by Tracy Lauren
“Don’t you dare touch him,” I growl.
“Sweet V, I would not touch him. I have people who do that sort of thing for me these days.”
“If you hurt him, I’ll kill you. I swear to God.”
“Enough. New to my service or not, I will not have one of my own guard threatening me. Besides, I think you really will come to enjoy this life. Believe me, I have quite an instinct for this sort of thing.” He pauses for a moment and it feels like he’s trying to peer into my soul. “Up until now we have been friendly with one another, I’d like for that to continue,” he adds.
I scoff, incredulous.
“Narron, if you please,” The Oscillion says, and his guard begins hauling me from the room. It seems there’s nothing left to say for now. I walk numbly, Narron leading me with a firm grip at my shoulders.
When we get outside, I see we are no longer at the casino, but at some type of building high up in the hills overlooking the merchant city below. The look of the structure is cold and hard, like a fortress. It seems to jut straight out from the rocks. While the night is hot, chills run up and down my spine just looking at it. Narron releases me to fire up a vehicle that reminds me of a motorcycle, only it hovers a few feet off the ground. Merkeem had one like it. Narron turns to me and grunts…his version of some type of command. I don’t know what he expects of me.
“Get on!” he grits out, pointing at the thing. I acquiesce without argument. Like I’m going to argue with a massive alien, two feet taller than me, with a big-ass gun at his hip. I climb onto the machine awkwardly, looking for safe places to hold on to as I do. When I feel secure enough for travel I look up at Narron. His glare is cold and hard.
“Well?” I ask. He bares his teeth at me before he grabs me hard enough to leave bruises. I cry out in pain as he turns me around. I was on the thing backward apparently.
“So, you know, I do not believe females are capable of what The Oscillion wants you to do.”
“Well, this one sure isn’t,” I agree. My mind goes back to the vicious women on the primitive planet Dax took me to. I’m not like them.
“Good. Then I will not have to train you for long.”
“Why’s that?” I ask hopefully.
“Because you will be dead soon. You will not be my problem then.”
“Fuck you too,” I say harshly, and I’m met with my first dose of reality in the form of Narron’s heavy palm to my face. His slap is so hard it sends me flying off the bike and into the dirt, still warm from the day’s sun. The coarse grains scrape my hands and legs as I slide across it. I’ve never been hit before, and I think again about my stupid desire to fight Zair. Who would want to get into a fight if they’d ever really been hit before? Getting hit sucks. I touch my burning cheek in surprise.
“It is my job to train you, and the training begins now. Watch your tongue when you speak to me. It is a skill that will benefit you on more than one occasion, I assure you. The Oscillion will not be easy on you forever, a misstep like that in front of him could cost your friend dearly. Now get on.”
I push myself up on my feet. “Thanks,” I say weakly…stupidly…but still, I’m grateful for the tip. I won’t be able to rescue Dax, the least I can do is keep him safe. I climb onto the bike, the right way this time.
“Hold on,” Narron tells me, and I tentatively place my hands at his sides. When he guns it I almost fly off. I swallow my pride in the face of fear, holding on to my enemy for the sake of life. The ride down the mountain is a blur and I’m left unceremoniously in front of the hotel. Narron disappears in a cloud of dust before I even make it inside the foyer.
I keep my head down, self-conscious of my now filthy dress, splattered with blood and dragged through the dirt. I walk past the late-night stragglers and hotel employees, thinking each one of them a villain in league with The Oscillion. Feeling numb and lost, I make my way up the stairs, hurrying to get the door open and shut again. Once inside, I engage the locking mechanism and lean my back heavily against the door, squeezing my eyes shut.
Not more than a second or two passes before the silence hits me. It’s eerie and lonesome. The scared little girl in me imagines every rustle of curtains to be a ghost. Every shadow houses a monster. I take a few hurried steps in and start turning on all the lights and pulling all the curtains tightly together. It’s when I see the unmade bed and smell Dax’s scent on the pillows that I officially lose it. My hands shake as I finish switching on every light in the sprawling room to the sound of my own gut-wrenching sobs. Then, I push as much heavy furniture as I can up against the door.
Grabbing Dax’s pillow and a blanket from the bed, I drag it over to the far wall in the room. From here I can see everything—the balcony, the door, all of it. I make a crude nest for myself on the ground. Then I sit down and cry, sobbing and wailing my terror.
I feel like a child again, helpless and feeble. Like the times my mom would take me to flop houses and meth labs and I would see horrific things: brutal fights, addicts shooting up and ODing, drug-induced mania, women turning tricks, people being sick all over themselves.
I was a fragile little thing then, with no business being in a place like that. My mind skips to my first memory of waking up after my abduction—on the Ju’tup ship, half naked and retching all over the floor. I tug the blankets tighter around my body, blinking back the unending stream of tears, my sobs echoing off the walls. I look around and assess the room. I have no business being here either.
But just like every other leg of my journey, I already know what I am going to do: whatever it takes to survive. The Oscillion is wrong about one thing at the very least. I’m not leaving Dax behind. Don’t get me wrong, I have no delusions of grandeur. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to rescue him, but I’m also not going anywhere without him.
My kidnappers took me with the intention of selling me as a slave. I suppose my fate was sealed, because here I am, finally a slave.
***
Dax
The room is dark, cold, and damp. My head aches and all my muscles feel weak. I struggle to become fully roused. That is, until I think of my mate. A wave of rage washes over me, and when I jump to my feet I realize I am in shackles. The chains clank together heavily as I try to move. I can hardly see at all, but a dim light filters in through a small sliding window on the door that holds me at bay. I tug at the chains, testing them. Blind in the near pitch-black cell, I follow the chains to their source and run my fingers and claws around the eye bolt that keeps them in place. There must be a weak point somewhere.
I stretch myself to reach the sliding window. Its dimensions are too small to allow even someone V’s size to climb through, let alone to have me climb out. I struggle to peer down the hallway in either direction. I see guards, but I’m unable to identify the location of my prison cell. Though I can guess who has me in their clutches. The real question is: what has he done with my mate?
Chapter 32
V
It was a rough night to say the least. My body shook with fear and I cried so hard that it hurt. Finally, I fell into a light and restless slumber, propped up against the wall with my pillow and blankets clutched around me. I woke with a start every time my head sagged or a curtain rustled, only to hug myself tighter and let the tears flow once more. Soon dawn brought its dull gray light to the room and I knew what I had to do. It was simple really.
I got to my feet, wiped off my face, and got my shit together. The Oscillion said I would begin training today, and I’m going to be ready when my trainer gets here. Simple as that.
There is a distinctly human part of my brain that wants to rebel, that wants to stay in a heap on the floor in my filthy and tattered gown and wait for The Oscillion’s men to find me like this: a husk of a person. But I'm not stupid and I’m certainly not going to sacrifice myself or Dax over an empty thing like pride. The bottom line is that these people have Dax. I’m not about to test The Oscillion’s limits when lives are at stake.
Instead
, I get up and make the bed before bathing quickly and throwing on some clothes. I choose my most functional and conservative garments. Long pants, long sleeves. While The Oscillion is above raping me, I don’t know that his men aren’t, and I don’t want to give anyone a reason to try.
Then, I push away all the heavy furniture I used to block the door and take a seat in front of a large mirror near the tub, trying in vain to replicate the tight rows of braids Dax does for me. When it’s obvious this is yet another fight I won't be winning, I opt for the only braid I know how to do. I pull my hair back into a ponytail and weave a plain braid out of that. No sooner than I finish there is knock at the door. I jump. My hands begin to tremble, but I hurry to answer it, too scared to leave them waiting for long.
Opening the door, I see Narron’s scarred but familiar face and step aside for him to enter. The man is a giant, with broad shoulders that curve slightly forward. I gape at the thickness of his arms. They’re twice as heavily built as the biggest bodybuilders back on Earth. Big arms house massive hands that could probably make a basketball look like a softball were he holding one now. His scarred face bares a scowl.
While I can’t keep myself from assessing him in the light of day, I also can’t bring myself to look directly into those ferocious eyes of his. I focus on the rest of him, noticing his wide nose is ridged all the way up to his brow. From what I can tell he’s completely hairless. No eyebrows, no eyelashes. Nothing.
As big as he is, it’s his scars that make him look so terribly frightening. The most prominent of which appears to be a full-body burn, but even all that is pockmarked with deep gouges and scrapes, white and pink and only half healed.
Neither of us say hello. What a silly thing pleasantries would be at a time like this? Narron strides into the room, assessing it with an unhappy sneer before turning to me. I shut the door.
“So, this is where he will keep you?” Narron says, his tone almost an accusation.
“You would know more on the subject than I would.” I shrug.
“I know more than you on a great many subjects,” he grunts, walking farther into the room. He looks around, poking at the hotel’s decor here and there with a displeased grimace on his face.
“You won’t hear any argument from me,” I agree, following him to the curtains just before the balcony. He pulls them back and peers out.
“Do you know where he keeps his men?” Narron asks gruffly. I can’t tell if he’s angry with me or if that’s just his normal voice. What I do know is that I want to scoff and throw my hands up in irritation. I want to ask him how the fuck I would know anything about this backwater hell hole of a planet and all the scumbags who amass here. Instead I stare blankly at the monster of a man who is doing nothing to hide his distaste for me.
“We are in barracks. A windowless underground room of the fortress. More than a dozen of us packed into a narrow hall not a quarter the size of this room,” he says looking angrily into my eyes.
I’m helpless here. There is nothing I could do or say to assuage this man’s anger. So, I do the only thing I can, I don’t break his gaze.
“And here he keeps you. A princess in a tower,” Narron laughs, but there is no humor in his face, and he begins to advance on me. My body retreats in an instinctual kind of way. I don’t think I could stop it if I tried.
“I obviously didn’t ask for this,” I remind Narron. “And besides, a slave in a tower is no less a slave than one in a dungeon.”
Narron laughs at my statement. “You are the only slave here,” he tells me.
“I wasn’t suggesting you were a slave. I was only pointing out that it doesn’t matter where he wants to keep me. Location wouldn’t change my situation.”
“Nothing will change your situation,” he growls, still making his slow advance while I make my hasty retreat.
“What’d you come here to do, Captain Obvious? Tell me shit I already know?” I mock, finally getting fed up enough to lash out at the beast of a man.
“No.” He smiles now, a creeping and villainous smile. “I came here to train you.” The look in his eyes makes a tremor start in my hands. My heart climbs up into my throat and I duck around a pillar. He jukes to one side and suddenly we’re face to face again. A yelp escapes my lips and I slap my hands over my mouth, leaping back.
“Okay, where are we going?” I question, trying my best to sound casual and make it to the door. I don’t want to be alone in this room with him anymore.
“Going?” he asks, tilting his head to one side. If his brow was more than just a rippled ridge, I imagine he’d be cocking his eyebrow at me right now.
“To train? Are we going to a gym or something like that? A uh…I don’t know, a dojo? You guys said I had to learn to fight…”
Narron pauses a few feet from me. I’m almost at the door. “When you work for The Oscillion will you be fighting your adversaries in gyms? When another boss’s team engages with you will they be wearing safety pads?” he asks, taking his turn to mock me. He doesn’t look at me as he says these things. Instead he eyes a vase on a table next to him. He picks it up and rolls it in his massive hand, tossing it a little to test its weight.
“No, I guess not.”
“What’s that?” he asks, looking up from the vase.
Though I’m sure he heard me I repeat myself. “No, I said. I guess not.”
“No. Where do you think you’ll be?”
“I don’t know, anywhere. Out in the desert, in the market, places like this,” I say, looking around me, shrugging at the room.
“Exactly. So, this is where we will train.” He speaks the words casually, but his body coils and he pulls his arm back, launching the vase at me without warning. I drop to the ground, hugging my head as the glass vessel explodes on the door behind me and sprays me with its shards.
As scream involuntarily escapes me. “You are cornered in a room with your enemy and now you just called his friends. Congratulations, you just killed yourself, princess.”
I scramble to my feet and hurry to put more distance between me and my trainer. Anger begins to override my fear and I clutch onto that emotion for dear life. “Oh, it was my scream that called his friends? Don’t you think someone would notice the smashed fucking vase in a stealth scenario?”
Narron laughs again. “You are right, you were dead before you could even scream.”
I scowl at him, but not because he’s wrong. I’ve had a death sentence hanging over my head since I woke up on the Ju’tup ship. I’m a dead man walking, and now that they’ve stolen Dax from me, my days are surely numbered. Why fight it? I grab the nearest vase and chuck it back at him with all my might. Miraculously it connects with his shoulder and shatters against him. He looks at me in surprise.
“Just because I’m already dead doesn’t mean I can’t take someone out with me,” I grit. A smile crosses his face. Not a menacing one, but a real one. It causes me to drop my guard in confusion for just a millisecond, but that’s all he needs. Narron leaps for me. I dive out of the way, tripping and stumbling over all the damned pillows strewn about this godforsaken place. I feel his massive hand enclose around my calf and he hauls me up into the air.
“One point for you. One for me. Let’s begin again,” he says, dropping me and taking a few steps back. I land in heap on the ground but don’t waste a second getting to my feet and bolting away from him.
“What is this?” I yell behind me.
“This is the first day of your training, princess. I will see what I have to work with and we will go from there.”
“This is it? This is what my ‘training’ is going to be?” I question, taken aback.
“Today it is,” he says, eyeing a small dresser. He pulls a heavy wooden drawer from it and sends it spiraling toward me like a damned frisbee. I leap out of the way, sliding across the tiled floor on my stomach, like I’m trying to steal second base.
“Damnit, Narron! That could have killed me!” I scream, crawling over to hide behind anoth
er pillar.
He laughs again. “Yes, Princess Obvious, that is the point. I didn’t come here to train you for a tea party.”
“Oh, fuck you, Narron,” I pant breathlessly, looking around the room for a weapon. Maybe I can at least get another point off of him. “Like you know me.”
“I do not know you, but I can see you,” he says, sounding oh so close. For a split second I mistake his meaning and nearly make a run for it, but he continues. “I can see that you are weak. I can see that you are scared and I can see that you have no business guarding The Oscillion, or anyone else for that matter. I can also see that you are a female and if your first opponent does not simply kill you he will most likely rape you and then kill you. That is enough to know, is it not?”
I get to my feet, angry and gritting my teeth. Pushing off of the pillar, I make a run for the bar. At full sprint I leap over the counter and fall down into the safety of the other side. I expected Narron to launch something at me, but what I didn’t expect was for it to be a knife. Nevertheless, a blade slices the air and embeds itself on the wall just above my head.
