“What is going on in here?”
Katrina couldn’t see more than the outline of a figure, but she was pretty sure the woman who’d abducted her had just entered the room. “Let me out of here.”
The woman with the curly hair stepped through the cloudy air wearing a white lab coat. “Oh, I see my alien has awakened. Were my children playing with you? Is that how you ended up on the floor?”
“Let me out, you bitch.” Clothed or not, Katrina would knock that woman on her ass as soon as she got out. Then she’d lock her in the same cage she’d been forced into.
The woman smirked at her. “Wow. For someone not of this planet, you’ve picked up our language pretty quickly.”
“I am from this planet. From Earth. Why the fuck would you think I wasn’t? Are you some kind of psychopath?” The woman had issues, and telling her the whole truth didn’t seem like a good option.
“Oh, I know you grew up here. I was your neighbor.” The woman bent down close to her. “I always thought there was something peculiar about your family. And then when you all disappeared with no explanation, simply vanished without taking any of your belongings, I knew you’d returned to your home planet.”
“You’re nuts!” She didn’t recognize the woman from her neighborhood. And how had she suspected they were different when Katrina didn’t know she was an alien until her real father showed up less than an hour before taking her away from her home? “I seriously think you should admit yourself to the psych hospital.”
The woman pulled a sheet of paper from the pocket of her lab coat. “I mapped your DNA while you were unconscious. I know you’re not of this planet.”
Katrina’s stomach twisted. The woman was smarter than she expected. What did she have planned for her? She shook the bars. “Let me out. You can’t keep me in here.”
Crossing her arms, the woman raised her eyebrows. “I’ll let you out, but I’m not about to let you go. You’re too valuable.”
Katrina clung to the bars, ready to knock the woman down. “You can’t keep me here. My friends will come to my rescue. They’ll destroy you.” As she would if she got the chance.
“Oh, you mean like the other alien I caught?” The woman smirked. “The one with the scar across his face? I’ll take you to him, but I promise you, neither of you will ever get out of here. At least not alive.”
Dread heavy in her chest, Katrina fell back in her cage. The woman had captured Jager? How had that happened? And if the woman had him, where was the rest of their squad? Though, none of them would be able to help anyway. The other three were useless. She was doomed. They were both in the hands of this madwoman.
Chapter Four
With a groan, Jager stretched his legs. His back was sore, but he didn’t feel confined as he usually did sleeping in the cramped cots on the shuttles. No, he had more room. Yet, he wasn’t in his bed on the carrier, or at the training facility on Kalara. The ground was cool beneath him as if he’d fallen asleep on the floor. But if that had happened, he wouldn’t be naked.
Jager sat up. It took a few moments for his eyes to focus on his surroundings. Thick bars surrounded him, trapping him in an area no bigger than his room on the carrier. Though he didn’t have any furniture. Nothing, save for the blanket on top of him. The bars were attached to the thick metal ceiling, and a steel plate bolted to the floor. No way to climb out or lift the cage up. He glanced around for a door and found a reinforced one. Locked by some heavy device with an electronic panel. Cosmos! What in Gaspra had he been doing to land here?
Oh yes. Hunting down Katrina. He’d found a bunch of dead Erebus, examined them, and then.... A voice. He’d heard a woman’s voice before.... Before what? He couldn’t remember anything after that. Not until he woke up here in some kind of prison with no clothes on and his weapons missing.
Wrapping the blanket around his waist, he scanned the area again, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. In the far corner lay a dark form. Someone, or something was trapped inside with him. Or maybe it wasn’t trapped. Maybe it was put in there to guard him, hurt him if he tried to escape.
Sneaking closer, he willed his pounding heart to calm, though he couldn’t shake the thought it was a creature waiting to pounce on him once he got close. The blanket covering the creature rippled. Jager froze. Was it getting ready to attack?
A clay-brown hand yanked the blanket, exposing adult-sized yet dainty feet at the other end. Female, for sure. Bipedal, like all the intelligent beings he knew. Perhaps the woman who’d brought him here. Though, why would she lock herself up with him?
He shifted even closer. Kneeling beside the figure, he dared a peek under the blanket. Dark hair, almost as dark as the night. When he peeled the covering farther off, he noticed birthmarks on the woman’s shoulders and down her spine, mocha brown spots coming together at a point in the middle of her back. It was Katrina. “Should’ve known.”
He tossed the blanket over her and spun, marching over to the other corner. She’d been outsmarted and captured. He wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the platoon ended up in the cage with them.
Katrina sat up, keeping the blanket wrapped around her body. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant.”
Sorry didn’t mean anything, not when they were locked away in a prison with no communication device, weapons, or even any clothing. “Report how you ended up here and managed to get me imprisoned as well. You are supposed to be on Hemera, not Terra.”
Rolling her hands in her lap, she took a deep breath. “I am a Defender, not a princess. No one seems to understand that.”
He tapped his fingers on the floor, tired of that argument. “I didn’t ask why. I don’t care to know your reasons. I just want to know what happened, how you wound up locked in here with me.”
“I snuck onto Echo squad’s shuttle. When we arrived on Earth, I jumped through the wormhole after them.”
He nodded. He’d witnessed that much.
“I’d heard the details of Echo’s mission, but I knew a quicker way to get to their destination. I figured I could take out the threat faster, prevent any Terran casualties, if I got there first.”
Shifting his jaw, Jager reined in his anger before he spoke. “You know that is not how we work. You’re the reason we haven’t been sent on any missions before now. You always think you can handle everything by yourself. We’re a team and are supposed to work as such.”
“I know, but I was trying to save my people from the Erebus. This is a perfect example of why.”
“Your people?” She’d called them Terrans earlier, and yet they were her people?
She glared at him. “I grew up here. Until two years ago, I didn’t know life existed beyond this planet.”
“Okay, fine.” He understood her dedication to the planet and its people. But her reasons weren’t an excuse for her actions. “And you ran into some Erebus?”
“Yes, and I killed every one of them. I took down four by myself. Yet I get no credit for that, just like every other time. How many do I have to kill before someone recognizes my skill, sees me as an actual Defender rather than a wannabe?”
So maybe some of this was his fault. Calling her princess obviously offended her, even if it was her rightful title. “Yet, you ended up in here.”
“An older woman came up to me, wanted to shake my hand for killing the monsters.” She rubbed the puncture wound. “When I shook her hand, she yanked me forward. She was stronger than I expected. And she jabbed something into my neck. I don’t remember anything after that until this place.”
He winced, recalling the sharp pain he’d experienced before blacking out and waking up here as well. “So, where are we?”
“I have no idea.” She shrugged. “I woke in a small cage in a freezing cold room much smaller than this. There were Erebus all around me, but they were not at all like those we’re used to fighting.”
He nodded. “Do you think this woman you mentioned has something to do with the changes in the Erebus?” She was the only connec
ting factor so far. Though he hadn’t come face-to-face with her yet.
“She called them her children, so it’s possible. She could be mixing theirs with Terran DNA.”
As sick as that sounded, the same thought had crossed his mind. “So, what are we going to do? We’re locked in here with no way to contact anyone else from the platoon. We’ve got nothing. It was your idea to go off on your own, and since your father tasked me to find you and send you to Hemera, for real this time, you’ve placed us in this position. What are you going to do now, Defender? You know how to do things all by yourself. What’s our next move?”
“You’re an asshole.” She spat the last word. He had no idea what it meant but was pretty sure she wasn’t flattering him.
“We work as a team so this doesn’t happen. So we have each other’s back and don’t end up trapped somewhere without any way to communicate with the rest of our team.”
“You know that doesn’t always happen.” Her stare was almost as deadly as plazer fire. “Look what happened to you on Hoggins, and what happened to Bryce on Niesgoo. No matter how much you plan, how much you depend on your squad, it doesn’t always result in a perfect mission.”
Rage boiled inside him. What would it take to get her to understand? “No, not always, but if something happens, you have your squad with you, more minds to come up with a plan to get out of the situation. Here, it’s just the two of us, with no way out. And some Terran woman now has access to our communication system and our weapons. She took us out one at a time, not together. This wouldn’t have been possible if you’d worked with your squad.”
“Yes, well, no one was willing to give me that chance. Sending me to a planet I hate instead of where I needed to be. I can never take my place as a true part of the squad if everyone keeps reminding me I’m different. I don’t want special privileges. I just want to serve the Alliance.”
Jager closed his eyes. He wouldn’t win with her. And maybe he wasn’t meant to. His pointing out her differences from all other Defenders had led others to do the same. He respected Bryce. Why hadn’t he given the same honor to his daughter?
Her nostrils flared and a tear slid down her cheek.
Then the lights went out. Total darkness. He couldn’t see a thing.
Maybe it was better that way. She couldn’t make him feel guilty with her tears or turn her glare on him. Some time in the dark would do them both good, give her a moment to contemplate his words as he had hers. When they got out, somehow, they’d finally work as a team.
A scream pierced his eardrums. “Katrina?” What had happened to her? Cosmos, so much for working as a team. He should have been by her side instead of at the opposite end of their cell. Whatever happened to her, it was his fault. He crawled forward, dreading what he’d find when he reached her.
***
The second the room went dark, strong hands grabbed Katrina’s wrist and ankles. Not human hands, but not Erebus tentacles either. Something in between, and with more strength than she’d ever imagined. They held her tight against the bars and covered her mouth, her struggling a useless attempt to get free. She writhed in frustration, in fear. The blanket covering her was gone, and her butt pressed into a corner of the cage, exposed. But what came next was nothing like she expected. A long, sharp object was jammed into her hip. Deep, into the bone. She screamed, the pain sending shards of ice fire through her body. So excruciating.
Waves of delirium flooded her mind. She flopped between reality and a world of hellfire where she was burnt alive. Then they disappeared, and she felt nothing, her existence erased.
“Katrina.” A hand brushed across her cheek. Gentle. Not at all like the ones that had held her down. “Katrina, please be okay.”
She recognized the voice, but not his words. Jager never called her by her real name. It had to be some kind of trick. Rolling onto her back, she groaned, the pain in her right hip radiating down her leg and along her arm. Bile quickly rose to her throat, and she vomited, turning her head away from him just in time. She coughed and spit, yearning to escape the taste as much as the torturous throbbing.
“Oh, Katrina.” Jager tucked his arms under her knees and shoulders.
She pushed him away. Her ears rang too much to move. Her head spun. She could barely see the leader of her squad. “Wait, I—” She couldn’t finish, her tongue numb, her body sucked into oblivion.
“Katrina!” Jager screamed at her. Why was he yelling? “Katrina, come back to me. Katrina?”
She opened her eyes, her throat unbelievably parched. “Drink.” She needed water.
He pulled her head onto his blanket-covered lap. “I’ll get you water. I’ll get some for you as soon as I can. Just relax for now. Relax, and stay with me.”
Breathing through the pain, she tried to focus on Jager’s touch, his rough fingers delicately brushing her cheeks, his hand running through her hair. When she’d started Defender training, she’d go to sleep imagining him touching her like he did now, but not under the same circumstances. When reality had happened, and he started calling her princess, those daydreams had ended. Why did he care so much now?
She opened her eyes and glanced up at him, hoping to find an answer. Instead, she gasped at the bruising under his eye and the fresh scratches across his cheek and down his neck. Lifting her hand, she brushed her thumb along his cheekbone. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing.” He intertwined his fingers with hers, pulling her hand from his face. “Just did what I had to to help someone I care about.”
He cared about her, didn’t see her as just a trainee, or, worse, a spoiled princess? Or was he just comforting her? Either way, he’d gotten hurt for her. “Thank you. After you gave me crap for putting us here, I expected you to leave me to their torture, let me die.”
Still clasping her hand, he smirked. “Maybe I now understand why you stowed away to come here.”
He understood? No one except Jace had tried to understand her since she’d left Earth. From the leader of the Alliance to her parents, they all expected different things of her, but not one of them had stopped to consider how she felt, what she wanted. Maybe Jager wasn’t the asshole she’d come to believe he was. And if he could sympathize with her, she could come to see his point of view with regard to the squad. She could learn to work as a team. If they ever managed to get out of their prison.
Chapter Five
Jager squeezed his eyes shut, his head pounding. He gasped when the body attached to the head resting on his arm moved. The person rolled toward him, and a thin arm draped across his chest. But that wasn’t the only part of the being he felt pressed against him. Cosmos, had he drunk too much redip in the Defender lounge? That would explain the headache and why there was a naked woman beside him.
Katrina. The memories flooded his mind. They were locked up together, naked. And the lights had gone out. She’d screamed, and when he’d crossed the prison cell to get to her, something had knocked him away and beat on him until they’d finished torturing his squad member.
After he’d finally reached her, he’d pulled Katrina to the middle of the cell. It would be harder to reach them there. If she was in his arms, he could protect her from those who’d decided to lock them up. But he still didn’t know who they were, what they wanted, and what they’d done to the Erebus.
Katrina clung to him, one leg draped over his thigh. When she started to shiver, he held her tight. They only had two blankets, one separating them from the floor, and another over them. Very little to keep them warm aside from their own body heat. Not a problem for him, at least not until that moment when his body forgot she had a boyfriend, and wanted her for itself.
He had considered pursuing his junior squad member, especially after she’d arrived at the door wearing nothing but her undergarments the day they met. But, she’d grown close to Jace instead, and now spent most of her time with the leader of Zulu squad. So much time, she might as well train with them. But then, he wouldn’t have her in his arms as he
did now. Even if it wouldn’t last, he had this moment.
She moaned. “Ugh, I gotta pee.” Pushing up onto her arms, she stuck her chest out.
He stifled a groan, unable to take his eyes off her. On Kalara, the Defenders wore their complete uniform when running training exercises, but, when she trained in the simulators, she wore tight clothing that barely covered any of her body. It was completely different seeing her nude. She was small, yet curvy, muscular, but soft in other areas. He fought the urge to reach out and caress her, touch the parts of her body she’d had pressed to his side only moments ago.
“Jager.” She smacked his chest. “What’s that bucket for? Is it okay if I use it to go to the bathroom?”
“Sure.” He glanced away from her, trying to clear the inappropriate image from his mind. “Go ahead.” He had no idea when the bucket had appeared or when the area had been cleaned of Katrina’s vomit. Someone had come inside when they’d slept, and he hadn’t noticed. A great guard he made.
After making use of the bucket himself, he returned to the center of their cell. Katrina lay on a blanket on her side, forgoing the second one. Her hip was black and blue, a big red spot in the middle a sign of the torture she’d endured.
“Does it hurt?” He sat behind her, leaving a respectable amount of space between them.
“Not as bad as while they did this to me.” She rolled onto her back, not making it easy for him to focus on anything but her.
“What do you think she wants, this woman who’s holding us captive?” A great idea to consider, rather than how he could touch Katrina without getting a second black eye.
“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the fact we’re not from Earth.” She lifted her knees and crossed her hands over her belly. “And if she’s created the Erebus we saw, I hate to know what she has planned for us.”
“Yes.” He glanced toward the door of the outer room surrounding their cell, a better place to focus. “Hopefully, your boyfriend and his squad can come to our rescue.”
Jager (Galactic Defenders Book 2) Page 4