Prison Moon_Ice Heart

by Alexandra Marell

  “I move when I say.” The enforcer ran clawed fingers along the length of his baton, pushing his feet apart to fill the gap.

  “So say it.” Kelskar angled the long sword to cover them both. “If you value your miserable life.” Darker here under the platform and quieter, the crowd noise dimmed to murmurs on the night air. Janie thought of fans returning to their cars after watching a big match, stopping for a burger or a take out on the way home. What did these people do? Where did they go?

  Where would she and Kelskar go?

  “In good time.”

  “Don’t push me.”

  Hell, this was not going to plan. Too pumped from the fight, from the kill, Kelskar wound so tight sounded in no mood for a debate. Behind them, the two runners snickered, deliberately antagonising the thing guarding the gate. The enforcer in turn shot them a murderous promise and stood his ground.

  Shit, where was her sword? Faces were appearing at the platform edge, creeping beyond the gate. Come to watch part two of this circus. Or rip them apart if that guard didn’t shift his massive bulk and let them through before they formed an ugly mob.

  “Let them go.” A growl from above. “I got a whole dwagere bet on their escape.”

  The gate guard looked over his shoulder at the gathering crowd, the camera box taking it all in. “Not enough people yet,” the enforcer growled to his colleague. “Escape too easy.”

  “I see enough for good sport. Camera is waiting. Let them go.”

  So it wasn’t over yet? Dammit all to hell, what more did the Corporation want from them?

  “Don’t run.” Kelskar’s voice, low and meant for her alone. He curled his fingers around hers, a warm solid grip that said he’d never let her go. “Hold your nerve.”

  “Kel Skar.” A high-pitched voice took up the chant, winding up the growing throng crowding the gate.

  Come to adore their hero? To sing his praises? Bloody hell, she hoped so. Temperature dropping with alarming speed now, the evening turning to full night. They wouldn’t last long without shelter.

  “I meet you in that pit one day, warrior.” The gate guard swaggered aside, sweeping them a mocking bow. He cast a knowing glance at the spectators, as wound up as Kelskar from the night’s blood. “If they don’t rip you to bits first.”

  Shit, this made no sense. Why would the Corporation want to sacrifice the man of the hour? Unless the whole organisation, the decadents watching were a hell of a lot sicker than she realised.

  “Well hold them back then.” Janie took a step, unable to stop the building tirade. They starved her, abused her, humiliated her and she was damned well done with it. “Otherwise I’ll hex you and you’ll never stand on two feet again.

  Let Kelskar yell at her when they were safe and away from here, but she was learning fast. Too much fear either broke you or congealed into a huge lump of blazing anger. And bloody hell, she was angry as fuck.

  And anger demanded action.

  The enforcer’s eyes bulged in his face. His tough skin flushed, darkening from green to a deep blue. Janie braced for a curt order from Kelskar, her new master to hold her insolent tongue. Or a crack across the head with the enforcer’s baton. None came.

  “I believe my female spoke to you.” No hint of censure in Kelskar’s voice. “You would do well to listen.”

  “Listen to that puny female?” The enforcer laughed, barking out sound like a misfiring car engine.

  “No ordinary female. She holds the power to bring hard warriors to their knees. Why do you think I desired such a prize? Shall we put her to the test right now?”

  Oh, thank God. He knew her. Kelskar knew her. Tonight they got away or they went down, but whatever happened, they did it together.

  A wary frown creased the enforcer’s lumpy face. His colleague, halfway down the ladder, paused on the rungs. The ruins, she remembered the empty ruins. Kelskar telling her how hard men could be the most superstitious of all.

  “Big talk, warrior,” the enforcer said, his eyes never leaving her.

  Beyond the gate, people listened, turning heads to murmur and feed this new turn of events through the crowd.

  “All right, don’t bleat that I never gave fair warning. May I present to you the Cupcake Queen. One bite and you will be hers for life.”

  Cupcake Queen? She wanted to laugh. Janie Roberts versus the hulk and guess who was winning?

  She wanted to cry. Kelskar remembered. He had her back.

  Bloody hell, she loved this man. It would be an honour to die beside him.

  But not this day. First they had a life to live.

  Twin rays of moonlight lit their path. The mob looked ugly as ever, the enforcers glaring with disbelieving suspicion at Kelskar’s bizarre pronouncement. But everything was okay with her world. No one had ever believed in her as much as him.

  “One bite,” she said. “And you’ll be my slave, grovelling in the dirt begging me for more.”

  “Lies.”

  “Try me then.” Shaking off Kelskar’s hand, she took three more steps before her nerve failed and her feet refused to move, gratified to see the guard pressing up against the fence post to avoid her touch. The enforcer on the ladder edged upward, speeding up as he reached the top.

  “Take that female and go,” he said from the safety of the platform. “Away.”

  It couldn’t be this easy. They couldn’t be this stupid. She wanted to shout, boo at the crowd. See if they scattered screaming in horror.

  “Find a looking glass when next rises the sun,” she said, adding a hint of doom to her voice. “There you will see my power.”

  “Time to leave.” Kelskar took her elbow, urging past the dumbstruck enforcer.

  “You too,” she said to the Corporation lapdogs watching their colleague’s discomfort from a safe distance. “You will know the power of the cupcake.”

  “Janie, it’s time to go.” Kelskar gave her a shove, pushing her ahead of him. The crowd parted in a ripple of dark muttering like the Red Sea before Moses.

  “All of you,” she yelled. “My cupcakes made demons weep.”

  “Don’t make me throw you over my shoulder.” A hint of a smile at last, Kelskar lost the battle with his grim facade. Almost through the crowd, hostile, suspicious faces taking no chances with this crazy woman yelling gibberish at them.

  “My next tea shop will be called The Cupcake Queen.” She had to run to match his long stride across the grassy slope flanking the arena. She’d fly if he’d asked her to. A flash of sadness when she realised tea shops and prison moons didn’t really mix. But a girl could dream.

  “There must be wheat-like plants on this moon that we can grind into flour. We can render fat and even the darkest places harbour sweetness.”

  “You mean to make cupcakes, here?” Kelskar paused for two heartbeats, steering her away from a brawling group of males and females intent on beating the hell out of each other. She wound her hair into a knot and stuffed it down into her jacket collar. All around them campfires blazed. Pinpoints of light in the dark, illuminating faces so strange she’d never get used to them.

  “It’s what I do, Kelskar. Tell me you’re really back. That the chip is dead.”

  “Does this answer your question?” He dipped his head for a kiss, touching lips to hers, igniting such a firestorm inside her she clung to him.

  “Stay with me. I can’t do this without you.”

  “You have me, sweet girl. Until the dark gods take me to their own.”

  Ragged tree trunks, the branches hacked away, scattered across the scrubland, reminding her of those awful First World War paintings of no man’s land. People walked with purpose, others wandered aimlessly hefting drinking gourds to their lips. A cart full of armed males lumbered behind, pulled by a beast she had no name for.

  All of them called this place home. And it meant something different to every one of them.

  “You’re a good man, Kelskar. Don’t ever forget that.”

  “I remembered, Janie.
I remembered it all.”

  “Tell me, I want to know.”

  They ducked into a ditch, watching the cart lumbering by. Scrubby shrubs made dark shapes on the open plain lit by warmer moonlight than the icy wash of Earth’s moon. Pools of yellow and orange light-filled hollows, painted highlights on scattered boulders. Like Dartmoor, she thought back in Devon so far away.

  So much she wanted to know. How did he feel down there in the pit, killing with a full conscience? Had he killed before they took him and chipped him?

  “When we’re away from here you’ll know it all. Now we need to find a safe shelter. Stay low.”

  She couldn’t stop touching him. Feeling his solid warmth beneath her palm. Thinking of his hard body naked above her, below her. Filling her.

  “Later.” The deep rumble of his voice sent shivers racing over her. “When we’re alone.”

  “You better keep your promises, warrior.” She kissed him. A deep affirmation with lips and tongue, hot skin and seeking hands. “I have the power to bring hard men to their knees.”

  He laughed. “We won’t get very far if we keep on doing this.”

  “There must be a safe haven somewhere on this moon,” she said, dipping low to creep after him through the scrub. Their boots crunched softly on the frosty grass as they moved away from the noise into the quiet of the night, broken now and then by squeaking and lonely howls. Twice, a desperate, distant roar floated on the air. “You said it was a paradise once. Is that what Laeesha and Dailam were trying to tell us? We can build on that. Give those poor women a place of safety. There are innocent people here. You know the score, how to survive. A man like you can make a difference.”

  A man like him inspired epic speeches too. Maybe she’d always been this brave and he unlocked it for her. Kelskar inhaled, a deep intake of breath. Let it out with careful control.

  “You honour me with your faith.”

  “Not faith. Certainty. We have to find them. Form a tribe. You can lead us. Let’s do it, Kelskar. Let’s do it.”

  When she looked up, the dark blocky silhouette of a camera box swung into view, blinking its beady eye with evil intent.

  They could be felled from the sky. Dailam knew how. Fuck the Corporation with their sneaky little eyes everywhere, they were fighting back. Building that haven in this Hell whether they liked it or not.

  He’d taken some insane gambles in his life, but this would never count as one of them. Kelskar harboured no regrets over disabling his shield to put right a terrible wrong. Not when his action gifted him this woman and a second chance at love.

  “Do you think that Paradise place really exists? I mean, how could it have stayed hidden from the Corporation? From satellite surveillance?” A little unsure now after her rallying speech, Janie sought reassurance he could not give.

  Kelskar nuzzled into the curve of her neck, remembering her scent, her taste. “Do all Earth women talk this much during sex?”

  “We’re having sex?”

  “If you stop asking me questions, yes.”

  He wanted to mark her as his for all time. With no pulling out, no worrying about offspring or discovery. Shivering under his touch, she wanted him as much. But he’d learned in their time in the cage the subtle differences between human females and his own. Janie bowed to his superior strength, but he would never be her master.

  Not as he was with the wife he lost.

  “Someone might see us.” Janie arched her neck, granting him access. Her blood flowed hot beneath his seeking lips.

  “So let them watch and be eaten with jealousy when they see what I have.” Dark gods, he’d been good at the banter in the Ludus Maxim. Gladiator Kelskar’s silver tongue became legend. The things he could do with that tongue—if only she’d stop talking.

  Janie contained a smile with difficulty. So near the edge a mere touch from the tip of that tongue would send her careening over. Not yet, he was enjoying the chase far too much.

  “I have to tell you, Gladiator Kelskar, that sort of talk doesn’t work on Earth women.”

  He kept one ear, one eye on the entrance to the low cave he’d all but dragged her into when thoughts of her naked body, the sounds she made when he entered her threatened to engulf him. Battle high, skin and blood buzzing from the kill, the gladiators strode from arena to riotous orgies, releasing it all in sensation and an adoration of the flesh that would put decadents to shame.

  “Gladiator Kelskar would have been inside you now, bringing down the cave walls with your screams. Making you beg for his cock.”

  No longer that man.

  The thought hung between them. Kelskar rested on one elbow, a finger tracing an idle pattern on Janie’s thigh. Memory returned, but he had much to learn about the man he was. No user of women for his own pleasure, that he knew.

  “Kelskar the man has a way with words, too.” Janie covered his hand with hers, guiding it higher into the dip between her legs. “And Janie the baker would never have dreamed of making love in a cave.”

  “Making love?” Kelskar’s eyebrows rose in question. His thumb traced the seam of Janie’s pants. Her hips rose in reply. “We have no such expression in my tongue. If Janie Roberts would not make love in a cave, would the Cup Cake Queen do me the honour?”

  In the dim shade, her features softened. Absent the influence of the chip he lost the ability to see fine detail in the dark, to push his body beyond extremes. No longer a cipher with no will of his own and no concern for mortal danger, he must relearn what it was to be a mere man. Twin beams of seeking moonlight streaked the sandy ground, filtering through shrubby trees, their clinging leaves rattling in a strengthening breeze. He would not sleep this night. He never did after a kill. But he would not press her either. If she took him in, it would be because she wanted him not because she couldn’t resist him.

  Janie lifted her neck, pressing a kiss to his chin, his cheek. “The Cup Cake Queen would definitely make love in a cave. Waiting until we’re safe is like waiting for something that will never happen. Am I right?”

  “Sadly, yes.” He rolled over her, propped on his elbows, studying the smudge of her lips, the light catching in her rare green eyes. Reaching between them he made short work of the fastening closing her pants, smoothing the material aside to dip into her soft, moist curls. “You want me?”

  “Always.” He heard the hint of desperation in her voice. Would tease her without mercy until she really did beg him to take her—if they had the leisure of time. They could only ignore the danger lurking out there for so long.

  “Would that I had time to show you everything.”

  “You will. Oh...” Janie exhaled on a long sigh and then she was fumbling at his belt, cursing softly when the catch refused to release. “Help me,” she said on a frustrated moan. “My fingers are cold.”

  “Always.” Braced on one arm, he flicked open his belt, pushed down his pants and small clothes, freeing his rigid cock. Janie lifted her hips, shoving her own pants down and over her thighs. Vulnerable like this, he knew it. But what was life without risk? Wet and ready for him, the world outside quiet for now, they could only grab the moment and pray they survived.

  “Could it be like a solar flare cloaking that Paradise place? Like a kind of blank spot. Or maybe it really is cursed, there’s something on the planet itself hiding it, like a magnetic field?”

  “More likely a combination of aria-garanic rock formation sending out alternating field quandurums to signal disruptors. Now concentrate, woman. Paradise can wait.” He entered her with slow, teasing thrusts, sinking into her warm heat on each panting moan.

  “I love it when you talk science to me. Paradise is right here, Kelskar. Right here.”

  He closed his eyes, fighting the urge to thrust without mercy, to spill himself inside of her and stay there until his seed took root. A shocking thought that rocked him to the core. Returning memory revealed a man determined to live without love. Losing was too hard to bear. But life had a way of moving on and it
took nothing away from those he left behind.

  Hampered by clothing locking them together, he found a rhythm that sent them both shivering to the edge of an abyss of pure bliss. Making love. Yes, he liked that.

  “Don’t pull out.”

  “Janie...” he stilled, rational thought slamming into him. He could get her with child. It had been known between his species and hers. He wanted to, but wishing didn’t make it right.

  “I know, but just this once. Let’s take a chance.” Fists locked tight on his tunic sleeves she held him to her. A hold he could break with a whisper.

  “It will not only be this once.” He had to move. How could he resist her beguiling invitation, the warm wet heat of her? Whatever they did, Lady Fortuna did as she willed. If children were to be, then it was already written.

  “I know.” Janie strained to reach him for a deep, healing kiss. “You think either of us have the willpower to stop this happening?”

  In reply he found her clitora with his thumb, thrusting and circling, kissing her to silence, his tongue driving deep. Enough talk, this was only one of the many chances ahead of them. All he wanted now was that mindless fall into oblivion, with the sound of her climax filling his world.

  “We’ll find it,” she said, stroking his head as he came down from the small death that does not kill. The place a man will always lose himself, in the woman he loves.

  “Paradise?” Her fingers moved with touching care over wounds closed by the accelerated healing of the updated chip. Sifted through the short hair growing where once the armour plates covered bare skin. He pulled off his scarf, offering it so she could tend to her needs.

  Kelskar the man, broken free of his shell, yet still with a chip in his head that might one day take him again. Another variable to add to their precarious existence. Janie cleaned up, a little self-conscious despite their intimacy and wriggled back into her pants. He closed his own and buckled his belt. One day they’d lie naked, sleeping together in blissful aftermath, him breathing in the scent of her hair. But not this night.

  “Yes. We have to believe in something better or we just exist. I don’t think I’ve seen a fraction of the horrors this place might hold, but I’ve seen enough to tell me I refuse to live in fear.”