by Kate Rudolph
On her new ledge, she found a stream of water trickling down the wall. She pressed her face flat against stone and opened her mouth wide, too thirsty to care that it might not be safe. The first sip went down, and she tasted minerals and grit and under that, the wet quench of water. She pulled herself back and rubbed it into her lips, her skin drinking it up like sand.
Though she wanted nothing more than to sit there all day with her mouth open and let it drip down, she forced herself to pull out one of the collapsible canteens and hold it under the trickle. Relief coursed through her when the canteen remained the same dark color that it was supposed to be. Collapsible canteens like this changed color when liquid was unsafe for consumption. But seconds ticked by and little more than a small sip filled the bottle. With a curse, Stella put the canteen to her lips and drank down the precious liquid. She needed a better source than a faint stream.
The lake beckoned, rippling and black in the dark, but too far down to be her real goal. She gave it a longing look and continued down the rock on careful feet. The trickle she’d found on the higher level was little more than a damp spot against the rock lower down, but under it a tiny puddle formed, barely bigger than a shoe print. Stella was ready to kneel and scoop up everything she could, but as she watched, the depression got smaller as water drained through an invisible hole in the ground.
She moved lower.
Yes!
Three little trickles fed into a pool no bigger than the kitchen sink in her apartment, but the water was cold and fresh and deep. She filled up the canteens and hooked them to her belt on little carabiners that were attached to the lids. She scooped up water in her hands and drank deep, letting the coolness infuse deep into her bones. She didn’t care that she’d been chilly any time she stepped away from Arest. This was a chill of refreshment. Already her mind was more focused as she took in the much-needed moisture.
The room seemed to brighten around her as her eyes started to focus, and even her hearing improved. She looked down at the pool, wondering if this was some kind of super water. But nothing about it tasted strange, and the canteen would have turned an ugly shade of yellow if the water was unsafe to drink.
Feet scuffled behind her and Stella whirled around, grabbing a rock and holding it up as she moved. But Arest stood behind her, shoulders stiff and one hand clutched at his side, covering a wound that seeped thick red blood.
He stumbled forward to his knees and fell face first in front of her.
HE SMELLED STELLA AND water. No. He smelled Stella and tasted water cool against his lips and trickling in a steady stream down his throat. Fingers caressed his forehead, cold pressure on his overwarm skin. He heard a murmur, but couldn’t decipher the words. He didn’t care so long as those fingers stayed where they were and the water kept coming.
But he breathed too deep, trying to drag in more of Stella’s intoxicating scent, and the wound at his side pulled hard, sending a lance of pain through him until he gasped.
His eyes shot open and he found himself cradled against Stella, his head in her lap as she slowly poured water into his mouth and held her bundled up shirt against his chest, pressing it there with a knee.
He tried to turn away as water splashed across his face, tried to see if any more of those creatures lurked in the shadows, but Stella’s hand was a vise against his head and he couldn’t struggle against her.
“It’s okay,” she whispered over him, gently brushing his skin and letting her fingers run over his short hair. “The wound isn’t that bad. You’re just thirsty.”
As she said it, he realized she was right. The creature had raked claws against him, taking a solid swipe at his midsection, but it was a surface wound, painful but far from fatal.
Though he’d sooner kiss one of those creatures than stop touching her, Arest forced himself to sit up. He took control of the shirt she’d used as a bandage and pulled it back to look at the wound. Just as he’d thought, ugly but mundane. He’d scar but survive.
He reached for the bag that he’d long ago slung over his shoulder and pulled it around, digging inside until his hand made contact with two energy bars. He dug further and found an old strip of cloth with some company logo on it, which he vaguely remembered seeing people use to wipe off com screens.
It wasn’t a perfect bandage, but he couldn’t let Stella walk around in the flimsy dark bra she wore. She’d freeze to death. Already her lips looked a little blue.
In another pocket he found a small bit of adhesive and used it to secure his makeshift bandage before pulling Stella completely into his arms, crushing her form close. She melted against him, wrapping an arm loosely around him and laying her head against his shoulder. When he silently offered her an energy bar, she took it and set it down in her lap.
“We’re not so bad off, a-are w-we?” she asked, stuttering out the last words as she shivered.
Arest rubbed his hands up and down her arms, trying to warm her up as best he could. He wanted to rail at her for taking off her shirt to tend to him. The wound wasn’t bad, he wanted to say. He could take much worse. She needed the warmth, she was the one who mattered. She was the one who had to get out.
But his tongue weighed too much and he could barely form half a sentence, let alone a paragraph.
He briefly let go of her and rubbed her shirt in the dust to try and soak up the blood it had taken. He didn’t want to wet it and make it unwearable. When he held it up to her, he couldn’t read her expression. She took the shirt back with gentle fingers and grimaced as her hand came away covered in dirt.
“I panicked when you fell,” she explained, grimacing. She unwrapped the energy bar and took a small bite. She leaned in against him and his hands came around her like it was the most natural thing in the world. His fingers rested idly on her stomach, expanding out and contracting in with each of her breaths. This time when she shivered, he didn’t think it had anything to do with the cold.
His own body was reacting to her proximity and her scent, injury be damned.
He forced some hard earned discipline into his mind and took a bit of the energy bar. It was ash in his mouth, but he ate with mechanical bites and drank deep of the water when he was done. Even though the bar fit in the palm of his hand with room to spare, the gnawing hunger that had become as constant a companion as Stella began to subside and unknot.
“I’m okay,” he said, finally managing a complete sentence, even if it was short.
“What is this place?” Stella asked the question that had been turning over in Arest’s mind for some time. “I’ve never felt so lost before.”
A word floated up in his mind, a piece of the puzzle of who he’d been. “Maze,” he said. “Challenge.” A challenge for him. Or a job. Were they being watched now, entertaining fodder for the people of this planet? Or was this one of his darker missions?
Stella caught on to part of his thought, taking it down a different path. “If this is a maze, then we need to find the center. That’s the goal, right? Maybe there’ll be a control room or an exit or something. If we find that, we can get out. We can go home.”
“I’ll get you out,” he promised. “I’ll get you home.” For him though? There was no home for him to go to, and no place where he was safe.
CHAPTER SEVEN
STELLA DIDN’T KNOW whether to rejoice at his improving speech or tear up at the bleak tone. He’d told her, hadn’t he? That he was bad, that he’d been made into a beast, made by someone on a faraway planet. Taken from his home and the life he knew. Erased until nothing was left but a monster.
If she got free and if this planet didn’t turn out to be hostile, she could go back to the civilian fleet and the life she’d been living. If he got free, he only had a life in chains, and that was no life at all.
“When we get out, you can come with me,” she said, the offer springing out without conscious thought. But the rightness of it lay easily in her bones. “I’m not anyone special back home, but I know people. I’ll get you out.�
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Behind her, Arest stiffened and his hand flattened against her stomach. Ooooh, it felt good to be touched by him, even as they contemplated that these might be their last days. When the food ran out, so would their time. And if monsters lurked by all the sources of water, every drink would be a risk.
“Not safe. Trainers would find me.” He bit out the words, fighting something in himself to speak. The longer they were together, the more clearly he talked. Stella wondered why. Perhaps he’d been treated like an animal for so long that he’d forgotten how to be a person.
She scowled. If someone put her in a room with the people who’d done this to Arest, she’d be the only one to make it out alive.
Violence didn’t live in her thoughts like that, not normally. And the intensity terrified her. The fleet appointed therapist that she had to see every six months would tell her that this was a bond formed through trauma, that her emotions were all keyed up because of disaster and none of it would last beyond the danger.
But Stella knew what a relation born of trauma felt like, and this wasn’t it. Arest had sunk deep into her skin and grabbed hold of her soul, and the thought of letting him suffer, of letting him go, caused that soul to rebel. She turned in his arms, letting her shirt drop back to the ground. She’d deal with it later.
She placed her hands on his cheeks, cupping his head and looking deep into those intense blue eyes of his. “We’re in this together,” she said. “Got it? And I’ll fight anyone who tries to take you back to that hell you were trapped in. No more.”
His pupils dilated and his nostrils flared. Her breath caught as he narrowed his intensity on her, one hand cupping her elbow, the other hidden. “Not safe,” he insisted, but he didn’t push her away.
Stella moved even further into his space, coming up on her knees until only centimeters separated them, her forehead hot with the heat coming off his. “You’ll be safe with me.”
Confusion dimmed the intensity for a moment until something hot and human and easily recognizable flared. She’d seen that look, the narrowed gaze, intent on conquering. The lips, open just the tiniest bit as if he could taste her on the air. Desire, hot and hard and all for her. Yes, Stella had seen it before, but no one had ever looked at her quite like Arest did. The mantle of want fit him like a glove, and he moved so smoothly that she didn’t see it until his lips covered hers.
Her hands slid up and around until she hugged his neck, pressing herself close. His lip were warm and soft from the water they’d drunk and Stella felt a little lightheaded, drunk on Arest, and she never wanted to sober up.
When his fingers curled in her own knotted hair, she groaned and lit up, an endless well of want showing her just how empty she was inside. On her knees next to him, maneuvering closer was a bit difficult, especially since she refused to stop kissing him even for a second. But Stella managed, finding an angle that let her throw one leg over his hip, and feel the hot press of flesh between her legs.
Arest took her bottom lip into his mouth and nipped at it, the mix of pleasure and the smallest hint of pain a wild aphrodisiac.
His tongue met hers again and Stella squeezed her eyes tight, her fingers curling even more. She needed him, wanted him, couldn’t do without him for another minute. And if she could just get her damn pants off she’d take all of him.
But undoing the buckle meant letting go of him, and there was no way she was taking her hands away from his hot skin and hard muscle, not now when she could have her fill.
She let her fingers trail down his back, bumping over ridges she wasn’t sure were human. His shoulder blades were harsh points of bone and muscle, each a tight reminder of his strength. Stella felt no softness in him, only heat and muscle.
His claws scraped lightly down one of her sides and if she’d been sane, she might have been afraid. But her shiver had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with desire. All the danger in him lit her up even more, making her hot and wet and aching.
That claw found the strap of her bra and only when he dug under one strap, tantalizingly careful not to nick her skin, did the barest hint of sanity intervene. “Don’t cut it,” she whispered against his lips. “It unsnaps in the back.”
Arest stilled. Even his lips froze, and Stella feared that he’d pull back, call an end to the flame that rose between them. Instead, she carefully slid his claw back and reached around, the pads of his fingers light against her spine. She held her breath as her skin pebbled under his careful fingers. And then her bra sagged and slid down, constraining her arms a bit but freeing her breasts to Arest’s hungry gaze.
Stella swallowed. Hard. The beast was back, and this time his entire focus centered on her. With deliberate, tantalizing slowness, he leaned forward and took one nipple into his mouth, lapping at the stiff peak and swirling his tongue around until Stella’s mind turned to goo and she let out an inhuman moan.
She clutched him close, afraid that if she let him go, he’d dissolve into nothing more than a dream. Because now he was all fantasy, his strong body and skilled tongue dedicated to bringing her to heights of pleasure she hadn’t known she was missing.
His fingers delved lower, pressing against her abdomen, the points of his claws a pricking reminder of the danger he carried within. But Stella arched into him, spreading her legs, wanting, needing, more. Given the choice between rescue and another five minutes with Arest, she couldn’t be certain that she’d make the right choice.
She wasn’t certain which choice was the right one.
He kissed around the swell of her breast and traced a pathway with his tongue down the center of her stomach, all the way to where he met the clasp of her pants. Stella’s head lolled back as his fingers reached up to brush her breast again, and she didn’t even think to warn him not to rip her clothing. But he was gentle, taking his time to undo the button and expose her to the cool air of the cavern, sliding her pants down until she was laid out before him, a wet collection of curls and want.
His eye flicked up as she looked down at him, her own lids drooping in pleasure, and their stares met, electric blue slamming into brown and snapping a connection into place she could feel deep in her heart, anchored in muscle and sinew. The moment grew, stretching beyond anything normal, and it should have been awkward, but as she watched him, Stella saw hints of the man he might have once been. His skin would have been a deep tan, not the muted purple he now wore, but those eyes had always been blue, even if they now held a magical glint. He’d made the claws his own, but once upon a time she was certain that he’d been a gentle man, a protector rather than a brawler.
Even now he protected her body, even as her heart slipped into more danger than she’d ever known.
He turned his gaze down to her exposed sex and Stella sucked in a breath as he studied her. She’d always liked a little dirty talk before, but his silent worship brought her close to the edge with a ferocious intensity that made this moment special, different, something she couldn’t qualify and would never forget.
His lips descended and her mind melted again, whatever sanity she’d managed to recapture shattering under the assault of his tongue. Her moans dissolved into gasps and she helplessly grinded her hips against him while he held her in place with a single hand on her hip and carefully used his fingers, ever mindful of his claws, and tongue to bring her to the heights of pleasure.
She came with a cry, his name hot on her lips and no thought of danger or the future or anything but him firmly in her mind.
He kissed her inner thigh and traced his fingers over her skin. With someone else, Stella might have felt shy, but something about Arest calmed her, bared her. With him it was too right for shame. His kisses trailed back up her stomach and her chest, climbing her neck until he captured her lips, tasting herself on him.
His hot cock pressed against her and Stella arched into him, reaching down for his own pants, to take him into her. To make her his. And when her hand stroked his hard length, he growled.
MINE.
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The word drove him to claim her with his lips, to taste the heat of her until she was rippling and writhing around him, her moans echoing in the cavern behind them. His cock was a rod in his pants and when her fingers curled around it, all of Arest’s instincts screamed at him to press her down into the ground and take her in that most primal way.
But he forced himself to place a hand on top of hers and pull away, even as the taste of her pleasure still coated his tongue.
“Not safe,” he said. His back still stung from his fight with the creature and an awareness of them lurked at the edge of his consciousness. They still sat in the heart of enemy territory and he could not spend the night fucking his woman until she couldn’t walk.
Not yet.
No one had ever tried to protect him, not since this new life of his. In the one before, he didn’t know. But even if someone had tried, clearly they’d failed. And here was his Stella, offering to fight the men who’d made him into a beast, offering to take on all the worlds, just to keep him safe.
He hadn’t known that he still had a heart, and now it belonged completely to her.
Awareness flickered back into Stella’s liquid brown eyes, her face losing some of that boneless pleasure that he’d brought to her. Male satisfaction settled into him and he almost grinned. She’d been beautiful, squirming on top of him, mindless and helpless to the pleasure he gave her. And he vowed that he would bring that look to her face again, that he would be the only one to ever bring that look to her face.
Mine.
He didn’t bother to tell himself that he had no right to make a claim, that he was nothing but a lab-created beast sent out to do his master’s bidding. Not anymore. He’d fight every heaven and every hell to sit beside his Stella. He’d be her beast and keep her safe until he drew his last breath.
The sound she made as he pushed her hand back almost had him jerking her forward so that he could plunge into her hot, wet depth. But he found a well of discipline he didn’t know he possessed and forced himself to back up.
