by Susan Hayes
The restrooms were down a long, dimly lit hall. She passed the men’s room, then the ladies’, and claimed a corner of the hall beside the emergency exit. She could call Gwen, but Gwen would insist on coming down to get her, and Lisa didn’t want to ask that of her friend. She wasn’t totally sure she wanted to end the date, either.
Vadir was clearly used to getting what he wanted, but he’d also showed her that he could be vulnerable. He was smart, sexy, charming, and despite what she’d said to him, she was powerfully attracted to him…even if he was pushy and possibly a little nuts. To be fair, more than one guy had said the same thing about her.
Losing her mother had taught her that life was too short to be held back by fear. Fear had stopped her mom from leaving her abusive bastard of a husband for years. That was time she’d never get back. Sometimes, Lisa felt like she was living for not just herself, but for her mom, too.
Her musings were interrupted by loud voices coming out of the men’s room. Familiar voices. Damn and double damn, that sounded like Mike.
“…the women in this city are fucking bitches. All of ‘em. Won’t give a man the time of day without checking your credit rating first.”
The door started to open, and the voices got louder. With nowhere else to go, she turned and bolted through the emergency exit. She would have been fine, but the damned thing was alarmed, and a shrill beeping filled her ears as her feet hit the cool, wet concrete of the alley.
Back alleys and bare feet. She was going to need a tetanus shot after this.
She kept moving, trying to avoid the bigger puddles and hoping that the light drizzle didn’t soak her too badly before she made it back into the restaurant. She was still in the alley when the back door flew open again. She looked back, prepared to run if it was Mike or one of his idiot friends.
“Lisa!” Vadir appeared in the alley, looking a little frantic. When he saw her, he ran over to her at a speed that made her wonder if he ‘d been a track star when he was younger.
Once he was closer, he slowed to a walk, not stopping until they were almost touching. “You left. Why?”
“I needed a minute to think about what you were saying. Before that happened, I crossed paths with Mike again. I ended up out here, but I was coming back. I just needed to walk around to the front door. Why did you follow me?”
He frowned. “I went looking for you when I heard the alarm. I was concerned. Wait, you left the table because of me?”
“I did.” She opted for the truth. “My father was a possessive, abusive bastard who ended up killing my mother while I hid in a closet. I don’t react well to possessive or pushy men.”
“I’m sorry about your mother. As for being possessive…” He grunted in frustration. “There’s a lot I need to explain to you. Time isn’t on our side right now. When that drunken fool accosted you, I lost my head a little. Where I’m from, no male would do what he did. It’s not acceptable to treat a female that way.”
“Well, you’re clearly not from around here, then, because that happens a lot.” She shrugged. “If things had escalated, I would have dealt with him.”
He gave her a look an incredulous look, his brows lifted almost to his hairline. “What would you have done, stab him with the heel of your shoe?” His gaze dropped to her feet, and he frowned. “Where are your shoes?”
“I left them back at the restaurant. I kicked them off in case I needed to move quickly and forgot to put them back on afterward.” Despite everything, she laughed. “You’re right. I should have used one as a weapon. I’ll remember that for next time.”
For a second, she could have sworn Vadir’s eyes flashed that brilliant gold again.
"There will not be a next time. I will not leave you alone again. Each time I do so, you seem to find trouble,” he said, his voice a sexy rumble that wrapped around her heart and made her clit throb in time to her heartbeat.
“I’m telling you, I saw her again. The uptight blonde with the great tits.” Another male voice came out of the darkness”
Another male answered, but his comment was too slurred to be understood.
“Fuck you. I’m not obsessed or delusional. I saw her go through the door right as the alarm went off.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me. Three times in one night?” Lisa hissed in frustration and glanced over at Vadir, her finger to her lips to remind him to speak softly. “We should probably hide, in case he decides to look for me. I don’t want you getting into a fight, and I left my attack heels inside.”
He frowned. “You don’t want me to fight? Do you think I’m incapable of defending you?”
“What? No. I’m sure you take some sort of kickboxing class or weekend warrior boot camp to have a body like yours. You said time isn’t on our side. How much of it do you want to waste punching that jerk in the face?”
“Gotta take a leak. Be back in three shakes of my tallywacker.” Mike was laughing to himself as he staggered into sight at the end of the alley.
“I’m not letting him near you again.” Vadir moved so quickly she didn’t have time to react. One second she was standing in the rain-soaked alley, and the next she was being lifted into his arms.
“Vadir! What the hell are you doing? Put me down.”
“No. You’re not safe here. The males of your species are barbaric, and you don’t wish me to fight to protect you. Flames and fury, you don’t even have shoes on your feet right now. You clearly need someone to take care of you.”
She started to thrash and kick, determined to get free. “I can take care of myself. Put me down right now, or you’re going to learn that first hand.”
“I can’t do that. We’re nearly out of time, and I can’t risk us being interrupted again.” He shifted her in his arms and touched his left wrist. “Hang on. This isn’t going to be pleasant.”
“What won’t be—” her question was cut off by a strident squeal that pierced her to the marrow of her bones. It went on for several agonizing seconds then ended as abruptly as it started, leaving her adrift in an abyss of nothingness.
There was no light or sound. Absolutely darkness pressed in from all directions. She tried to scream and discovered she had no voice. Worse, she had no body. No breath. No lungs. Just when she started to wonder if she would ever escape the hellish darkness, the world returned in a blast of light and noise. Her senses reeled, and she struggled to make sense of what she was seeing. None of it made any sense. Where the hell am I?
5
The dark alley Lisa had been standing in was gone. Hell, she wasn’t even outside anymore. Wherever they were, it was warm, dry, and brightly lit. Stark white walls curved in a semi-circle behind them, forming a small alcove. Beyond she could see a console full of instruments and two seats. It looked a bit like an airplane cockpit.
Overwhelmed by the number of things she couldn’t explain, she focused on the one thing she could deal with: Vadir.
She jammed her feet against one curved wall of the alcove and shoved as hard as she could. It was enough to loosen his hold, and she pressed her advantage. She pushed, kicked and twisted until he finally released her, though he was careful enough that she landed on her feet instead of falling into a heap on the floor.
“What was that? What did you do to me? And where the fuck are we?” She demanded, waving her hands around her in wild gestures. She knew she was losing it, and she really didn’t care.
“That was a short-range teleportation. I brought you to my ship where we can talk without interruption.”
“As much as I wish it were otherwise, teleportation is not a real thing.” She poked her index finger into the rock-hard planes of his chest. “Try again. And this time don’t use any words you learned from watching Star Trek or Harry Potter.”
He captured her hand in his, pinning it to his chest. “This is real. We’re on my ship, the Redshift 7. We got here by teleporting. You’re my true mate, and I’m here to negotiate an agreement with you and then take you back to Pyros with m
e.”
She yanked her hand out of his grip and stepped away from him. “I’m not negotiating with you, and I’m not going anywhere but home. Alone. Right now. Which way is the door?” She started looking around, but the markings on the walls were all in an unfamiliar script, and there didn’t appear to be any doorways, just a stretch of corridor with occasional panels on the walls to her right, and the cockpit-like area to her left.
He followed her out of the alcove, but instead of arguing with her, he started speaking in a sharp, tongue-twisting series of syllables. She didn’t recognize a single thing he said, and she started to wonder if he wasn’t crazy, after all. The number of things she couldn’t explain were stacking up fast.
The fire of her anger met the first icy tendrils of pure panic, pushing her to her breaking point.
“Where’s the door, Vadir? Stop babbling and answer me!”
Another voice started speaking in that same strange language, and then the floor beneath her feet began to vibrate and hum as if an engine had started. An engine meant movement and movement meant—oh hell no.
Vadir stepped into the cockpit and gestured toward a seat. “You’re not leaving until I’ve had a chance to explain things. I’m truly sorry, this is not how I intended things to go. I promise we’ll talk just as soon as I find us a quiet spot where we won’t be detected.”
“Let me out of here right now.” Her voice was more of a cracked whisper than the battle cry she was hoping for.
“I can’t do that.”
The last shreds of her control snapped, and she exploded. With a frustrated snarl, she closed the short distance between them and shoved him. “I want to go home!”
He grunted, more in surprise than pain and she followed up her push with a punishing right hook.
Still off balance from her initial shove, Vadir staggered backward, missing the two chairs and landing rather heavily on top of the console. That’s when all hell broke loose. Alarms wailed, lights strobed, and the floor dropped out from under her. She screamed and tried to find something to hang onto, but there was nothing but the slick surface of the wall within her reach.
She experienced the next few seconds as if she were watching it in slow motion. Vadir pushed himself off the console and caught her as she slid down the sloped floor toward him. She expected him to at least be annoyed at her, but all he did was shove her into the nearest of the chairs and somehow get her arms into a safety harness.
His eyes were glowing gold again as he locked gazes with her, his hands gripping the arms of her chair as the scream of the alarms grew to an ear-shattering crescendo. She recognized his expression, and it made her heart twist. She had seen that look of grim determination on her mother’s face just before she closed the closet door and went to face Lisa’s father for the last time.
She reached for him, managing to cup his face in her hand for a brief second before the wild ride ended with a sickening crash.
The pain of the straps biting into her shoulders roused Lisa from her dazed stupor. The floor was angled downward on the left, the angle steep enough to pull her partially out of her chair so that her left leg and arm were dangling at an uncomfortable angle.
She cautiously checked herself for damage. Apart from feeling like she’d been tossed into a jumbo-sized tumble dryer, she didn’t appear to have any serious injuries. She ached all over, and her ears were still ringing, but that was the worst of it. She wriggled out of the harness that had saved her.
A few amber and red lights flickered on the console in front of her. She had no idea what they might mean, but they did provide a little light in the otherwise dark space.
“Vadir?”
No answer.
“Dammit. You better not be hurt. I need you alive and awake, so I can yell at you for abducting me…and then thank you for saving my life.” He’d put her in that harness knowing full well he wouldn’t have time to save himself.
She managed to get to her feet, hanging on to the chair for balance as she braced one foot against the wall and kept the other on the floor. A quick scan confirmed that Vadir wasn’t in the cockpit with her. She would have been able to see him. Damn it. Where is he?
Gingerly she dropped to her hands and knees and started crawling in the other direction. The chimes on her ankle jingled as she crept along, the whimsical sound oddly incongruent with her current surroundings.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when a voice started speaking in that strange language again. It sounded remarkably calm, and it didn’t take long for Lisa to realize that it had to be the ship’s computer. Nothing alive could possibly be that cool after what they’d all experienced.
“It would be too much to hope that you speak English, wouldn’t it?” she muttered.
“I am programmed to speak your language, yes.”
“Terrific. In that case, uh…tell me where Vadir is and if he’s even alive, call for help, and then give me a damage report or at least tell me we’re not going to blow up.”
“Vadir is alive and located three meters ahead and to your right. I am not programmed to obey operational commands from unregistered passengers.” The sexless voice paused for a moment before adding. “But I can tell you that I do not believe there is any risk of explosion. I am a top of the line luxury cruise liner designed and built by the renowned engineers of the Caspar Shipyards. I am too well constructed to blow up.”
“Good to know.” Lisa kept crawling in the direction the computerized voice had indicated.
Less than a minute later, she was kneeling at Vadir’s side. He was bleeding from a gash on his forehead, and there were several bruises blooming on his face and neck. He was unconscious, too, which wasn’t a good sign. “Hey, computer—ship thingy. Can you scan Vadir and tell me if he’s injured?”
“Of course. And you may call me Cas.”
“Okay, Cas. I’m Lisa. Now, how’s our patient?”
“His current condition is less than ideal. However, he has no broken bones or life-threatening injuries. I am equipped with a fully automated medical bay powered by a protected power supply. If you bring him there, I will be able to repair him.”
She eyed Vadir’s big body, then surveyed the sloped floor and the long stretch of corridor. “It would take an Olympic weightlifter to move this guy anywhere. I can’t do it alone.” Lisa sat down on the slanted floor and gently eased Vadir’s head into her lap. She placed a hand over his cut and applied pressure, hoping it would at least slow the bleeding.
If anyone had asked her why she was helping the man who had just kidnapped her, she wouldn’t have been able to give them a reason. She should be trying to escape, but her heart wasn’t letting her leave.
“You owe me big time, Vee. I should leave your sexy, unconscious ass here on the floor after what you did.”
He groaned and muttered something in his strange language.
“And once you’re awake, we are going to have a long talk about the shit you left out of your profile. You’re not even the same species as me! And while I’m thrilled to discover I was right and aliens do exist, you’re still not forgiven for lying to me. Or zapping me here. I hope your species knows what grovelling is, because you owe me a lot of it.”
His eyes opened, and relief coursed through her as he cracked a ghost of a smile. “It’s a good thing I’m rich, then. As I understand it, grovelling can be expensive. So, I take it we lived? Well, that’s one thing that’s gone right since I met you.”
The pain he felt was nothing compared to the immense relief he experienced when he first heard Lisa’s voice. She was alright. If his actions had led to her being hurt, he would have never forgiven himself.
“We lived. Which means you have a lot of explaining to do.” Her lovely eyes were dark with worry, and it made him feel better than it should to know that concern was all for him.
“I do. I also owe you an apology.” He reached up to touch her cheek, and a blast of desire swept through him with the force of a comet strike. He had to f
ight the urge to drive his fingers into her hair and pull her in for a kiss. Flames, he needed to kiss her soon.
“Your eyes kept doing this weird colour shift from brown to gold. Why is that?”
“It’s the Scorching.” He tried to raise his head and immediately wished he hadn’t. Pain stabbed into his temples and bright lights danced and spun across his vision like a tiny meteor shower.
“What the hell is the Scorching? No, wait, don’t answer that, yet. We need to get you to the medical bay. Cas said it could fix you up. Then you can explain what’s going on with you, your eyes, and all of this.” She gestured around them.
“Cas spoke to you?” His ship’s AI rarely spoke to anyone but him. For a computer program, it was decidedly picky about who it communicated with.
“It did. It wouldn’t give me a damage report, but it did tell me you weren’t dying and that the ship wasn’t about to blow up.”
“Cas, report.”
Cas answered in Pyrosian. “Your companion does not take direction well. I informed her you needed to get to the medical bay.”
“Keep your opinion to yourself and give me a damage report.” Vadir continued to speak in English so that Lisa could understand what he was saying.
“Then will you get yourself to medical?”
“Cas!” he barked and winced as the bellow triggered another wave of pain.
“I can repair everything that is damaged, including you. It will, however, take some time. My power conduits are damaged. Propulsion is inoperative. Communications and signal relay systems are down. There is structural damage to the hull. I have rerouted power to the shields, which should be sufficient to keep us from being detected, however, while we are hidden, it will be impossible for the Firebrand to locate us.”
“Wonderful,” he muttered. “Cas, continue repairs. Prioritize communications. I need to tell Commander Denza what’s happened.”
