Enslaved Book III: The Gladiators

by Kaitlyn O'Connor

  Loren released a gusty sigh. “I guess that depends on how far away we scared the animals.”

  “Humph!” Karen snorted. “As if this thing wouldn’t have sent them scurrying in every direction! What do they think they’re going to do, anyway? Sneak up on them?”

  “I don’t know. They call in hunting. I guess they hunt until they find something.”

  “I think we might as well resign ourselves to more of the lizard-man’s grubs,” Karen said glumly.

  “Don’t say that! I’ve been trying really hard not to think that way when I have to eat the damned things!” Loren snapped.

  “The entire bay is going to be working alive with bugs by tomorrow. Mark my words! That’s probably going to be dinner for the next leg of the trip. They left with machetes! What are they going to get with those? They don’t even have guns!”

  They came back with a beast so huge it took four of them to carry it. It was the most horrible thing Loren had ever seen in her life and that was before they started hacking it up and pulling the guts out.

  The men had been gone so long that she’d been too worried to wait inside any longer and had crept down to the bay to see if there was any sign of them. Fortunately, all of the men had swarmed around the thing to help hack it up and she couldn’t see all that well, even though they’d dropped the carcass near the huge fire Balen had built.

  She debated with herself and finally settled on the edge of the bay floor with her feet on the gangplank, listening to the men. She didn’t doubt those who’d killed the thing were recounting their hunt even though she couldn’t understand a word of it, and she smiled faintly, wishing abruptly that she could understand them.

  The language they used to communicate with didn’t belong to any of them. It suddenly seemed important that she make an attempt to learn their language when one of them had fathered her baby. She dropped her hand to her belly after a bit, feeling a faint flutter. At first, she was inclined to dismiss it as a muscle twitch, but when she felt it again it was on the other side. A smile blossomed slowly as it dawned on her that it was the baby.

  She could feel the baby moving!

  A sense of awe filled her. She hadn’t really thought in terms of having a baby growing inside of her. She’d thought about being pregnant. She’d noticed that the slight puffiness had given way to a new roundness, but she still hadn’t thought about it in terms of a new life, a new person.

  She was still waiting breathlessly for the next movement when the men finally turned and started toward the gangplank, carrying chunks of raw meat on their shoulders.

  Kael paused at the foot, looking up at her. She grinned at him, searching for Dakaar and Balen. “I felt it move.”

  Kael’s eyes sharpened on her face for a moment and then drifted to where her hand cupped her belly. Grinning abruptly, he threw a comment over his shoulder at Dakaar and Balen. She surged to her feet when they strode up the gangplank, beaming at them. “It’s moving. It’s alright.” She felt her chin wobble precariously when she said it. She hadn’t even realized how fearful she was that it might not be until she discovered it was alright.

  Kael lifted a hand toward her face, stopped abruptly to examine it and dropped it to his side again. “Celebrate,” he said shakily. “Big feast.”

  Loren chuckled as she looked up at the ‘roast’ he was carrying. “Very big feast!”

  She surged toward him abruptly, uncaring that he was bloody all over from cutting up their kill. She needed contact. He made a tsking sound when she put her arms around him, but he slipped an arm around her shoulders and planted a kiss on her forehead.

  “Now mess!” he said chidingly. “Like me.”

  Loren grinned at him. “Looks like dinner will take a while. We can share the shower.”

  * * * *

  Loren thought for sure that she was going to starve to death before the food was done. The aroma was enough to have her stomach growling long before it was served. Kael and Dakaar and Balen managed to distract her in the shower for a little while—and in the bed a while after that, but as pleasurable as that was, they’d still managed to exhaust that avenue of entertainment long before the food was done.

  No one was disappointed that they had nothing to go with it, either, once it was served. It tasted as heavenly as it smelled and everyone very cheerfully gorged until they couldn’t eat another bite and then staggered to their beds and collapsed, trying to breathe.

  The men began cooking what remained over a huge spit in the clearing the following morning. Only four remained near the ship, however, to stand guard and to tend the cooking meat. All of the others had disappeared by the time Loren and the other women made it outside.

  “The men are certainly in their element,” Karen remarked after a while.

  Loren glanced at her. They were sitting in the bay once more, this time because it afforded shade. “I’m enthusiastic about the hunting myself,” she said dryly. “I am soooo grateful to have something to eat for a change that’s actually good.”

  “Me also,” Shara agreed. “Now baby get fat. Grow big and strong.”

  Karen and Loren turned to stare at her uncomprehendingly for a long moment. It hit them both at the same time and they sucked in an excited breath. “You’re pregnant?” they chorused.

  Shara grinned and then tried to look serious. “Work bery hard, my mans.”

  Loren digested that for a moment and started laughing.

  “They work hard alright,” Karen said dryly. “I’m about worn to the bone.”

  “Duh,” Loren retorted. “Four Hirachi? And I saw you fluttering your eyes at that Deisen!”

  Karen shrugged and grinned at her. “He’s cute and he’s lonely.”

  Loren frowned. “It doesn’t … bother the Hirachi?”

  “They said he was a good guy. I figured that meant they wouldn’t object. Not that they like it, mind you, but they don’t dislike it enough to say anything.”

  Loren’s mind flickered to Daeman and, unconsciously, she glanced toward him. He’d stayed to help guard and tend the meat and had retreated to the shade of a tree. She looked away again quickly when she discovered he was staring in their direction.

  “He watches you all the time,” Karen said.

  Karen felt color surge into her cheeks. She thought about playing dumb and discarded the idea. “I think he’s still pissed off because Kael tried to beat his head in for getting my bag for me.”

  “Wrong!” Karen said. “They had a fight because Kael thought he was just angling for pussy.”

  Loren threw her a shocked look, but she couldn’t help but laugh. “How do you know?”

  Karen sent her a look. “We do other things besides fuck.”

  “No!” Loren exclaimed in mock disbelief.

  Karen grinned and shot her a bird.

  “They told you that?” she asked curiously.

  She nodded. “I asked them if they would be mad with me if I accepted Jalen—because I’m crazy about them and I wasn’t about to jeopardize that even though I think Jalen’s cute and sexy and I felt bad because he didn’t have a woman! They said the Deisen were honorable men or Kael wouldn’t have let them on the ship.”

  Loren frowned. “Why would Kael have fought him then? I’ve never understood that.”

  “Like I said ….”

  Loren thought that over and sighed. “I guess that answers that, huh?”

  “I guess. I’m not sure I understand the Hirachi mind, you know? I figured all along that that was all it was with any of them—men being men. Not that I felt like complaining. That was one scary place to end up—at Lecur’s. As scary as the Hirachi seemed to me at the time, they also seemed as different from the others as night to day. When they told me I didn’t have to worry that they’d take care of me, I would have promised them anything! Did, actually.

  “I don’t feel like it’s … a business deal, though—never did. They’ve always made me feel good about being with them, as if I really matter to them. O
f course, they scared the pure piss out of me when they went into that spawning thing! That was wild, but I came through it unscathed—not like it was when that bastard turned the others loose! It was almost like they wanted to hurt us.”

  Loren shuddered. She’d done her best to blank her mind to that particular memory, but she had to agree with Karen. It had been almost as if they wanted to hurt them, as if they wanted to punish them more than they wanted sex. “I think a lot of that was Lecur’s fault for taunting them—except they saw it as us taunting them. I know it really pissed them off when they would come to stare at me and I wouldn’t look at them. I was afraid to look at them, you know? But I guess it seemed different to them.” She hesitated. “I love them. I know it’s crazy to even talk about loving three men at the same time, but I do.”

  “No crazier that talking about loving four,” Karen said dryly. “But they’re easy to love and hard not to.”

  Loren dragged in a pained breath. “I guess I’ll stay where ever they decide to stay. I can’t say that I’m that crazy about this place, but if they want to stay ….”

  Karen sighed. “I think I could actually hate this place, but I don’t think I could leave them. Anyway, we burned up so much fuel getting here there’s no telling whether we could ever get home or not—and that would mean giving them up. I may be doomed to misery.”

  Loren smiled faintly. “I don’t think anything could be as miserable as living without them.” She shrugged. “We’ve got the ship. It has all the comforts of home.”

  “Right!” Karen said dryly. “Keep telling yourself that.”

  Loren chuckled. “Some of the comforts of home, anyway. I think I could get used to this … if that’s what they want.”

  “Truthfully? As creepy as this place is, there’s air to breathe and food. I’m not sure that I want to give it up on a chance of finding better anyway. I mean, if I thought we could find a more civilized place, that would be nice, but we have the trader legacy hanging over us and I have a bad feeling nobody welcomed the bastard—except bastards that were as bad as he was.”

  “There is that.” Loren sighed. “I think I’m going to try to at least make peace with Daeman. It was my fault he got in the fight with Kael.”

  Getting to her feet, she went down the gangplank carefully and began to pick her way with equal care across the clearing. She could feel Daeman’s watchful gaze on her the entire way. His expression wasn’t welcoming when she finally halted a short distance away and her discomfort increased. “I wanted to apologize,” she said a little stiltedly. “I know it was my fault … the fight between you and Kael. I honestly didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

  His gaze flickered over her face, but she couldn’t see that he looked any less forbidding than before.

  She chewed her lower lip uncomfortably. “I’d like it if we could friends.”

  He shook his head slowly. “Have friends. Better Lau-ren stay away.”

  Loren stared at him as that slowly sank in. Struggling with the hurt that followed it, she sucked in a shaky breath. “Oh. Alright.” She chewed her lip. “I’ll just go then. I am sorry, though.”

  Turning on her heel, she made her way back to the ship as quickly as she could.

  “What happened?” Karen asked, searching her face as she came up the gangplank.

  “Nothing. I just apologized. I think I’m going to go up and take a nap,” she said, moving quickly past Karen and Shara and heading across the bay to the lift. Hearing footsteps behind her, she began moving a little faster, fully expecting Karen to demand that she wait. Instead, as she sped up, the person behind her did.

  She was nearly running when she reached the lift and darted inside. Relief flooded her when the door began to close at her frantic pounding on the key. Daeman leapt inside even as they closed, however, grabbing her shoulders and pressing her back against the wall.

  She gaped up at him in stunned surprise, feeling her heart leap convulsively in her chest. The fear never had a chance to reach conscious thought, however. He tangled one hand in her hair and dragged her head back. “Want more, Lau-ren,” he growled as he covered her surprise slackened mouth.

  A shockwave went through her, deadening her to all sensation. When it rushed back, it was like a tidal wave. She was abruptly inundated with sensations so intense and broad in scope that it was almost as mind numbing as the shock. She almost felt as if she could feel every muscle and sinew in his body as he pressed tightly against her, the heat and texture of his skin. His mouth seared hers with his heat and flooded her with his taste. His breath filled her with an intoxicating stimulant that made her feel weak and dizzy and heavy all at the same time.

  He broke off the assault almost as abruptly as he’d begun it, breathing as heavily as if he’d run the distance to catch up to her. “Want eber-ting, Lau-ren. No come to me again. Stay away … or I take.”

  Loren staggered slightly when he stepped back, releasing her, and managed to right herself. She stared at him wide eyed for a long moment, trying to swallow past the hard knot in her throat, and then turned blindly away from him and fled the moment the door opened.

  She hadn’t actually thought she needed a nap when she’d run away from Daeman. She’d just wanted to be alone. She felt like crying and, as much as she liked Karen, she was always determined to pick at everything. Karen would’ve seen immediately that she was on the verge of tears and she would’ve been determined to keep prodding until she had the answers she wanted.

  She still felt like she was going to fall apart as she raced to her quarters, but Daeman had completely scattered her wits and it was predominantly fear that drove her in her search for a refuge. She was panting for breath until she felt almost nauseated by the dryness of her throat by the time she’d shut herself into the room and scrambled onto the bed. For a while, she merely stared at the door, more than half expecting Daeman to follow her, her mind empty of any kind of higher thought.

  As time ticked past and he didn’t, she began to slowly relax and her brain, released from its frozen state, allowed higher thought to pour through her mind in a torrent that was almost as debilitating as the lack of anything at all. Part of her mind replayed what he’d said over and over, trying to interpret and reinterpret his words as it struggled first to figure out what he’d said and then what he’d meant and if there’d been any indication in tone to imply a different meaning entirely. Part of her mind was struggling to reconcile his actions with his words and part of it was completely absorbed in an internal search for an understanding of her own reaction.

  She’d felt threatened. That was what had sent her scurrying for cover, but in what way?

  There’d been barely leashed violence in him—in the tension she’d felt in him, in his expression, and in his touch, even in the way he’d kissed her. That was what had alerted her flight instincts, not anything he’d said or done, but the emotions she sensed churning beneath the surface.

  Why?

  Everything inside of her was screaming that she’d had a taste of passion that rivaled the Hirachis when they were in the grip of their spawning fever—except he’d been controlling it—barely, but still far more aware of what he was doing than they had been.

  He wanted her, but he didn’t want to desire her and he’d warned her off—stay away from the fire if you don’t want to get burned.

  “Wow,” she murmured, torn between intrigue and sheer terror. She’d never inspired that kind of passion in anybody before. She frowned, thinking about it, and decided she was pretty sure she hadn’t ever inspired anything even close to that explosively volatile.

  The desire she sensed in Kael and Dakaar and Balen was hot, exciting, and it set her on fire, but she’d never felt as if she would unleash something dark and dangerous if she responded—not even when they’d been in the grips of the spawning fever. They’d been completely single minded and grimly determined to accomplish their goal but she hadn’t felt as if it might … consume them and her with it.

&n
bsp; She swallowed convulsively, feeling heat rise in her and realized abruptly that it had when he’d kissed her, explosively, and that that had been part of the fear—the realization that she was way out of her league and had no idea how to control it.

  That was it, she decided finally, vaguely disappointed, but certain she was right. He must be in his own spawning mode and for whatever reason, probably because of the extremely limited possibilities, he’d targeted her. She just needed to steer clear of him until he found a new target or the need passed.

  She felt far less afraid when she’d figured it out and less hurt by his violent rejection of her offer of friendship. He’d just been warning her off, she decided, because he knew he had little control.

  The sensible thing to do was to heed the warning and not do anything that might overset his tenuous control.

  She discovered that was easier said than done. It had seemed that they were a very large group when they’d been trying to ration food to stay alive on the ship. Once they landed and set out to remedy the food shortage situation, the work load immediately turned that perspective on its head. There weren’t nearly enough of them or nearly enough hours in the day to accomplish everything they wanted and needed to do.

  There was some discussion over whether or not they should try to depod some of the captives on the ship to help, but none of them were certain they could do so without danger to the person inside. Karen and Loren both testified to the fact that the new releases were going to be traumatized and weak from their ordeal and more of a burden until and unless they recovered than a help and more people didn’t just mean more help. It also meant more people to provide for. Since they were currently in no more danger—in fact far less—than they’d been before they were stuck in the pods as far as any of them could see, they finally decided to leave them until their situation improved enough to actually help them when they released them.

  Despite every effort to ignore the implications, Loren couldn’t resist trying to gauge the reaction of the only two unattached, and critically horny, men in their group. Adrin had ignored Shara’s timid invitation. Jalen was almost as touchy as both Adrin and Daeman, for that matter, and clearly not appeased about getting pity sex from Karen.