Captured: The Xandari Chronicles (Book One) (Dark Sci-Fi Romance)

by Raven Dark

  What must have been at least two hours into the trip, we stopped at a stream to let Z’pheer refill the canteens and let the animals have a drink.

  “Thirsty, nayna?” Beside the rushing river, Z’pheer took the muzzle off and smoothed my hair back. He left my leash clipped to his bracelet but left the slack loose.

  Working moisture into my dry mouth, I resisted the urge to grab the muzzle from him and throw it into the brook, where it would be carried away on the current, never to be seen again.

  Kneeling to take a drink, I stopped, staring at the golden water rushing over the white rocks that covered the riverbed.

  Z’pheer knelt beside me, watching me closely as he held a canteen underwater and let it fill.

  “This stuff is safe, right?” I asked him with a sideways look.

  “Hurry it up, nayna,” Raul answered for him, finishing splashing water on his sweat-slicked hair and chest. “It won’t kill you.”

  I suppressed a curse and cupped the water in my hands, taking a long drink. It tasted as crisp and clean as a fresh water spring, soothing my dry throat.

  Beside Z’pheer, Malek dunked his head in the water and then stood, slicking his ebony hair back. When he caught me staring at him, he winked.

  My face heated, and I wished it was only from anger with him. Damn it, would one look from him always make me crazy?

  Tarku came out of the water onto the shore and shook his shaggy pink coat, spraying Malek with gold droplets.

  Malek let out a long line of alien curses, words that didn’t translate to English, and chased the pink dog up the shoreline. Z’pheer grinned and Raul cackled.

  I would have hugged the mutt if he hadn’t been sopping wet.

  “Raul, tell me again why he’s here,” Malek growled, shaking himself off.

  Raul laughed harder. “Because he’s a better protector than you.”

  “Bak fost. Now I am going to smell like a mangy tarki for the rest of the day.”

  While the others mounted up, Z’pheer soaked himself and then walked with me back up to his mount, grazing on the thick leaves on the other side of the path. Knee-deep in the tall grass, he helped me over a fallen log.

  As soon as he put his foot down, there was a loud twanging sound.

  “Rosht.” He shoved me backward, sending me sprawling over the log and away from him.

  “What the—” I shouted. I cut off, my eyes widening. A huge net had closed around him, hoisting him ten feet off the ground. “Z’pheer!”

  The net hung from a large tree, caging Z’pheer’s bulk in ropes. His staff lay on the ground out of reach. With the leash still tethering me to him, the slack stretched to its limit, yanking slightly on my collar as the net swung to and fro.

  Behind me, Malek and Raul were cursing, and footsteps pounded the ground up the hill. Z’pheer twisted in the net, but his arms and legs were neatly tucked into him. I saw his hands moving inside the net; somehow, he managed to reach the clip for my leash and unhook it, letting the leash drop to the ground.

  A hand seized my wrist, and I screamed until Malek spun me around and hauled me against him. He gathered my leash, winding it quickly around his wrist.

  At the bottom of the hill, in almost a single movement, Raul spun around to his hepta, grabbed his bow from his animal’s back, drew an arrow to his ear, and fired.

  I looked back over my shoulder in time to see the arrow slice neatly through the rope that held Z’pheer.

  Z’pheer dropped to the ground and rolled. When he came up on his feet, his staff was in his hands, already spinning, his back to me.

  A few feet from him, two Rith were climbing down from the nearby trees. My mouth fell open in horror. They were crawling downward, along the tree trunks like oversized grey-white monkeys. Here and there between the thick trees, yellow eyes glinted, that rotted squash color now an iridescent glow.

  Like a cat’s eyes.

  Behind us, Raul shouted in surprise. There was a thump and one of those horrible clicking growls from a dying Rith. Malek whirled, bringing me around with him.

  Near the river, a Rith lay sprawled on the ground in front of Raul, its neck twisted at an unnatural angle. Two more Rith had Raul’s arms behind his back, and they were kicking him to his knees.

  “Raul!” Z’pheer roared.

  The two Rith holding Raul almost drowned him out with loud, triumphant roars.

  Malek pushed me behind him while Z’pheer caged me in from behind. Two of Malek’s knives flew through the air, thrown so fast I hadn’t even seen him draw one. One hit the Rith on Raul’s left in the forehead. The other caught the second in the chest. Both creatures went down for the count.

  Malek threw me over his shoulder and raced down the hill to Raul, Z’pheer beating off every Rith who came close with his staff.

  “Tell Tarku to beat that,” Malek told Raul, tossing me up onto his hepta’s back like I weighed nothing.

  “You earned your pay today,” Raul said, swinging up onto his mount.

  I lifted my head in time to see Z’pheer do the same before Malek mounted up, settling me across his knees.

  Ass up, face down. Again.

  With a clicking noise up ahead from Raul for Tarku to follow him, and clucking noises from the men to get the hepta moving, the jungle floor became a blur.

  The air was soon thick with smoke from laser fire, the sound of hepta hooves pounding the ground mixing with the pulse of laser blasts and the shouts from the men to move faster, go this way or that.

  Malek raced after Raul. He didn’t bother to help me into a sitting position, leaving me slung across his animal’s back, bouncing unceremoniously as it bounded forward down the path.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, Malek, you asshole!” I screamed.

  He had his hand on my back, keeping me in place, but any moment, I was sure I was going to slide off and end up trampled to death, or shot by one of the Rith’s laser bolts.

  We raced down the path, the hepta giving their frantic warbles, the Rith filling the air with their nightmarish calls. They were angry, somehow I knew that even without knowing their language.

  It felt like forever before the laser fire and the Rith calls grew distant. We were losing them. I didn’t even realize where we’d gone until the darkness closed around me and the men reined the hepta in.

  The familiar scent of death and decay filled my nose and made my eyes water.

  Oh no.

  Malek dismounted and pulled me down into his arms. Trying to get my bearings, I glanced around. Just as I’d feared, the darkened stone walls of the tower we’d been in yesterday stared back from all directions. Bodies still littered the floor, and the monitors that covered the back wall were still dead black.

  Fuck, the last thing I wanted was to walk through this place today.

  “We’re here again?” I looked up at Malek, feeling my face drain of blood.

  He set me down without answering.

  “We’ll have to take the passage through the Vun Hyl mine,” Raul said, taking packs and bedrolls off the animals and tossing some of them to Z’pheer and Malek.

  Clearly, he was in charge again.

  “Z’pheer, let the hepta go and cover our tracks in case the Rith follow us here.” Raul squatted, massaging Tarku’s fur reassuringly when the dog ran up to him. He straightened and grabbed my wrist, pulling me to him. “Malek, check this place over and make sure there are no Rith here before we go down there. I don’t want them figuring out where we’ve gone.”

  Following Raul’s order, Z’pheer grabbed the reins of all three animals, led them to the entrance of the tower and sent them all running out into the jungle with swats on the behinds. He disappeared out of the tower.

  Malek slapped the leash into Raul’s hand. He shook his head, giving Raul a disgusted look before he stomped off across the room.

  What was that about?

  “Are we going to have a problem, Malek?” Raul asked coolly.

  “Yes. Later.”

&nb
sp; Raul watched his retreating back. When he turned his focus to me, I caught his smile before he jerked my head up. He looked me over. “Are you hurt?”

  I wouldn’t kid myself into thinking the concern in his eyes meant he cared for me. He just didn’t want to lose the slave he’d gone through so much trouble to obtain.

  “I’m fine.” I twisted to get out of his hold, unsettled by the heat in his eyes and the feel of his warm hands on me.

  His eyes flashed, and he started to say something but stopped when Malek appeared at his side.

  “The place is clear, Cael Raul. It’s safe to go down.” He had a torch in his hand, one he must have found elsewhere in the room and lit.

  “Quit calling me that.” Raul clipped my leash onto his bracelet with a snap. “Let’s go.”

  The three of them boxed me in while they made their way across the room and down the same hall where we’d found Gwen. Raul’s hand cradled my nape, his palm hot on my skin. At the end of the hall, where it turned right, the scent of fresh death thickened, cloying. I covered my nose and mouth with the side of my hood.

  “What, no muzzle this time?” I said, more to keep my mind off the sight of the dead all around me than anything else.

  “If you keep mouthing off, we’ll change that.” Malek looked back at me, leading the way.

  I shook my head but fell silent.

  Malek played the torch light around the hall, the fire chasing away the shadows into dark corners. The light illuminated a back wall of the hallway and the open cubby hole there.

  Bile rose into my throat. Gwen’s body still lay against the wall, her neck twisted at an odd angle. She was still in the same position Malek had left her after he’d killed her, her eyes staring, unseeing.

  “Fuck me.” I pressed into Raul without thinking, burying my face in his chest.

  His arm tightened around my waist, and he nuzzled my hair as we walked down another hall. “Weak stomach, Vahashatai?” His warm tone was mocking.

  I ground my teeth, instantly wishing I hadn’t cowered into him like a little girl. His arm tightened, as if he expected me to jerk away.

  “Yeah, well, we humans don’t handle dead people as well as some.”

  He squeezed my nape. “And we do, is that it?” he growled softly. “You remain without the muzzle because we aren’t in public. There is no one alive here. Keep shooting your pretty little mouth off, and we’ll change that rule fast.”

  Before I could consider how to respond, we stopped at the end of another hall. Malek flipped down a panel, well hidden in the stone wall, and keyed in a series of codes.

  There was a faint hiss and part of the wall slid aside, revealing a darkened, hidden hallway.

  Raul moved to go in ahead, but Malek pushed him back and squeezed through first with another shake of his head at him.

  “Someday, I will not be fast enough, and you will regret forgetting what you are, Raul.”

  Raul ignored him and followed him into the secret passage with me.

  “Let us just hope the Rith do not know the mine is here,” Z’pheer said, bringing up the rear. There was a beep and the wall panel slid shut.

  Except for the light from Malek’s torch, it was pitch fucking black in here, but at least it didn’t reek of death. We started down a set of stone steps. Z’pheer took another torch from the wall and used the flame from Malek’s to light it.

  “They do not,” Raul said, taking up another torch and setting its end aflame. “If the Rith knew, the Order would have found some way to warn anyone else not to go this way.”

  “Besides, even if they did know, it is not like we have a choice.” Malek looked back at Z’pheer. “This is the fastest way to Lavan Dar without flying. Going through the mine is still safer than going through the jungle at night.”

  The steps seemed to go on forever, with nothing but grey stone walls, a chill on the skin, and darkness to meet us. A dead silence lay over the place, as if we’d entered the tunnel to a deep underground tomb.

  Lovely.

  Several minutes must have passed before we reached the bottom of the steps, where a darkened, narrow tunnel stretched in front of us. The passage led out to what looked like a set of train tracks, but much thicker and wider.

  Malek led the way to the tracks, holding the torch up to illuminate the way. At the end of the tunnel, I glanced left and right. The tracks followed the wider tunnel we’d stepped into, disappearing into the darkness. In fact, several tracks veered off into tunnels to my right, some with large wheeled carts sitting on them.

  So this was the mine. Here and there, it looked like the thick bedrock had been drilled into, leaving large holes and piles of rock behind. There was no one down here by the sounds of it, but the workers had left behind tools and other supplies, pickaxes, shoves, hammers, and pails scattered about. Cobwebs and dust hung thick in the musty air.

  This place hadn’t been used in a long time.

  Malek walked a short distance in both directions, looking over an old operator’s booth at the left end of the tunnel.

  “By the looks of it,” he said, “this place has been out of operation for some time.”

  “Is there power going into the control booth?” Z’pheer asked.

  Malek went into the booth and looked around, then stuck his head out. “The console has power.”

  “Then we will take one of these carts.” Raul took my elbow and strode over to the closest cart, examining it. “Will still be faster than walking.”

  I leaned over the side of the metal cart. It looked old. Sturdy, but well-worn benches lined the sides and back, the whole thing about the size of a motorboat. The metal siding looked rusted and dented in places. A console sloped down the front and had a steering wheel, the leather wrapped around the wheel’s rim worn and threadbare. The console had a crack in the glass and appeared to be off.

  Z’pheer dropped his bags onto one of the benches, handed Raul his torch and leaned in, tapping a few of the controls. Nothing happened. “There is no power. Hang on.” He opened the door on the side of the cart and got in, sitting on the bench in front of the console. “Let me see what I can do here.”

  He reached under the control panel and pulled out the wiring from a compartment underneath. “Malek, give me one of your knives.”

  Malek came over and handed him one of his throwing knives.

  Z’pheer cut at the ends of two of the wires. “Normally, a cart will not start without someone turning it on at the control booth, but…” He bent over, fiddling with the wires. Light flashed and there was a zapping sound.

  The console hummed and buttons glowed on the screen. Two lights on the front and back of the cart came on, flooding the nearly darkened passage in brilliance. There was a louder, low electronic humming from under the cart—its engine had started.

  I stared. Had Z’pheer just done the intergalactic equivalent of hotwiring a car?

  “Impressive, kassak.” Malek nodded, looking over the controls. He stepped on the end of his torch, putting it out and tossing it aside.

  “Do not look so surprised,” Z’peer said, handing him his blade.

  “Impressive indeed.” Raul grinned, putting out his and Z’pheer’s torches and discarding them. “Care to tell me where you learned that?”

  “I have many skills, Cael Raul.” He winked at me. “Spend a few years on the streets of Borusk, and you learn a few things. Just don’t tell your father you saw me do that.”

  Raul chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. “We should reach my father in three days now, instead of seven. We can take turns driving.” He opened the door on his side and set his bags on the floor.

  Z’pheer moved to another seat. Malek jumped over the side of the cart instead of using the door.

  “I will take the first shift.” Malek took the seat in front of the control panel, setting his bags next to Raul’s.

  Once we were all in, I had no idea where to sit, so I just stood there like a moron. With Tarku taking up half the
back space, there wasn’t much room left.

  Raul looked up at me and patted his knees. “Sit your ass down here, nayna.”

  I rolled my eyes. What was I, a lapdog? The last thing I wanted to do was spend hours curled up in that man’s lap.

  I glanced at Z’pheer. He was sitting in the middle of the side bench, leaving not enough room on either side of him for me to squeeze in comfortably. He grinned, watching me with amusement.

  Raul grabbed my wrist and yanked me roughly onto his lap so that I had to sit with my legs draped over his, resting my shoulder in the crook of his arm. He tipped my chin up.

  “There is room for you on the floor,” he rasped, his warm breath fanning my face. “Barely, but there is room. Would you rather sit there with Tarku than in my arms, Vahashatai?”

  I sighed. He had a point. The floor had no carpet like a car, just old, rusted metal plating. My ass didn’t hurt much anymore, but after a while, that floor would still get uncomfortable. Besides, much as I detested it, the warmth of his body felt wonderful down here in the cold shaft, and his strong arms felt somehow right around me. The thin, but soft cloth of his poncho was comfortable and warm.

  I settled into his arms and he tightened them around me with a satisfied hum.

  Damn it, this was going to be a long trip.

  Above us, way above, a Rith call rang out in the tower. It carried easily down into the mine, haunting and alien, and filled with rage.

  I swore I heard one of the creatures bellow something that sounded like their equivalent of “Cael Raul!”

  Raul lifted his gaze to the ceiling. His throat worked.

  “Wow. They want you really bad, don’t they?” I murmured, following his gaze and pushing down the terror that chilled my blood. “I don’t suppose you care to tell me why?”

  He patted my hip. “Malek, get this thing moving,” he murmured. He didn’t take his eyes off the ceiling.

  “No arguments here.” Malek jabbed a few buttons.

  The cart’s electronic hum turned into a low wine as it started down the track.

  A few more calls rang out from above. Was it just me, or did they sound a lot closer?