by Alison Aimes
Her heart slowed. He wouldn’t leave clothes if he wasn’t keeping his word, right?
Moving toward the pile, she cocked her head, listening, unsure if the rocky cavern was playing tricks on her. Had she just heard another odd noise? The same kind that had woken her from sleep?
Only the slow drip of water echoed back at her. She dismissed it as nerves and kept moving. Convict hadn’t given her any instructions so she could only hope doing what she liked wouldn’t anger him. She had so many questions. About the cave. How he’d found it. If he lived here. About the clothes. Who’d made those terrifying shrieks? But he clearly hadn’t been in the mood for conversation the last couple of hours. She got the unfortunate sense he might never be.
The clothes were surprisingly soft, and though way too big, she was able to roll the pants up underneath the large long sleeve shirt. It took her a while of fumbling to figure out the closure mechanism. The latest Command Council Earth suits were made of rough synthetic material and affixed with magnetic bonds that required only a finger pad along the seam to close. Like the soap, the clothes Convict had left were likely old toss offs from Earth. But they were warm and clean and a lot better than her bloody uniform. It didn’t escape her notice he hadn’t left her bra or underwear. Thankfully, her boots were still there.
Once dressed, the vibrant plants drew her eye, but she forced herself past. Of primary importance was checking on Davies and Winthrop. She needed to make sure they were okay. Plus, after a lifetime spent under Command Council protocol accounting for her movements with hourly productivity reports, it was disorienting to be suddenly so unregulated. Though meeting Davies’ knowing gaze wouldn’t be easy, she’d just have to brave it out. Like Convict had said, different rules for Dragath25. Cadet Davies would have to understand and—
A low hiss reverberated through the passageway. Eerie. Inhuman.
Bella was running before the noise came to a silent, abrupt end.
*****
“Stay back!” Convict’s furious command had Bella skidding to a halt.
Her breath strangled in her throat.
Davies cowered against the far cave wall, an unconscious Winthrop and a spilled bucket of water at her feet. Convict, dressed only in his loincloth and boots, a bleeding claw mark on his bare chest, stood in front of them. His legs braced wide apart, a large spear in one hand.
Only three arms lengths away stood an eight-foot tall, hissing, four-legged beast with huge claws. Even bigger fangs. And a striped muscular hide that looked like it would easily break the spindly piece of wood in Convict’s hand.
A musky, rank odor permeated the cave. Bella’s primitive intuition recognized it as the scent of an animal, but she had no way to confirm. Earth animals had died out long ago.
Determined not to panic, she scanned the space for some kind of weapon. A sharp rock? An even sharper stick? Damn Pogue and those other soldiers. If they’d left her a gun, she could at least have given them a chance against this creature.
Swooping down to grab a few loose nearby rocks, she took a cautious step toward the beast’s other side.
“I told you to stay back.” Convict’s low hiss made the animal’s ears flatten farther. “Get to the water. They won’t go near it.”
Ignoring him, she took another careful step. “I’m not leaving my colleagues here. If I can get around it, I’ll distract it while you take them to safety.”
“No.” Convict’s refusal was absolute.
She took another step anyway, dirt from the rocks sticking uncomfortably to her sweaty palm “How fast can this thing run?”
“Tigos are too fast. You’ll never outrun one. Get. Back. Now.”
The tone of his voice had her wondering if she should be more afraid of him or the beast. “I can help.”
“I don’t need it.”
Then before she could disagree, Convict leapt forward, he and his spear soaring straight for the tigos’ vicious fangs.
The creature’s paws swiped forward, its mouth opening wide.
She was already running forward, a scream on her lips, when Convict flipped, dodging the tigos’ claw. He slid to a halt beneath the beast. In the next heartbeat, his spear shot upward, piercing the creature’s vulnerable belly.
Hit, the creature reared back, letting loose a terrible, piercing scream. On an answering roar, Convict seized the end of the spear, jerking it out of the creature’s belly. Blood splattered onto the cave floor. It’s sickly sweet smell made Bella’s stomach jolt.
Convict raised his arm to pierce again.
But the animal was already backpedaling, slamming against the cave wall—barely missing her—before it turned and raced outside.
Resounding silence filled the cavern.
Bella leaned an arm against the cave wall, her knees weak. Thank God for Convict. That had been too damn close.
Then something clattered to the ground, and before Bella could turn, rough hands seized her shoulders and whisked her around. Convict stared down at her with dangerous, dark eyes. “I told you to get back.”
She ignored the tendril of fear winding up her spine. “I wanted to help.”
His hold tightened. “You said you would listen. Don’t you know how easy it is to die out here?”
“I’m beginning to understand all too well, but—”
“You broke our deal.” He dropped his arms as if he couldn’t stand to touch her.
Relief whispered through her. He’d looked so fierce. She half-expected to share the fate of the tigos.
Instead, he seized his spear and stalked to his dirt-colored pack.
Her gaze shifted to Davies, huddled against the wall, guarding Winthrop. Davies was pale, her expression worried, but her face was no longer streaked with soot and a new bandage surrounded her leg. All in all, she looked better than when Bella had seen her last.
Winthrop, too, looked better, though he was clearly still unconscious. His face had been cleaned and there was a wrap around his chest that hadn’t been there before.
Convict had been busy while she’d slept.
“You’ve got about a half an hour.”
Bella’s gaze flew to the entrance of the cave.
Convict stood in the opening, his back to them. Not even turning around, he slung the backpack over his shoulder. “I left another shirt you can use for bandages and a few bars, but I’d eat them on the run. Tigos can scent another’s blood. There’ll be more coming. That was a tigos male. The females are five times that size and a hundred times more fierce. Not to mention that 225’s pack will have heard the fighting. You don’t want to be here when they come to investigate.”
“Wait.” She rushed forward. “Where are you going?”
“Wherever I want.” Jaw clenched tight, he stepped through the cave entrance.
“No, please.” She hurried after him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you mad.” She raced to keep up, but he bounded over the rocks on his long legs, easily lengthening the distance between them. “Don’t go. We’ll die here without your help. Please.” The last of her plea clogged in her throat as he rounded a bend and disappeared from sight.
He’d left. Fucked her and flat out left without even a hint of hesitation.
“Fine! Go!” She screamed at the spot where he’d been. “I should have known you wouldn’t keep to the deal. You’re nothing but a lowlife Dragath25 criminal. Who needs you?”
She was turning back toward the cave when the ground shook. Reeling around, her eyes went wide. Convict was steamrolling toward her, a murderous look on his face.
She’d only just begun to run when powerful arms jerked her back against hard, warm steel. Clawing, kicking, she tried to break free, but it was no use. Caged by one thick arm around her stomach and one tangled in her hair, she was trapped.
“That’s right, fighter girl. I am nothing but a lowlife Dragath25 criminal.”
He carried her easily over to a large rock, absorbing her blows like she was nothing more than a pesky insect.
Her hands were stinging, her hair stuck to her cheek, her breath coming in gasps by the time he shifted her around, sandwiching her between him and a large boulder.
“Stop.” She shoved against his chest. It was as unmovable as the rock at her back.
“Criminals don’t stop.” He fisted her shirt, drawing her onto her tiptoes, bringing her face in line with his. His knee slid between her thighs, forcing them wide. “We take.” The hand fisted in her hair jerked her head back while his other hand skimmed down her body. “We violate.”
He ran the pad of his finger along the waistband of her rolled up pants. Back and forth. Like the tigos’ twitching tail. Danger evident in every deliberate pass of his hand. “We kill.”
Heartbeat slamming against her ribs, she tried to fix this. “I—I shouldn’t have said what I did. I’m sorry.”
“That’s right. You shouldn’t have said it.” He wrapped his wrist tighter in her hair. “Just like you shouldn’t have ignored my direct order.”
“I understand that now.”
It was as if he didn’t hear her. “You think it’s easy to survive out here. You think this is a joke. You think I made it on this fucking hellhole this long out of sheer luck.”
“No.”
“I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. Done things I can barely stand to think of.” Echoes of those horrors stretched tight across his face. “But I’ve made it here eight years and I don’t intend to die now.”
Her chest grew tight. She didn’t think she could bear even another few days on this place. She couldn’t imagine surviving eight years.
“I’m sorry. You’re right.” She spoke fast, the words spilling from her, more genuine this time. “I wasn’t trying to get you killed. I was trying to help. I–I should have listened. And–and I shouldn’t have called you a…a lowlife. I was scared and angry. I appreciate all you’ve done. Hiding us in the cave. Saving us from the tigos. Even the water and bandages you gave my colleagues.” She cleared her throat. “You were keeping to the deal. I was the one who screwed up.”
He didn’t acknowledge her words, but his grip loosened, the tension in his body lessening. “It’s easy to die out here.”
“But people make it.” Her voice shook. “You’ve made it. I will, too.”
He shook his head, something that looked a lot like regret in his gaze. “You’re soft. Delicate.” The finger that had been so predatory against her skin now felt like a caress. “Keeping you alive will be next to impossible. Even without the added stubbornness.”
A new and astonishing idea flooded through her, a live wire of awareness to her brain. Could it be that it wasn’t cold-heartedness that had promoted his departure, but the exact opposite? He didn’t want to watch her die.
“I’m stronger than you think. I know you don’t know me, but I am.”
His fingers stilled against her, proof he was listening.
“When the last wave of famine hit Earth, I was fourteen,” she continued. “My parents died from the blight within months. Orphaned, alone, everyone said my younger sister and brother and I wouldn’t make it another month. But I kept them alive. Stole when I had to. Worked whatever job I could get. Studied every spare moment. All so I could earn the scores that would get me a Council Academy scholarship and my baby sister and brother the right to live off my pension. And that’s what I did. And all three of us were doing just fine until I crashed on this planet.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I am going to survive this as well. Trust me.”
“I don’t trust anyone.” His hand fanned possessively across her belly while his nose skimmed along her throat. “But you smell good, female. Unlike anything on Dragath25. Taste even better.”
After so many hours in his arms, she knew that rasp. Recognized the hunger. Understood too that he was offering her a second chance. Something she suspected he rarely did.
Her body responded, her skin flushing hot while her nipples tightened and her pussy throbbed. “I won’t give you any more trouble. Touch me, Con—” she didn’t want to call him that. Not anymore. Not after he’d come back despite what she’d hurled at him. He might be a Dragath25 prisoner, but he was also a man. One whom she was coming to believe had retained more of his humanity than he realized. “If you won’t tell me your name, I’m going to call you Hero. It fits better.”
He froze. “It doesn’t fit at all.”
“You’ve saved me and my friends twice already. That makes you a hero.”
She thought he’d be pleased.
“A hero doesn’t do what I’m about to do,” he growled. “Spread your legs.”
He likely expected to elicit fear, but all that prickled across her skin was white-hot lust. He hadn’t hurt her before. Even when she’d insulted him.
This had to be a test. One she didn’t intend to fail.
She did as commanded. Her fingers curling into his shoulders as he yanked her pants down to her thighs. Cool air swirled around her ass.
“Still want to call me Hero?” His thick finger probed her folds, his gaze challenging as his thumb circled her clit. Slowly. Deliberately.
“No.” Pleasure shivered through her. What she wanted was to call him by his name. What she wanted was for him to stop pretending he was worse than he was.
“Good.” His voice dropped to a low rasp, that thread of wonder back in his voice. “You’re wet.”
“Yes.” Should she be ashamed? Maybe, but with his calloused hands working the part of her that needed him most, she couldn’t seem to care. Plus, this was Dragath25. She could make her own rules. Take pleasure while she could. With a man who was a lot more complicated than he wanted her to believe. “I—I like what you do to me.”
His nostrils flared, a shudder running through him. She could tell she’d surprised him. For an instant, something very human—something that looked a lot like regret and guilt and need—flashed in his gaze, but it was gone in the next blink. “Take out my dick. Put it inside you.”
He was definitely out to prove he was no hero.
But she remembered the way he’d put himself between her colleagues and the tigos. How he’d attacked the creature when he thought it was coming for her. The flash of hope in his gaze when she’d told him she was determined to survive. The fact that despite his anger, he’d come running back.
Fingers trembling, she slid her hands beneath his loincloth, the heat of his skin a brand against her palm as she gripped him. His cock so thick she couldn’t make it even halfway around. She stood on tiptoes, tilting her hips forwards, her back against the rock, as she worked to put him inside.
A groan of frustration escaped. He was so big. She was too small. The angle all wrong. All she could do was rub up against him. “I—I can’t.”
Before she could even finished, powerful arms slid under her ass, lifting her up so their bodies were in perfect alignment. But instead of sinking inside, he held her poised at the tip of his cock, a message all of its own.
Her gaze flew to his.
She wondered if he knew she could see the raw need he was pretending not to feel.
“Tell me,” he commanded.
She knew instantly what he meant. “I can’t do this on my own. I need you. I do.”
“Who?”
She should have known he’d win in this, too. “You. Convict. I need you.”
With a grunt of triumph, he guided her onto his cock, working her deeper, inch by inch, until she took all of him. His big hands moving her back and forth so that she was sliding in and out at his whim. Him using her to fuck him senseless. It was the hottest thing she’d ever experienced.
Her body, already so sensitive, tightened with need, tiny tremors whipping through her as her legs bounded wildly, his movements growing faster, jerkier, as his own pleasure built. Needing an anchor, she ran her hands down the slick, muscled plains of his back. Then his mouth was at her ear, “Come for me, fighter girl.”
Surrendering, her body shattered into a thousand pieces.
She
was still trying to catch her breath when his strong hand gripped her chin and tipped it to meet his bottomless gaze.
“Lowlife Dragath25 criminals have their uses,” he all but growled. “Don’t forget it.”
Chapter Six
“We’ll rest here.” Convict’s declaration sent Bella looking up, her legs rejoicing. She’d been staring down at her feet, forcing one in front of each other for the last hour now.
“Can I help?”
“I’ve got him.”
Of course, he did. Bella watched Convict guide an unconscious Winthrop to the ground. He’d been carrying the man on his back at a near run—along with his spear and that backpack he refused to let out of his sight—over treacherous, rocky terrain for the last four hours. The hot suns beating down on them all the while.
Even so, Bella doubted this stop was for him. He wasn’t even breathing hard while every one of her leg muscles was screaming and poor Davies’ shirt was soaked, her face pale.
Still, it wouldn’t have killed the man to let her help in some small way.
“I’m going to backtrack and cover our trail. I’ve left some water and the last of the bars.” He held out a smooth, small rock with a hole at either end. “Any trouble, blow this.” He held out his spear next. “Don’t hesitate. Whatever’s coming at you won’t, either.”
She eyed the weapon. “If we have that, what will you use?”
His warning gaze bore into her. “Take it.”
Back rigid, she did as requested. He was already almost out of sight, his mouthwatering golden skin bunching and flexing as he sped away, before she realized she should have asked exactly what might be coming at them. But it was too late now.
After a wide, nervous scan of the surrounding rocky landscape, she dropped beside Davies, who was already checking Winthrop’s bandage.
Their gazes met then skittered away.
It was the first time they’d had a moment to talk. When she and Convict had returned from their argument, her face flushed, her hair tangled and wild, Convict had done little more than slap a few bar rations into her and Davies’ hands, scoop up Winthrop, and bark out a command for them to follow. He’d set such a fast pace, talking had been impossible. She and Davies had exchanged a couple of grim glances, but that was it.
