Eryn cradled her burgeoning belly and for the hundredth time, posed the disturbing question plaguing her more than any other. What right did she have to bring an innocent into such a fucked-up situation and an even more fucked-up world?
Heaving a long-drawn-out sigh, she made her way out of her room and turned down the short hall to the living room. Grabbing her security badge from the high counter of the breakfast bar that divided the kitchen and main living area, she gazed out the large picture window on the far wall facing the street. Through layers of light-blue sheers—Lana’s favorite color and the same that covered the plush couch, accented the abundant toss pillows, and was liberally splashed throughout the apartment her roommate had painstakingly decorated—Eryn could see dark, pervasive gray clouds. Already, she could feel the weight of the air outside, thick with humidity. Not looking forward to yet another sticky, hot, draining day ahead, she forced herself to exit her apartment and go down the three flights of stairs. The instant she set foot out of the main doors, leaving the coolness of the climate-controlled interior, a wave of oppressive heat smacked her square in the face.
She felt like an idiot wearing a sweater. Worse, she’d be drenched with sweat by the time she reached the conference center two blocks away.
Grumbling to herself and hoping her deodorant didn’t let her down, she hadn’t gone more than half a block before it began to drizzle. Glaring up at the sky, she muttered, “Well, isn’t this shaping up to be a perfectly miserable day?”
Because of their work with EPIC, she and Lana had scored an apartment close to headquarters and the conference center where most of the integration events took place. A prime location on the base—not that it’d proved an advantage today. By the time she arrived, the twenty-five mate candidates she’d been scheduled to meet with had already gathered, eagerly awaiting her words of wisdom on how to catch and live with a Primarian mate.
If they knew their expert speaker had been a complete failure in her own attempt, they would have most likely stayed in bed.
But she put her cynicism and bitterness aside. These young women represented their hope for a future.
With fatigue dragging her pace, and the series of restless nights taking their toll, she decided Lana had something else right, darn her. She had to do something about her persistent nightmares and interrupted sleep.
Being Saturday, the clinic was closed. No help for it. She’d go on Monday, or better yet, on Tuesday.
Denial had worked well until now; she planned to let this same strategy ride as long as she could.
* * *
“Push it,” she called to the two new recruits bringing up the rear.
“Lag and get left behind, ladies.” She jogged in place, watching the stragglers climb the ropes of the twenty-foot vertical wall. She’d already done so and circled back to try to determine the problem.
One of the two, who needed to drop about fifteen extra pounds, was pouring with sweat and red-faced when she at last hauled herself over the top. The other, a small blonde, whose lack of upper body strength had become a real concern, got stuck halfway up, the same as she did every time.
“Dig, Simpson,” Eryn hollered. “Come on. The rest of the squad is enjoying an ice-cold beer and a burger while you and I are hanging out here in the mud.”
More like sludge after the previous day’s deluge. While the young woman struggled and gasped for air, her arms began to shake from the strain. Eryn knew at that point, today wouldn’t be the day she conquered the wall.
“Go around,” she ordered, when the young woman’s strength gave out and her hands slid several inches down the rope. “But you’re gonna have to figure this out soon.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Wheezing and red-faced, she dropped to the ground and, without meeting Eryn’s gaze, rounded the end.
With only one obstacle left, Eryn scaled the angled four-inch-wide piece of wood behind the cadet then crossed the same-width lateral board over a huge mud puddle and followed her down the other side to the finish line.
When they crossed it, Sergeant Terry Foster, who’d been waiting with a stopwatch, called out her abysmal time. “Damn, Simpson, my eighty-year-old grandmother can run this course faster than you.”
Snickers erupted at the young woman’s expense. Eryn would have put an end to them, but couldn’t, unusually winded and attempting to catch her breath by bending over with her hands on her knees.
“A final word, Chief?” Foster suggested.
Under normal circumstances, Eryn offered encouragement or a much-needed chewing out before dismissing them. Today, she waved it off.
“Squad, dis-missed,” she heard the sergeant call, followed by sighs of relief and a few whoops of jubilation echoing back as her squad left the course.
Eryn straightened, ready to get out of the muggy heat when, all of a sudden, she found herself flat on her back, staring up at the gray blanket of clouds that had persisted all day. Lying in the mud while rain drops hit her face, she tried to figure out how she’d gotten there.
“Chief Lockwood!” Sergeant Foster cried, racing to her side. “What happened? Are you ill?” She bent over and pressed the back of her hand against her cheek then moved it across her forehead. “You’re burning up but not sweating. Overheated most likely.” Sliding an arm beneath her neck, Terry brought a water bottle to Eryn’s mouth. “Drink, slowly.”
After taking a few sips, she looked up at a sea of concerned faces staring down at her. “I’m okay now,” she croaked through dry lips. She tried to sit up, except when she raised her head, the world started spinning again.
“You’re not okay, ma’am. Stay down,” Foster urged. “Heat exhaustion is a precursor to heat stroke. You need to get to medical. Haynes, Parker, bring a Jeep around.”
Just a few minutes passed until they lifted her into a hover Jeep they’d brought right to the edge of the course. Embarrassed, yet feeling like warmed-over crap, she let them help her get settled into the back. In a blink, they zipped her to the ER on the far side of the base.
* * *
“Dehydration from hyperthermia,” her doctor announced when she entered the curtained-off cubicle in the emergency room.
Once out of the suffocating humidity and heat, with a liter of IV fluids infusing into her arm, Eryn’s dizziness and nausea had quickly passed.
“I can go, then?” she asked, already swinging her legs over the side of the stretcher, ready to hop down and get out of there.
“Take it easy for the rest of the day, and when you get back to work, especially while training, frequent water and rest breaks are a must for you and your squad.” Pausing briefly in her swiping and tapping, the doctor glanced up from her tablet to add sternly, “That’s an order, Chief.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Eryn did well to contain her smile. A captain due to her physician status, Juna Foster stood five feet three and no more than one hundred ten pounds. She didn’t appear to be a threat. No one doubted, however, her seriousness when she gave an order. Woe be it to the unlucky soldier who wound up back in her care for not following one of her directives.
“Let’s talk about what else is going on with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Is there anything else you want to talk with me about, Eryn? The weight gain, for example.”
“No.” She hopped down, pulling the gown together in back as she glanced around for her clothes. Seeing them neatly folded on a chair in the corner, she headed that way.
Not easily put off, Juna persisted.
“Twelve pounds in a month, Eryn. Prior to this, you’ve been one hundred and fifty pounds, give or take a pound or two, for ten years.”
Shrugging, she stepped into her pants, pulling them up while still wearing the hospital gown. “What can I say? I’ve been enjoying what I missed while away. Forgive me if I have a thing for Italian…fettucine chicken Alfredo, double cheese and pepperoni pizza—New York style, of course—lasagna, with ricotta mind you, not mozzarella or the god-awful
cottage cheese some people use. And I’ve developed a fondness for Sicilian cheesecake.” She reached back and patted her backside. “Goes right here. Thanks for pointing it out, though. I’ll try to get it under control.”
Juna scrutinized her, making her feel like a lab rat or a blood smear on a slide under her super-powered microscope.
“I’m feeling better. Is that all, Doc?”
“Yes, but you need to take it easy the rest of today.”
Before she changed her mind or asked more probing questions, Eryn moved to the chair in the corner where she’d left her clothes. Facing away from the observant doctor, she began dressing.
Thankfully, the door opened and closed behind her and, after a quick glance over her shoulder to make certain she had gone, Eryn collapsed onto the chair. She’d had a chance to discuss her real problem, but couldn’t. She wasn’t ready. Still early in her pregnancy, she had plenty of time. She’d call the clinic next week and schedule a prenatal appointment. And she’d ask for someone other than Juna, who would be ticked when she found out what she’d been hiding.
4
For the umpteenth time in the past hour, Eryn caught herself staring at the drab white wall of her small office rather than focused on her work. Distracted, her mind jumped from one topic to another, none of them job related, even though the half-done report in front of her had a deadline of 5:00 p.m. today. She blamed sleep deprivation. Although it had been almost a week since she’d woken Lana with any screaming or moaning in the middle of the night, her dreams continued, leaving her drained.
Last night’s had been a repeat of the day of her capture, and especially vivid. So real, it seemed more like a flashback than a dream.
As she replayed it in her head, the screams of her shipmates as they exchanged fire with the unknown entity, came back to her, and were as chilling and frightening now, as they were then.
Outnumbered and facing superior firepower, a distress call had gone up to the Odyssey, but a solar storm impeded communications. This left making a run for the shuttle and an emergency liftoff their only option for escape.
* * *
In the pandemonium, Eryn and Brenna, one of the scientists selected for the initial survey of the planet, found themselves cut off from the rest of the landing party. As per protocol, if separated, they were to rendezvous at the shuttle. So that’s where they headed, hoping the others would be waiting for them.
The lake where they’d been collecting samples lay several miles from where the shuttle had touched down, and through dense forest. With pursuers at their heels, Eryn took the lead and set a brisk pace.
Not a career soldier, Brenna had been selected for the mission for her scientific expertise, not her strength and stamina. She also wasn’t the fleetest of foot among the ship’s crew. Although she kept pace for a while, after the first mile, she struggled to match Eryn’s much-longer strides and fell back, despite frequently offered encouragement.
When a sharp cry rang out behind her, Eryn skidded to a halt. Twisting around, she searched the overgrown woods for her teammate, but the lengthening shadows and murky shapes of the trees and thick vegetation melded together, making it difficult to see more than a few feet in front of her. It was so dark, she could barely see her hand in front of her face, let alone Brenna’s dark-blue USIF flight suit.
A soft sob came from somewhere to her right. As she squinted, trying to pinpoint the location, she cursed the dense canopy of leaves and branches overhead which blocked the remaining traces of light cast by the binary suns.
“Brenna?” she called softly.
Her reedy voice, filled with obvious pain, came out of the darkness. “Go on without me.”
Ignoring her ridiculous request, Eryn started for her. “I’m not leaving you behind. Keep talking, except do so quietly. We don’t want to alert our pursuers.”
Her foot brushed against something soft. When she looked down, she could just make out the paleness of the chemist’s white-blonde hair.
“Save yourself, Eryn,” she replied in a broken whisper, still winded and sucking in gulps of air between her tear-filled words. “I stepped…in a hole…and rolled my ankle. I’ll…only get you caught…too.”
“Nonsense.” She bent to assist her. Slipping an arm beneath Brenna’s shoulders, she curled her hand around her far side and hoisted her to her feet. “Let’s go.”
With Eryn’s six-foot frame and Brenna’s less than average height, they were immediately set off-balance. Keeping weight off her injured foot further hampered their efforts as they navigated through the darkness and over the rough ground with its thick undergrowth, every so often trying to avoid a fallen tree blocking their path. They had to make it work, all the same.
“Maybe if I switch to your weak side, it will make the going easier,” she suggested.
When they stopped to make the position change, out of nowhere, two hulking shapes dropped from the sky and landed in front of them. Their immense size blocked the only thread of light filtering in from above.
A sharp, piercing shriek in her ear almost deafened her. While shaking her head to stop the ringing in her ears, large hands encircled her upper arms and pulled her away from Brenna.
Her teammate’s frightened protests echoed in the forest the next instant. “No! Put me down!”
What sounded to Eryn like fists thudding against flesh was followed by several deep masculine grunts. Next, a loud crack reverberated in the air and an instant later a whimpered yelp of surprise.
“Brenna?” Eryn called out in alarm.
“Oh, dear God, no!” Her panicked words, which started out in a rush, ended in a shriek echoing through the night. Intermingled with her calls for help, Eryn made out the snap of branches beneath the heavy, thudding footsteps moving off through the trees.
“Brenna!” she repeated with a frantic cry as she, too, struggled within an alien’s inflexible hold. But no response came other than the fading sound of Brenna’s cries for help, as the thick dampness of the forest enveloped them.
Knowing the same fate awaited her if she didn’t escape, she twisted violently, trying to break free from the hard fingers which tightened on her arms. She fought harder, using every defense technique she’d learned in years of training—wrist and elbow locks, a back kick, and an elbow break. All of them hopelessly ineffective against his superior strength.
The being spoke for the first time, barking something in her ear. She ignored him, resisting with all her strength even though his deep, insistent tone held a warning. Despite her struggles, he moved forward, taking the same path as his companion.
Eryn sensed disaster lay along that trail and fought even more frantically to break free of his grasp immediately. At the first opening, she raised her booted heel and brought it down hard on his foot. At the same time, she slammed her head backward, head-butting him. Well, almost. With his greater height, the back of her skull connected with the underside of his jaw, instead. Still, the click of his teeth and grunt of pain filled her ears. Not an incapacitating blow by any means, but it distracted him enough that his grip loosened and she wrenched free.
Like a shot, she took off, running headlong through the darkness. She wasn’t quick enough and hadn’t gone more than a few yards when a steely arm wrapped around her waist from behind. Lifted off her feet, her body slammed hard against his broad chest, the force enough to force the breath from her lungs in a whoosh. While she gasped for air, he rotated her body, catching her against his hip, and, as if she weighed no more than a sack of potatoes, the brute followed his partner through the trees.
Although stunned, her shock didn’t last long. Straining against his grasp, she kicked, bucked, and fought with all her might. It had no effect on him. He didn’t slow or even flinch, acting like he carried a struggling woman through a dark forest every day.
Perhaps he did!
Holy crap.
Redoubling her efforts, she raked her nails down his forearm. This elicited a reaction, but not the one she
expected. Instead of dropping her, he swung her around and flipped her over his shoulder, moving her so fast, she got light-headed. Then, to her utter shock, his huge hand came down hard on her ass—twice.
“No way,” she screamed. “No how!”
In a fit of anger, she pounded on his back with her fists, rocking and bowing her body, not caring if she fell from the shoulder of this tree of a man. She wasn’t about to let anyone—particularly a barbaric behemoth of an alien—spank her.
Handling her one hundred sixty-pound frame with ease, he set her down in front of him with an angry growl. In the back of her mind, she knew it was crazy to go toe-to-toe with him, yet her outrage overrode common sense, and the basic need for self-preservation.
She angled her head back and glared up at him. Then froze, as a wavering shaft of light from the rising alien moon broke through the branches, and she caught her first good look at her captor.
Black hair surrounded a very human-like face, with slashes of dark brows knitted together in obvious anger. They didn’t detract from the masculine beauty of his bronze skin, angular cheekbones, firm jaw, and full sensuous lips. But it was his eyes that she found so compelling, and unusual. If not for the glimmer of moonlight, they would have appeared black. Instead, his gaze glowed golden in the low light.
In a word, he was breathtaking.
Regardless of her precarious situation, there she stood, paused in the middle of a battle for her freedom on an alien world, in a forest clearing, while precious moments to escape ticked away. Yet, the mesmerizing appearance of her foe left her stunned.
And while in this state of shock, gaping up at him like a fool, she only halfway noticed he had caught her hands in one much larger and stronger than her own, as he pulled free the tie holding his hair at the back of his head. It unleashed a gleaming mass of onyx strands falling in a sheet of glossy silk around his shoulders. She stared, awestruck by his masculine beauty until a tug on her wrist snapped her to reality. Peering down, she saw him tying her hands together.
His Rebellious Mate (Primarian Mates Book 3) Page 4
