Axis gave the door three good kicks but couldn’t get the metal broom handle to give. He wasn’t about to let that stop him. She could see him through the glass wall. At first he looked as though he might try to break the see-through pane but then he ran down to the next entrance.
Shit.
Dizzy hadn’t counted on that. His boots hit the floor hard as he raced through the other door and closed the distance between them. Grabbing anything that wasn’t nailed down, she chucked things at his head. More often than not, she hit her target. It still wasn’t enough to stop him. Axis was a man on a mission and he wasn’t leaving empty-handed.
When she ran out of things to throw, the man snatched for her. She twisted away but he grabbed a handful of her skirt. With one good jerk, he tore the delicate fabric. She kicked out at him and screamed as she realized how very close she was to being assaulted. “Leave me alone!”
“Give it up!” Axis gripped her forearm hard enough to leave bruises and swung her around to face him. “You’re mine now.”
“Like hell!” She smacked him right in the face. “I belong to Venom.”
Axis laughed and pushed her down onto the floor. “Not anymore.”
“No!” She put up both hands and shoved at his chest as the man pinned her to the floor. “Get off me!”
“Leave her alone!” Another male voice, this one booming and angry, cut through her panic. She glanced at the doorway and saw a man in exercise clothes standing there. His gleaming silver leg got her attention. She had never seen anything like it.
Despite his injury, the man with the metal leg sprinted across the room with such speed and finesse. As if kicking a ball, he slammed the toe of his metal prosthesis right into the other man’s gut. Axis flew off her and hit the floor—but he didn’t stay down long.
The man with the missing leg snatched Dizzy up and tossed her onto the closest counter. Squaring off with Axis, he lifted his hands and made a come-and-take me motion. Like two wild street dogs, the men rushed each other and began to brawl.
Crouching on the steel counter, Dizzy decided she was never leaving their quarters again. These men were all crazy!
She could hardly stand to watch as the two men pummeled each other with their fists. Every now and then one of them would land a good punch. The sounds of knuckles smacking against flesh sickened her. She had never been able to stomach violence. Seeing it up this close was too much for her.
Over the constant growling and punching and cursing, Dizzy heard the faintest ding of the elevator. She crawled to the very end of the countertop and didn’t stop until her face was basically pressed against the transparent wall. The moment she spotted Venom and his team coming down the hall she started to pound on the glass.
“Venom! Venom! Hurry!”
Her mate’s blue eyes widened with shock. She could only imagine what she must have looked like, hiding up on that counter with her hair a mess and dress torn. His gaze flicked over her shoulder to the brawling men behind her. The cold glare that replaced his stunned expression chilled her to the very bone.
Oh, boy. It’s about to get ugly.
Chapter Fifteen
“Dizzy!”
The sight of his sweet mate’s terrified face and ripped dress enraged Venom. If it hadn’t been for Raze’s hand clamping down on his shoulder, Venom would have put his boot through the glass to get to her. Instead he managed to shove down the overwhelming urge to protect and defend her so he could think straight.
He sprinted into the room and edged around Mayhem and a sky corps soldier he didn’t recognize. Though he wanted so badly to join the brawl and beat on the man who had scared Dizzy, he recognized that she needed to be comforted and reassured more than he needed to satisfy his desire to hurt that bastard for scaring her.
“Come here, sugar.” He stepped up to the counter where Dizzy perched like a bird. The moment he was close enough she launched herself at him. He caught her easily and cradled her. Burying his nose in her sweetly scented hair, he whispered, “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”
She sobbed against his neck. “He tried but I’m okay.”
Though her dress was shredded from the waist down, she didn’t seem to have been molested any further. It was a small comfort to him. Already her arms were purpling with fingertip-shaped bruises from being grabbed. He gingerly brushed his palm over the spots marking her soft skin. “Oh, honey…”
Guilt wracked Venom. He had promised to protect her but he had left her locked in a room where anyone could have gotten to her.
And someone had.
Still holding Dizzy, Venom glared at the man Mayhem had in a headlock. “Who the fuck is he?”
“Name tag says Axis,” Fierce answered in that slow, country-boy drawl of his. “He’s not a face I know.”
“He’s an engineer,” Cipher supplied. “From down in the coding department, I think. He works in IT for the ship.”
“Is that so?” Raze stood in front of the man and leveled an icy stare. “I suppose that’s how he busted the lock on our office.”
“I didn’t, sir. It was unlocked. She was out in the hall.”
Dizzy gasped. “I was not. I was hiding under the desk when he broke into the room!”
Raze used the toe of his boot to lift Axis’ bloody chin. “You want to try that again, skyboy?”
Axis swallowed nervously. “Okay. All right. Yes. I hacked the keypad.”
“Why?” Raze demanded.
The engineer hesitated. “I heard you were making the shortlist of invitations for the next round of SRU tryouts. I tried to access the list from my work console but your system is walled off from the rest of the ship.”
“For good reason, jackass,” Cipher retorted with frustration. “It’s to keep rubberneckers like you from digging through our highly sensitive files.”
Axis didn’t respond to Cipher’s cutting remark. He turned accusing eyes toward Dizzy. “She came on to me.”
“I did not!” Dizzy’s hold on Venom’s waist tightened.
“She’s not even wearing a collar.” Axis gestured toward her. “She practically begged me to take her away from you.”
“Enough of the lies,” Venom growled. “My mate is shaking with fear. Her dress is torn.”
He brushed his gloved fingertips along her bare neck. The sight of her without his collar was like a knife to the heart. It was obvious she had removed it after their argument. There had been no mistaking how upset she was with him back in the elevator. Was she angry enough to want to end their bond? After the wives’ meeting she would know that it was a relatively simple procedure to get rid of him.
The thought of losing her punched him in the gut. Sliding his arm across her chest, he pulled her back against him in a public sign of possession. “Collar or no collar, she belongs to me.”
Dizzy clasped his forearm in a display of agreement. His fear of her leaving lessened. Hopefully she had simply removed the collar in a fit of anger and not because she truly wanted to leave him for being such an asshole in the elevator.
“He has my collar in his pocket. He took it from me.”
Venom loosened his embrace of Dizzy and stalked across the room. He ripped the front pockets on Axis’ uniform shirt and Dizzy’s collar tumbled into his hand. “You haven’t earned the right to the responsibility that comes with one of these.”
Gripping the bridal collar, Venom returned to Dizzy. She clung to his side and he soothingly caressed her back.
“Mayhem, how did you get tangled up in this?” Raze turned his attention to the busted-up soldier hoping to make the next SRU team.
“I was on my way to the gym upstairs and thought I would drop in to talk to you about the upcoming trials. I heard a commotion and found him on top of her. I figured any woman hanging out here had to be the mate of one of the SRU men.” Mayhem narrowed his eyes and ran a hand along his swollen jaw. “Mated or not, she needed to be defended from that piece of trash.”
“I didn’t even hur
t her!” Axis continued to dig his hole. “I just wanted to scare her a little.”
If Dizzy hadn’t been clinging to him Venom would have given in to the desire to slam his fist right into the man’s nose. “Get him out of here before I do something very stupid.”
Raze nodded. “Secure him in the weight room until the MPs come for him.”
Fierce jerked Axis to his feet and roughly shoved him toward the door. “Move.”
“Ma’am?” Cipher came forward with a clean shirt he’d grabbed from his locker. “Would you like this shirt?”
Dizzy smiled gratefully. “Thank you.”
Venom took the shirt and pulled it down over her head. Though Cipher wasn’t quite as tall as he the length of the shirt was more than enough to cover her ripped skirt. He cupped the back of Dizzy’s head and gazed down into her watery brown eyes. She still seemed a bit dazed by the terrible experience.
Her lower lip trembled. “I want to go home.”
Venom’s gut clenched painfully. Of course she did. After the way he had snapped at her in the elevator and then left her exposed to that brute Axis, he couldn’t blame her for wanting to bail on him. If their situations had been reversed he probably would have wanted to return to his planet too.
But he couldn’t let her go without a fight. “I can’t let you go now.”
Her brows knitted. “Please? Just get someone to escort me to our quarters. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
The painful ball in his belly stopped throbbing. She didn’t want to go home to Calyx. She wanted to return to their home. Maybe there was still time for him salvage this. “I would prefer for you to wait here while I debrief.”
“She can wait in my office,” Cipher offered. “It’s comfortable and quiet. We’ll take turns standing guard if that will make you feel more secure, ma’am.”
Dizzy hesitated but eventually nodded. “Okay.”
Raze led the way out of the gear room. Venom kept his arm around Dizzy’s shoulders while Cipher trailed them. Threat stayed behind with the rest of the team to put the room back together.
Venom’s stomach soured when they stopped at the office he shared with Raze to gather Dizzy’s things. Seeing the furniture moved haphazardly around the space told him the story of the altercation Dizzy had survived. Raze touched his desk that had been shoved about four feet out of the way and shot a questioning glance her way.
“I was hiding under there,” she explained quietly. “I had been listening to a message from Ella when I heard someone at the door. I thought maybe it was you,” she looked up at him, “but then he tried the handle and I knew it was someone trying to break in to the office. I couldn’t get out so I hid—but he found me. I threw that chair at him and ran.”
Listening to Dizzy recount her ordeal only added to his guilt. He pressed his lips to the crown of her head in a silent apology.
Raze picked up her bag and tablet and handed them over. “Get her situated in Cipher’s office and then meet me in the debriefing suite.”
When they were alone, Venom tried to wrap his collar back around Dizzy’s neck. Her hand flew up and blocked him. “No, Venom. I can’t stand it anymore.”
Taken aback, he reminded her, “Dizzy, this is the way we do things here.”
“But it hurts me.”
At first he thought she meant it was hurting her emotionally or mentally but then she gestured to her neck. The red, irritated skin surrounding her scars just added to his pile of guilt. How the hell had he missed that?
“I’m sorry.” He carefully brushed his fingertips over her chafed skin. “I didn’t realize—”
“I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it,” she interjected. “I thought I could get used to it.”
“You never have to get used to pain, Dizzy. I should have recognized that your scars and the collar weren’t going to play nice but apparently I’m dense. Next time you have a problem like this you tell me.”
“I will.”
“Hold out your wrist.” When she followed his order, he wrapped the collar around it twice before securing the latch. “We’ll make do with this until I can figure out something else.”
“Maybe I could only wear it outside our home?”
He didn’t like the idea of her skin being irritated and chafed every time she left their quarters but it was the easiest solution. “We can try that.”
Her small hands moved across his tactical vest, tracing the ammo magazines and cuffs and other gear tucked into the myriad pockets. “You look really scary in this getup.”
His cheek twitched. “That’s sort of the point.”
Her lopsided smile melted some of his tension. “I figured.”
When her gaze moved to his shoulder he sensed she wanted to ask about the rifle strapped to his back but she didn’t. She rubbed his chest. “You should go to your debriefing. I’ll be fine in your friend’s office.”
He didn’t want to leave her but it had to be done. Holding her hand, he led her to Cipher’s office. He spotted a bottle of berry-flavored rehydrating water and a candy bar waiting for her on the desk there. That was just like Cipher to be so considerate and accommodating.
“I won’t be long. An hour tops,” he said while guiding her onto the small couch along the wall. He picked up the snack and presented it to her. “Eat this. I’m sure you’re hungry after missing lunch.”
“Thank you.” She set aside the bottled drink and bar and reached for his gloved hand. “Venom, are you mad at me?”
“What?” He crouched down in front of her and put both hands on her thighs. “No, of course not! What happened with Axis wasn’t your fault. Collar or no collar, he had no right to attack you like that.”
“It’s just that you seem very…cold. I thought maybe you were mad at me for embarrassing you with the collar thing or—”
“No.” He caressed her cheek with his thumb, all the while wishing the fabric of his glove wasn’t between his skin and hers. “The call we were on didn’t end well.”
“Oh.” Her eyes sparked with understand. “Oh.”
“After a call like this, it’s better for me to disengage myself from you until my head is back in the right space.”
“Okay. Whatever you need, just tell me, Venom. I can’t even begin to understand what you’re feeling but I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”
Her sweet kindness made his heart swell. She didn’t seem horrified by the revelation that he had just ended a man’s life. Perhaps her experiences during the bombing had given her a glimpse of the awful choices that often had to be made to save innocent lives.
Even so, he didn’t want her exposed to any more harshness today. She had seen enough. The last thing she needed to hear were the details of the hostage situation he had ended with deadly force.
“I’ll be back as quickly as possible.”
She leaned forward and captured his mouth in a tender kiss. “I’ll be here waiting for you.”
As Venom backed away and left the office, he wondered if Dizzy would ever comprehend how much those six simple words meant to him.
*
Later that evening Dizzy reclined against a pillow and tried to focus on the book opened up on her tablet. She was reading a title Raze had recommended on understanding siege-shock and trauma bonds. Her worried gaze flitted from the screen to the open doorway of their bedroom. Venom still hadn’t come to bed and she was concerned about him.
During Venom’s debriefing, Raze had come into the office to chat with her. Even though he seemed uncomfortable alone with her, the great big beast of a man had taken the time to explain more about the hostage situation. He had given her a list of signs to watch for in Venom and made sure his private communications number was programmed into her tablet.
Since returning to their quarters she had watched Venom like a hawk. Thankfully he didn’t seem to be showing any of the troubling signs. Raze had assured her that Venom had his own ways of dealing with the emotional punch of taking a life in the
line of duty but he had warned that Venom might be thrown off by having a new mate to contend with in the midst of it all.
Refusing to let Venom pull away from her, Dizzy flipped back the covers and set her tablet on the bedside table. She quietly exited the bedroom and found him sitting in the living area, watching the large entertainment screen fixed on the wall. The lights were totally dimmed and the sports show he was watching cast a strange bluish glow about him.
His alert gaze snapped toward her the moment she appeared in the doorway. He quickly twisted in his seat to face her and raised his voice high enough for the audio sensors in the entertainment console to hear him. “Mute.”
Dizzy stopped at the edge of the couch. “Are you coming to bed?”
“Not for a while, sugar. Go on back to sleep.”
“I wasn’t asleep.”
A flash of guilt crossed his face. “I’ll keep the volume down.”
She shook her head. “That’s not what kept me awake.”
“Is it because of Axis? Are you having nightmares?”
“No.” She shrugged. “Oddly enough I’m not nearly as upset about that whole mess as I expected to be. Maybe I’m finally toughening up some.”
“You don’t need to toughen up.” The rough edge to his voice surprised her. “You should be able to sit in an office and wait for your husband without having to worry about some asshole trying to steal or molest you.”
“In a perfect world,” she softly replied. Extending her hand, she wiggled her fingers. “Come to bed with me.”
Venom swallowed nervously. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
His rejection surprised her more than it hurt. “Why not?”
He exhaled a harsh breath and glanced away from her. “It’s not safe for you.”
The hard set to his jaw convinced her that he was feeling raw and emotionally exposed. Unwilling to allow Venom to wall himself off from her, Dizzy bravely skirted the side of the couch and knelt on the cushion next to him. Putting her hands on his shoulders, she gazed into his haunted eyes. “You have never hurt me. You will never hurt me.”
Saved by Venom: 3 (Grabbed) Page 21
