by Presley Hall
When I jerk awake again, my head feels clearer.
I have no idea how much time has passed, but as my eyes open and sensation floods my body, I surge to my feet.
Relief washes over me as I realize that my limbs work again. I still feel woozy and disoriented, but I have command of my body once more. The paralysis must’ve been a temporary side effect of the tranquilizer.
The building where I’m being held is very dark now, but I can make out a crumpled shape in the cell next to mine.
Brooke.
She’s curled in a ball on the bare floor, her shiny brown hair tangled and matted. She stirs, whimpering as she slowly pushes herself up to a sitting position. Her gaze darts around wildly as she shoves her hair out of her face.
She sees me almost immediately and cries out, covering her mouth with one hand as she leaps to her feet.
We stumble toward each other at the same time, separated by the bars but reaching through them for each other anyway, desperate to touch one another.
I remember how Druxik went immediately to Cora when we rescued the Terran women from the warehouse. I recall thinking that he shouldn’t have stopped to kiss her, that there was no time. Now I understand. It doesn’t matter what else is happening around us or what’s separating us. I need to touch Brooke more than I need to breathe. I need to know that she’s real, that she’s here with me.
That for now, she’s still alive.
“Zhori,” she gasps, clasping my face in her hands as she kisses me wildly through the bars. “Oh god, I was afraid they were going to kill you!”
The ability to touch her brings me some relief, but not enough. I’m furious—not with her, or even with the guards or Savyiek so much as myself.
I didn’t protect her as I promised.
I wasn’t able to save my mate.
I’m angry with myself for not suspecting that something like this could happen or doing more to prevent it. I believed we were safe, that the mission was all but finished. And now Brooke has been recaptured moments before she reached safety. Again.
Before I can say anything to her, the door to the cell block opens. A bit of light spills into the space, allowing us to see Savyiek and his cadre of guards as they enter.
The slug-like alien makes his way toward our cells slowly, his eyes narrowed with anger at the sight of us but filled with triumph too. He smiles lasciviously at Brooke, his gaze dragging over her body.
“You fools,” he taunts as he stops in front of us, his expression full of hateful glee. “You thought you were safe, but you were betrayed. You should have killed that smuggler,” he adds, looking at me. A chuckle ripples through him, the heavy folds of his body shaking beneath the expensive fabric of his tunic. “I can’t remember his name. Started with a G—oh yes, Gir. He found out that his rival was going to be smuggling a strange-looking alien and his mate off planet, and, well… It wasn’t hard between that and the news of my reward for your capture for him to put the pieces together. All it took was a little asking around, and he found out that I’ve been looking for you.”
“You—” Brooke lunges for the bars, her hands wrapping around them tightly as she glares at him. “You filthy monster! You knew we’d be there.”
“Of course I did.” He smiles at her, his jowls shaking as he crosses his spindly arms over his chest. “I knew you’d be at the ship, and so I had some of my men destroy it and bring you here.” He glowers at me, his eyes narrowing. “You’ve caused me too much trouble already, Kalixian, or I’d sell you as a slave to the fighting rings. But it’s less headache for everyone if I just have you executed. After all, it’s not as if I need the money.”
He laughs again, turning his attention to Brooke.
“And you. I’m going to make you pay for all the trouble you’ve caused me, but I’ll enjoy that much more. After all, I happen to know that under all that clothing you’ve got on, you’re a very beautiful female. I’ve never had a Terran woman before, but I hear they’re very feisty. I’ll enjoy teaching you your place.” He pauses and glances at me again, considering. “I almost want to keep this one alive long enough to watch as I enjoy your charms thoroughly, since it’s obvious that the two of you care for each other.”
Brooke’s eyes flash, panic and anger burning in their depths. She starts to speak, but Savyiek waves a hand dismissively.
“Don’t bother trying to deny it. I saw the two of you at the bars together as I came in. Clearly your savior has been doing more than just rescuing you.” His upper lip curls. “It’s a shame, really. You’re so very beautiful, I had planned on making you the queen of my little harem. I was going to pamper you with every possible luxury, so long as you pleased me. But now that you’ve clearly laid down with this Kalixian filth, I’ll have no choice but to treat you like the whore that you are. And I’ll enjoy that too—just in a different way. After all, I won’t have to be so careful with you now.”
He steps closer to the bars, his long green tongue sliding out of his mouth and over his lips as his eyes rake over Brooke again. She shrinks away, a small sound escaping her lips as she retreats to the back of the cell, and Savyiek starts to laugh triumphantly.
“I don’t think she’ll be all that hard to break once you’re dead, Kalixian,” he mutters cruelly. “But if she is, that could be enjoyable in its own way. And it won’t be long. I’ll be sending someone to collect you shortly.”
He sneers at me and turns to leave, lumbering from the room. Brooke is still standing near the back of her cell, her arms wrapped protectively around herself. The sight of her fearful expression fills me with a seething fury so powerful it nearly blinds me.
I know what the piece of krax who captured us is doing. He’s letting us both sit with our fear, knowing that soon, I’ll be taken away to be killed and Brooke will be sent to face her fate with Savyiek. He obviously knows we care for each other and wants to torture us until we’re hauled away to meet our respective fates. He’s every bit as evil and manipulative as the Orkun, and I have the sudden vicious urge to rip him limb from limb.
But more important than revenge is escape. The problem is, I can’t see a clear path to either of those things.
Once she’s certain Savyiek is gone, Brooke rushes back toward the bars between our respective cages. I can see how terrified she is—she isn’t bothering to hide it from me. Her eyes are wide and frightened, her face pale, and her knuckles turn white as she grips the bars.
“Zhori, you can’t die,” she whispers in a trembling voice. “You can’t. I won’t let you.”
I realize with a start that she’s not so much afraid for herself as she is for me. The fear in her eyes and her shaking hands, her reaction to Savyiek—it’s all because she’s afraid of what’s about to happen to me.
Something seems to pierce my chest, painful and pleasurable all at once. No one has ever been so concerned for me, loved me so much that the idea of anything happening to me terrified them. But I can’t think about that now. I have to focus—I have to get us out of this. I can’t let my Irisa die.
I move closer to the bars, keeping my voice low so that no one else can hear.
“There might be another ship we could use,” I murmur, and her eyes go wide. “Even though Vortax’s has been destroyed, I think we might still have a chance at getting out of here.”
“What?” Her brows furrow. “How? I was awake long enough to see some of where we are—this place is huge. We’ll never get back to the dock. And even if we did, we don’t have any more money—”
“I saw a ship as I was being dragged here,” I tell her urgently, my voice still hushed. “I think it’s Savyiek’s private ship. It’s small, and it’s docked not too far from here in his private bay. This place seems to be huge, but if we can create some kind of distraction, I think I can find a way back to it pretty quickly. We just have to figure out how to get out of these cells, and then we can make a run for it.”
Brooke’s eyes light up with fresh hope at that, and I can see h
er thinking fast, her gaze going a little unfocused as she chews her lip.
“We need to get a guard to open the cell doors somehow.” She glances around, scanning our surroundings. “We can’t get out of here by force. You don’t have your weapons, and we can’t break the cages open. So we’ll need to trick them somehow—get them to open the doors for us.” After a moment of thought, she leans forward excitedly, her eyes going wide. “I’ll pretend to be sick. And then I’ll attack the guard once he comes in.”
Her words cause a visceral reaction inside me that I feel all the way down to my bones.
“What?” Horror laces my tone as I stare at her. “No! Absolutely not.”
We don’t have much time to come up with a plan, but I can’t let my Irisa put herself in danger.
I just can’t.
24
Brooke
Zhori’s jaw clenches as he shakes his head.
“No,” he says firmly, his voice hard. “I won’t let you do that Brooke. I won’t let you take that risk. There’s got to be some other way.”
My heart aches at the look on his face, at his determination to not let me risk myself in any way. He’s brave and honorable and fierce, and I love all those things about him.
But it’s time for me to be brave. Time for me to be fierce.
“This is the best chance we have,” I whisper, leaning as close to the bars as I can and reaching for his hand.
He’s always been the one saving me, reassuring me, comforting me. Now I’m going to protect him.
“Savyiek plans to kill you anyway.” Even saying those words hurts. They stick in my throat as I speak, and I have to force them out. “The guard isn’t going to care if you’re sick or hurt. But Savyiek wants me. He has… plans for me. If it looks like I’m sick or injured, the guard is going to be concerned, because he’ll be in trouble if Savyiek doesn’t get his fun.”
I’m amazed at how even my tone is. I’m talking about a horrible slug of an alien turning me into his sex slave, doing things to me that I don’t even want to imagine, and saying it all in the most matter-of-fact way. But it is the fact of our reality right now, and I need to stay calm. I need to keep us both calm and make Zhori see reason.
“The guard will be more likely to come in and help me,” I add, keeping my voice steady.
“No.” Zhori shakes his head stubbornly. “I don’t like this. What if—”
“You taught me how to defend myself,” I insist, looking up into his beautiful eyes. The silver flecks gleam brightly in the dim light of the room. “I can do this. And you know it’s the only way.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. Then he lets out a long breath, his nostrils flaring.
“All right,” he murmurs.
“I’ll be okay, Zhori.” I try to smile, although I know it looks strained. “I had a good teacher.”
Palming the back of my head, he kisses me, hard and fierce. I swear I can feel all of his emotions in this moment, the desperation and fear and desire. I cling to him with my eyes closed, desperate to remember this. To absorb as much of Zhori’s strength and warmth as I can.
I love this man. I love him so damn much.
We both have something to fight for. Someone to fight for. And we’ll die for each other, if we have to.
“You remember everything I showed you?” Zhori asks when we break apart, his face creased with worry.
“Yes.” I nod, focusing on the task before me. “Tell me which moves to use.”
He murmurs directions to me, reminding me of the maneuvers he taught me and how to disable someone much bigger than me. In hushed voices, we talk through a plan, going over it until I can visualize my entire attack in my mind’s eye.
After that, all we can do is wait until a guard comes in to do his rounds.
When the cellblock door finally opens again, my heart starts beating so hard in my chest that I don’t think I’ll have to work too hard to fake an illness. I feel as if I might actually be sick.
Falling to my knees, I begin choking and gagging as if I’m going to vomit.
“Help!” I call out weakly, crawling toward the bars. “I’m sick. I need help! I think the tranquilizer—” I gag again, gasping for breath as if I’m having an allergic reaction. “My throat… I can’t—I can’t breathe…”
At first, the guard doesn’t come any closer, as if he’s intending to just ignore me. I choke and gasp again, gagging until I nearly make myself throw up for real.
Zhori gets in on the ruse too, rushing toward the door of his cage and rattling the bars. “She can’t breathe!” he shouts at the guard. “Get over here, you pile of krax! Help her!”
The guard pauses, glancing over toward us, and I slump onto the floor, grabbing at my throat. Zhori rattles the bars harder.
“She’s going to pass out! Help her!”
His voice sounds so frantic that if we hadn’t discussed our plan earlier, even I might believe him. And it seems to work on the guard, because the alien guard cautiously comes toward the cages, his face creased in a frown.
“What’s going on here?” he asks, his bulk shadowing the door of my cell.
Zhori slams against the bars again as I gasp for breath, and my heart clenches as I realize that he’s just funneling the actual fear that he feels for me into this act—not because he thinks I’m really sick, but because he’s afraid of what’s going to happen to me if we fail. He’s probably even more terrified than he’s revealing, not for the reasons the guard thinks, but because I’m about to attack an alien more than twice my size.
Come on, Brooke, you can do this.
Tension coils in my stomach. I can’t fail in this. I don’t want to let Zhori down.
My head lolls to one side, and I let my breathing grow shallower as the guard opens the door to the cell and steps inside.
“All right, little Terran. Let me get a look at you,” he growls, reaching down to lift me off the floor. I stay limp, trying to appear as sick and weak as possible until he sets me on my feet.
As he peers at me, I see my tiny window of opportunity. For a split second, my heart seems to freeze in my chest, anticipation and nerves rushing through me.
Then I move.
Quick as I can, I lunge forward, bringing my knee into the guard’s balls as I swing my elbow up underneath his chin.
My knee finds its target squarely and hard, and my elbow does too.
His head snaps back, then he groans and stumbles forward. Before he can recover, I grab him in a headlock, tightening my arm around his neck as I kick at his ankle, using the momentum to bring him down to the hard floor.
The guard lets out a deep grunt as he hits the floor, nearly landing on top of me.
“You vicious little beast,” he spits, baring his teeth.
I try to tighten the headlock, but he shifts in my grip, preventing me from getting a solid hold. In a flash, he’s on top of me, his hands going to my throat.
“Savyiek won’t know the difference if I take you first,” he snarls. “You’re no virgin, after all. You let that alien take you in every hole, I bet. Now I want a taste, before Savyiek carves you up piece by piece once he’s done wringing you dry.”
I gasp for breath, and Zhori roars, flinging himself against the bars.
But I won’t give up. As long as I’m alive, I won’t stop fighting.
I wriggle beneath the burly guard, managing to get my legs out from under him.
He sneers at me, his dark eyes narrowing. “You think I’m going to let you off easy because you spread your legs for me? Well, I’m just going to give it to you that much harder, since you’re so welcoming.”
“Fuck you,” I grit out.
Arching my hips upward in one quick motion, I open up more space between our bodies. Then I swing one leg up and around his head. As I scrabble to get into the position Zhori taught me, the guard manages to backhand me across the cheek, but I don’t stop struggling.
Finally, I get my other leg in place, locking them ar
ound his neck. Sweat trickles down the back of my neck, and my ears pound with the rushing of blood in my head. I reach up, grabbing my ankle to pull the vise grip even harder and squeezing my thighs together.
The guard flops like a fish, caught and unable to get free. I’m not the strongest girl in the world, but I’ve got leverage now, and I’m not letting go.
Because I know if he gets free, it will be all over for both Zhori and me.
For a horrible moment, I think I won’t be strong enough to hold on until he passes out. My muscles are burning, screaming for relief, my arms and legs shaking. But finally, his squirming slows. His face turns red and then purple as he gasps for breath, and he goes still.
I release the headlock and scramble to my feet as fast as I can, my heart pounding.
Reaching down, I grab the keys and blaster off his belt. I unlock the cage with trembling fingers, shoving the door open and moving quickly to open Zhori’s cell door as well. My mate is staring at me, his eyes shining with admiration, and the moment his cage is unlocked, he steps out and grabs the back of my head, kissing me hard.
“My fierce warrior mate,” he murmurs against my lips. Then he takes my hand, nodding toward the door. “Let’s go.”
We burst out of the holding area into a long hallway, tiled with marble and hung with velvet over the stone walls. The hall is empty, but by the time we reach the next set of doors and shove through them, there are a handful of guards waiting for us.
I don’t hesitate. Not for a second. There might have been a time when I would’ve questioned whether I really needed to use the blaster in my hand, but that time is long past. As Zhori attacks two of them like a madman, stealing a weapon from the first guard he takes down, I point the blaster at the one coming toward me and shoot.
He drops like a stone, his forehead smoking from the blaster bolt. I only have a heartbeat to register the sight before another guard races toward me. This time I miss, hitting his shoulder, but the second shot sends him down to the floor with his friend.
