by Sophie Stern
Would Ashley warn Luke in time?
Was she injured in the chaos?
Willow had no way of knowing. The only thing she knew was that she was completely screwed. She was completely fucked unless a miracle happened and Luke could find her. He’d move heaven and hell just to see her, she knew. He’d do anything to rescue her.
But what if he didn’t know she needed saving?
“You’re going to listen very carefully,” Eric said. She could hear him, but she couldn’t see him. “And then you’re going to tell me exactly what my blabbermouth of a sister told you.”
“Nothing,” Willow said too quickly. “Nothing.” She knew it was a mistake as soon as the words poured out of her mouth. She knew. Why couldn’t she just be quiet this one time? Why didn’t she ever learn?
She shouldn’t have said anything because Eric was waiting for her. Pain lashed across her back like nothing she’d ever felt before, and Willow realized she was naked. She hadn’t noticed. He must have stripped her while she was passed out and now her body was at his mercy.
She screamed when he hit her.
“Dreagle might be many things,” Eric said, “but never underestimate their creativity in dishing out pain. I picked up this little whip on my last visit. It’s laced with Almiglaei juice, which is why you feel such a deep sting. The truth is that I barely touched you. I didn’t even break your skin. It feels like it though, doesn’t it?”
She opened her mouth and cried out again and again. She tried not to, tried to hold in the pain, but Willow couldn’t. It was all too much to bear. Her entire body was on fire.
“Fortunately, I was able to store it away before they came for me. Wouldn’t it be a pity if we didn’t get this time together?”
She had to breathe. She had to make it through one more minute. She had to make it through one minute and then she’d be able to make it through two, and then three, and then four.
Luke would come for her.
He would save her.
She had to try to stay alive until he could come. He was a hero: her alien beast. He didn’t think so, but he was her hero. Even if Willow died, even if she didn’t make it, she knew Luke wouldn’t stop until he’d done everything he could to find her. He would do everything in his power to rescue her because that was the type of man he was.
“Why…” Willow tried to speak, but everything hurt. “Why did you crash our ship?”
“It wasn’t just your ship,” Eric sounded smug, like he wanted to make sure she knew. That was the problem with villains, Willow thought: they always needed to take the credit. They always needed to make sure everyone knew how clever they were.
“There was another one,” Willow thought she remembered hearing about the other cruiser. She hadn’t paid much attention to it. Everyone had brushed it off as a fluke. The details had been similar to her own ship’s crash, though.
“And there would be more,” Eric sneered. “There would be more until the elite of Mars were done, vanished, conquered. There would be more until they were positively outlawed.”
“And what?” Willow asked. “You were just going to swoop in and take over Mars while Colony 12 was in chaos?”
“No,” Eric walked around so he was in front of Willow. He grabbed her chin hard and squeezed. It hurt, but she tried not to cry. He’d already seen her cry far too much. “I was going to unite Mars and Dreagle. No more would the inhabitants of Mars be tied to quaint ideas of what it means to be human. Instead, we’d be able to live as we pleased, to seek the pleasures we wanted.”
“You were going to make Mars a Dark Planet,” she whispered.
“I was going to make Mars the darkest planet,” he hissed. “But you ruined it.”
Chapter 19
Wilma was just as fierce as her sister. She led Luke and Les through the back alleys of Colony 12 silently. She was a warrior, Luke knew. There was no doubt about it. He guessed Willow didn’t know about this side of her sister. How could she? They’d been separated for awhile now and the last time they were together, they were both naïve. They were both innocent.
Well, Wilma didn’t seem too innocent now.
She was quiet and stealthy, and she moved with the grace of a cat. She slowed only to shoot someone who was trying to sneak up on them, and even then, she hauled the body quickly behind some barrels.
“Who is this chick?” Les asked quietly.
“Are you in love?” Luke knew the answer even before his friend nodded.
Good. It was about time Les found a girl, though Luke had a feeling Wilma was going to be just as much of a handful as Willow was.
After a 15-minute walk, they arrived at a small black building. There were five stories and no discernible entrance.
“What is it?” Luke asked.
“This is where he took her. I know it.”
“How can you be certain?”
Wilma turned and glared at Luke, then she slapped him hard in the face.
“You might be fucking my sister, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t an asshole,” she said. “So let’s get something straight: I love Willow. I love her more than anything else in the world. Today I plan on saving my sister from a messed up freak who wants to unite Mars and Dreagle in some weird plan for universe domination. You can come with me and help me or you can fuck off.”
“I’ll help,” Les said quickly.
“Tell us what you need,” Luke said.
“They’re up there,” Wilma said, pointing to the top floor. “This is Eric’s spot. The resistance itself is shady and disorganized. Most of his soldiers are already being captured by Mars police.”
“Convenient.”
“Someone may have turned in a list of names this morning,” Wilma said.
“Why not before today?”
“Because someone fucking kidnapped my sister, asshole,” Wilma glared at him, and suddenly Luke felt bad. He knew how Willow felt about her sister, but had no idea Wilma had been looking for her. “Do you know how it feels to know my twin survived the crash but was taken before I could get to her?”
“How long have you known about the resistance?” Les interrupted, cutting off the conversation abruptly.
“A very long time,” Wilma said simply. “Willow and I were separated. Our family did everything they could to keep us apart, but I still had Ashley to keep me informed. I knew about her brother and I began to piece things together from the random shit she told me.”
“What are you, then? Counter-resistance?”
“I’m just a girl who doesn’t want to see her planet blown to shit,” Wilma said. “We already lost Earth. Do we really need to lose Mars, too?”
Wilma looked at him and for a second, his heart stopped. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. She wasn’t fucking scared at all. Wilma was a badass. She might be alone in the universe, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her. She was going to do whatever it took to save her sister.
She punched in a number on the keypad on the door and moved silently inside. Les and Luke flanked her. Luke admired the fact that Wilma seemed to know her way around, seemed to know exactly what they were doing.
She was brave, like her sister. She was fierce.
He knew they were lucky as fuck they’d connected with her because even though Luke was a warrior, he wasn’t from Mars. He didn’t know where the hiding spots were. He wouldn’t be able to find Willow this quickly or this simply. Wilma just seemed to just know. Apparently, she’d been watching Eric for awhile and knew something was wrong. Apparently, she had big plans to rescue her sister.
Luke admired that she was a one girl army. She didn’t have troops coming in to back her up and she didn’t have some elaborate ruse to get Willow. She was just going to go in, guns-a-blazing, and get her.
Despite their large statures, Luke and Les moved in unison behind Wilma as they climbed the rickety staircase to the second floor. They were silent. They were ghosts. They were unstoppable.
And they were going to ge
t his girl back.
Luke couldn’t stomach the idea that Eric might be upstairs hurting her right now. He couldn’t handle knowing she was alone with him, with that monster. Wilma had filled them in on Eric’s crimes on Dreagle. She’d told him what he did with his playthings.
Willow was not his fucking plaything.
They moved swiftly up the stairs and when they reached the fifth floor, Wilma motioned for them to follow her lead.
Fuck that.
Sorry, darling, Luke thought to himself. She’s all mine.
He kicked the door in and barely took time to register Willow hanging naked in the center of the room. No, he zeroed in on the piece of shit wielding some sort of whip.
“Don’t move!” Eric said. “Don’t move or I’ll kill her.”
“Fuck you,” Luke said. He strode quickly across the room. Eric raised the whip and tried to hit Luke, but Luke was too fast. He grabbed Eric’s wrist with one hand and punched him in the face with the other.
“Luke!” Les cried out, but it was too late. Luke wasn’t going to back down. Les and his heart of sweetness and love would just have to deal with it.
Luke grabbed Eric by the neck. The fucker was light, even for a human, and he lifted him up.
“Please,” Eric said, but Luke was too far gone to care.
“You hurt my mate,” he said.
“I didn’t hurt her! I swear! I just needed information! I didn’t do anything,” Eric protested, crying out, but Luke was no hero.
He wasn’t a good guy.
He wasn’t the type of man who did the right thing.
So when he threw Eric out of the open window and watched him soar through the sky, Luke didn’t feel bad at all.
He turned back to Willow. Wilma and Les had helped her down, and Wilma was holding her up. Luke swept her up into his arms and kissed her forehead.
“You’re hurt,” he whispered.
“You saved me again,” she said.
“I will always save you. I will always come for you.”
“I love you,” she whispered, but before Luke could say anything back, Willow passed out in his arms.
Chapter 20
“So Eric and his group of ragamuffin friends wanted to take down the government of Mars?” Willow still didn’t quite understand everything that had happened.
“Yes,” Wilma said. “And I tried to stop them.”
“Alone?” Willow still couldn’t quite believe she was sitting across from her sister. It didn’t seem real. After everything she’d gone through lately, though, it should have been the least of her worries.
“After we were separated, I couldn’t move on. I couldn’t stand not being able to talk to you.”
“I thought you hated me.”
“Never,” Wilma said. “But I was forbidden to talk to you and I was carefully watched. When I was able to sneak away, I began training for something like this because I knew Colony 12 wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be. I began researching why the last Mars cruiser crashed. When I found out you were going on a trip, I was too late to stop you from boarding. I was helpless.”
Willow’s heart clenched at the thought of her twin feeling desperate and helpless. She’d felt the same way. They’d been apart for so long, but the pain of losing each other had stayed strong throughout their separation.
“What’s going to happen now?” Willow asked. She was wrapped in a blanket and sitting on Luke’s lap. They were in a lounge-style room on the ship. Les and Wilma were sitting across from them on a comfortable-looking sofa. Willow thought they were sitting pretty close for two people who had only just met, but then, she didn’t exactly have room to talk.
“Eric is dead,” Wilma said with a shrug. “Government officials will open an investigation into what happened, but to be honest, everything was such a disorganized clusterfuck they’ll just say it was a terrorist attack by some disgruntled citizens and call it a day.”
“And the group that made up Eric’s resistance? What about them?” Willow wanted to know.
“They’ll disband. They were just his friends from school following his lead. They liked the idea of getting to have all the kinky sex they wanted and all the toys they could get their hands on: weapons, drugs, whatever. They don’t actually care about the future of Mars. They just liked Eric’s promises.”
“So that’s it, then,” Willow said. “What about Mom and Dad?” She asked. She had to know. “Did they…do they even care?”
Wilma’s silence was all the answer she needed. She knew her parents had given up on her long ago. When she had chosen not to marry Anthony, they had turned their backs and they weren’t ones to forgive.
“What will you do now?” Willow asked.
“There is nothing left for me on Mars,” Wilma said. “My only hope was to reunite with you.”
“Why didn’t you come for me sooner?” She asked.
“It wasn’t the right time,” Wilma shrugged. “If I had made contact with you before all of this happened, Mom and Dad would have flipped out. They still needed an heir. They would have locked me up if it meant keeping me away from you. As long as I played the sweet little princess, I could keep tabs on you. I could know you were safe.”
“We could have run away together.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing now?”
Willow’s eyes opened wide. Was Wilma really saying what she thought she was?
“You mean?”
“As long as the big boys don’t mind another lady on board.”
“You’re no lady,” Willow said with a smile.
“I, um, ahem,” Les cleared his throat and looked at Luke, then back at Wilma. “I think that would be just fine. We have plenty of space. I’ll prepare a room for you.”
“Or I could just stay in your room,” Wilma fluttered her eyelashes demurely and Willow started laughing.
Les seemed speechless, but happy, and he took Wilma’s hand in his. She leaned her head on his shoulder and the two of them settled close together.
“Thanks for rescuing me,” Willow said. It sounded stupid. It sounded trite. It wasn’t nearly enough of a thanks for what they had done for her.
“We would do anything for you, Willow,” Les said seriously.
“Anything,” Luke repeated.
“Anything,” Wilma said in a sweetly seductive voice.
“Don’t tease me,” Willow laughed.
She was lucky to have them. She was lucky they’d been more aware of the world than she was. Willow hated that she had spent so much time trapped in the darkness that was high society. She hated that she had spent so much time worrying about what her mother thought of her.
She was past that now. She was more than that. She had a real place to belong now. She nuzzled Luke closely and thought about how she’d almost lost him. She thought he was going to abandon her on Mars, albeit against his will. She thought he was going to return to, to drop her off on a planet that didn’t want her.
She thought she was going to lose him.
How quickly things had changed in just the course of a few days. How fast her entire life had been altered. Now it was changing once more, but Willow had a feeling that this time, everything was going to be okay.
Everything was going to be just fine.
“So where are we going?” Wilma asked.
“I believe we were headed to the Hidden Planet before all of this Mars business got started,” Luke said.
“Why there?” Willow asked. “What’s so great about the Hidden Planet?”
Luke and Les exchanged knowing glances.
“Oh, sweetie,” Wilma jumped in, surprising her sister. “You’re in for such a treat.” Wilma smiled. “It’s going to be amazing.”
Willow smiled back, resting her head against Luke. She didn’t really care where they went. They could go anywhere in the universe and everything would be okay as long as they were together. As long as he was by her side, everything would be fine.
Everything wo
uld be perfect.
Everything would be fucking incredible.
Chapter 21
They were finally alone, finally back in the room where it all started. Les and Wilma were handling the flying and Luke and Willow were on their own in his chambers.
“You’re shivering,” he said.
“I’m nervous.”
“Because you’re scared?”
She shook her head, bit her bottom lip.
“I’d never be scared of you, Lukanterao.”
“I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you say my name: my real name.”
“Lukanterao,” she repeated.
“I like the way my name sounds on your lips.”
“I’ll say it as much as you like.”
“I never want you to stop.”
“I meant what I said,” she blurted out. Then she covered her mouth. She was really messing up this time, wasn’t she? I meant what I said. She’d said she loved him. She’d said it. She’d said the words, and wasn’t that just a beautiful disaster? She shouldn’t have said it before he did. She should have kept her mouth shut.
Then again, Willow had never been good at following directions.
She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see Lukanterao’s reaction. He was going to think she was needy and desperate. He was going to think she was pathetic.
She heard him move across the floor. She felt the air move as he reached for her and then his lips were pressed against hers. He kissed her softly. It might have been the softest kiss she’d ever had.
“I love you, too, Willow,” he said.
Her eyes popped open.
“What?”
“You sound surprised,” he chuckled.
“It’s just that…”
“No one’s ever told you that before?”
She shook her head. It wasn’t something her parents said to each other. She and Wilma had told each other, but that was different. Wilma was like her other half. The two of them had always been best friends, always loved each other. They always would, too. They would love each other forever.