Hercules 500

by Kaitlyn O’Connor

  The concern in his voice almost made her cry. He hardly even knew her and he was being so sweet it made her throat clog with emotion. “I’m not. I’m just …. I was so scared and I just feel … weak.”

  He chuckled. “You and me both. Wonder where the knuckleheads are?” he added, looking around.

  Almost as if he’d conjured them, Chance and Sebastian emerged from the brush one after the other. Chance immediately approached her and knelt down to examine her carefully for any kind of injury.

  Sebastian looked totally pissed off. “I would have jumped with her,” he growled, “and kept her safe.”

  Cole’s lips tightened. “She’s safe.”

  Sebastian moved closer, but he didn’t kneel to have a really close look as Chance had. “You are unharmed?”

  Anika felt her chin wobble. She wasn’t certain why she felt like crying—whether it was the concern she thought she saw or what she’d learned about him that made her question that concern as real.

  She’d had such a crush on him, too!

  “I’m fine,” she said a little tearfully.

  Chance and Sebastian exchanged a look and stepped back.

  Anika sniffed. Like she had something catching!

  Cole was studying the bright orb in the sky. “Anybody know how long it’ll be until that disappears over the horizon?”

  Chance and Sebastian both looked, but it was Sebastian that answered. “By my calculations, we have four hours and thirty one minutes before sunset and approximately thirty minutes more of light before complete darkness. The moons will not rise for several hours after that.”

  Cole transferred his attention to Anika. “You ready?”

  Four to five hours and they were going to be in the woods of an alien world in complete darkness? Anika shoved to her feet. “Yes. I’m good now. Let’s go.”

  Sebastian caught up to her and steered her in a circle just as she saw a bright flash in the distance, followed a few minutes later by a rumble like thunder. “We will go this way.”

  Embarrassed when she knew she had no reason to be—after all she had no knowledge of the place and no landmark to tell her the right direction—Anika didn’t argue.

  “Do you think that’s a storm coming our way? How far do you think we are from the nearest settlement?”

  Sebastian looked up at the sky and then down at her. “I think that was the shuttle we heard. Either it crashed or the captain blew it up. She said that she could not allow it to fall into their hands.” He shrugged, dismissing it, and focusing on their dilemma. “If I jogged I still could not make it there before dark. And you certainly cannot. We will need to find a place to camp.”

  Anika argued that they’d be better off to just keep going until they reached civilization, but nobody was listening.

  Not that she intended to give up on sleeping in a shelter in a real bed!

  Unfortunately, by the time they found a spot that all three guys agreed would be a good place to camp for the night she was too exhausted to argue with them. She collapsed and stared tiredly at the ground while the guys gathered the materials for a camp fire, set up a makeshift shelter and spread a sleeping bag beneath it. They had MREs and water they’d brought with them for supper and then Anika curled up in a sleeping bag.

  She was joined just about the time she dozed off by Sebastian.

  By the time he managed to wiggle into place, they were sandwiched together like white on rice.

  “There is only one sleeping bag,” he said a little apologetically.

  “Don’t tell me Chance and Cole are going to try to get in here, too?” she asked groggily.

  He made a snorting sound she thought might have been a laugh. “They are on guard. We will trade off.”

  Oh joy!

  She should have felt excitement and discomfort and maybe even some wariness being cuddled up so snuggly with such a burly giant considering their history and what she now knew about him. She’d barely seen him at all in the weeks since that wild sexual encounter, not enough to get over her giddy admiration of him or past the embarrassment the incident and its aftermath had caused her. But the fatigue blunted everything, including her survival instincts.

  And, instead of feeling any of the things she thought she should have, she just felt a budding of happiness and contentment, and maybe oddest of all, safety when he carefully worked his arms around her and snuggled her against his broad chest and flat belly.

  She barely had time to register how much warmer and more comfortable she was when the ‘lights’ went out.

  That time she slept so deeply that the blast of frigid air that hit her at the ‘changing of the guard’ sent her in to fight and flight mode. She began flailing her arms and legs, trying to fight her way out of the bag—or just to fight her ‘attacker’ possibly since she had no idea where she was or what she was doing.

  Chance trapped her in the bulky bedding with his arms and one leg, seeming to sense her distress. “It is alright, Anika. It is I, Chance.”

  His voice soothed her more than the words—which she barely registered—but then she’d always thought he had the dreamiest voice in the world. “Chance?”

  “Yes. I regret that I disturbed you. If you do not want to share the sleeping bag, I will sit by the fire.”

  Shame instantly smote Anika. He was freezing and she’d fought him off the only warm place! “No! I’m sorry! Get in. I just …. I was disoriented.”

  He didn’t argue.

  She knew why as soon as he’d settled. He was shivering from the cold.

  Gritting her teeth, she moved closer to share her warmth, but he’d leached all of the warmth out of the sleeping bag before, slowly, it began to warm again from their combined body heat.

  She hadn’t really managed to get warm enough to go back to sleep when it was Cole’s turn in the sleeping bag.

  He was more of a stranger to her than either of the other two, and had also followed her to take her babies back. She wasn’t particularly happy about that, but she didn’t hold it against him. It was his job, and it was actually admirable that he took it so seriously he’d followed her across the galaxy.

  As long as he couldn’t do anything about taking her babies back, now, and didn’t try, she thought she could get along with him.

  It was awkward, though, to find herself plastered against him.

  “It’s like trying to cuddle a refrigerator, I know,” he said after a few minutes.

  Anika tilted a questioning look at his face.

  “All the bionics—so I’ve been told.”

  His face was expressionless in the predawn light that had begun to filter through the trees and his voice without inflection, but she felt his hurt straight to the marrow of her bones.

  Rejection was hard.

  Rejection for something a person couldn’t do anything about was like being stabbed.

  Repeatedly.

  She managed a faint smile. “If you mean you’re as cold as an icebox, I agree.” She frowned. “I don’t understand it. I thought it was supposed to be spring when we got here. We must be on the other side of the equator or something.”

  He relaxed fractionally. “Yeah. It’s colder than a witch’s tit out there. I have to wonder what part of Earth spring they were comparing it to. Antarctica?”

  Anika snorted a laugh, but it was drowned out by a sudden flurry of movement and beastly snarls.

  Cole’s eyes widened. Before Anika could whip her head to see the threat, he made an abortive attempt to leap from the bag and then rolled with her until he was on top of her and jerked the flap of the sleeping bag tightly over his head.

  Anika was in too much shock to really register his weight bearing her down against the rocky, hard ground, but she knew he’d placed his body between her and whatever was attacking them.

  There was a meaty thud above them and a yelp. Cole’s head jerked and a split second later the sleeping bag was peeled from them like tissue paper.

  Sebastian shoved Cole’s
weapon at him and then jerked Anika up by one arm and pushed her behind him.

  In shock and disoriented besides, Anika’s brain was slow to catch up with what was happening, but she saw Cole mopping at his head and smears of blood in his hair where one of the beasts had locked his jaws over his head and bitten clean through the thick padding of the sleeping bag. The beast was crumpled, unmoving, perhaps twenty to thirty feet away, its head half gone from the boot Sebastian had used to remove it from Cole’s head.

  Cole and Chance stepped closer, hemming her in as they faced the beasts circling them.

  Chance, carrying a handful of limbs, as if he’d gone to collect more firewood, dropped the sticks and moved his weapon into position as the pack charged them again.

  The attack was deafening. The guys fired over and over and then bludgeoned or kicked the animals when they got too close. The beasts yipped and roared and snarled and yelped when they were struck like a wild pack of wolves or dogs, but they looked nothing like the furry beasts Anika was familiar with. Hairless, and with a scaled hide, they most closely resembled long legged armadillos—even to the ears and snout.

  But they were ferocious and very hungry.

  Before the guys managed to convince the beasts that dinner was off, more than half the pack lay dead or dying around them.

  Shaken to the core, all Anika could think about was finding a place to sit before she collapsed. While she was looking around, Chance took a step and his leg buckled, sending him crashing to the ground.

  It was enough to jerk Anika out of her self-absorption. She wasn’t actually injured, after all, just badly shaken and scared shitless.

  The blood running down Chance’s thigh freaked her out. “Oh god! Oh my god! One of those bastards bit you?” she gasped, looking around frantically for the pack that held their supplies. Dashing over to it when she spotted it, she emptied the contents on the ground in every direction as she dug for the medical kit. Finally, near the bottom, she found it and rushed back to Chance.

  Her hands were shaking so badly it was all she could do to hang onto the sterile bandage she opened while she poured antiseptic in the gaping wound. “It needs stitches,” she said, and burst into tears. “It’s my fault!”

  Chance stared at her in horror for several moments. “You did not bite me.”

  Anika snorted a laugh and then laughed hysterically for a couple of minutes. “I made you get rid of the armor,” she finally managed to get out.

  “That would not help the flesh,” Sebastian said pointedly. “The armor is to protect the pneumatics.”

  “And the nanoes long since repaired that.”

  “And they will repair the flesh wound, as well,” Sebastian pointed out.

  Chance glared at him. “But I will feel better if you wrap it.”

  Anika sent him an earnest look. “Does it hurt?”

  “Like a mother fucker,” Chance agreed readily.

  Anika issued another snorting laugh, but she caught his face between her hands and studied him anxiously. “But … you’ll be ok?”

  His gaze moved over her face and his brows drew together in the ‘puppy dog’ frown she found so adorable. “I love you … too,” he said quietly.

  Anika blinked at him in shock as that went straight through her like an arrow to the heart.

  “Don’t anybody get excited about me,” Cole said dryly. “I’m pretty sure I’ve stopped bleeding from the head wound.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Pulling herself together with an effort, Anika collected the medical kit and left Chance once she’d bandaged his wound to have a look at Cole’s wounds. Thankfully, it wasn’t deep, but she could see that a couple of the thing’s wicked teeth had managed to penetrate the thick padding of the sleeping bag and his scalp. When Sebastian had drop kicked the beast, the fangs had torn the scalp, but they were already starting to scab over by the time she looked and, thankfully, wouldn’t need stitches.

  She didn’t think she could handle stitches at the moment without puking.

  She cleaned it thoroughly with antiseptic and wrapped it despite his protests to make certain nothing got in the open wounds before they could close.

  Sebastian was clearly impatient when she approached him, but he paused in his efforts to collect their supplies long enough for her to examine him.

  “Nothing,” he said when she’d finished.

  He sounded … disgusted. Puzzled, she repacked the medical kit and shoved it into the bag Cole was repacking.

  They were ready to leave by the time she’d done so, anxious to put the scene of the massacre behind them—no doubt for the same reason Anika was.

  Every hair on her body was prickling with anticipation that something new would jump out of the woods, drawn by the smell of blood.

  Or that the part of the pack that had escaped would gather their courage and come back.

  She was relieved when they’d put some distance between them and the campsite, but not hugely. She knew damned well the forest would be teaming with wildlife and she spent a good bit of time trying to mentally review the data she’d gotten on the indigenous life forms.

  It didn’t help much. The brochure she’d gotten was basically an advertisement touting all the best features of the new world. It didn’t contain warnings. And the training program she’d taken part in and the yearly refresher courses had been focused on survival skills.

  One would think that they would consider rambling, man eating packs of animals important survival information to pass along, she thought angrily.

  “Looks like they saved the best stuff to surprise us,” Cole muttered from just behind her right shoulder.

  Anika glanced back at him questioningly, surprised that his thoughts seemed to reflect hers so closely.

  He shook his head. “I damn sure didn’t see anything in the material I was given to warn anybody about which animals we should watch out for.”

  Anika nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. I suppose,” she added doubtfully, “they didn’t really expect anybody to arrive like we did and maybe we would have found out before we left the processing center?”

  Cole grunted. “Well, that answers that.”

  “What?”

  “I thought, maybe, they’d given me the short ‘sweet’ version. But apparently, they don’t want to scare away potential customers by telling them the real story.”

  Anika frowned, thoughtful, but also irritated at his viewpoint. “So … you’re thinking this whole business is … like a scam of some kind?”

  “And you don’t?”

  “I’d like to think not since I’m committed to this.”

  “Yeah, and everybody else that gets out here. So deeply in debt to the company there’s really no choice but to stay.”

  Anika’s stomach tightened.

  She hadn’t had a bout of morning sickness in weeks, but her belly felt empty enough at this point to make her nauseous.

  Apparently, she looked a little sick. Cole caught her arm, glanced around and then led her to a relatively level stone to sit and took out a canteen to give her a drink of water.

  “I do not want to camp another night,” Sebastian said pointedly. “We need to keep moving as quickly as we can.”

  Cole’s lips tightened. “She’s pregnant, you know.”

  Sebastian blinked at him and then studied Anika. “Yes. I know this.”

  Cole shook his head. “She needs to rest a minute and she needs to eat a little.”

  Sebastian frowned but nodded and slipped his pack from his back.

  They debated the matter and then decided to split two MREs instead of getting one each since they only had a few and potentially a long way to go.

  It was sufficient to settle Anika’s stomach and energize her.

  And to give her time to think.

  Her first impulse had been to inform Cole she was sorry for him if he had that kind of shitty outlook on everyone, but Chance had made a similar comment and he certainly hadn’t been arou
nd enough human garbage to believe they were all bad. He was so very logical, in fact, that she felt like she had to accept his analysis of the situation.

  “I guess you think I’m an idiot for falling for … this?”

  Cole sent her a questioning look and then shook his head. “The only way a con works is to play on people’s wants and needs. I’d say that I doubt even the government has any idea what the company is up to, but I know better. Kickbacks. They know. They just want to get rid of some of the excess population.”

  “So? What now?” Anika asked unhappily.

  He studied her. “You know it isn’t any better where we came from. It’s just home. You’ve got a chance of making a good life for you and your children. Just … be careful. Watch yourself. And don’t let the company get any more of a hold on you than you can help. That way, you at least have some options.”

  She met Chance’s gaze over Cole’s shoulder and smiled at him a little tentatively, recalling what he’d said to her. “At least I’ve got Chance to help me.”

  Cole’s expression immediately closed but Anika missed it as a sudden thought occurred to her. “And you and Sebastian,” she added. “That was … just awesome what you guys did back there. I am so grateful I had all of you to protect me.” She touched her slightly rounded belly. “No way I could have fought them off by myself. We wouldn’t be here now.”

  Chance, Sebastian, and even Cole looked pleased by the praise and everyone was a lot more cheerful when they got up and headed out again.

  It buoyed Anika’s spirits, too, for a few hours, but she was dragging long before they stopped to take a short rest and split two more MRE’s.

  All she really wanted to do once she’d eaten was take a nap.

  Sebastian scooped her up and cradled her against his chest. “Rest a little.”

  “I can carry her,” Chance said tightly.

  Sebastian glanced at him. “After the next stop if she isn’t feeling better.”

  Chance glanced from Sebastian to Anika and said nothing more.

  It transpired that everyone got the opportunity to carry Anika—whether they wanted to or not—although they at least were kind enough to pretend they wanted to—even Cole. She did her best to keep up with them, but she didn’t think she could have kept their grueling pace if she hadn’t been pregnant—with twins—and far enough along to feel it dragging at her body.