Where was Jetta? Her chair sat empty, the e-reader lying there.
Banshee’s toy was beside him. He was wailing at the horizon, wailing like Daxx had never ever heard. And he’d heard that animal’s lament in abundance.
He ran into the house and into the drawer of his desk where the small tablet for Project D sat. He hit the track button. Jetta was underwater, in the fjord, moving so quickly she couldn’t possibly be swimming.
Who the fuck had her and where were they going? He felt absolutely sick with dread. He looked at her stats.
She was breathing. And although her stress and anger levels were off the charts she was alive. She was also vulnerable.
The idea of anyone touching her? Daxx called Strom, his closest neighbor with a fast boat that had submerging capabilities, and reached for the other drawer handle and opened it with his print and a seven-digit password. His weapons cache.
“Strom? I need help,” he said.
He only hoped, with a sickening oiliness in his gut, that he could get to her quickly.
-26-
JETTA
Lars had caught me as I’d run toward the house and had carried me, his hand over my mouth so no one could hear me scream, and then we were in the water. There were some sort of propellers attached to flippers on his feet. Banshee was swimming toward us, yelping and snarling but he wasn’t fast enough in the water.
“Hold your breath,” Lars demanded and then we were under water and going fast, so fucking fast, that everything blurred by in a mass of bubbles and then I was gasping, inside the submarine in some chamber that drained of water and then another door opened. He was carrying me into it.
I was choking and sputtering. He wrapped me up in a towel and carried me to a sitting room. He threw another towel around me and then hit a few buttons on a screen that was suspended from the ceiling and then I jolted as we were suddenly moving very quickly under water. I could see out portholes, bubbles. Loads of bubbles.
“What are you doing? Oh, my Lord, buddy.”
He grabbed a towel and started to dry off. He was in skin-tight wetsuit pants and flippers. He peeled the flippers off and then peeled his pants off. He was naked.
“Holy shit,” I shielded my eyes with my hands. I had to get out of here. How would I get out of here? I wasn’t a great swimmer. I mean, I was okay at it, but I was a doggie paddler, not capable of swimming long distances. And it felt like we were moving really fast but then we halted so fast it almost took me off my feet.
“I’ve just got to get us out of here and then…fuck.” Lars was at the control panel; weird characters were flashing on it and he was hitting the screen with his thumb in a way that made me think he had no idea what he was doing. There was a definite error sound coming from the thing.
“Fuck,” he repeated and hauled on a pair of leather pants, thankfully, but he was bare-chested, and barefoot, his long hair dripping down his back as he fought with the screen to no avail.
“Lars! What is going on here?” I demanded.
He spun around and looked at me and then took me in from head to toe to head.
Uh oh.
“I came for you.”
“But…” I swallowed hard. He moved toward me, his fight with that screen forgotten.
“When I woke, and found out Daxx had taken you, I was devastated. They ejected me from the property.”
“Oh. So, you didn’t get to pick a wife?”
He shook his head, “They disqualified me.” He moved closer. I moved back.
“You’re not carrying a baby yet?”
I shook my head.
“How’d you like to change that?”
I put a hand up. “No! See this earring?” I turned my head and pushed my sopping wet hair behind my ear.
“It’s red. It’s not pink, blue, or green.”
“Red stones mean love.”
He shook his head and looked disappointed.
“You have to take me back, Lars. Please.”
“No, I’m keeping you. I’ll figure this piece of shit out and get us out of here.”
“Figure it out?”
“Yes. I borrowed it from my uncle. He said he saw you. He lives near here and saw you arrive with Daxx a few days ago, so I came and borrowed his watercraft so I could come and do some scoping, but lucky for me you were there. And alone. Perfect timing.”
“Lars, you need to take me back. Daxx will be worried.”
“I don’t care how Daxx feels. What a sweet little thing you are.” He started to advance again and so I backed up some more and then I touched wall. He caged me in, hands on the wall on either side of me.
I clung to the towels that were around me.
“Lars, I don’t know you but I’m sure you could find another girl. There are a lot coming.”
“I’ve been disqualified. I must re-apply. There’s at minimum, a four-year waiting list for someone who hasn’t already competed. I have no idea what sort of wait there’ll be. I need a wife. I want you to be my wife. I saw those other girls. They were beautiful. But I want you. Even when I went for a second look…” he shook his head and then took me in with his eyes sweeping up and down my body. He licked his lips.
“But Lars, I’m married to Daxx.”
“You’ll forget him. I’ll make you forget.” He reached for the towels and his mouth started to descend. He was sexy but I was a married woman for fuck sakes.
“Back off!” I shouted in his face.
He laughed and pulled my towel away.
I was in another bathing suit, not as skimpy as my black one. It was red and it was a tankini so there was still loads of skin. Loads of skin that Lars seemed to be drinking in.
A buzzing suddenly filled the space and Lars dropped the towels and moved back to the screen, ‘Fuck.’ He started pressing other buttons and we started to move up.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“We’re low on oxygen. We’re gonna have to sail instead. This shitty thing. I wasn’t prepared. I was only going to check for your location so I could plan but I should’ve prepared.”
Okay, this was good. Sailing was better than being underwater. I could maybe find a way to escape if I wasn’t underwater.
There was a black box on the floor that he reached for. He opened it. It looked like a black metal tool case. He had something in his hand. A long metal socket looking thing.
“Sit. Let’s deal with this as we break the surface,” he said.
“What?”
He pulled my hand and took me to a table and chairs.
The panel on the wall beeped and we stopped rising.
We were above water again. Good.
I sat at the table and he reached for my ear with that tool in his hand.
“What?”
It clamped on my ear. It didn’t hurt but it made me jolt. As I reached for his wrist to stop him from whatever he was doing, he hit something on it and I felt a tiny pinch and then my earring fell on the floor. The pretty red gem was just lying there on the floor. He lifted it and inspected it.
My heart sank.
He took my hand and pulled me with him to a doorway and then he touched a button and it opened like an elevator door. Outside the door, he marched me up a short staircase and then we were on deck of the boat. A big sail was opening. Lars tossed my ear jewelry overboard. I gasped and grabbed my ear. My ear felt tingly.
“Now he won’t be able to find you.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me back inside. The door shut.
Oh god. Oh no.
“Now. Let’s see about putting a baby in you. I’ve been waiting for this. I’ve been dreaming of this.”
“No. You can’t.”
I backed up, holding my hand up.
“I have to,” he said.
“I love Daxx.” And I did. I knew it in that moment with every cell in my body.
“You’ll forget about him in time.”
“I won’t. You can’t touch me. I won’t let you.”
He smiled and started to back me up to the other end of the room we’d been in. There was a little hall and another room. A bedroom. Mostly bed. No. Fuck no.
I shoved with all my strength but he barely budged. He laughed, “I knew you’d make this interesting.” And then he put both hands to my hips and lifted me and tossed me and I landed on my back on the bed. He landed on me and I grunted because it was a little too much weight. He was straddling me.
“No. Get off me.”
“No way.” His head moved down and his lips almost touched mine. I turned my head and pushed against his chest while I brought my knee up and somehow nailed him right in the gonads.
He grunted and went over on his side. I took off out of that bedroom and bolted out of the bigger room, back up those steps up to the deck and looked around and saw that we were over by the other side of the fjord. We were close to the rocks, by the looks of it. It looked like it was mostly rock but had a bit of a shoreline. I looked across. We weren’t directly across from Daxx’s house but I could see it. I decided to take my chances before he got back here and I jumped overboard.
I swam under water for as long as I could manage, hoping he couldn’t see me.
When I had no choice but to surface, I glanced behind me and I was still way too close to the boat.
It wasn’t remotely close to the shore despite how it looked from the deck and after a bit of my doggie paddle slash barely-a-front-crawl of a swim and then some sloppy backstroking for a bit, I went to my back and floated to try to catch my breath. I looked around and felt like I was still too close to the boat. I spotted Lars on deck and he spotted me, too. Fuck. He disappeared back inside and I started trying to swim faster. I wasn’t a fast swimmer. Not remotely. And I was getting tired. And suddenly I started to think about scary giant sea creatures and I started to panic.
I glanced over and he was back on deck and he had those fucking flipper things with jet packs or whatever they were in his hand. He was putting them on. Damn it, he was going to chase me down.
The sky went weirdly dim and grayish suddenly. What the heck? A cluster of red clouds moved in.
Was this one of those nasty storms? One of those nasty dangerous storms that turned this water into tornadoes? Daxx said they usually happened at night.
Usually.
I didn’t know whether or not Lars was after me in the water or not because I was going to swim like my life depended on it. My life did depend on it. Well, maybe Lars wasn’t going to put me in danger but I was not going to be his baby mama. No way. Crazy psycho alien fucker.
The sky got darker and then I heard that crackling sound and, let me tell you…it sounded so much louder out here versus inside where it was safe.
The shore was getting closer. It was hard to know how much closer but it felt like it was within reach. I was so fucking tired. Something hit my forehead.
“Ow.”
Orange pellets were raining down and my skin was burning where it had hit me. Another one hit me, this time on my shoulder.
“Youch!”
Again, on my arm. I swam under water for a few minutes and could feel and hear many of those pellets hitting the water.
I bobbed up. Closer to the cliffs. The water started moving weirdly, and then it was as if I was being pulled backwards. I tried to swim against the direction the water was taking me in. I was spun around. I saw a green lightning bolt hit the water far away, over near the boat. The boat looked like it was getting closer. Another bolt. It hit the boat and then the boat started spinning. Oh no. One of those water tornado things.
I was getting pummeled by those orange things and my skin was burning like a sonofabitch. The pellets were small, not much bigger than grains of rice but they fucking hurt. When we were inside, I know I saw that they were way larger. Maybe I was getting off lucky.
HA!
What was lucky about being in one of these deadly storms out on the water when I wasn’t even a good swimmer? The boat was on its side, still spinning and then suddenly, the spinning stopped and I took the opportunity to swim as hard as I could away from it.
Another crackle in the sky and then four (FOUR!) of those bolts came down. Two were green and two were yellow. I hadn’t seen yellow ones before.
I got a big mouthful of water as the water crashed over me, like mini tidal waves, and I sputtered but the water kept trying to spin me. I just doggie paddled for dear life and then suddenly, my feet touched something. Oh god. Sand. Sand! It was still a ways from shore but the water was super duper shallow. Thank you lord! I ran. I ran as hard as I could toward the rocks, straight ahead, getting beaten with orange pellets, falling a couple of times, and then I saw that there was a little bit of a lip. I was suddenly in water to my ankles and then I was on land. Sweet beautiful land. I got under the lip of rock and huddled, sitting on my butt.
My arms were bleeding. I had blisters all over my arms. They were fucking burning. My legs and feet, too.
I looked ahead. The boat was nowhere in sight. I didn’t know if Lars was in the water or if he’d made it off that boat. I shuddered.
There was one last mighty crackle with three yellow streaks going across the sky horizontally and the pelting of the orange rice grain sized hail slowed and then stopped. I made it. I made it!
-27-
DAXX
Daxx had ridden his water cycle to Strom’s dock and they’d boarded the boat immediately. But the moment they’d arrived, Daxx got an alert that a storm was imminent. A rare daytime storm had moved in. It would be a mild one but even the mildest ones were deadly out on that water.
“Fuck.” Dread snaked through his gut.
He could see on that device that she was suddenly moving toward the cliffs opposite him. She was moving slowly, though, and she was in the fucking water and not on that boat that he could see with his own eyes.
“We can’t go,” Strom called “There’s a storm coming.”
“I know,” Daxx barked. Strom disembarked and put his hand on Daxx’s shoulder.
The sky crackled.
“We need to take cover, man.”
“Fuck,” Daxx growled, staring out at the water feeling something he’d never felt in his life. Helpless.
They had no choice but to step inside. He saw that she was moving toward the shore at the opposite cliff at a very slow pace but not so slow that she wasn’t moving. Perhaps she had escaped. But she was too far from the shore for him to feel confident and it was barren over there. No shelter.
The sky crackled again and he fell to his knees inside the door, his hands thrust into his hair.
He stared at the screen, feeling a bleakness he hadn’t felt since burying all of the females in his family.
-28-
JETTA
My skin was on fire and it was bleeding and I was feeling more than a little bit sick. I felt a little dizzy and feverish. I was under a rock. A big rock, in a space of about maybe ten feet by ten feet. My ass was in the sand and I was a drowned rat. I was also thirsty. So thirsty. My bones ached from the exertion and I was so tired. I kept watch on the water. I didn’t want to wish Lars dead but I didn’t want him to find me, either.
I flopped onto my side and closed my eyes.
I felt helpless. I could see Daxx’s house in the distance but it wasn’t close enough that he could see me. My earring was at the bottom of the water and if he could see that location, he’d think I was dead. If it had to be attached to me, then he didn’t even know.
Maybe he’d think I ran away. Maybe he’d look for me with no idea I’d been kidnapped. Or maybe he wouldn’t look. Maybe he’d just jump in on another competition and find someone else because I’d been such a pain in his ass and then took off on him.
God, those sores from those orange hailstones hurt badly. If they’d been larger I couldn’t imagine.
I heard a weird CAWWWWW sound.
I opened my eyes and saw a huge fricking bird. I mean, like pterodactyl sized. Holy shit.
It looked like
a cross between a giant turkey vulture and an owl. It started bouncing around, excitedly, cawing at me some more.
Oh shit. What on Earth? Daxx had said that first morning together that it wouldn’t be very nice if I started to prance about like a vulture. I could see by the way this scary bird awkwardly jolted around, that it was definitely not something fun to watch. I had the feeling it was excitedly dancing around the shore thinking it was about to have me for a meal because I looked like death.
“Fuck off, bird,” I told it. There were little rocks near me. I threw one and it landed near to the bird. It stopped dancing and looked at me. Uh oh. Had I just initiated a showdown?
I jumped up and screamed bloody murder, “I’m not dying. I’m just bleeding. I’m not gonna be eaten by a space vulture on a beach in paradise when I can see my house. Fuck you! I’m fighting.” I threw another rock and it flew away.
Thank god. God, I was tired. It probably figured it’d just come back later when I’d keeled over and died.
I sat down and started to cry. The hopelessness was about to wash over me when I saw a boat. A boat. I jumped up and feebly started waving my arms, so low on energy I felt like everything around me was going hazy.
A boat was practically flying across the gorge or fjord or whatever. It was coming fast and then I saw them. Strom and Daxx.
Thank the Lord. Sweet sweet lord, thank you.
The boat slowed before getting to the shore, likely because it was so shallow, and I plopped back down, exhausted.
Daxx jumped down and was running for me. I reached my arms up like a toddler as he got to me. I felt so weak.
“Oh baby,” he looked so relieved. “Fuck, fuck, baby.” He had tears in his eyes. He scooped me up, “You’re gonna be okay.”
I nodded, “I am. Because I have you. He took my ear gem, Daxx. That motherfucker. Lars. He took me, Daxx. I didn’t run away. I didn’t leave you. I didn’t think you could find me without it.”
“We’ll get you a new one, beauty. You still have the tracker in your ear,” He said, “And I know you didn’t leave me.”
Daxx looked so angry. He carried me toward the boat.
Hot Alpha Alien Husbands: Book One: Daxx and Jetta Page 26
