by Claire Kent
When they started to describe what they would do when Cain got tired of the cunt and handed her to them, Riana went into the bathroom nook.
It wasn’t a particularly pleasant place to hang out, but there was a wall she could hide behind.
She felt like a weakling and a coward, but at least she could put her hands over her ears and not look at them anymore.
She stayed like that for several minutes, shaking and willing herself not to be sick.
When she lowered her hands from her ears, she was relieved that their voices were no longer assaulting her.
She didn’t want to go back out to the cell by herself, though, like a caged animal for their disgusting entertainment.
Where the hell was Cain anyway? Selfish bastard. Taking a run and leaving her here by herself.
“Riana?”
She heard the sound of his voice before she heard the door unlocking and swinging open.
She darted back out to the cell, flushing again with mortification at the possibility of Cain catching her in her cowardice.
He was drenched in perspiration, his t-shirt sticking wetly to his chest and sweat streaming down the sides of his face. “What were you doing?”
“Nothing.”
She supposed there was no chance he’d believe she was going to the bathroom. She’d been on the wrong side of the bathroom nook for that.
He stepped into the bathroom and glanced around—as if he suspected she was hiding something in there.
“What’s going on?” His stoic features had tightened, and she realized it was the beginnings of anger on his face.
“I was just…” she burst out, realizing she’d better tell him the truth or he’d think something worse. “There were guys who were… I was just hiding.”
To her relief, his face cleared. “I see.” He turned on the water and started splashing some on his face and arms. “You need to toughen up.”
“I know.”
She swallowed and turned away from him, trying to fight down her automatic anger and resentment.
Who the hell did he think he was, anyway? Telling her to toughen up.
She wasn’t a criminal. She wasn’t used to this sort of animalistic behavior.
She was a harmless archeologist who’d always minded her own business.
It wasn’t her fault she got thrown into this hellhole with a bunch of beasts.
And with one arrogant, self-centered ass who treated her like an idiot.
When he finished washing up, he dried his face on a thread-thin towel. Then he peered at her, appearing to notice everything from her unnaturally stiff shoulders to her slightly protruding chin.
For the first time since she’d met him, she saw the corner of his mouth twitch up, as if he were amused.
It was the only sign she’d seen that he actually possessed a sense of humor.
An infuriating sense of humor. Since it only emerged to mock her.
She bit back the sharp comment she’d been about to snap at him.
She couldn’t make him mad. She was in far too precarious a situation.
Turning away from him, she stared at the floor. When she noticed he’d stopped looking at her, she did her best to pitch her voice as pleasant. “So what exactly do we do here?”
“Nothing.”
“You mean there’s nothing to do at all?”
Cain glanced out the bars of the cell. “You can go out and play, if you want.”
Riana didn’t miss the snide bite in his tone, and it made her heart lurch. “I wasn’t complaining,” she said quickly. “I was just—”
“There’s nothing to do,” he said, his voice softer, as if in response to her distress. “This is life here.”
Nothing to do but fight for food, territory, and mates. The perfect circumstances for turning human beings into animals.
She curled up on the bed and tried not to whimper in dismay. How the hell was she going to make it through the next week? Much less the rest of her life?
Cain turned his back on her and went over to sit on the floor. He pulled the sheet off the object on the floor, and she saw that it appeared to be a pile of spare parts of metal and plastic.
She considered asking what it was but suspected he wasn’t going to tell her.
So she just watched as he tinkered and eventually realized that about half the pile was put together into some sort of device.
Maybe it was a crude engine of some sort. It looked too foreign and awkward for her to tell.
She watched for an hour while he managed to fit into the mass a piece of wire he pulled out of his pocket. He must have found the wire on his run. Who knew where he located all the spare parts?
Eventually she got so bored with watching him putter around that she actually fell asleep.
She dreamed he’d created a little submersible out of the engine and used it for the two of them to escape from the prison. Then the submersible transformed into a spacecraft and rocketed them off the planet.
They had landed on some kind of paradise planet—made up of sunshine, beaches, and tropical plants—when she was awakened by a clattering sound.
She jerked into consciousness and saw immediately that he had dropped the makeshift screwdriver he was using.
He glanced over at her as he hauled himself to his feet and stretched like a big cat. “Do you want to take a walk?”
She blinked at his gruff voice, trying to process the question. “What?”
“I was going out.” He nodded toward the bars of the cell to specify what he meant. “Do you want to come too or would you rather stay here? I thought you might be getting cabin fever.”
That was certainly true, but she was still nervous about making herself a nuisance. “I am. As long as you think it would be okay.”
His spine stiffened almost imperceptibly. “Assuming you think I can manage to keep you safe for a few minutes.”
Straightening up and rubbing her face, she said, “Of course you’ll keep me safe.” She was baffled that he thought she would have doubted it. “I meant, would I be too much trouble. If I can’t keep up with your marathon run or whatever.”
His expression cleared and his shoulders relaxed. “I only run in the mornings. This afternoon, I’m on the hunt.”
His tone wasn’t particularly threatening, but Riana’s mouth fell open in surprise. On the hunt? For what? It was like he’d transformed into a powerful animal, and she could suddenly see him ripping apart limbs and devouring his prey.
Like a lion. Except that wasn’t right. Lions were too brightly colored and laid-back, lolling around on the grass most of the time. A bear was closer to capturing the right mood, but Cain wasn’t lumbering enough for a bear.
He was sleek and dark and dangerous. Like a wolf with those blue eyes.
But wolves were pack animals, and Cain didn’t run in a pack.
He was a lone hunter. Like a leopard. Agile and graceful and deadly, with hidden power in his limbs.
Cain cleared his throat and gave her a puzzled look.
Riana’s cheeks flushed as she realized she’d been staring at him with her mouth open—for who knew how long—trying to find the right animal to compare him to.
“Hunting what?” she gasped. Then flushed more hotly as she heard the awed, tremulous sound of her own voice.
His thin lips twitched again—that faint sign of his sense of humor, once more directed at her. “Nothing bloody,” he said, as if he’d just read her mind.
He directed a pointed look over at his pile of spare parts, and she realized he must be looking for something for his device.
“Oh.” She pulled herself up and straightened her shirt and her hair. Her hair was getting tangled, and she realized it would only get worse as the days passed. “I’ll come with you. Thanks.”
At first, it was nice to get out of the cell and stretch her legs a little. Now that she knew what to expect, the Hold didn’t feel so monstrous and cavernous. And, while she still felt small and vulnera
ble, she didn’t feel threatened on all sides because Cain was beside her.
She wasn’t blind to the way the weaker prisoners—many toothless and nearly naked—slunk out of the way as he approached. Nor did she miss the way the stronger men bristled and gave him covert glares but didn’t dare to confront him directly.
Cain wasn’t an alpha male like Thorn was, demanding blatant submission, claiming power for the sake of power, and cultivating an entourage of lackeys and wannabes.
But that didn’t mean people didn’t recognize the threat he posed.
Especially after beating Thorn up the day before.
Riana stayed as close to Cain’s side as she could, at one point shrinking into him when a gross man with a scabby face made a flailing grope for her.
Cain swatted the man away—in a move that was more efficient than angry—but it sent the man reeling back to slump against a wall.
No one approached them after that. No one tried to speak to them. Riana would have preferred it if they’d been ignored, but that was obviously not what was happening here.
Everyone was aware of them, and Riana felt painfully on display.
Cain didn’t say anything to her at all. He hadn’t lied when he’d said he was going on the hunt. His eyes were never still, constantly searching the cells, the prisoners, every object in the Hold as they made two laps around the perimeter.
The only distraction from the search was when the armored vehicle came up behind them. It would have run her over had Cain not pulled her out of the way.
He sneered faintly at the vehicle plowing down toward the cells at the far end.
“A new prisoner?” she asked, feeling kind of sick as she remembered the day before. She’d been sure she would be raped, tortured, killed.
It was a miracle she hadn’t been.
“No. Checkup.”
He spoke as if she should know what that meant, and Riana felt a flicker of annoyance when she had to press him to explain. “You want to fill me in on that?”
“Part of the Coalition’s public claims about prison planets is that the prisoners’ health is regularly assessed.”
Riana studied him closely, a little surprised by both the articulate wording of his response and the dry intelligence of his tone. He’d seemed so purely physical—like a forceful, grunting, primal force—that she hadn’t expected such a tone from him.
His eyes shifted away at her stare, but she couldn’t tell if it was from boredom or discomfort.
“That’s a joke,” she said, responding to what he’d said. “Humans are treated worse than animals in his hole. I’m surprised they don’t just kill prisoners instead of keeping us all cooped up in here. It would be cheaper that way, and who would know?”
“Too many activist groups. Someone would find out.”
She figured he was probably right. The Coalition Council held onto its power with a delicate balance that could be upset by any political mistake. The cost of keeping up the prisons was nothing compared to the possible political backlash. “They claim to assess our health regularly?”
“They do. And they justify it by bringing each prisoner up for ‘checkup’ once a year.”
When he didn’t say anything else, Riana just watched as what appeared to be a mechanized claw extended from the armored vehicle and clamped down around a bearded, dirty man who’d been slouching against a wall. Once it had hold of the man, the vehicle retreated back out of the Hold.
“Do I want to know?” she asked, a wave of horror passing over her as she imagined possibilities for the checkup.
“No.”
That was enough for Riana. She didn’t pursue the topic and tried not to think about it any further.
Instead, she watched as Cain continued his hunt, his powerful body moving in a graceful stalk as he paced around the perimeter again. She did her best to keep up.
Riana was starting to get tired, and her breath was coming out in little pants as she tried to match his stride without complaining. Finally, she said, “Did you find what you needed?”
“Yes.” Cain didn’t say any more than that, but he directed their course toward the open space in the middle of the Hold—where there were battered tables and chairs, a few dilapidated pieces of workout equipment, and a trash chute.
Riana had noticed that a lot of the prisoners tended to mingle in that area—doing whatever it was they did to kill the time.
She reddened and sucked in a breath when she saw a grizzled man with a patch on one eye fucking a woman who was on her hands and knees. The woman must have been sixty and was the most unattractive woman Riana had ever seen. A few prisoners were looking on at the rutting with slightly bored amusement.
What kind of life must that woman lead? The idea sickened Riana even as she tried to forget the image.
Cain didn’t even glance over at it, and she wondered if he had always been this callous or if living in this place had made him that way.
He headed over to a small gathering of men who seemed to be making bets on if and how fast a rat would make it up out of the trash chute.
She thought for a moment Cain was going to talk to them, but he didn’t. He passed by, knocking one of them with his shoulder.
It couldn’t have been accidental. Riana saw him aim with his shoulder. The man he’d knocked stumbled forward toward the trash chute. He barely caught himself in time before his foot got caught in the chute. But his stumble had startled the rat, which made a quick retreat and disappeared.
One of his companions didn’t appreciate this abrupt end to their wager. He lashed out at the man who’d stumbled, smashing a fist into his jaw.
The victim fought back, and the scuffle attracted the attention of several nearby men—many of whom had been ogling Riana.
She just gaped as the fight broke out. And gaped as Cain casually turned her around, urging her back toward the cell with his hand on the small of her back.
As he passed the gaggle of onlookers, he casually bent down and picked up something from the floor, discreetly depositing it into his pocket.
Riana didn’t speak until they’d returned to the cell and he’d shut and locked the door behind them.
Then she gasped, “What did you get?”
He pulled a mangled fork out of his pocket and tossed it over near his pile of salvaged treasures.
“A fork?”
He gave her a narrow-eyed look, as if challenging her to cast aspersions on the worth of his find.
“Why didn’t you just take it from the guy?”
He turned his back on her and faced the sink, turning on the water. “Why fight if you don’t have to?”
It was a good question. It just wasn’t the kind of question she would have expected a macho, dominant guy like Cain to ask himself.
He’d leaned forward to cup his hands under the running water when he sucked in a sharp breath and stiffened suddenly.
Something about the way he moved told Riana something she should have known before. “Are you hurt?”
He didn’t answer. Didn’t even acknowledge the question as he leaned down toward the water again.
Instinctively, Riana got up and walked over to him. “Seriously, are you hurt? I should have asked before. Was it from the fight yesterday?”
“I’m not hurt,” he gritted out, reaching for a towel.
While he was distracted by drying his face, Riana pulled up the side of his t-shirt to expose the side he’d seem to favor a moment before.
His entire side was a mass of ugly, purple bruises.
“My God. Cain. My God!”
He jerked away. “They’re bruises. Nothing to whine about.”
“They look horrible,” she said, trying to get his t-shirt pushed up more so she could see the extent of the damage. “Why didn’t you say anything? And you did all those exercises this morning. It must have hurt like hell.”
He gave her an unpleasant look. “Are you through?”
“No,” she said, too upset to even consid
er whether she was being wise to press her attention on him in this matter. “Can I see how bad it is?”
“Why?”
“I know some first aid. If you broke a rib or something—”
“I didn’t break a rib.”
But he didn’t object when she’d pushed his t-shirt up and then carefully pulled it off over his head. The bruising went from his left shoulder blade all the way down his side and forward toward his lower belly.
Riana brushed her fingers along the damage, wishing she could remember more of her medical training. “This must be why you didn’t want to fight just now.”
He tensed palpably. “I could have taken them easily.”
“I’m sure you could,” she assured him quickly. “I didn’t mean to imply you couldn’t.” She winced as she noticed a particularly dark bruise on his lower side. “But this looks terrible. Thorn did a number on you.”
Her voice had been gentle, but it was clearly the wrong thing to say—yet again. Cain stiffened and pulled away. “I promise he looks worse.”
She blinked up at his closed-off face, and she realized he was still bristling with a wounded masculine ego.
What the fuck was wrong with men anyway? No matter how tough and rugged they were, they still managed to be sensitive about the slightest hint they weren’t invulnerable.
“I’m sure he does,” she said lightly, instead of following her urge to complain about his acting like a baby. “He must look so bad he’s been afraid to show his face all day.”
This apparently was the right thing to say. Cain relaxed and gave a snort of what almost sounded like amusement. “I’m pretty sure I broke his nose.”
“Good.” She smiled and continued inspecting the damage on his body, making instinctive note of the rippling muscles of his back and the scattering of course dark hair on his chest. “I hope it heals crooked.”
He didn’t respond, but she saw the corner of his lips quirk up. This time it was longer than a moment. It wasn’t a full-fledged smile, but it was closer than anything she’d seen.
She ran her fingers down his back—pretending to check for damage but mostly because she found the smooth, strong planes irresistible. “I wish you’d told me about your bruises before,” she murmured. “Last night I mean. When we were… I hope I didn’t hurt you.”