by Alison Aimes
“Never.” His hold tightened to the point of pain.
The shrill beep sounded. She opened her mouth to scream, but the sudden, involuntary whipping of her head—first left, then right—stole her breath.
Heat scorched her skin as the laser struck. Packed clay and rock exploded. An arm’s length from where she’d been. Tiny fragments scraped her cheek and arm, but her body was still in one piece. Moving quicker than she’d thought possible, her captor had dodged the laser.
But the electronic fiend was already gearing up to try again, the lights beneath its underbelly flashing bright.
“It’s coming back. Let me down. No way will you get that lucky twice.”
“Not luck. Practice.”
“Put. Me. Down.” Out of options, she infused her voice with as much haughty command as she could. Over the last few weeks traveling with Bella and the other scientists, she’d almost gotten used to people treating her with respect.
Another stinging swat landed against her ass. “You don’t give the orders down here, breeder. I do.”
“Don’t touch—” Her world tilted as he ducked through a small fissure. Soft web-like tentacles brushed her cheek. She swiped them aside, raised her fist once again. “If you think I’ll go down quietly, you’re mad.”
“I passed mad ages ago.” Before she could take a swing, he set her none too gently on her feet. Then, he shoved her backward. Her spine struck rock wall.
A quick glance revealed he’d shoved her into a hollow crevice no bigger than a coffin. Way too small for her and the massive beast prowling toward her, his wide shoulders blocking the only way out.
So, this was it. This was where she met her end.
And it might not be at her husband’s hand as he’d vowed, but it would be his doing all the same.
6
Ava went for her attacker’s eyes, her fingers curved like claws. Without her spear, it was her only option.
The massive brute deflected her with embarrassing ease. Sweeping her arm aside in a move so fast she didn’t register it until it was over.
All too soon, her wrists were stretched above her head and pinned to the rocky surface, her body arched over a large boulder, sandwiched between unforgiving rock and an equally unforgiving predator. The heavy weight of him between her legs a menacing promise of what was to come. Something thick and hard digging into the cradle of her thighs.
And the worst of it? Thanks to her husband’s twisted toy, flames of need licked at her center. The nanotechnology shoved inside her brain clawing at her to thrust upward and rub up against the savage criminal about to kill her.
“You shouldn’t have run.” Eyes empty of mercy stared down at her.
She reared upward, gnashing her teeth. “I won’t make this easy for you.”
“I disagree.” A hand wrapped around her throat, immobilizing her with a simple hold. Making a mockery of her bold claim.
She braced for the pain. For the sharp snap of her neck.
Instead, the slow, heated intensity of his inspection prickled along her skin. Every place his gaze landed like the drag of a calloused finger along overly sensitive flesh.
And all she could do was take it. Like always.
“You’ve changed,” he grunted at last.
Shame flared, pinking her cheeks, old training kicking in as she thought of her wild hair, the dirt and bruises dotting her face—and her husband’s harsh voice insisting his new chosen Council bride and breeder must always look her best.
“Y-you’re right.” Tipping her chin, she met her new captor’s condemning gaze head-on. At one time she’d believed the lies of duty and sacrifice. Clung to the importance of her role in repopulating the planet with Council “superior” genes. No more. “I’m not the woman I was and I’m glad. That pitiful female is dead and gone.”
Her captor’s scowl deepened.
She relished it. “You’ve changed, too. And not for the better.” The knowledge that death was coming made her bold.
Two years ago, the man looming above had been a media favorite—even on the Council sanctioned channels—his harsh, brutish beauty lending a sadistic thrill to the reports of his alleged murderous crimes and Resistance exploits. But his arctic blue eyes were even emptier now. As if any ounce of softness had been cleaved away, leaving behind a beast as hard and ruthless as the stones surrounding them.
“Where did you get the silver ore to make that blade? The one hanging from your harness?” She couldn’t die without knowing this at least.
A flare of surprise, followed by suspicious amusement. “Hoping to fashion one quickly so you can stab it through my heart?”
“Tell me.” Desperation made her shrill.
A moment of hesitation. Then, a smirk. “I stole it. From your precious husband’s mine. We’re supposed to turn over every kitlom to that greedy bastard, but my men and I don’t always do what we’re told. You planning to turn me in?”
“You’re mining it? That’s what he has you doing down here? Mining for this ore in particular?” It made sense. Hollisworth’s latest technologies, including the one inside her, relied heavily on a mineral found inside the ore—its location a heavily guarded secret, until now.
The hold around her throat contracted. “Why are you asking about the mines?”
So many answers she could have given. She went with the simplest—and hopefully most persuasive. “The tracker he put into your blood? I know how to neutralize it. The ore—the same one he has you mining—can be used not only to make the device, but to destroy it. I…I can show you—if you let me live.”
He scoffed. “So that’s your angle. Grandiose claims of deliverance so I’ll keep you alive. Do you think me stupid?”
“I’m not lying.” To be so close. After all this time.
“And what would the Supreme Councilman’s official fifth breeder know of such things?”
She fought the surge of shame. “I’m not Hollisworth’s anything. Not anymore.”
His hold tightened further. “Pretending to switch sides so I’ll go easier on you is pointless.”
“I’m a chemical engineer now. A scientist.” It was strange to say her title aloud, and not simply because her tongue was growing clunky from lack of air. “I’ve spent every waking moment of the last two years studying everything I can about Hollisworth’s experimental nanotechnology.”
She’d never told anyone about her plan before. Never even admitted her past to Bella, the colleague who’d somehow become her friend. It was oddly liberating. Even if it came far too late.
“I’m not pretending to switch sides.” His continued silence and her certainty that this was her last chance had her talking fast. “I was never on Councilman Hollisworth’s side to begin with. I can be of use. I can disable that tracker.” Now, with the location of the ore confirmed, she was closer to freedom than she’d ever been before. “Let me live and I’ll show you how.”
Her heart beat fast as her captor studied her.
“You’re lying,” he said at last, destroying her hope in a single sentence. “Those lofty goals are too much for a Council bride and breeder trained for one thing alone.” The shimmer of condescending amusement cut like a sharp knife. “I need an immediate, realistic solution. One that will actually work.”
Hollisworth had mocked her aspirations as well.
The pain of it made her reckless.
“Do…it…then.” She tilted her chin upward as much as the bastard’s unbending grip allowed. “Kill…me, non-Council grunt,”—why not make him bleed a little too?—“and lose your one chance to disable the tracker.”
It might come in a different form than she’d wanted, but at least she’d finally be free.
He reared back as if surprised, but only for an instant, his eyes narrowing as he recovered quickly. Too quickly. His grip never faltering as he leaned in, bringing his lips so close they brushed the shell of her ear. The scent of him—ash and steel and power—blanketed her. “Don’t imagine it will
be that easy, breeder. I have no intention of killing you quick.”
An icy film swept across her skin.
Janus knows, she didn’t want to die. But she’d learned long ago there were far worse things than death.
“What…what do you plan to do with me then?”
One full lip titled upward, the almost-smile never reaching his eyes. “I plan to use you.”
She flinched despite herself.
Because her husband had used her, too. And this brute was a hundred times bigger and stronger and more savage than her husband would ever be.
“I’ll escape,” she vowed.
Escape or die. She refused to become some monster’s plaything again.
“Wrong.” As if he already had the right, her captor’s thumb tracked the interlocking Cs that proved her Council designation, a slow, predatory glide over her vulnerable tendon that sent unwelcome shivers down her spine—and, Janus help her, thanks to the nanotechnology, straight to her core. “This isn’t like New Earth, breeder. There’s no one to run to. No husband and his army to do your bidding. And whatever I have in store, it’s nothing compared to what the other prisoners will do if they get hold of you. Accept it. You belong to me now.”
Without warning, he lifted his massive paw from her throat…and ripped the sleeve from her body.
7
The fabric tore easily under Valdus’s grip.
After two years imaging every twisted act of revenge, it was hard to believe his enemy’s most prized possession was wriggling in his grasp. Harder still to accept he’d finally found the means to save his men after so many dead ends.
His need for sleep and food had vanished the moment she’d appeared.
“No!” The breeder fought like a wild animal, her full breast and hips grinding against him, each perfect curve smacking against his flesh in a twisted parody of sex. The scent of woman and honeyed rhozeberries tumbled down his lungs, disorienting after years of feeling nothing at all.
The urge to rut hit hard. To hold her down in the dirt. Spread those forbidden thighs wide and show her who was in charge. To be exactly the beast her kind had called him at his trial.
He forced himself to take shallow breaths. Locked that shit down.
Because he wasn’t like those feral things at the transport hold, raping and killing, too far gone to care whether they lived or died by droid fire or their fellow inmates’ hands.
No, he was still the commander. Self-controlled. Deliberate. Disciplined.
And what he needed now was the cold, merciless distance that had kept him and his men alive thus far.
“Calm down.” Readjusting his one-handed grip, he used his teeth and free hand to tear her sleeve into six long strips—and barely missed getting kneed in the balls.
“I won’t submit to you.” Her shout, loud enough to attract outside attention, rang in his ear.
He slapped his hand over her made-for-sex mouth. “You’ll do whatever I want.”
Just as she’d done for Hollisworth.
She’d been a stunning, shiny ornament at his trial.
Bride and breeder number five.
Her long blonde hair falling in shiny, healthy waves down her back. Her modest, expensive gown hinting at every lush curve beneath, a stark contrast to the too-thin, hungry look of his barrack-mates and friends. Her creamy skin and wide, unusual emerald eyes absent of the lines of suffering that marked his kind. Each mouthwatering, perfect, unattainable piece of her an invitation to a grunt like him to drag her down, dirty her up, debase her just a little bit.
But she didn’t look so perfect or docile now.
Her hair was darker, streaked with fake dye, and wild. Unkempt. Strands sticking to her skin. Her cheeks flushed. Her curve-hugging uniform torn in a hundred places. Her extraordinary eyes bright with fury and defiance.
Somehow, she was more magnificent.
Which only pissed him off more.
“You don’t have say in what happens next,” he growled, his dick pulsing hard against her stomach as if refusing to obey him, too. “But to save time, I’ll make it clear. I’ve no interest in garden-variety rape.”
Her gaze flickered from his face to her torn sleeve, her warm puffs of breath skimming across his skin.
The assessing intelligence in her gaze unsettled him. Then, a muffled sound of surrender issued from behind his hand, the slid of those pouty, warm lips across his skin sending a jolt of electricity down his palm, and his thoughts turned elsewhere.
He took his time moving his hand away.
Showing any kind of weakness wasn’t good. Especially down here.
Her tongue darted out to wet the lips he’d just freed. He muffled a groan.
“Why should I believe you?”
Valid question. “We’ve got less than two metrals until news of your arrival spreads. We need out of this sector now.”
“Or what? You’ll have to leave me behind?” In the sudden upward tilt of her eyes he saw her making plans.
“Don’t even think it.” He rewrapped his hand around the delicate column of her throat. “There is no escape from me. No part of this maze I won’t find you. Nothing I won’t do to keep you under my thumb.”
Because despite an overwhelming desire to see this particular female dead, keeping her alive had just become his number one priority.
At least for the short term.
“No.” Protesting, she twisted beneath him, her neck arcing upward, and this time…holy Saturn moons, his cock snapped to full attention because, for an insane instant, her outcry sounded a hell of a lot like a low, needy moan.
It was a melody he’d heard plenty when he’d been an Academy soldier, too young and dumb to notice the dust choking his kind’s lungs. His only concerns then had been raising hell with his teammates and fucking whatever willing women he met.
He shook his head to clear away the memories—and the sharp tug of foolish longing for a selfish, irresponsible time that could never be again.
Instead, he forced himself to think of Winslow, Vega, Beckett, Bishop…
All good men. All his responsibility. All barrack-mates and loyal team members who’d followed him and joined the Resistance. All friends who’d listened to his insistence that they couldn’t continue to do nothing while their kind suffered under the thumb of tyrants.
All now dead. Their final view bleak, barren Dragath red rock.
Just like that, his monster hard-on disappeared—and hard, cold focus returned.
“Don’t try and fuck with me, breeder. You won’t like the outcome.”
“There are people looking for me.” As if she sensed his growing rage, her voice grew shakier. “For me and the soldier you spoke with in the transport hold. I wasn’t lying about that, either. If you don’t want my help with the trackers, at least take me to them. The head of the mission has influence. He can help you escape.”
He saw red. As if anyone of her kind would ever stick his neck out for a Dragath criminal. “No one is taking you from me. If anyone tries, I’ll kill them.”
Grass green eyes went wide. “Some of my crew are scientists. Non-Council soldiers. You…you can’t just take their lives.”
“You’d be surprised what I can do.” Shaking loose one of the strips of fabric from his knuckle, he looped it around her wrists.
It took her less than an instant to register the tatters of her own uniform tightening against her skin, binding her arms from wrist to forearm.
“No.” She reared back, strong for one so tiny. “I…I don’t like to be tied up.”
“We both know that doesn’t count for much.”
He couldn’t keep carting her around over his shoulder. He’d need both hands to keep them alive. And all her damn wiggling and fighting, her perfect heart-shaped ass inches from his mouth, it was…distracting.
Chipping away at time he didn’t have.
Because once break ended and shift work began, it would be more than twelve hours before he’d be allowed another r
est. More than twelve hours before he’d be able to put his plan into effect again.
And his chances of keeping this female alive for that length of time weren’t good.
If he was going to use her as he intended, it had to happen soon.
“You think you’ve won,” she rasped, “but you haven’t.”
Fury flared in her gaze. For some messed up reason, he preferred it over the fear.
“I’m nowhere close to winning yet, but it’s good to be back in the game.” Moving quickly, he used his teeth to tie off the knot. “I’ve left your hands tied in front. Give me any problems and I’ll retie them in the back.”
Wrapping a hand around her upper arm, he hauled her to her feet, refusing to notice the way she trembled, or how delicate the bones felt beneath his palm. Instead, he forced his gaze to the strip of fabric still around his knuckle. “There’s always the option of hobbling your legs,” he cautioned. “Your choice.”
“My choice?” Her laugh had no humor, but she did stop pulling against the bind. “My ability to choose was lost long ago.”
His brows pulled low over his forehead. More lies and a bid for sympathy?
After her disappearance, the rumors had spread like crowfoot weeds, tunneling down so far and fast they’d even reached down here. Some said she’d been stolen by a rival Councilman who’d wanted to impregnate her himself. Others insisted it was his brothers in the Resistance, intent on defiling her and striking a blow against Council repopulation efforts one new Council bride at a time. Finally, while not as loud or frequent, there were whispers that she’d run, stealing away herself and dealing the all-powerful head of New Earth his one and only defeat.
Seeing her now, the top of her head barely brushing his chin, he doubted the last more than ever.
But how she’d come to be here didn’t really matter. Only that she was.
Because now she belonged to him.
“We can’t wait any longer.” The buzz of an approaching drone was growing louder. “We need to get out of the neutral zone now.”
The last time a woman had been snatched from the surface had been intervals ago. She’d survived thirty metrals.