Varga reached them just as Polly swayed and started to crumple to the ground. He reached for her, but despite her exhaustion, she started to struggle. After a quick exchange of glances with Issar, Varga gave her a careful blow under her ear. Her body immediately went still, and he wrapped her in one of the cloaks as Issar nodded approvingly.
“What did you do?” Rummel demanded.
“I knocked her out. She’s too exhausted to walk but too terrified to let me carry her.”
“You can carry me,” Saka purred, but despite the provocative words, he could hear her exhaustion and simply ignored the suggestion, handing her another cloak.
Rummel grunted but made no further protest, peering up at Varga instead. “How’s Joan?”
“She will be fine,” he said, relief sweeping through him once again. “She’s currently receiving treatment but she should be awake soon.”
Rummel grunted again, and the party went the rest of the way in silence until Saka spotted Baahy’s body and snarled. The male’s face was swollen almost beyond recognition, but she didn’t seem to have any doubt about who was lying there.
“You don’t know how often I wished that bastard would die,” she said softly, standing over his body.
She pulled back her foot to kick at him but Varga stopped her. “He was poisoned. I don’t know what it would take to spread the poison.”
“I hope he died in agony.”
“He did,” he assured her and gently urged her in the direction of the ship.
As soon as everyone was on the ship, he checked on Joan—still sleeping—and George—still watching over her—and headed for the bridge. He wanted off this planet. Now.
As he passed through the lounge, he noticed Issar passing out water bottles and protein bars to the others and nodded approvingly. He could do with sustenance himself, but it could wait until after they were in flight.
As he initiated the startup sequence, the comm light blinked. After a moment’s hesitation, he accepted the message.
“Is that you, Varga?”
He gave a relieved sigh as he recognized Nepala’s voice. “It is. We are just about to leave. It appears that your revolution was successful.”
“On the whole, yes.” Nepala’s voice was tired but triumphant. “However, there is one small problem and I was wondering if you could assist.”
“We’re leaving,” he repeated, ignoring the twinge of guilt.
“I know, and I’m not trying to stop you, but I wondered if you had any weapons.”
“Very few,” he admitted, thinking of his limited arsenal. “But I could drop them off if you tell me where to leave them.”
“Not that kind of weapon. I meant the ship’s equipment. You see, the remaining guards have barricaded themselves in their quarters, and I’m not sure how long it will take us to break through. But if someone could cause sufficient damage from the outside…”
Varga started to laugh. Although luxury yachts were not supposed to be equipped with weapons, his had not only come with an assortment of powerful—and illegal—weapons, he had added a few extras over the years.
“That I can handle. Is there anything I need to avoid?”
“If you could avoid damaging the hangar, that would be helpful. We are considering attempting to run the mine on our own.”
Varga thought back to the harshness of his own upbringing on Sorvid and shuddered. But even though it had been a hard, dangerous life, the fact that they had been working for themselves made a difference. He thought of his friend Draka, refusing to leave Sorvid because he had accepted his existence. Nepala’s plan might work. He caught the sound of a distant cheer from Nepala’s end of the transmission. “Celebrating already?”
“I’m afraid some of the males have devised… creative ends for the surviving guards.” Nepala sighed, the weariness even more apparent. “I don’t approve, but I’m not going to try and stop them.”
“Probably just as well. You would do well to pick your battles carefully. It’s going to take a strong hand to make your plans work, but I know you can do it.”
“I hope so.”
The engines finished firing up, and Varga lifted the ship into the air. “I’m airborne. Expect fireworks very shortly.”
“I look forward to them. Thank you again, Varga, and please thank your mate as well.”
Nepala signed off, leaving Varga staring at the console.
His mate.
In the flurry of events that occurred since they met, he had never stopped to put a name to his relationship with Joan, but the word settled into his heart with a sure and certain knowledge. Of course she was his mate. Now all he had to do was make sure that she understood that as well.
Chapter Sixteen
Joan jerked awake, a confusing array of images rushing through her mind, but she seized on the only one that seemed to matter: Varga bleeding and falling to his knees when the whip struck him. She tried to sit up and bumped her head against a clear plastic canopy, but as soon as she moved, it began to retract. Where the hell was she? The device she had been lying on was the only object in a small white room except for a padded chair with a familiar golden figure— “George!”
He chirped enthusiastically, but when he tried to move, she could see that one of his rear legs was injured.
“Oh no,” she whispered as her eyes filled with tears. She climbed down from the bed and went to him, absently noted she felt better than she had since before she left Earth.
“What happened to you?” she asked as she carefully lifted him into her arms. “Where’s Varga? And where are we?”
“We are on Varga’s ship.” Taliane’s head peeped around the door opening, her eyes sparkling as her hair swirled with excitement.
“You mean we made it?”
“We did. And if you feel up to it, Varga is about to destroy the guards’ quarters.”
“I definitely don’t want to miss that.”
Still carrying George, she followed Taliane down the corridor and into a big, luxuriously furnished room. Everyone except Varga was gathered in front of a window that ran the length of one side of the room.
“Where’s Varga?” she asked. As happy as she was to see that everyone was on board, she wanted Varga. The memory of him bleeding still tormented her thoughts.
“He’s on the bridge,” Issar said. “Through there.”
He pointed to a door at the opposite end of the lounge and she hurried over to it, but when she reached for the control, she realized her hand was trembling. What if everything had changed now that they were free?
He was seated in the pilot’s chair, his big body covered with dirt, and she could see his exhaustion in the tired slump of the shoulders, but he was vibrantly alive. She burst into tears.
“What’s the matter? Are you still ill?” His voice was frantic even as his arms closed gently around her.
“I’m fine. Really. I just keep remembering that you were bleeding.”
He gave a relieved laugh and scooped her up, along with George, carrying them both back to his chair and settling them in his lap. “I’m very hard to damage, little bird. You didn’t need to worry.”
“I should have known,” she agreed, nestling into his warm, hard, apparently uninjured chest. “But it was the last thing I remembered. What happened?”
“I’ll tell you everything,” he promised, “but first I promised Nepala that I would blow up the guards’ quarters.”
The words took a minute to sink in, but then she gave an excited bounce. “Nepala? You mean he succeeded?”
“It sounds like it. But some of the surviving guards have holed up in their quarters. So now I’m going to expose them to life on the surface.” He pressed a series of buttons, and she leaned forward eagerly. They were hovering a few hundred feet above the ground, and she could easily distinguish both the landing field and the hangar.
Nothing seemed to happen at first, and she was about to give him a questioning look when there was a puff of smoke far
below. The second followed immediately, then a third, until a row of them appeared. And then the ground simply seemed to give way, collapsing in on itself until nothing was left but a deep rocky trench.
“Wow,” she breathed, staring at the destruction in open-mouthed wonder.
“That was one of my little additions. Very satisfactory,” Varga agreed. He bent over the console for a minute, then the ground began to retreat beneath them, and she realized they were ascending. A huge sigh of relief emerged from her lips and he laughed, hugging her shoulders. “Happy to see the last of Drahana, sweetheart?”
“Very much so. But what happened? How did we get away?”
“Issar and I took care of the guards. Rummel disposed of Ahona,” he said grimly. “That bastard poisoned you.”
She shivered. “I remember my arm burning and then everything went black. That machine where I woke up—did that bed cure me?”
“It just finished the job. George here is the real savior. He licked away the poison.”
“George? You’re such a good boy.” She started to lift him up and kiss his head, but he squeaked, and she remembered his injured leg. “Is that when he got hurt?”
“No, that happened when he attacked Baahy,” Varga said grimly.
“I don’t understand. Where did Baahy come from?”
“He was waiting here at the ship. He planned to force me to fly him—to fly us—out of here.”
She shuddered, grateful that she hadn’t had to confront the guard again. “And George attacked him?”
He nodded. “He rushed over and bit him, and apparently he too can be lethal.”
“See, I told you he was smart.”
“I will never question his intelligence again.”
She hugged the little lizard, careful not to disturb his leg. “But what about his leg? Can we help him?”
“I thought we would try the medical bed. I don’t know if it is programmed for animals, but it can’t hurt. If it doesn’t recognize his species, I can try putting a splint on it,” he said doubtfully.
“The bed is a wonderful idea. Let’s take him there right now.”
She started to get up, but Varga stood, still holding her in his arms. He staggered, and she remembered how exhausted he had looked when she had first seen him.
“Put me down,” she demanded.
“I don’t want to,” he said, sounding like a sulky little boy.
“I promise I’ll stay right here at your side, but I feel wonderful and I really want to walk on my own. Please?”
As she suspected, he couldn’t resist the pleading in her eyes and carefully lowered her to her feet. When they entered the next room, Issar grinned at Varga. “That was most satisfying.”
“I admit that I enjoyed it as well.”
Joan looked over and saw Rummel bending over Polly, who seemed to be sleeping on one of the thickly padded couches.
“Poor thing,” she said softly. “Is she exhausted?”
Rummel snorted and glared at Varga. “No, your male knocked her out.”
She came to a dead halt, staring up at him. “You did what?”
“I had to do it,” he said quickly. “She was too exhausted to walk but she panicked when I tried to carry her and I was afraid she would injure herself.”
“So you injured her anyway?”
“It was a single, careful blow,” Issar interjected. “She will probably not even feel it when she wakes. It was the best action under the circumstances.”
She sighed and tried to push aside the disturbing image of Varga hitting the other woman. Polly was definitely not the most stable person, and she knew Varga wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t believe it was justified. But the knowledge still bothered her. Pushing it aside to think about later, she made herself nod.
“We need to get George to the medical bed.”
Varga studied her face for a moment, but he didn’t say anything as he escorted her back to the room where she had awoken. George looked ridiculously small in the center of the medical bed, and she watched anxiously as the canopy came down over him. The machine whirred and hummed and finally displayed a readout in an unrecognizable language.
“What does it say?”
“George has a broken leg,” he said slowly.
“Can it heal him?”
“Yes,” he agreed, but there was something strange in his expression.
“Is something else wrong? What aren’t you telling me?” she demanded anxiously.
He shook his head, then grinned at her. “I should have realized when I saw how fiercely she defended you.”
“She?”
“Yes, little bird. George is a female.”
Her eyes filled with unexpected tears. “She’s been through so much.”
“A most indomitable female,” he agreed, hugging her closer. “Now let’s leave her to heal and see how the rest of our passengers are doing.”
They returned to the lounge to find Polly awake. She frowned at Varga but didn’t seem any more frightened of him than before. Joan decided that he had probably made the right decision. As she looked around the small group, she realized that everyone looked exhausted.
“Maybe you should tell everyone where they can go to rest.”
He nodded and stepped forward. “With regard to the sleeping arrangements, there is only one cabin. Joan and I will occupy that.”
“But—” she began.
“It’s the captain’s cabin and I am the captain. We will stay there,” he said firmly.
She huffed, and Issar looked amused but didn’t comment.
“The other state room was converted into my training room. The floor is padded and should not be uncomfortable.”
“We will take that.” Issar smiled at his female. “I will make sure you sleep well.”
Taliane’s cheeks deepened to a violet hue, but she didn’t object.
“There are also two bunks in the crew cabin on the lower level. Perhaps the other two females?”
Saka snorted. “I’m not sharing a room with Crazy.” She stroked a hand along the luxurious upholstery and purred. “I’ll sleep out here.”
Polly glared at her, then gave Rummel an uncertain smile. “You can have the other bunk if you want. But I don’t think I’m a very quiet sleeper.”
“Considering the number of times your screaming woke me up, that’s an understatement,” Saka muttered.
Rummel ignored Saka and nodded at Polly. “Won’t bother me none. But my snoring might bother you.”
Polly unexpectedly giggled, then clapped a hand to her face when they all looked at her and fled the room.
“Crazy,” Saka repeated.
“Oh, stop it,” Joan said. “Can’t you even try and be understanding?”
“It’s not like I didn’t go through the same thing and I don’t act like a lunatic,” Saka said defensively. “She’s just so weak.”
“If she was weak, she would have stopped fighting,” Joan snapped. “She never did.”
Something that looked almost like shame crossed Saka’s face before she abruptly pushed herself to her feet. “I’m going to take a shower. It’s time to remove every trace of Drahana.”
Joan stared after her in dismay as Saka sauntered out of the room. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know,” Taliane said softly. “We all had to find a way to survive and we have to live with that.”
Issar put an arm around Taliane and stroked her head. Her hair wrapped around his fingers as he looked at Varga. “Do you have only one sanitary facility as well?”
Varga laughed. “No. In addition to the main facility, there is one behind the training room and one attached to the crew cabin.”
Issar nodded and turned Taliane in that direction. “Then we too shall cleanse ourselves of the planet.”
Joan looked longingly after them, then squeaked when Varga scooped her up in his arms.
“What are you doing?”
“I didn’t mention that the best
one is attached to our cabin.”
“But what if Rummel—”
She heard the older male laugh as they left. “Don’t worry about me, girlie. I think he needs it more than I do.”
“But—”
“He’s right. I do need it,” he said as the door panel slid closed behind them. But he wasn’t talking about the sanitary facility and her mouth went dry as she realized what he meant.
“What do you need?” she whispered.
“You, little bird. I need you.”
Chapter Seventeen
“I thought I lost you,” Varga said and Joan could see the pain on his face.
She understood only too well, the memory of his falling to the ground still clear in her mind. “I thought I lost you too.”
He groaned, and then his mouth descended over hers, hot, hard, and demanding. She met him just as eagerly, her arms going around his neck as he lifted her into his arms. He ignored the bed, backing her against the wall. His hands were frantic as he tore open her coverall, one big hand covering her breast in a firm grip. She writhed against him, suspended between his body and the wall.
“So perfect,” he groaned, lifting her higher so her breasts were even with his mouth and he could switch easily from one to the other, hard, sucking pulls that went straight to her aching core.
She wrapped her legs around him and rubbed her swollen clit against the hard muscles of his chest, the ridges of his scars sending streaks of pleasure up her spine. But she wasn’t close enough, her coveralls blocking some of the sensation. She moaned impatiently, and Varga responded, ripping her clothing away with one stroke and leaving her wet, naked folds pressed against his chest. Oh, yes, that was better. A tiny climax rolled through her as she slid over one of the scarred lines on his chest. But it wasn’t enough. She wanted more. She wanted him inside her.
“Varga, please.”
His big hands slid down to clasp her ass, pulling her even wider as he lowered her slowly on to his cock. He felt even bigger than she remembered, and as she stretched open around the huge head, a second climax swept over her, leaving her clinging to him with desperate hands as her body quivered, pulsing around the massive intruder.
Joan and the Juggernaut: A SciFi Alien Romance (Alien Abduction Book 10) Page 11