Survivor: Survivor’s Heart book 3: Planet Athion

by Cassidy, Debbie

  She’s working me, and I’m moving with her hand, pumping into her fist as sharp shocks travel through me, heating my groin with the threat of an explosion.

  Not like this. I grab her wrist, halting her rhythm, and pin it to the bed above her head before taking her taut pink nipple in my mouth.

  The arch of her back, the moans, the fucking gasps. Yes. I need more. I need to drown in her, wrap myself in her and become one with her.

  I part her thighs and slip two fingers into the wetness, knuckle deep. Her cry vibrates through me, a siren call that begs for more.

  It’s been a long time since I’ve touched a woman. Before the crisis, before … Oh, God, it feels so good.

  “Tide. Oh, God, Tide.”

  I claim her mouth, fucking her with my fingers until she is clawing at the sheets, until she is swollen and throbbing, and then I remove my fingers and push my cock deep into her.

  She comes around me like a clever sheath, muscles tightening in a wave that has me crying out with her, thrusting hard and fast to ride the wave that shatters us both.

  26

  I lay wrapped in Tide’s arms.

  “What time is it?” I kissed his chest.

  “You mean, how long have we been enjoying each other?”

  I chuckled. “That too.” The Athion was inexhaustible. “Are you tired?”

  He ran his fingers through my hair. “No. Are you?”

  “I’m hungry.”

  He kissed my temple and then carefully extricated himself from me.

  “Hey, where are you going?”

  “To get you food. Can’t have you passing out on me. I’m not done with you yet.”

  He tugged on his clothes and left the room.

  I should move, but I couldn’t. My body was too relaxed, every inch of it loved. But as appealing as eating in the nude was, it wasn’t for me. Hauling myself up, I rifled through the clothes in the dresser. Men’s clothes. T-shirts and briefs and pants. I grabbed a tee and tugged it on. The briefs fit like sleep shorts. Comfy.

  The door opened, and Tide held out a tray laden with some silver packages. “I brought a selection of stuff.”

  He grinned, and in that moment, he was disarming and completely relaxed. My heart swelled with emotions I couldn’t name.

  I gently took the tray from him and placed it on the dresser. “You know. I could do with working up more of an appetite …”

  His mouth curved in a half-smile, and then we were tumbling back into bed.

  * * *

  My eyes flew open with a snap. Someone was here.

  Tide. Of course. The heat of his body pressed against me. We’d fallen asleep, eventually, exhausted. Sated. But I was awake now, and my body felt heavy and fuzzy. I rubbed the back of my neck. Shit, it felt sore.

  My scalp prickled.

  “Tide?”

  No answer. I rolled onto my side to face him. His eyes were closed, his breath even, but alarm bells were going off inside my head.

  “Tide?” I shook him.

  His head flopped from side to side, but he didn’t wake up.

  Something was wrong. “Tide!” I shook him harder.

  Nothing.

  “He can’t hear you.”

  Terror slammed a fist into my chest as a figure stepped out of the shadows.

  “None of them can.” Marick stood at the end of my bed. “The sedative I gave them will keep them knocked out for the next twelve hours. Enough time for us to have some fun.” He walked closer, and something silver glinted in his hand. “Once we’ve played a little, then we’ll take the shuttle and leave.” He licked his lips. “Stand up.”

  I couldn’t move. Every part of my body was frozen in fear.

  “That’s right, Rogue. Be afraid.” His breath was coming fast. “You know what I’m going to do to you.”

  He wanted to hurt me. Violate me. He wanted me to be afraid. He could have killed the guys, but he hadn’t. He wanted them alive so they could suffer my loss.

  This was about me. Anger surged through me as I complied, standing to face him.

  “How did you get on board?” My voice came out steady and strong. I wasn’t afraid of him. Not anymore.

  “Does it matter?” he asked.

  No, it didn’t. “You’re obsessed, you know that, Marick, and your obsession is about to kill you.” I was so ready to kick his ass. “You think I need the guys to protect me from you?”

  His eyes glinted in the gloom. “Oh, I know you don’t. All you need is an adrenaline rush. That is what drives your power and strength.” He held up a syringe. “I fixed that with a blocker. You won’t be getting any hormonal help tonight, Rogue. For the next few hours, you’re just an ordinary woman.”

  The fuzzy feeling made sense now. My hand went to the sore spot on my neck. He’d drugged me.

  His lip curled as he advanced. “Get on the floor. Get on your knees.” He gripped the blade in one hand and reached for the zipper of his pants with the other. “Now or I’ll slit your lover’s throat.”

  If I got on the floor, if I did what he wanted, my chances of escape would halve. There was only one thing to do.

  I made as if to comply but at the last moment twisted my body and attacked. My shoulder slammed into his stomach, propelling him across the room and into the wall by the door.

  His head made a cracking sound, and then I was out the door and sprinting down the corridor.

  27

  Marick could be lying about the others, but my gut told me he wasn’t. No way would he have revealed himself like that if he wasn’t confident. He had me where he wanted me. I knew he wasn’t lying about drugging me. I could feel the difference in my body.

  Fear tried to edge in. No. I didn’t need to be a one-percenter to bring him down. I didn’t need the berserker.

  The memory of his body on mine, his rancid breath on my face filled my head. I’d been powerless then, weak from the journey from Trad, still adjusting to the drug they’d pumped me with. I’d been a victim. That wasn’t me anymore.

  I was a fighter, and Marick would never hurt me again.

  I needed a plan. I needed to take him the fuck out.

  Marick would expect me to check on the guys, so I ran in the opposite direction, away from the cabins and toward the bridge. There were weapons on the bridge. Xavier had shown me the case. Our biometric data opened them. He’d programmed mine in a few hours ago. If I could grab a laser gun…

  I careened down the corridor toward the bridge, accessing the map in my head as I went.

  The corridor curved, leading me to the steps to the upper floor where the bridge was. I took them two at a time and slammed my palm against the access panel.

  It flared red.

  Shit.

  What the fuck?

  “You won’t get in,” Marick’s voice echoed around me, coming from the tanoy system built into the ship. “I’ve had two days to work on this ship, to get into the systems while you all slept. You’re in lockdown, Rogue. There is nowhere to go. Stop running and give me what I want. You can fight me, I’d like that. But you won’t win, not without your special abilities.”

  “Fuck you.” My heart battered my ribs.

  What now? Wait…The ducts? He couldn’t lock down the ducts.

  I scanned the corridor and located a vent.

  “Rogue…where are you,” he said in a singsong voice.

  I flipped the grill to the vent and climbed in. The ducts were large, built to be navigated. Large enough for me to turn slightly and pull the grill back into place, but my chest still contracted in panic at the confinement. No. This was okay. This was safe. There were exits. I just needed to get to the right one.

  The knot in my chest eased a little, and then I was off, using my elbows and knees to move commando-style through the smooth metallic vents. I’d studied the ducts briefly, and the map in my head was blurry at best, but the whole ship was marked. Each intersection had arrows and locations stamped into the metal. There was no point trying
to get to the bridge to grab weapons. If he’d shut down the biometrics, then it meant I wouldn’t be able to open the cabinet.

  But there was another place I might be able to find a weapon of some description.

  The place where Braker stored all his shit.

  The cargo hold.

  * * *

  Perspiration beaded my brow and skimmed down my neck and spine. Shit it was getting hot in here, which meant I was getting close. The cargo hold was on the other side of the engine room, which was always sweltering.

  I picked up the pace, wanting out of the confines of the tunnel. Not a prisoner. Not a prisoner.

  Fuck I needed to get out. An intersection loomed and my eyes zeroed in on the red arrow and the words “cargo hold.”

  Yes!

  I took the turn and almost sagged in relief at the sight of a grill up ahead. I crawled right up to it and bashed it open before sliding out head first. I hit the ground in a neat forward roll.

  I was out.

  Crates were piled up against the walls, and a huge metallic monster lay crumpled in the center of the chamber. Red light lit up the whole room.

  I needed to find a weapon.

  The first crate was filled with a silver mesh-like material. The next one contained bottles of a liquid I didn’t recognize. I picked one up, testing the weight of it. Oh, come on, Braker. There’s got to be something more. I made to put the bottle back.

  “Cargo hold, Rogue? Really? Is that where you want this to happen?” Marick’s voice startled me coming through the tanoy to my right.

  How could he know where I was?

  But then the doors were opening, and his boots clomped across the ground as he entered the cargo hold.

  I ducked behind the crate I’d been rummaging in, heart pounding in my throat. The bottle was still clutched in my hand.

  “You want to play hide-and-seek? Is that it?” He was enjoying this way too much.

  No, I didn’t. I wanted to end this. A bottle against a blade? It would have to do. I was done running from him, done running from everyone.

  Taking a deep breath, I stepped out of my hiding spot.

  Marick stood edged in crimson light, the blade clutched in his right hand. “You owe me, Rogue.”

  “I don’t owe you anything, Marick. You’re a fucking psycho.” My voice was even, almost conversational.

  “No. I’m single-minded. Focused and determined.”

  “You’re sick, Marick. In the fucking head.”

  He was silent for a long beat. “Maybe I am. So what?” His gaze fell to the bottle. “What are you going to do with that, Rogue?”

  I held it up and shrugged. “I don’t know … Smash you around the head with it?”

  “You’ll have to get close to do that.”

  He beckoned me with his free hand. “Are you coming? Or do you want me to chase you?”

  Fear gripped the back of my mind, and this time, I allowed it to fuel me. I grabbed it, turned it on its head, and charged. I swerved at the last moment and fell to my knees, smashing the bottle into his knee cap.

  Marick screamed, and the sound sent a satisfying surge through me. I was up and swinging again, but Marick twisted his body out of the way so fast he was a blur, and then a sharp stinging pain sliced across my abdomen.

  I leaped back, clutching my torso. Wet and warm.

  He’d cut me.

  We faced off, circling each other. He was limping. Good.

  “You didn’t scream.” He sounded pissed.

  “You screamed enough for the both of us.”

  He lunged at me suddenly, catching me around the waist and taking me down. My head slammed off the ground, and the world went black for a moment.

  A hand on my throat.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  I brought the bottle up to smash it against his head. It shattered with a satisfying sound.

  His grip relaxed, and I bucked and twisted out from under him, my head swimming, torso burning. I was losing blood. Too much blood. I needed to get away. My knees slipped out from under me as he hauled me back by my ankles. And then I was flat on my belly with him on top.

  His breath was hot on the side of my face. “It’s time to pay, Rogue.”

  He was hard against me, hands tugging at my shorts.

  Panic flooded me. “No!” I thrashed, trying to get free, hands searching the ground for something, anything I could use.

  A slender metallic object. I grasped it.

  I need to go look for my laser pen in the cargo bay …

  Laser. My thumb located the switch, and I pointed over my shoulder and fired.

  Marick’s scream was a high-pitched, horrific thing. He was off me instantly. I rolled and stood, laser pointed. He was on the ground clutching his face and moaning.

  I stood staring at him. The monster that had haunted my nightmares for so long. The man who’d made my life a misery for too long.

  “Look at me.” I cut into his hand with the laser.

  He screamed again.

  “Look at me!”

  He lifted his head, still clutching the smoldering wound on his face. One of his eyes was gone. Burned away.

  I stepped closer and leaned in. “You’re finished, Marick. Done. You won’t ever hurt anyone else, ever again.”

  I reared back and then kicked him in the head.

  28

  Marick

  The pain is back. I want unconsciousness to return, but there is only pain. Where am I? What did she do? I sit up and peer through my good eye. Metal walls and hazard signs, and there she is, staring at me through a round window.

  My heartbeat speeds up.

  I know where I am.

  Airlock.

  I see the resolution on her face, and then the air is sucked from my lungs, and there is nothing but the emptiness of space.

  29

  LARCEN

  “I don’t get it,” Jaron says to Braker. “You don’t want us to enable the tracker and find them?”

  Braker sips his drink and looks out at the arena from his huge window. “We have more important things to worry about.”

  “More important than getting our ship back?” Jaron presses.

  “It’s a satellite vessel. We have ten more,” Braker says. “I’m not wasting resources on a retrieval.”

  Jaron looks confused, but I’m not.

  Since losing Elena, Braker has done some inhumane things as he embraced the machine and neglected the man. He’s withdrawn, become harder, unreachable, unemotional. I’ve gotten used to the business decisions he makes. The cutthroat moves he employs.

  But for the first time in a long time, I finally see a glimpse of the man I used to know. I have no doubt that he’d intended to keep Rogue captive.

  But in this moment, he’s decided to set her free.

  Epilogue

  “Vex. God, yes.” I moved on top of him, fingers digging into his taut chest, taking him deep with each roll of my hips.

  The sounds he made had my walls tightening around him, gripping and drawing on him. He was beautiful, eyes closed, mouth twisted in an expression that screamed pleasure and pain because the spiral was coming. We were close. So close. There was nothing but the chase.

  Xavier’s chest pressed to my back, velvet skin and the scent of arousal. His lean hands cupped my breasts, tugging my nipples and sending shocks down to my core. He sucked on the column of my neck before grazing my pulse with his teeth and biting down to elicit a low moan. His hardness was pressed to my ass, throbbing in time to Vex’s every thrust, and then his hand was sliding down my stomach, over my pubic bone and into the slick wetness to circle my sweet spot. In that moment there was nothing but sensation—Vex inside me, Xavier teasing my clit, the rhythm, the chase, the tightening sensation that signaled the approaching bliss.

  My cry tore through the cabin as I picked up the pace, riding Vex harder.

  “Yes. Come for us,” Xavier said, his voice breathless. “Fucking hell. Rogue, Fuck.”
<
br />   I shattered, keening and sobbing as the orgasm ripped through me. No words. Just the white light of bliss and Vex’s guttural groan.

  I collapsed against Xavier, conscious of every point of contact between the three of us. Carefully, gently, Xavier lifted me off Vex and laid me down on the bed.

  My body was heavy, lethargic. I didn’t move as they washed me down there, reveling in the coolness of the washcloth against my fevered skin.

  “You think that’s it for today?” Xavier said softly.

  “I don’t know,” Vex replied, his voice husky and breathless.

  I wanted to speak. To thank them. To tell them how much I loved them, but the heat was rising again, tightening my nipples and making me throb. Stealing my words and turning them into sensual moans.

  “It’s starting again,” Xavier said.

  “Shit,” Vex cursed roughly.

  The sound of the door opening was followed by Tide’s scent. It filled the room.

  “Please.” I reached for them. Any one of them. “Please.”

  Lore entered behind him. Four huge guys in my tiny cabin. Four cocks to assuage the heat.

  No. God, they were more than that. Fuck, I hated the heat.

  It was bad this time. The episodes so close together there was barely any relief. Xavier believed it might be because we were skating a dead star, one that was in the process of becoming a black hole. He was sure it was affecting me.

  It didn’t matter why. It only mattered that it was happening.

  Cool hands landed on my body, skimming over my skin, touching me gently, with love.

  “More.” My voice was a rough demand.

  Hands began to knead my flesh.

  “Yes.”

  Tide’s lips found mine. His tongue swept the inside of my mouth at the same time as he entered me. I raised my legs and took him deep, losing myself to the tempo once again.

  “Oh, fuck.” Lore’s ragged exclamation filled the room.