“I’m not going to die because you’re too stupid to live,” she snarled, leaning close to growl the words in a low voice. “You shut your damn mouth until we get somewhere where it’s safe, or so help me god I’m going to find something and cut your throat and leave you for the buzzards. Do–you—understand? Nod if you understand.”
The woman nodded with an effort.
Lori continued to squeeze until she could see the woman was close to blacking out. Then she released her abruptly, studied her for a long moment to see if there was any fight left, and finally got up.
“Thank you,” May whispered as Lori stalked past her once more and took her place behind Jarek.
A smattering of whispered, “Hell yeah,” followed, relieving some of Lori’s tension.
She supposed that was their ‘rest’ break because Jarek started out again and didn’t stop for another couple of hours. By then the sky was beginning to lighten with approaching dawn.
Chapter Twelve
“Rest.”
At any other time Lori might have taken exception to the tone since it sounded more like an order than a suggestion, but she was too tired to stir up any resentment—actually much emotion at all. She’d been examining the area with her gaze while she waited for him to decide what to do, though, and simply headed to the spot she’d already picked out as promising the most comfort.
It turned out that it wasn’t nearly as comfortable as it looked, unfortunately, but it beat the hell out of standing on her feet.
Pretty much everything hurt, though, she discovered as soon as she’d settled. For the first few moments after she’d sat, the pain blossomed into the full extent of her world, but she discovered fairly quickly that, as long as she didn’t move, the pain was more of a dull ache and way easier to deal with.
She just wanted to lie down and sleep.
If only she had a nice, comfy mattress to stretch out on.
But she hadn’t had one of those since the bastards snatched her from Earth.
Shaking those unproductive thoughts, she felt around her immediate surroundings for anything that would be uncomfortable to lie down on and was just on the point of testing her thoroughness when Jarek crouched in front of her.
She discovered when she looked at him that he was holding one hand out, palm up, and that there were … well it looked like berries of some kind.
He took one, tossed it into his mouth and swallowed it whole.
Lori’s belly growled.
She thought she saw his lips twitch, but she wasn’t certain.
She also wasn’t certain she wanted the berries, if that was what it was, but he’d eaten one. It must be ok.
She picked one up and sniffed it.
It actually had an appealing scent, smelled somewhat like a blueberry even though it didn’t look like one beyond being roughly the same size and shape.
Shrugging inwardly, she popped it into her mouth and bit down on it.
Instantly, her mouth filled with sour so strong it was impossible to taste anything else. Her whole face screwed up in response.
Jarek uttered a choked laugh.
Lori was instantly certain the bastard had given her the damned berry as a prank. When she managed to unscrew her eyelids, she glared at him.
He struggled with the effort not to grin at her.
She struggled with the effort to ignore the vast appeal of his smile and the way it made her belly shimmy and warmth flow through her.
“Taste like shit. Jus’ swallow.”
She didn’t trust him by that point, but he tilted his head back and let several berries drop into his mouth and swallowed them. His amusement had vanished when he looked at her again. “No find nuthin’ but dis. Find better for poor baby later.”
Lori felt herself blushing, struggling with the urge to see who might be close enough to have heard him.
Because, as charmed as she was by what he’d said, she was abruptly keenly aware of both Fayn and the demon man close by—probably close enough to have heard the entire exchange.
She still didn’t know the demon-man’s name, but she damned well wasn’t going to ask!
It was bad enough that she was almost one hundred percent certain they’d had sex and she still didn’t know his name. She didn’t want to acknowledge that she didn’t.
It took an effort to swallow the contents of her mouth and she damned near gagged. She wasn’t sure after that that she wanted to even try taking the berries like pills.
Thankfully, Jarek seemed to grasp her distress. He produced the water skin and helped her to drink from it.
It was cool. It ran down her chin and neck and between her boobs and made a path to fill her belly button and overflow. When she looked up from ‘chasing’ the water, she discovered Jarek’s gaze was riveted to her belly button and heated enough to make her sizzle.
She looked away uncomfortably.
This is when she discovered that both demon man and Fayn had also been watching.
They were both looking at her like they were considering eating her instead of the berries they were holding in their palms.
Lori froze for a handful of seconds, completely unable to command herself to move at all, to react, or to pretend she was unaware of the cloud of sexual interest hanging over her.
Finally, she managed to direct her gaze to her feet—and that prompted a memory of stepping on something that had hurt like hell.
She was glad for the distraction.
Taking the last of the berries Jarek had offered, she gulped them down with water and then turned to examining her feet for actual wounds.
It distracted Jarek, too. He set the water skin aside and grabbed one ankle, lifting her leg high enough to tumble her backwards. She couldn’t decide whether to be annoyed or amused when he examined her feet carefully.
He was frowning when he settled her feet on the ground again, though.
Nothing sexy about them, she thought wryly, certainly now that they were so beat up from having to walk barefoot through the jungle. The path was fairly clear and beat down from traffic—animals heading to the water, she supposed, but it wasn’t exactly like the floor of the ship—which had been bad enough—but not rough enough for her to form calluses.
Relieved when he rose and left, Lori focused on finding a comfortable position and closed her eyes, trying to block out all awareness of the activity around her.
The men were busy, though.
Jarek kept his voice pitched low, but he set tasks for all of the men in his group, who disappeared into the woods for brief periods and then returned.
The winged men among them flew off.
The women in the group, like her, footsore and worn completely out from the trek and the life or death battle that preceded it, had collapsed gratefully and were barely conscious.
The smell of smoke roused her from the edge of sleep some time later. She cracked one eye and saw the men had built a small fire in the middle of the trail.
She was tempted to get up and move closer to it, but she couldn’t seem to summon the energy. She finally decided she was warm enough and dropped into oblivion.
She was roused a little later when she felt someone settle beside her. A few moments later, he pulled her against his length and draped an arm and leg across her.
It was amazing, really, that that weight was more comforting than uncomfortable.
She nuzzled her cheek gratefully against his chest and drifted away again.
When she woke hours later it was like rising from a drug induced state, not with the sense of having rested well and woken invigorated.
And she realized why her life sucked and that it wasn’t going to improve by a lot in any hurry.
She had needs that couldn’t be ignored, regardless of how embarrassing and inconvenient they were.
Thankfully, she wasn’t alone. Most of the women had already made the trek into the woods for privacy or had just gotten up to head that way. The men looked confused and then amused.
Damn them.
Ignoring them, Lori followed the herd.
She felt better in at least one respect when she’d taken care of that problem, but not especially in any other sense of the word.
When she returned, she saw the guys gathered around the campfire carefully looking through stuff she could only think of as ‘nature’s bounty’ since it seemed an odd collection of things. She dimly recalled the guys picking up, examining, and discarding things while they were making the trek, but she had thought they were just tossing stuff that was in the way.
Well—not the sticks/poles. She’d thought they might have a purpose in mind for them.
She saw now that they’d removed all of the foliage and somehow formed a pointed tip to make crude spears.
There were things that looked like either bone or shells of some kind—maybe both.
Stone of varying shapes and sizes.
Vegetation.
Clearly they’d been looking for supplies—weapons, food, etc.—from the moment they’d escaped.
That realization made her feel totally inadequate.
It hadn’t occurred to her that she needed to be on the lookout for things she might need or could use.
She hadn’t even managed to find the horrible berries Jarek had given her to eat.
The guys weren’t idle, but they seemed to be waiting.
Lori hesitated and then returned to the spot she’d occupied for most of the day, apparently.
As the light waned, Jarek and Fayn put the fire out.
Not long after that the winged men returned from whatever task they’d set themselves and dropped into the narrow clearing.
“Aidan,” Jarek greeted the demon man Lori had had no name for. “You find good place?”
Aidan grinned and Lori felt downright faint, felt a shockwave of attraction slam into her.
Confusion quickly followed.
How could she be so drawn to him when she felt an equal or greater pull toward Jarek?
For that matter, she was hardly immune to Fayn.
She thought she was more inclined to feel a sisterly/friend affection toward him.
Except when she felt sexually attracted to him.
Something was haywire, she decided.
And was it any wonder?
Well, she decided, she had never been in a life or death situation, where her survival depended upon the good graces of people who were not only not American, but not even human, and under no obligation to aid her in any way.
Maybe it was survival instincts?
But if it was, they were liable to get her killed not saved.
These weren’t human men and she didn’t know how much they had in common with them, but it seemed a safe bet that they would be aggressive and likely territorial—particularly since all of them seemed to be warriors.
If she flirted with all of them they were either going to kill each other or her.
Maybe both.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t certain what to do about it.
In the first place, she was attracted to all three—very much.
In the second, and completely without her consent, she’d had sex with all of them, and they all seemed to think—even though they’d been forced just as she had—that that meant they had a claim on her.
Upon reflection, she realized that sounded very much like the men she was familiar with. She didn’t know if it would be a good thing or a bad thing if they were a lot like human males.
It wasn’t as if she was really savvy about them.
Naturally, she’d dated. She’d even been married for about five minutes when she was really young and stupid.
But she couldn’t say that she actually understood what made them tick.
She just knew what made them explode.
And ‘cheating’ was guaranteed to do it—running around on them—not that she’d ever done anything like that herself, but she certainly knew of women that did. Some were stupid enough to see it as some sort of game to test the devotion of their partner.
Of course the men didn’t seem to worry overmuch about repercussions regarding their infidelities. They seemed to be inclined to think it was ‘natural’ for them and should be overlooked and or forgiven if they happened to get caught.
She couldn’t have disagreed more, but as far as she was concerned it wasn’t cheating unless there was a commitment—on both sides—and that damned sure hadn’t happened.
So she was in the clear.
As long as they didn’t demand exclusive ownership of the pussy, she was safe.
Right!
That wouldn’t even necessarily be true if they were human.
She had no real clue of how these people’s minds worked.
They were alien.
They came from a different world—worlds—and different cultures.
How could she possibly even guess what might trigger dangerous, aggressive behavior?
The answer, of course, was that she couldn’t.
And yet, she had no choice either.
These people had already found food and weapons and tools—on the run. She couldn’t even have found her way with the damned trail if she’d been alone. She would’ve stumbled off in the dark and gotten lost—because she was next door to blind at night and they were sea people and used to being able to find their way through darkness.
The scary truth was that she needed them way more than they needed her.
She supposed if all of the women got dumped they could pool their knowledge and experiences and maybe have a chance at survival.
Unfortunately, women, as smart as they were, in general, hated the great outdoors and went out of their way to avoid discomfort. They didn’t naturally have survival skills and they didn’t naturally have the desire to learn to hunt and kill.
In general.
There were always exceptions, of course, but she had a bad feeling there wasn’t one of those in her group.
The younger ones couldn’t seem to get past weeping over their manicures and having dead cell phones.
And, in all honesty, she knew she wasn’t a lot better off.
If she’d been asked before she’d been taken, she probably would’ve been stupid enough to think she actually had learned some things she could use to save herself.
Now—well, she just didn’t.
No time like the present to learn, though, said a voice in her head.
With that thought, she got up and moved closer to the men to find out what the subject under discussion was.
The move earned her a few curious looks, but, to her relief, nobody objected or challenged her right to take part in it.
The Satren—the flying demon men, she discovered—had found a place they thought would work very well for long term occupation. She arrived in time to hear the strategic advantages of it and the plan to split the group up into smaller groups and meet up at a point at the foot of the mountain range just beyond the forest where they were currently camped.
They had also located the ship of the grays—they called them the Sheloni—and determined that there had been survivors. They had managed to set the ship down close to what appeared to be a sizeable trading settlement and were trying to repair it.
Slaves, for many purposes, seemed to be the primary trade goods.
Which meant that they might have more enemies than those who’d captured them to start with.
There didn’t appear to be natives to the planet that they could ally themselves with or that would make their lives more difficult.
But the Satren pointed out that there could still be intelligent life—in hiding from the slave traders—more distant than they’d traveled to check.
Not that it was particularly relevant as long as they wouldn’t be a problem for the escapees.
Jarek clearly wasn’t happy with the report, but he didn’t explain and she decided it was probably because of the slave traders camped next door to them.
That certainly bothered
her.
Unfortuantely, they had no transportation so they couldn’t put more distance between them—not enough to make a penny’s worth of difference, in any case.
And even though the captives might outnumber the traders, especially if they included the slaves held in the settlement, they weren’t armed with any weapons powerful enough to make a difference.
Except, she amended, the natural abilities of the merfolk who called themselves Hirachi.
Or at least what she thought she’d witnessed because she realized she didn’t actually know that they’d blown the hole in the ship even though it appeared to be what had happened.
Unfortunately, she had no idea what the limitations might be.
But it seemed to her that it had failed to save them from the Sheloni to begin with and that wasn’t a comforting thought.
Chapter Thirteen
None of the women were happy with the new plan. As soon as they heard, they began to object.
To Lori.
As if she could do something about it.
“I know you’re scared,” she finally managed to say. “I’m scared, too. But it sounds reasonable that smaller groups would have a better chance of escaping notice.”
“Look! I know everybody probably hates me and nobody wants to hear me, but it seems to me like that would just be an easier way to dump us,” said ‘loud mouth’.
Everyone exchanged a long, uncomfortable look. “Nobody hates you,” Lori said finally.
The woman gave her a look that left Lori in no doubt that she harbored ill will even if Lori didn’t.
Well Lori thought, shrugging inwardly, she hadn’t expected to make a friend. And she wasn’t actually sorry she’d done it even though guilt weighed heavily on her for it. Truthfully, she resented the fact that the stupid woman had pushed her into a position of ‘kill or be killed’ with her mouth.
“Yet,” May amended to that, “because you didn’t manage to get anybody killed, Tory.”
Tory reddened. “Which is why I decided to say something—because I don’t trust this and I figured if I kept quiet then people might get killed and it would be my fault.”
Alien Enslaved IV: Spoils of War Page 10
