s an emergency and he needs to come quickly.”
“General,” the guard stammered into the open channel. “Your pet has been taken ill. She is in the sick bay.”
“Good,” she said, backing out of the confined little space. “Enjoy the cell.”
* * *
Alistair pulled his clothes on and went to the sick bay. He was thoroughly expecting to have to discipline his pet for lying her way out of her cell to a sick bay bed, but when he arrived, the place was empty. Most of the lights were off, except for one over one of the beds. There were signs of the cabinets having been gone through, and as he got closer, he saw that a message had been scrawled on the bed.
“Goodbye, Alistair.”
He growled under his breath and ran to the transport bay. There were a lot of exits from the base, but Celeste wasn’t trying to get out of the base. She was trying to get off the planet and there was only one way to do that.
He should have roused the guard, but he didn’t want to waste the time it would take to do it. Celeste had obviously neutralized someone already, and Alistair knew he didn’t have much time before she made her escape.
The door to the transport bay was locked when he arrived. He had to manually override the lock, taking more precious time. When he finally pushed the door open, he saw Celeste at the far end of the bay, working furiously to get a shuttle ready for launch. It was almost entirely charged and the airlock had been jammed open.
“Celeste,” he said, stopping a few dozen feet from her, taking in the sight of her, more determined than she had ever been. She must have stolen a uniform, because she was dressed like one of his guards would be—if his guard had trousers pooling around his feet. She looked adorable in her outsized uniform, but he couldn’t stop to appreciate the cuteness of the moment. There was real fury and determination on her face as she turned to face him.
“Don’t come near me!” She backed toward the ship’s door.
&nb
sp; Alistair came near anyway. The ship was charged enough to fly and she was dangerously close to escape. As he got closer, he caught sight of something in her right hand, half hidden behind her. A screwdriver maybe, or some other kind of tool or weapon. There was a gun in her holster, taken from the guard she must have forced to radio him. In spite of the gravity of the situation, he was impressed. His little pet had some teeth and claws.
“I’m leaving,” she said. “I’m leaving, and I don’t want you to follow me. I don’t want to see you again. Ever. Do you understand?”
“Celeste…” He took another step toward her and reached for her hand. She shied away from him, avoiding his touch, but letting him get closer. That was something. “Listen… I know…”
“What do you know? And what do I care what you know?” She was trembling with fury, her eyes bright with tears, a strange combination of fear and agitation. “You have held me as your captive for weeks with no sign of setting me free, or showing me mercy. You hate me. I know it. And I know my father is not coming to save me, but I will save myself. Stay back!”
“Celeste…”
He took another step forward, and she swung. He saw the gleam of the silver injector far too late. It flashed at the corner of his vision for a brief moment before landing against his neck. All she had to do was press it against his skin. The auto-injector pushed the contents of the syringe into his bloodstream almost instantly. Alistair swatted it away, but it was too late. A heavy dose of tranquilizer had been delivered.
Afterward, Alistair wished he had used the few seconds of sense he’d had left to him in a better way. The tranquilizer was hitting his system hard, making it harder to breathe, making his muscles slow and heavy. He groaned and reached toward her, his tongue clumsy in his mouth. He tried to explain to her that he loved her, that he needed her, that he had never hated her, but all those words were lost in a groaning, incoherent burbling.
The last thing he saw and heard before he lost consciousness was Celeste’s face over his, her eyes welling with tears of some emotion he could not place.
“I hope that doesn’t kill you,” she said. “But if it does, you deserve it.”
Chapter Eight
Alistair came to lying in the medical bay with a doctor fussing over him and an IV in the back of his hand. He woke with a groan, realizing that he had been utterly bested by the woman he had made his pet. It had been years since anyone had managed to put him in the sick bay.
“Surprised to see you back so soon,” his doctor said as Alistair’s eyes flickered open. “She gave you a big enough dose of tranquilizer to down a small army. You’re lucky to be alive.”
Alistair sat up, his head pounding, his muscles aching. The effects of the tranq toxin were far from faded, but he was filled with a purpose that made those concerns secondary. He had to get Celeste back.
He made to take the IV out of his hand, but the doctor stopped him. “All due respect, sir, you need these supplements. The tranquilizer she used on you strips the body of essential nutrients. You know what tranq sickness is like. If you take that out now, you won’t be able to do more than stumble into walls for the next few days. Give it a few more hours and you’ll be good as new.”
“That’s a few more hours for her to run in. Where is she now?”
“You can’t catch anyone while you’re sick,” the doctor said. “Let’s focus on getting you back fighting fit.”
“I’m not sick,” Alistair said, reaching for the IV once more.
“Sir!” The doctor snapped the word in a tone that made the ‘sir’ sound more like ‘brat.’ “Leave the IV alone. I will summon your officers. They have been looking for her.”
Alistair raised a surprised brow at the doctor. He was not accustomed to being spoken to in such a fashion. Then again, medics always did think they ruled the universe simply because they wielded the power of life and death—and it did seem to be the sort of day where everything had gone completely and utterly upside down. His pet had dropped him and escaped, this doctor was ordering him around. None of this pleased Alistair at all.
“You can cut the attitude, Doc, and get me my men.”
The doctor went to do Alistair’s bidding, leaving him lying on the bed and angry as hell—mostly with himself. This situation was his fault. He’d missed all the signs of Celeste getting out of hand, but more than that, he was realizing that in his eagerness to train her, he’d failed her as a man and mate. He didn’t blame her for what she’d done with the syringe. He’d waited far too long to declare his love, and he had allowed her to think that she was nothing more than a pawn to him.
His officers arrived a few minutes later, bearing less than good news.
“She managed to exit orbit,” his officer said. “The shuttle was not fully charged and our tracker indicates that she is not a competent pilot. We believe she’s either crashed or taken refuge on an asteroid in the big belt. The ship’s tracker is broadcasting continuously from one of the larger planetoids.”
The news could not have been much worse. For all Alistair knew, Celeste had managed to kill herself before he woke up. Crash landing a shuttle was no easy task for an experienced pilot, and Celeste was clearly not.
“Shall we send a retrieval party, sir?”
Alistair looked at the drip in his hand and shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’ll go alone.”
“Alone, sir?” The officer could not hide his surprise. “She has already proven that she is willing to kill you. She may very well be going to seek support from her father’s allies. If you go alone, you may be walking into a trap.”
“She’s not seeking support from anyone’s allies,” he said. “She found an uninhabited planetoid and she ditched the shuttle. She’s running away, not setting traps.”
“Sir…”
“Enough. Prepare me a shuttle. Stock it with medical supplies and food rations.”
“No weapons?”
“I have my sidearm. That should be sufficient.”
The officer’s face expressed extreme unhappiness with his decision, but unlike the doctor, the officer knew better than to question his commander.
Alistair waited for part of another hour, long enough for his shuttle to be prepared, then lost patience entirely and pulled the IV out. He was unsteady at first, and his head was pounding, but he was strong enough to do what needed to be done.
He made it to the shuttle bay without a problem, feeling stronger with every step. Adrenaline countered the lingering effects of the tranquilizer as he strapped himself into the pilot’s seat, pressed the ignition, and was flung into the stars much like a stone skimming across a flat lake. It was a matter of seconds for Vector Prime to slide away and for the darkness of the universe to surround him.
Having set the coordinates, Alistair had time to think. Truly, his officer’s concern was not misplaced. Celeste had shown that she was willing to do what it took to secure her freedom. His subordinate did not understand why he wasn’t angrier at her for the attempt on his life, but as far as Alistair was concerned, all was fair in love and war.
She had never pretended to be a willing prisoner, and he had never properly entertained her softer impulses of connection and desire. That had been his mistake. He had been so concerned with training his pet, that he had forgotten who and what she truly was. Celeste was too smart and too determined to be kept captive. If he was to have her in his life, it would have to be of her own free will.
That was why he did not intend to take her back by force. Of course he could have easily overpowered her again. He could have flooded the planetoid with troops. He could have locked her in a cage for the rest of her life, but that was not what he wanted for himself, or Celeste.
Soon his destination came into view, a round rocky sphere with just enough water to support a semblance of plant life and a thin atmosphere. Readings suggested that it was large enough to actually have a breathable oxygen content in the air. Celeste had lucked out. She’d had every chance of landing h
erself on a toxic planet, or worse, one with no gasses at all.
He pushed the thought that she might be seriously hurt or worse out of his mind as he came in to land. His shuttle locked onto the tracker of the other shuttle and landed next to it. Alistair breathed a sigh of relief as he saw that it was largely intact, though the hatch was open and the nose was stoved in. It was damaged from what looked to have been a rocky landing. Alistair swore under his breath as he realized just how close she’d probably come to killing herself. Flying through open space was no joke. It took years to train a pilot to learn to avoid areas of high radiation, or asteroid belts. Celeste must have headed off in an almost random direction, running scared.
He jumped out of his much larger shuttle and ran to hers. He found it empty. That was a relief. It meant that she was mobile, and hopefully unharmed.
Alistair stepped outside the shuttle and began looking around for signs of Celeste. Where had she gone? He could imagine her thinking she’d actually landed somewhere safe, not knowing that she was on the astronomical equivalent of a bullet hurtling through open space, almost certainly on a collision course with something sooner or later.
“Celeste!” He yelled her name. “Come on out!” He paused and listened for a moment before adding: “You’re not in trouble.”
“Bullshit,” she said from somewhere nearby. “I’ve been in trouble since I met you.”
He turned toward the direction of her voice.
“Stop right there!” Celeste appeared from behind a tree, her gun pointed directly at him, her eyes narrowed in two slashes of fear and anger. “You shouldn’t have come here. I told you not to follow me. I will hurt you if I have to.”
She was beautiful. He realized that fact all over again as he locked eyes with her and saw her determination. When she had been his naked pet, he had always found her desirable, but now wearing the uniform of his own guard, her hair piled up on top of her head and fastened with ties and pins, he found himself awed by her allure in a whole new way. His little runaway certainly looked good in her disguise. Alistair felt his cock twitch to life as she scowled at him furiously.
