Prison Moon - Ice Heart: An Alien abduction Sci Fi Romance
Page 28
“Yes. We have to believe in something better or we just exist. I don’t think I’ve seen a fraction of the horrors this place might hold, but I’ve seen enough to tell me I refuse to live in fear.”
He let out a long breath, heartbeat slowing, fatigue rolling over him like a heavy blanket. “You’re a brave woman, my Cup Cake Queen. You’ll see this through. Make me cupcakes. Your loyal servant demands it.”
“I don’t miss it. Earth, the tea room. Justin.”
Kelskar lay beside her, listening to the silence between the words, the soft beat of her heart. Feeling her chest rise and fall in steady, even breaths.
With the return of memory had come healing and a letting go. He lived now for this moment, and each moment with her. He had no wish to be elsewhere.
“If I woke up now and lost you, I’d spend the rest of my life looking for you.” Janie wrapped herself around him, holding tight. As if the very words might make him disappear. “I don’t want to be anywhere else but here with you.”
Icy blasts of wind sneaked in between the trees, releasing the bitter scent of the needle sharp leaves. A fire would give them away so he gave her his body heat, his reassurance that he’d always be there for her.
“Not even on a sunlit beach on Lassa Appeli, an island of such stunning beauty it holds you prisoner and you never want to leave?”
“Well yes, if you were there, obviously.” The panic receded and she settled in his embrace, shivering once against the growing chill. “Tell me about your world. Is it beautiful, like Earth?”
“Yes, it’s beautiful. And it’s right here with me now.”
She smiled into his neck, growing heavy with the slow slide into sleep.
“Flatterer,” she mumbled. You’re just after another round.”
“I’ll always want more. Sleep and build your strength. I mean to teach you everything I know, sweet girl.”
“Promise?” It was a bare whisper. He held her until birds sang plaintive morning greetings and dawn sent fingers of pink light creeping into the cave mouth. No, he never slept after a kill. And this would not be the last. One thing his fickle memory would never forget. That he helped bring her here and for that regret he’d spend a lifetime in her defence.
When the sun rose and burned off the frost, they’d set out for Paradise. He’d find it for her if it took a lifetime. Give her that hope he craved.
“Always,” he whispered into her hair. “Body and soul.” Vows of promise and commitment, handed down in Arkali province, the place of his birth, since time began. Once spoken, never taken back. And he meant them will all his heart.
Epilogue
It’s a strange happy ever after. When the tea room closed and the bank moved in, Janie vowed to keep the dream alive and rise again.
She never imagined she’d travel to the stars and beyond.
Happiness always felt so out of reach. Now she understands that no distance is too far for true love.
Kelskar stands on a ledge halfway up a snow scattered path winding skywards to a jagged-edged basin atop the mountain. A hand shading his remarkable eyes, he searches for clues to their mythical Paradise. For the camera boxes that come and go. No longer the main attraction, his victory earned them a respite. But that might change on the Corporation’s whim, they both know it.
Well into winter now, the ground hard and unyielding, the cold unrelenting, everything focuses down to one thing. Survival.
“We’ll find it.” Their breath makes steamy mist in the frigid air. Janie pulls his scarf over her frozen nose, knowing their time in the open is limited. Cold is their constant companion this season. She can only hope that as on Earth, spring will follow with new life and promise of warmth and longer days. “We’ll find them.”
He pulls her into his side, his hands, like hers wound with furred hide scraped and cured from animal skins to keep the frostbite at bay. This is living at its most basic. She doesn’t want to think about a time when their swords and knives tarnish and become brittle with use. When holes appear in their clothes and the soles of their boots wear through.
“Laeesha may be dead by now. A woman with a baby, how would she survive this?”
Janie rests her cheek on his sleeve, smiling at the thought anything could stand in Laeesha’s way. “Some humans are born with gifts I’ve never begun to understand and she’s one of them. Dailam found her, I know he did. But where did they go? We’ve retraced all our steps, traded for information and nothing.”
A long-tailed bird with feathered ears, like an eagle owl, lands on a shrub bearing bright purple berries. Poison to humanoids, they are learning slowly what sustains life here and what takes it away. The bird plucks a berry and tips its blue and yellow head, surveying them as potential competition for the meagre winter food. No signs of life in the deep valley cleft, no smudges of movement or rising smoke from fire pits,
“It’s a big moon,” Kelskar says. “But she can’t be far ahead, not with a baby in her care.”
“It’s so quiet here.” A cloudless sky after yesterday’s blizzard, a seamless pink and blue canopy lit by a fiery sun. No sunglasses to shade against the blinding glare, Janie pulls down her cap, narrows her eyes. “Not a soul in sight.”
“You can feel it too?” Kelskar chafes her arm, lending his warmth. Thinking always of her welfare and sometimes she wants to weep at what she’s found in this man.
Okay, so technically he started out as the bad guy and some days he finds that hard to forget. She’s forgiven him so many times and will keep on saying the words until he believes.
“Yes, it’s kind of spooky. I can feel the atmosphere. Like those ruins where we found the stone dragon. Is that why it’s deserted?”
They returned to the temple ruins at the start of winter, spending a few weeks in shelter before moving on, not wishing to outstay their welcome in such a holy shrine. For some odd reason she imagined the dragon statue had moved. She remembered it more crouched, its head staring steadfastly forward, not tilted as if in question. No, her memory must have played her false. It was only stone, nothing more. A statue to some lost religion fashioned by people long gone.
Janie shivered, remembering.
“Yes, this is also a place superstitious men would shun. We could overwinter here, if we can source a food supply.” Kelskar turns his clear-eyed gaze to the bird, plucking carefully at the berries, as if refusing to waste a single one. It lifts on a whirr of wings, diving onto the thermals and soaring from harm’s way. Hunger makes a body lose its scruples over killing a thing of such beauty, but Janie leaves those decisions to Kelskar who works so hard to put food in her stomach.
He strokes his short beard, watching the bird fly to the west and the empty plains called the wastes, where the land still lies barren from wars that sent dragons into exile and extinction. It will live to fly another day and though her stomach growls, Janie’s glad of that.
Some days it seems a hopeless task. They’re seeking Paradise in the midst of Hell. Hunger is yet another adversary, constantly at their back. But even at the lowest moments, she counts herself lucky to be here with Kelskar who could so easily have died for her in that arena.
She flexes her fingers, a vain attempt to get some feeling back. He always notices.
“There are other arenas of death here. In some of the contests they reward the victors with clothing and cloth, footwear and necessities. You’re cold. I plan to find them and fight for the things we need.” Kelskar envelops her hands in his.
“Kelskar, no. I’d rather die of cold than lose you in the pit. Don’t leave me alone in this place.” That terrifies her more than anything. A lone female among marauding gangs. How long would she last?
A rustling lower on the slope catches her attention. A flash of shaggy gold fur, a pointy nose lifted to sniff the air.
“I think we might have got ourselves a pet.” The odd looking creature, the size and shape of a wolf, with sharp inquisitive features and a curly yellow mane drops low when it
scents them. Two bright eyes flash in the sunlight. “It’s been tracking us all day. Looking for dinner or a friend, what do you think? Shall we take it on?”
“It’s a quangoe. A kin to your Earth dogs and friendly enough. Janie, don’t be alarmed, but it’s not the only thing that’s been tracking us these past days.”
“We’re being followed?”
“Yes, I’ve been watching him.”
“Him?” This is when the illusion shatters and she remembers they’re on Prison Moon One. Top priority, Class A home to the worst the sector has to offer. More than once they passed naked bodies frozen in the snow, stripped of everything they owned. Here they kill you for the boots on your feet.
“And you were going to tell me when?” She scans the track seeing only loose shale peeking through lying snow, rocks and a few clinging shrubs. Nothing and no one disturbing the peace of the morning.
“Rest calm, the quangoe wouldn’t be following us if it sensed a threat.”
Kelskar sounds calm, his words measured as he surveys the slopes, putting his warrior body deliberately in view. Warning the man on their tail to consider carefully before taking him on.
A prickle creeps over Janie’s shoulders, making her shudder. A stark reminder that in this place danger lurks at every turn. They must always be on alert.
“Where is he? I can’t see him.”
“Farther down the track, keeping his distance. Shall we invite him for parlay?” Sunlight catches highlights in Kelskar’s clear eyes, but they no longer glow with influence from the chip. It lurks, in his head, a dormant threat that keeps her awake at night. If it takes him she’ll be there, the keeper of his story, the one who will always bring him back.
“You’re going to speak with him? What if he isn’t alone?” The quangoe’s gone to earth, no longer a golden splash on white snow.
“He’s alone.” Shoulders down, the long sword loose in his fist, Kelskar listens for the rattle of shale tumbling down the slope, the crunch of iced snow under a man’s boot. Better eyesight and hearing than a human, even without the chip, he sees and hears things she cannot.
“If you think it’s safe. We should do it now before night falls.”
Kelskar steps in front of her, filling the narrow path and making a shield of his body. She pulls her short sword knowing that one day she’ll have to use the thing for real. In the heat of battle anything is possible, but the thought still fills her with horror. She knows exactly what he’s going to say.
“I’m coming with you, Kelskar.” She raises her palms in concession. Knows it distracts him to have her near when he needs to do his warrior thing. “I promise to stay behind you. I feel safer with you. What if he has an accomplice?”
“All right. But no rash moves.” Kelskar lifts her chin, dipping his head to touch his lips to hers. “Stay safe. You’re very precious to me.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve no intention of getting myself killed.” These small declarations make her glow inside. A consummate word smith, a sweet talking guy, for her Kelskar means every word.
“Stay alert.”
Her mouth goes dry. How can he be so calm when her own heart threatens to beat right out of her chest? “I can’t hear anything,” she whispers, dismayed to hear the small sound echo around the curve of the mountain. Kelskar’s eyes are wide open in focus, where hers must narrow to pick out distant detail. Another subtle difference between their two species who on the outside could be human kin.
And on the inside could produce a child between them. The random thought pops into her mind. Sternly she orders it aside. Concentrate on the danger, not dreams of tonight and Kelskar’s sinful mouth, his hard body over her, around her.
Always and forever, that’s how long she wants him.
“Take care,” she whispers to his broad back. “You’re very precious to me, too.”
“I know,” he says and lifts his chin to greet the man ascending the icy track at a steady pace, the quangoe trotting meekly at his side. Muffled in an enveloping, fur-lined hood, the man stops to feed the beast a morsel from his palm. Too far away for her to see more than his lithe strength, the height of him backlit by morning sunlight, yet she senses no fear in his casual stance.
She knows of only one person on this moon who would face off against Kelskar with no concern for his own safety. The figure takes another step, pulling down his hood, bringing face and body into closer focus. Taller than she remembers him, he makes no efforts to mask the air of pervading menace in his eyes, the humourless smile.
“Dailam. Kelskar, it’s Dailam.”
“I know. Stay behind me.”
She thought of Dailam often in the days since their forest meeting. Knows she’s alive only because he decreed it. That he was searching for a woman and child. Doesn’t that make him one of the good guys?
Nothing is so black and white in this place.
“Best of the morning to you, Mistress Janie Roberts. And to you, Kelskar Vespasian.” Dailam’s voice, silky smooth floats between them. “I watched the arena fight. You won me good pickings.”
“Why are you following us?” Kelskar’s low demand invites no small talk. The quangoe rises in one smooth movement, muscles quivering, head low. It’s rumbling growl winds around the mountain path. Dailam whispers a word and the beast flops into the snow, head on its front paws.
“Because you’re seeking Paradise. And I know where it is.”
Janie’s heart leaps with sudden hope, plummeting as fast with the knowledge that trust is not so easily given. “Do we believe him?”
“I don’t know.” Immovable as the mountain, Kelskar reaches for her hand, needing her always fast to him when danger threatens. Dailam waits, still and alert for them to absorb the full impact of his words and then he turns, whistling once for the quangoe and walks away.
They exchange loaded glances. The figure disappears around a turn in the rock face.
“What would you do?” Kelskar watches the empty space that still seems to quiver with Dailam’s aura. For a moment Janie thinks she’s misheard. Kelskar’s asking her what they should do?
“He could so easily have killed me when we first met. Taken me as trade. And Paradise sounds a hell of a lot better than this hell.”
“You’re my woman.” Kelskar pulls her into his fierce embrace. “It’s my job to provide for you. Tell me what you want.”
Janie smiles into his coat, lulled to a rare moment of peace by the steady beat of his heart. The feel of his chest rising and falling under her cheek.
“I want to live in Paradise with you. I think Laeesha knew. She of all people would know how to find it. Take me there, Kelskar. Let’s grab this chance and go.”
The End.
Thank you for reading!
Dear readers... The Prison Moon series is a collaboration between myself and author Lily Graison. Each story in the series is a stand-alone novel featuring characters living on the Prison Moon world. The books do not have to be read in any particular order.
Future books in the Prison Moon Series
By Alexandra Marell
Assassin’s Heart featuring Laeesha and Dailam
Blurb
Assassin, Dailam, needs a healer and when he hears one is being dropped in the next batch of Earth women arriving for The Chase he’s determined to grab her. But he isn’t prepared to find her pregnant and about to give birth…
Beauty’s Beast featuring Billie Rae and Zarin
Stone Dragon – Claudia and Thanis
By Lily Graison
Dragon Fire – Sara and Toren
Blurb
Abducted by aliens and housed in an airtight room with twenty other girls wasn’t Sara’s idea of a good time. Neither was being dropped into the jungle of a Prison Moon, but for the rest of the galaxy, it was. She was the entertainment. The game? Survive the lawless alien criminals who ran wild or die trying, but there was no outrunning a dragon, and he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to let her go.
T’ore
n has spent the last several centuries sleeping beneath the rubble of an abandoned temple. The wars decimated his world and now was used as a dumping ground for the most vile creatures in the galaxy. A Prison Moon where it was kill or be killed. He slumbers to escape but awakes when a female, the first he’s seen in centuries, stumbles into his lair. And now that he’s seen her, he’s not letting her go.
But the corporation that runs Prison Moon One has other plans. Broadcasting a televised event across the galaxy of an Arena fight between a live dragon and any willing to fight him will bring in more viewers, and money, than they could imagine. All they had to do was catch him and to do that, they had to take the girl.
Warlord’s Mate – Marcy and Jorrick
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