The fantasy bubble burst, and my brain took control in one second flat. “Where is your ship?” I didn’t pull away from him because I didn’t want to move enough to draw attention. We were in trouble here. The kiss might have delayed the bad guys seeing us while doing a quick scan of the busy landing bay, but we wouldn't be able to hide forever. And there were probably more of the bad guys from this… Cerberus legion coming.
Using my hair, he gently turned my face toward him. “Behind me. Three docks down on the left.”
Without moving my head, I peeked around the corner wall, where we’d been hiding in a kind of nook lined with beams, to see spaceship-sized parking spaces painted on the floor in bright, reflective orange. Each space had a strange set of symbols on them. The ship he’d indicated was smaller than the rest. Much smaller. “The little one?”
His spine stiffened, and his chest rose, rubbing against my all-too sensitive nipples. I drew in a sharp breath as he answered me. “My ship is built for stealth.” His voice was low and practically snarled. Yeah, even guys in space had size issues.
“Okay. But can it make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs?” I couldn't help myself. I was feeling the Star Wars, Princess Lea vibe and had to quote her.
His brows drew down. “What is a Kessel Run? It is not in any sector I know of.”
I shook my head, realizing watching science fiction and living it were two different things entirely. “Nevermind.” Stealth sounded good to me. “How do we get over there without getting killed? Or worse… captured?”
His mouth opened in surprise at my questions but continued to look down at me, and his gaze lingered on my still wet lips. “We run.”
“What if someone tries to stop us?” I looked around his shoulder again. Leaned farther out to get a better look at the rest of the landing bay. There were probably half a dozen aliens of various sorts standing between us and his ship. None of them had red arm bands, but that didn’t mean much as far as I was concerned.
“We shoot them.”
Shoot them. God.
All I’d wanted to do was settle in with a nice mate. Nothing more. Shooting people was a main reason I’d left Earth. I was right back where I started from except now, I was in a place I didn’t know, with customs and rules that were over my head. This was worse than home.
No, Boston wasn’t home any longer. I could never go back. I wanted to cry. This was just too much for one fucking day. I was used to dealing with a lot of shit at one time, but I was approaching overload. I licked my lips again. “I don’t have a gun.”
He grinned and tapped his thigh, which I had to admit looked mighty sexy with a holster strapped to it and a weapon that might just save us. “I get the ion pistol. Time for you to use that titan stick, gara.”
“It’s Zara,” I corrected. “Zara with a Z.”
His answer was the way the corner of his mouth tipped up before giving me a quick kiss on the lips. I didn’t have the heart to protest. “Ready?”
I took a deep breath and checked in with myself. Was I ready? No. Not really. My heart was pounding, my palms were sweaty, my nipples were still hard from his kiss, and despite every ounce of good sense, I was putting my life in the hands of a complete stranger that I’d known all of ten or fifteen minutes. Oh, and I might have to fight my way out of here with a cattle prod while he killed alien bad guys.
But if he got killed, I was done for. I had no clue how to fly, and I’d be stuck in this crappy place until I was caught. It would only be a matter of time. “Yes. I’m ready.”
I sooo wasn’t ready.
He nodded, pushed me gently away from him, so he could pull the space gun from the holster. Yeah, still sexy.
Before we moved, I had to know. I gripped his arm. “Who are you, Isaak? What are you doing here in this place if you hate it so much? Are you a space pirate or what?”
He pressed a finger to my lips. “Later, gara. First, we escape. Then we talk.”
I pursed my lips, not thrilled with the answer, and I realized I was stalling. “Fine.” Noise was building behind me, and I had a sneaking suspicion the Cerberus guys were getting closer.
His eyes narrowed as he said, “We go in three. Three. Two. Go!”
He darted from our pseudo hiding space pulling me behind him with one hand as he fired his space blaster with the other.
“Stop them!” The booming order turned more heads our way, and Isaak released his hold to shoot at two more red armband guys who were running toward his ship from the opposite direction, trying to cut us off.
“Hurry!”
Isaak didn’t need to shout. I was sprinting as fast as I could. The floor was diamond hard and grooved, the sharp little peaks cutting painfully into my bare feet.
A large, fur-covered creature lunged for me from the side, and I swung the titan stick hard, right into his face. He screeched like a wounded cat and fell a few steps back. He was on his feet again in seconds, closing in. But slow. Too slow to catch us.
“Move! Move! Move!”
I bolted toward Isaak’s voice, waving the stick around in the way he told me not to minutes ago. He was nearly to the ramp that would take us up inside his ship when another alien, this one easily seven feet tall and dark blue, stepped out from behind another spaceship to block our path. It wasn’t the Ulza female… but a relative? Definitely the same species of… blue.
“Get out of my way, Graig,” Isaak warned, weapon pointed at his chest.
The blue guy grinned. He wasn’t hideous, was attractive in a blue kind of way. And he and Isaak seemed to know one another. Maybe he wasn’t a bad guy? “Not this time, Trion,” the blue guy countered, then pointed at me with a strangely long finger. “I want the female.”
Isaak shook his head. “She’s not for sale.”
“I’m taking not buying.”
Taking? Yeah, that had already happened. Not once, but twice. Third time was not going to be the charm here.
Nope. Blue was totally bad, and I wasn’t letting him take me. Something inside me snapped. Broke. I’d heard of a blackout rage, but I’d never felt this before. I didn’t care if I lived or died, I was going to hurt the blue asshole standing in my way of escape. I was done with this shit. This was like me with PMS, and someone was keeping me away from chocolate. Sooo not happening.
With what felt like a war cry escaping my chest, I raced at the huge blue alien. He stared for a moment, uncertain how to respond. By the time he snapped out of his shock, I had the titan stick between his ankles. I swung up for his balls. Hard. I had to assume blue guys had balls.
His bellow of pain was much more satisfying than hairy cat-man’s had been. Yeah, he had balls, but that didn’t mean I wanted to stay around and see them or how he reacted to then being shoved up into his throat.
Isaak blinked in shock at what I’d done, looked from Graig, moaning in a fetal position on the ground, to me. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but his wide eyes and cute as hell grin had me grinning back. Yeah, I had rage issues.
“Nice one, gara.”
“Z, Isaak. Z for Zara,” I said on a sigh. Men never learned.
I swung my titan stick at the hobbling cat-man who had stupidly decided to try to grab me again, which made me realize just because these aliens could walk on two legs didn’t mean they had any brains.
I burst out laughing—hysterical, crazy laughter—at my ridiculous thought as Isaak spun around and shot down the closer of the two huge Cerberus guys. He fell like a log, the thud causing a group of smaller, not nearly as dangerous looking thugs, to slow completely then stop. Since they didn’t have the arm bands, they probably came to the conclusion this wasn’t their fight nor worth dying over.
Only one bad guy was left, and the way his face was contorted with rage, he was really angry at Isaak for taking down his friend. Isaak fired, right into his chest, but the guy was not going down. Shit. Should I help?
“Get on the ship!” Isaak’s order had my feet moving before I could proces
s the thought, and I raced up the ramp…
Straight into the blue bitch. I bounced back a step or two then dodged her claw-like excuse for fingernails grazing my upper arm as she tried to grab me.
“You’re coming with me, female,” she snarled. I knew to be wary of pissed off females. She was more dangerous than all the males I’d encountered so far, I was sure.
“No, I’m not,” I told her. No fucking way.
She grabbed for me, for my neck. “Give it to me!”
I spun as she grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled me in closer, where she could get her hands on my body.
Wincing in pain from the hair pull, I swung the titan stick up and back, stabbing her in what I hoped was her ribs. “No!”
She grunted but didn’t let go. What was she wearing, a bullet proof vest? Zap proof?
Shit. Desperate now, I pulled the weapon forward and struck again, aiming higher.
“Ah!”
Fuck, yes. I got her in the face. I hoped I hit her eye, but I wasn’t sure where I’d managed to strike, only that she’d released her hold, and I could move.
I swung around, whipping the stick with me and brought it down across the side of her head. She screamed this time and stumbled, barely standing. Lifting my left foot, I kicked her ass down the ramp and hoped she fell off. I didn’t want to have to drag her from the ramp, so we could close it, and she definitely wasn’t coming with us.
A guy jumped over her rolling body like a hurdler and landed in a crouch in front of me. Jesus, how many of them were there? Panicked, I brought the titan stick up to strike my new enemy.
“Gara. It’s me.”
His voice penetrated, and I held still, regained control of myself, even as I watched Ulza roll and fall off the end of the platform.
“I got rid of your blue friend,” I told him, taking a deep breath.
Isaak had his hand up, toward me, apparently to ward off a stick attack, but he risked looking back over his shoulder. “Excellent.”
He stood and placed his palm on some kind of scanner. Immediately, the loading platform began to retract, the pieces sliding inside one another like an old-fashioned spyglass. The Cerberus bad guy who Isaak had been shooting at when I ran onto the ship appeared. Either Isaak was a horrible shot, or he had some kind of bulletproof vest like Ulza. Or whatever it was called in space. I had to give the guy points for perseverance, for he must have leaped to grab onto the edge, his fingers curled around the platform, hanging on like a monkey.
“Gara, can you take care of that? I need to start the engine.” Isaak dipped his chin in a pointed reference to my still crackling titan stick.
I glanced from the stick to the asshole trying to pull his elbows up onto the platform. “I can do that.”
Isaak took off down a small corridor at a dead run, putting his faith in me to take care of the pesky guy. I raised the titan stick, walked slowly toward the exposed hands grasping for purchase on the ever-shrinking ramp.
I swung once.
His hand disappeared.
Twice.
He lost his grip, but hand number one had returned.
“You asshole. I am not...”
Slam.
“Going...”
Slam.
“With you!”
The ship lurched beneath my feet as I slammed the stick down on the attacker’s hand for the last time. He fell with a bellow of rage, and I stood at the door, watching until it was completely sealed, making sure no more thugs needed a titan stick up their ass.
6
Zara
* * *
“Time to go!”
Isaak’s shout had me moving. I dropped the titan stick—no way was it fitting down the narrow corridor without accidentally electrocuting myself—and hustled in the direction of his voice.
I found the cockpit or whatever it was called in a spaceship. It was literally just like Star Wars with two seats and a shit-ton of buttons and dials and slider things. I settled into the empty seat beside him.
“Buckle up,” he said, not offering me a glance.
I heard and felt the hum of the engine as I clipped into the five-point harness.
He turned his head, narrowed his eyes as he took me in from head to breast, his gaze stalling for a second.
I was in a tight, ugly brown outfit which was far from flattering, but it also didn’t do anything to hide my hard nipples adorned with gold rings with a gold chain connecting them. I’d heard guys got hard-ons in battle. I got hard nipples. Sue me.
I arched a brow which broke him from his stare.
“Hang on,” he said.
I figured he meant that figuratively since there wasn’t anything to hang on to, but the second that weird force field disappeared, Isaak hit the gas and shot us past it.
Then he slammed on the brakes, and my head whipped forward.
There was a secondary force field, which I had to guess put us into an air lock or something. That one finally opened, and he really hit the gas.
My head shot back, and I felt pressed into the seat as if I were in a ridiculous roller coaster at an amusement park. This one hopefully didn’t have a sick drop.
“Holy shit,” I muttered, then relaxed when the speed and the craft leveled out. I was glad I never got car sick. “That’s got some kick.”
I saw his grin, the obvious pride in his ship. He was right. It might be small, but it was fucking fast.
I didn’t say anything for several minutes as he maneuvered us past what I thought was an asteroid field. He then pushed some button that I assumed was hyperdrive or turbo-whatever as we were out of there. If we were in a car, I’d have looked over my shoulder to see if they were still following, but I didn’t think anyone could have.
He unhooked his restraints and turned to face me. “All right, gara. Who the—” His gaze dropped from mine to my upper arm. “What the fark happened to you?”
I looked down, saw the blood staining my top. I hadn’t even known I’d been hurt, but now that he’d pointed it out, it stung like a bitch. “That blue lady needs a serious manicure.”
He hopped up, loomed over me and released my fancy seat belt. Taking my hand, he led me out of the cockpit and into an ancillary room. I looked around. The craft reminded me of a corporate jet although round and ridiculously fast. In space and not between Omaha and Miami. It was fine for one person, cozy for two. Painful for more than that. There was a tiny bed, unmade, a table the size of a cookie sheet and a bunch of wall cabinets.
He pushed me, so I sat on the bed and opened one of the cabinets, pulling out a wand of some kind. A blue light came on, and he waved it over my arm. The pain receded within seconds.
“What is that thing?” I asked, staring at it then up at him, realizing his face was inches from mine. How had I missed his five o’clock shadow before?
“ReGen wand. Better?”
I nodded.
He turned to the wall again and punched some buttons on what looked like a strange microwave. He looked to me, studied me, then back to the machine. He opened a little door and pulled out some folded clothes. “Here. I hope these fit. I guessed.”
I stared at the offering in his hands. “You cooked clothes?”
He frowned then shrugged. “Of course. The S-Gen machine will make whatever you need. How do you get clothes on Earth?”
“I order them online. Or go to the mall.”
He frowned some more. “I don’t know this mall.”
I took the items he held, set them on the bed. A black pair of pants and top. I stood up to change, but he just stood there. Stared. I spun my finger in a circle. “Privacy?”
The corner of his mouth tipped up. “Not much of that on this craft.” Still, he turned around, crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall.
“Shouldn’t someone be flying this thing?” I asked, tugging off my bloodstained shirt and staring at my arm where Ulza had grabbed me. There was blood but no cut. That wand-thing had healed me. Amazing.
“Automated,” he said. “We’re good in this area of space. Want to tell me why Cerberus is after you?”
I frowned at his back then slipped the shirt on. It was soft and looser than the drab outfit I’d been given on Trion. I wasn’t sure if there were bras in space, but I was thankful I wasn’t well endowed because I wasn’t going to ask Isaak to make me one for my B cups.
“I don’t even know who Cerberus is,” I replied. “I told you, I was matched to Trion, and my mate was murdered.”
I shucked the old pants, donned the new ones. Without panties.
“You said Bertok killed him.” He hadn’t moved while I changed.
“That’s right. At first, I thought he did it because he wanted me for himself. That guy doesn’t have high regard for women,” I grumbled.
I heard Isaak’s laugh. “Women on Trion are to be cherished and revered. And submissive.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Well, I think the testing was wrong then,” I told him. “I’m far from submissive.” I figured Isaak had probably already realized that after our crazy getaway. “Got any shoes?”
He turned, looked down at my bare feet, then slowly worked up my body. I felt that stare as if it were a caress.
A funny sound escaped his lips as he turned back to the magical machine. Within seconds, he handed me socks and sturdy boots like his own.
My eyes widened, and I couldn’t help but stare. “Wow. Thanks.” I dropped back onto the bed, put them on. “What about you, space pirate?” I asked, tugging up a sock.
“What about me?”
I glanced up at him. “Why were you under the dome?”
“I kill Hive, take their integrations and sell them.”
“Why?”
His broad shoulders went up in a quick shrug. “Credits. Why else?”
“Yet you’re from Trion.”
“And you’re from Earth.”
I pursed my lips, looked away and put on the other sock.
“Got a space mansion somewhere?” I asked. “A secret hideaway? Bat cave?”
“You’re riding in it.”
I sat up, looked around. It wasn’t fancy, that was for sure. But it had definitely done the job and got us off that hell hole. I wasn’t going to complain. Since it was my first spaceship, I had nothing to compare it to.
Rebel Mate Page 5