by JC Hay
“You going to be able to handle that?” She shouldn’t enjoy needling him, but it was so damned entertaining. “The on switch is on the side.”
“I know where the on switch is,” he snapped. He turned the tracker on edge and flipped the switch, but nothing happened. “See?”
“Your confidence with tools must make all the ladies swoon.” She grinned before remembering that she wasn’t flirting with him.
Fortunately, the AI saved her before Ax could respond. “The tracker won’t be enabled until you reach the surface of the planet,” Algol buzzed. “Until then, it won’t work.”
Ax nodded. “I knew that.”
“Both of you please step onto the platform.” When the avatar didn’t move to a control panel, it took Kayana a moment to remember that it was the ship. It didn’t need to manipulate the controls directly, it was wired into them.
Ax hopped up onto the silver disk that marked the edge of the beam’s receiving plate and extended a hand to her. “Alright, Kay. Are you ready?”
She bit back the reflexive desire to correct her name. If he knew it annoyed her, he’d only continue doing it. That wasn’t the only thing that gave her pause however. Matter transfer had a shaky reputation—there hadn’t been a serious accident in decades, but that didn’t mean she was eager to be the first. She glanced at the AI. “How safe is it?”
“Safer than spaceflight, and you’ve been perfectly willing to let me control that.” The giant insect clacked its mouthparts against each other in what may have been a laugh.
Kayana stepped up onto the platform, notably ignoring Ax’s outstretched hand. “That’s not reassuring.”
The AI hummed. “It wasn’t meant to be.” A split second later, white light blinded Kayana’s ability to see anything else, and she was gone.
OKAY. I’M PRETTY SURE that, if I could see, this would look a lot worse than it really is. Ax had a very limited idea of what his surroundings looked like beyond some dark, red-brown rocks at his feet. The horizon featured the dull orange glow of magma lighting a jagged patch of mountains. In between, he had no idea. He held the tracking device, trying to use the screen’s meager light to get some sense of where the AI had deposited them.
“You understand that waving that light around could draw the attention of whatever fauna calls this place home?” Kayana was near him, a deeper shadow in the darkness. At least when she spoke he could turn and face her.
Ax snorted. “Yes, well, we can’t all see in the dark like you.” Could she see in the dark? Probably. She seemed smug enough for it.
“It’s okay,” Kayana said, and he could hear the grin in her voice. “I’m certain there must be something humans are good at. I mean your species has lasted this long. It can’t all be random chance.”
So that’s a big yes on the night vision. “How about you just hook us up with some flame-dancing, and then we’ll be able to see our way out of here.” He stepped closer so the screen lit her face from below, accenting her lips and sparkling across the tiny scales on her cheekbones.
“I... Later. Something with the transmitter beam must have dampened my v'tana.” She looked away from the light and from him.
Ax had lied enough times in his life to recognize one when it was told to him. He wouldn’t press the issue though. Everybody had secrets. Hell, he had a planet’s worth. He stared at the tracker and pointed. “According to this we need to head that way. I think. Did the computer say this would be underground?”
“No, but it wouldn’t surprise me. It seems to leave out important details from its discussions. Besides, the volcanic activity means this place is riddled with caverns and lava tubes. It would only make sense if they are trying to hide the prize.” She took his hand and put it in the crook of her elbow. “I can lead you the rest of the way.”
Ax swallowed against the sudden dryness in his mouth from touching her. An electric energy vibrated in his palm at the contact. Her body was enticingly warm even through the protective exo-suit. And muscular. There was no denying the strength in the steely muscles beneath his fingers. Ax glanced down, and the tracker did a nice job of illuminating her curves. The suit fit more tightly than the lounge pants had, and it made her backside even more spectacular than he’d expected.
Ax shook his head to clear his thoughts and let her lead him over the rocky surface. Kayana was clearly not that kind of woman. She had no qualms about using violence to get her way. Any thoughts he might have about her ass, or any other part of her, were best kept locked up in his brain. Besides, she smelled vaguely like rotten eggs. Or was it...?
“Gas!” Kayana tugged the respirator off her belt and snapped open the silicone mouthpiece. She covered her nose and mouth, and a string of green lights illuminated along the black cylinder as it filtered the air in time with her breath. After taking two more breaths, she uncoiled the elastic straps and hooked them around her ears.
How had he not noticed she had pointed ears?
Ax opened his own respirator and pressed the soft, slightly sticky material of the facemask to his skin. The lights triggered as he pulled in a long breath, and he coughed against the burning sensation that seared his throat. Tears welled in his eyes as he fought to clear the gas from his lungs. He thumbed the emergency start but to no avail. The next breath was just as poisonous as the first had been, and he stumbled, unable to clear the toxic fumes.
Warm hands supported him, and a new mouthpiece covered his face. Clean, fresh air filled his next breath. Kayana waited until he could stand before checking his respirator for herself. She took a tentative breath, coughed and threw his unit on the ground before taking the mouthpiece from him. After a deep breath of the clean air, she indicated his respirator. “The filters are dead. It’s useless.”
Ax took the respirator, and a breath, beginning a pattern of passing the one functioning set of filters between them. “So now what do we do?” One respirator wasn’t going to do much good for the two of them, at least not as a permanent solution. And he really didn’t want to die choking on sulfur gas. Neither did she, he supposed.
“We will need to move quickly and get out of this area. The gas is heavier than air. If we can get to higher ground, we should be okay to breathe. She took another breath before passing him the respirator.
“Lead the way,” Ax said. “But stay close.”
She put her arm around his shoulders, forcing him to drape his arm across her back. As they walked, they could pass the unit between them. With working filters to remove the rotten-egg aroma, Ax realized that the smell of her skin clung to the facemask. Some kind of earthy spice, like cloves, though he wasn’t entirely sure what those smelled like either. He had always been rubbish in the kitchen.
For several minutes they continued in silence, though Ax could feel the ground rising beneath his feet. Just the effort of climbing used all the air they had, and talking would have wasted oxygen they didn’t have to spare. If this was what Octiron thought of as an easy challenge, he might have been better off trusting the tender mercies of the mobsters who wanted to take their money out of his hide. Literally. At least he could probably talk them out of killing him. Ax doubted he’d have the same luck with a whole planet.
Or half a planet. For all he knew the sunward side was a perfectly wonderful place. But that would probably be bad for the ratings.
He grabbed the scanner as it swung from a cord around his neck, and checked to make sure they were headed in the right direction. He nodded to Kayana, and the ground trembled beneath his feet. From the look on her face, she’d felt it too. “So, you spend a lot of time around volcanoes. That was perfectly normal, right?”
As if to reinforce his question, the vibration came again. And a third time.
In the dim glow of the scanner, he could see her wide eyes as she shook her head. “We should find shelter. Quickly.”
Something about the way she said it made his gut churn like a swarm of Grenian Ice-Worms had nested there. “What is it?”
; Kayana took the respirator and a deep breath, while the ground shook twice more. “Earthquakes don’t occur at regular intervals,” she said. “Those are footsteps.”
Arms around each other, they scrambled up the incline. Even passing the respirator back and forth didn’t keep Ax’s lungs from burning, and the swing of the tracker hanging around his neck cast crazy shadows around his feet and created a flashing beacon for whatever might be stomping around in the darkness beyond.
Kayana took a breath. “It looks like there’s a fissure in the rocks up ahead.”
He lifted the tracker above his head, straining his eyes to see what she saw. “Where?”
She batted his arm back down, hissing, “Don’t! It might see.” She half-dragged him the last few dozen feet and pressed him against a set of rocks. After stuffing the respirator in his hands, she stepped away, leaving him in the dim circle of light from the tracker. In the silence, his breathing felt too loud, echoing within the facemask. Surely that thing would hear it. Ax tried to hold his breath, but even his heartbeat felt thunderous.
She returned, coughing slightly from the caustic air, but smiling. “Good news. We’re mostly above the gas.”
Ax took a tentative breath without the facemask in place. The rotten-egg smell remained, but it was much fainter than it had been lower down. “In my experience, good news means there’s bad news too.”
“We’re going to wish we were a lot thinner?” Her smirk was extremely kissable, he decided. Or could be, in a less dangerous location. The footsteps stomped closer, and he wondered if she could see the thing that was hunting them yet. “The fissure’s right over here.”
If she saw the creature, she gave no sign. Kayana led him to a narrow crack between two boulders, more of an empty space where the rocks didn’t quite fit together than an actual cave. She squeezed in ahead of him, turning sideways to fit through the tight space.
He moved to follow and slipped on the loose rock, sending a cascade of scree tumbling down the incline with a clatter that felt impossibly loud. He stared into the darkness after the noise, as though he had some ability to will it away. Silence settled again, but then, far too close by, a sound between a screech and a howl echoed across the rocks. He looked into the fissure to find Kayana glaring at him. “You should probably get inside now.”
Ax nodded. “Couldn’t agree more.” The howl sounded again, and the vibration of the thing’s footprints picked up speed and strength as it charged toward them. He pushed himself into the narrow crack. “I don’t suppose we have a plan for getting back out, do we?”
“You don’t strike me as someone who does a lot of planning,” she grunted.
He understood her exertion, the passage kept getting narrower the deeper it went. Taking a breath was difficult. Taking a deep breath impossible. Ax worried that his skull might not even fit.
Ahead of him, she sighed with relief and whispered back, “It widens up a little bit, but not much.”
Outside, the animal howled again. Closer. Much, much closer. Ax squeezed through into the open area behind her. It was not, as she had described it, significantly wider. The two of them had to press together just to fit in the space available. But, he reminded himself, at least they were past the gas. In the dim light from the tracker, he could see her face, and her worried expression gave him a sudden desire to do stupidly heroic things. He’d always had a damnable soft spot for playing the hero. Even if she wasn’t exactly the “in distress” sort of woman.
“End of the line,” she smiled. “Now we have to hope that thing is as big as it sounds.”
“I’m not entirely sure how that’s a good thing.”
Kayana smirked. “Would you rather it could squeeze through the cracks and get in here?”
Ax conceded she had a valid point. He also had to admit it was a bit distracting the way her breasts pressed against his chest whenever she took a breath.
An investigative snort came from the front of the cave. The weak glow from the scanner didn’t make it all the way to the entrance, but his imagination was more than eager to fill in the details about what sort of giant nostril was probably there looking for them.
The animal let loose a series of short, sharp barks, followed by more sniffing.
“I think it knows we’re here,” Ax whispered. It also sounded suspiciously like the thing was calling for friends, but he didn’t mention that. No sense in alarming her if he didn’t have to.
The sudden ping from the tracker sounded impossibly loud and sent panic racing down his spine. He couldn’t see it without shifting, though, and the two of them had to wrap around one another to free his arm. He straddled one of her legs between his as he dragged the tracker up where he could see it. “That’s not good.”
“Dare I ask?”
“The Queen’s Eye is moving,” he replied. “On the plus side, it appears to be getting closer.”
She twisted, her arms snaking around his back as she tried to view the tracker screen. “I wonder if it means the gem is on one of the animals.”
Ax found himself watching her mouth as she spoke, and the sensual curve of her lips. Her nearness made the small space feel considerably warmer than the eighteen degrees Algol had mentioned, and he wished he’d bothered to memorize some kind of sports statistic, just to keep his body’s responses in check. Trapped in a cave with gods-know-how-many creatures prowling about outside the rocks was not the time or place to sport an erection. He shifted slightly to relieve the pressure and hoped she wouldn’t notice. “That seems insanely dangerous, even for the Octiron Corporation.”
That said, from an entertainment perspective, he could easily see Octiron doing exactly that. Having one of the contestants torn apart by a wild animal would probably send ratings through the roof.
She moved, and her thigh pressed into his erection. “The question of course would be how the company got it on the creature in the first place. If we knew that, we could do the same thing to remove it.” If she noticed anything else, there was no outward sign.
Ax gritted his teeth and visualized being ripped in two by whatever was outside in an effort to bring his renegade body under control. “No doubt they had big guns and plenty of tranquilizers to give it some downtime.”
She shifted again, and the way her leg rubbed along his length had to be deliberate. Ax risked a glance at her and caught her smirking. Her crimson complexion only added to the impish nature of her grin, and a charge of lust surged along his veins. He retaliated in kind, nudging his thigh between her legs.
Kayana’s eyes narrowed, and she made a quiet guttural sound like a growl. Or maybe a purr. Her gaze dipped to his mouth as she leaned forward. She paused halfway to him, one eyebrow peaked as though asking permission.
This was not the time or place, logic said. Reason warned him that this was, at best, a terrible idea. Then again, Ax had gotten by just fine without logic or reason up to now. He closed the distance, snaking his arms around her waist to pull her tight to his chest as his lips met hers.
The jolt was visceral, a combination of heat and electricity that fired along his veins. She dipped in playfully, brushing her mouth over his before sucking on his lower lip. He ground his thigh up, and she hummed into the kiss before rubbing her leg into his aching erection. The heat of her seemed everywhere, both on his skin and within him, overwhelming him and ripping a groan from him.
She chased after the sound, her tongue laying claim to his as they slipped together. Her fingers tangled in his hair, tugging him against her. Pressure built low in his belly, spurred on by the assault of her kisses and the rhythm of her thigh. His fingers skated up her ribs, thumbs grazing the outside edges of her breasts through the skin-tight exo-suit. She gasped, breaking the kiss as she ground down on his thigh. The sight of her, lips swollen and hungry, stoked a deeper fire in his blood. He cupped her breasts and wondered how safe it would be to open their suits inside the cave.
The tracker erupted in a loud series of beeps, which prompted a f
lurry of calls from outside. He counted calls from at least three different animals, but there could have been more.
The noise acted like a splash of ice water, and she stepped back as well as she could in the tiny space, leaving him cold where her heat had been a moment before. She brought an arm down and fished the tracker out from between them so he could read the screen. “Apparently, the Queen’s Eye is right outside.”
Six
“I’m going to have a look outside and see if I can figure out where the stone is.” Kayana took a step back. She needed space, but the cave was too small and Ax too large within it. Another step back pushed her spine against the rock wall behind her. Better, but still too close.
And damned if her body didn’t want to be closer still. Not that she had any plans to listen to it. Bedding someone so wildly inappropriate was not the way back to her family’s good graces. She squeezed into the passage and hoped he hadn’t heard the frayed control in her voice.
Rocks bit into her back, scraped across her all-too-sensitive breasts. What had she been thinking? Kissing him of all the sentient beings in the galaxy? A human! He had literally nothing to offer her. Even the wealth he had bargained with was only his insomuch as he required her help to get it.
As human—Gr’gori—he wasn’t part of the complex hierarchy of the Nine. Allegiances outside the Houses mattered nothing in terms of standing. They offered no bargaining chips to exchange in the careful dance of favors that typified sex among her people. Not that the Malebranki had shown her any particular kindness, but such was their nature—she’d failed her family and needed to make amends. To prove her value.
Completing the competition could do that; she wouldn’t risk her success on a Gr’gori with a talented mouth and sure hands. Regardless of the pleasure he’d sent racing along her scalp in the wake of his fingertips.
