The heat she felt spread to a flush on her face as she stupidly realized that she was nestled against the length of Kyl’s body. His left arm around her held her securely to him, but even if it hadn’t, Dina’s legs were entwined with his, and her hands clutched a fistful of Kyl’s soft shirt, just above his waistband.
Apprehension filled her as she noted the other sensations that engulfed her. As she breathed, her nostrils filled with a combination of their heated scents, her mountain mint, his spice, and sweat from both their bodies. Beneath the soft folds of his shirt she could feel hard abdominal muscles. It wasn’t unpleasant lying next to Kyl. In fact, it was rather impossible to ignore the sexuality that was part of his masculine aura, but this man wasn’t Rayn, and even admitting that she wasn’t disgusted with the intimacy of her present situation filled her with horror. Pretending to be asleep, she closed her eyes, listened to the beat of his heart, and tried to ignore any effect his body was having on hers.
He would have no soft words for her upon waking—that she knew—but how to make the awkward transition from sleep mates to waking adversaries? She found it difficult to think, but finally decided on a simple solution.
She sighed, then, still feigning sleep, rolled away from his body. His arm yielded, and she found herself facing away from him, as far away from him as the restraining cuffs would allow. Her clothes were damp where she’d pressed against him, and without his body heat, she shivered. She tried to ignore the cold, but watching her breath frost with every exhale didn’t help matters. Enough was enough.
With a final shudder she sat up and looked down at Kyl. With his arms behind his head, he looked up at her with half open eyes, and his breath frosted in seductive wisps in front of his mouth. He didn’t look cold at all, but hot. His eyes weren’t shadowed, but glowed a soft gray-gold, and her breath nearly caught in her throat at the rare sight of the ice-shard eyes, melted at last.
She held out her hand in front of her.
“Take this off?”
He let out a long breath, lowered his arms, and rose to his haunches. “Come here,” he said, his voice as soft as his eyes.
“You can give the command from there.”
“Do you want it off or not? Come here.”
Dina swung her legs in his direction and kneeled directly before him, again holding her hand up. He met her gaze for a long moment, then gave the verbal command for the cuff to unlock in a harsh whisper.
The silver band sprang open, and Kyl gathered it up, rose, and looked down at her.
“You have exactly half an hour to eat and get yourself together.”
Before they left, he put the cuffs back on her wrists. She started to protest, but he cut her off.
“Relax, Hellfire. As long as you behave, I won’t activate the force field.”
They made good time, but as the hours passed, Dina’s paced slowed, and she labored to keep up with him. She didn’t complain, but he stopped several times for her to rest.
There was no conversation.
They stayed well off the widely traveled trails, opting instead for tracks that were nearly invisible. Sometimes the trail would reappear, sometimes not. Dina wondered if Kyl knew where he was going, but she knew better than to ask.
As the hours wore on, her body switched to automatic. With her head bowed, she put one foot before the other, over and over, blocking out the exhaustion, aching shoulders, cramped arms, and sore feet. A deafening ringing crack brought her head up, and she saw Kyl’s body turn in response to the sound. He opened his mouth, but she saw his body jerk and fall before he could utter a word.
Gods, no, thought Dina, but not a moment more was lost in panic. Her training swiftly took over her mind and body, and she ran, searching for a place to hide. There was precious little cover, save the occasional rocky knolls, and her feet slipped more than once on the alternately hard and wet ground. She hated to leave Kyl, but if she were killed or captured, she certainly wouldn’t be able to aid him. If he’s still alive, she thought. Kyl’s aura was so imbued with control and power that it was hard to imagine him any way except alive. Dina had recognized the crack as a shot from a primitive impact weapon. She prayed it hadn’t hit its mark.
The next sound she heard—a second ringing boom—shattered her prayer, and her body involuntarily jerked as the echo hung in the air. If he wasn’t dead before, he would be now. Sadness gripped and froze her, crippling her as the fright had failed to do a moment ago. It didn’t make sense to her. She’d cursed and hated him for diverting her from her rendezvous with Rayn, and yet she couldn’t deny the strange feeling of loss at the thought of the spacer’s death.
Dina heard the sounds of pursuit behind her, and with them, the automatic flight response again took command of her body. She ran as best she could, but the weight of her pack and the treacherous ground slowed her. She tripped on a rock, and before she could gather her feet beneath her, she again heard a familiar whine. She closed her eyes, felt something tear at her face, then felt no more.
The fog in her mind dissipated. When she opened her eyes, she saw clouds swirling above her. The awakening pain in her arms prompted her to shorten her focus, and she saw that she was hanging, like a slain trophy animal, from a thick pole, her hands and feet bound and tied to the pole. With every step the two Qual who were supporting the pole took, her body swung, chafing her wrists and ankles.
She craned her neck to see the trail in front of her, then stretched her head to see behind the second Qual. There were three altogether, the two carrying the pole and one leading the way.
They were indeed ugly, and Dina hesitated to think of them even as men. Their long hair was dirty and matted and covered much of the lower half of their faces. Prominent brows dominated the portion that was visible, and their short, hunched bodies were covered with crude leather leggings and tunics. The one directly in front of her carried a long-barreled weapon.
They didn’t have Kyl. Dina closed her eyes, and again the strange pain she felt at the loss of one who had seemed so strong and invincible threatened to overwhelm her. She squeezed her eyes and shook her head, knowing her survival depended on her ability to address the problem at hand. Any further mourning would have to wait until the priority of escape was accomplished.
She fervently wished, not for the first time, that her mental powers were the equal of Rayn’s. If they were, she could compel these barbarians to let her go. Enough of what I can’t do, she thought, focusing her thoughts instead on what she could do. She quickly probed each of her three captors, knowing she wouldn’t be able to understand the language of their words, but hoping that their emotions would be surface enough to be apparent. She easily picked up greed, elation, and obviously lewd desires which she assumed would be directed her way shortly.
Dina remembered the day on Exodus when she had compelled Rayn to live. Rayn had been poisoned and lay unconscious when Dina had reached deep into his mind and willed him her strength and her desire for him to live. It had worked, but she didn’t have any real way of knowing if his survival was due to her efforts or his own physical and mental strength. She still didn’t really know the extents of her mental power.
The Qual began talking among themselves, and she strained to listen. The strange rasps and gutterings of their speech were unfamiliar, but she had no trouble picking up angry tones of discord in their conversation. It wasn’t difficult to conclude that the celebratory mood at having captured a prize was rapidly wearing off. Perhaps there was some disagreement over who would avail themselves first of her charms. She decided to try to exploit that. She had nothing to lose.
She focused her mind on that of the Qual closest to her and repeated over and over that the others were going to betray him. She wondered if her compelling thoughts, in Glacian, would even be understood by the creatures, but she remembered that Kyl had said that some understood standard Glacian, so s
he continued. After a while she focused her mind probe on the second Qual and injected her poisoned thoughts into his mind. The others are going to betray you . . . you must fight them.
She repeated the phrase over and over, and suddenly Dina felt her body stop swaying. She opened her eyes, then had the wind knocked out of her as her back hit the ground. The Qual had dropped her, none too gently, and advanced on each other, their voices raised. Even though Dina couldn’t understand the words, their body language clearly bespoke threats. The third tried to mediate, but soon all three were quarreling.
Dina slid her hands along the pole, moving her feet as well, until she slipped her binds off the end of the pole. She had just managed to slip the binds holding her feet off the pole as well when one of her captors saw her. With a cry, he grabbed her and hauled her to her feet, pulling her against him. Even facing away from him, Dina grimaced at his sharp, none-too-pleasant odor.
The Qual who held her evidently figured that possession of the prize gave him the upper hand, but the other two were obviously not ready to give up their challenge. As the two faced off against the one who held her, she heard a high pitched whine, and one member of the challenging pair pitched forward. As the other two turned toward the sound, the whine of death reverberated in the air again, and the second Qual dropped to the ground.
Kylariz seemed to appear out of nowhere, his rupter rifle at his shoulder and pointed right at Dina. “Savvy Glacian, Qual?”
“I do.” She could feel his hot breath on her ear.
“Savvy release the girl or die?”
“Come a closer step, Glacian, and this female, dead she will be,” said the Qual in his thick accent, clutching Dina to him tighter still. She could feel a hard object against her skull, and while she tried to rejoice in the fact that Kyl was still alive, it was difficult to think about anything with two weapons trained on her head.
She looked at the long barrel of the rupter, held unflinchingly, and followed its length to the cold gray eye focused on its sight.
“I guess you didn’t understand the ‘die’ part.”
The rupter fired, and Dina screamed, only to find herself still standing when the echoes of the rupter whine faded away. She stumbled forward, and Kyl, slinging the rifle, caught her. Cradling her with his right arm, he pulled the long knife from his boot with his left hand.
“Unlock cuffs,” he commanded softly, and the cuffs sprang open. He deftly cut the remaining binds, and by the time he sheathed the knife, she’d wriggled her hands free of the cords.
“I thought they’d killed you,” she whispered.
“They tried, as many have. The Roven are hard kills.”
She moved her hands to his chest, where he wore his breastplate.
“It’s no good against rupters and rez guns, but it’s effective against impact weapons. This isn’t the first time it’s saved me.”
She pulled away, just a bit, and looked into his eyes, closer to them now than she had ever been. Their chill was gone, replaced by a brightness that tinted them to a shade she thought of as ghost-blue—the color of the sky just past the gray of dawn.
“How did you know where to find me?”
He released her and picked up the voice-keyed cuffs. “These have a homing device built in. Very handy for tracking down prisoners who try to escape. Don’t tell me you never used any like this.”
She gave him a small snort. “Our technology is never as state-of-the art as that of the criminal element.”
She very much doubted he’d had her safety in mind when he forced her to wear them. In spite of his rescue of her, she forced herself to remember that this was a hard man and not likely to change his ways overnight. As he charitably put the cuffs away on his belt instead of putting them back on her, her eyes followed his hands, and she saw the blood for the first time.
“Kyl, you’re bleeding. Why didn’t you say so? How badly are you hurt?”
He looked down at the blood at his waist, just below the breastplate. “Bad enough, but we need to put distance between ourselves and that little hunting party before we do anything else. Others might have heard the rupter whines.”
They made slow but steady progress until Kylariz called a halt. Dina was glad, for his appearance worried her. Sweat ran down his pale face, and the bloodstain had widened even though Kyl had put a makeshift bandage over the wound. He sagged to his knees, his eyes squeezed shut and his right hand holding his side.
“Build a fire,” he ordered.
“Isn’t that dangerous? What if . . .”
“Do it!”
She didn’t question him further, but pulled some firestarter out of her pack. Within moments unsteady orange arms reached upwards, the tiny fingers of flames clutching toward Gigas, high above, like an infant begging for its mother. Dina looked at Kyl, waiting for more commands, but he hadn’t moved. His eyes were still closed, and the sweat on his face shimmered in the gold light of the fire, the sun, and the gas giant in the sky. His breathing sounded labored and ragged, even with the strafing sounds of the wind.
Dina made a quick decision. Reaching for the clasp at his left side, she unfastened the breastplate. Before she could undo the clasp on the right side, his arm gripped hers. The strength of his hold surprised her. “I have to take this off,” she said, her voice steady.
He nodded once, and his eyes opened, focusing on hers. “Listen to me. You owe me nothing. I know that. Hate me if you will, but I’m asking for my life. And yours.”
Dina stared at the eyes that burned brighter than ever. “My life? You all but took my life from me,” she stated flatly.
“I know. But if I die, you will, too, very literally.” He swallowed and paused, whether waiting for the strength to continue or the right words, she didn’t know. When he elaborated, it was as though the words were an effort. “You’ll never survive this place on your own. That’s no cut to your intelligence or abilities. Just a fact of life on Ror. Both our lives are in your hands now. I don’t relish saying this, but I need your help.”
“Damn good-for-nothing raider. You’re too mean to die. I’ll help if you can tell me what I must do.”
His eyes closed again, and she saw his Adam’s apple work up and down. “Take the breastplate off and see if you can find an exit wound.”
“It’s what I was going to do before you got me to thinking how much I really do hate you,” she muttered half to herself as she unfastened the breastplate and helped him ease it over his head. Kyl grimaced at her words, but made no reply.
She removed his shirt as well, taking care where the fabric near the wound had stuck. The belt quickly followed. After a brief hesitation, she undid several of the silver buttons that dotted the front of his trousers in a line from his waist downward. She eased the waistband down a little, trying, but with little success, to ignore the flat muscled abdomen and the hair that arrowed downward to disappear beneath the trousers.
“Turn toward your left side.” He did so, and she felt carefully for an exit wound on his backside. “There is none.”
He nodded once. “I didn’t think there was. The ball’s still in me. You’ll have to take it out.” He reached for the knife on his boot and unsheathed it. “Clean the wound and clean this. There’s antiseptic in my pack.”
The blade was long and wide. “That’s a killing knife. That’s what I’ll do if I use that.”
“I’ve nothing else. Do it.”
Dina looked at him a moment more, then set to work. She set a small lantern next to him to provide more light, instructed him to lie flat on the ground, and cleaned her hands as well as the wound with the antiseptic.
Certain the knife would indeed kill him, Dina left it, probing the wound instead with her fingers, taking as much care as she could. Kyl put the haft of the knife between his teeth. It didn’t seem as if any organs had been da
maged, as the ball had just caught him underneath the lower right hand corner of the breastplate. Finally the tip of Dina’s finger felt the small hard object embedded in the flesh. In a moment that seemed like an hour, Dina had the ball out.
“There. You were lucky. A little to the left and you’d have been gut shot.”
Kyl took the knife in his hand and held it out to her. “A little to the right, and it would have missed me altogether.”
“Pessimist.”
“Cauterize the wound with the knife.”
Dina hesitated, but only until Kyl’s emphatic “do it” once again spurred her to action. She heated the blade amongst the flames, then pressed the flat of the blade to the wound. The sizzle of burning flesh vied with Kyl’s groan, then there was silence. She felt her heart pounding in her ears, but a quick check showed that he was still breathing. Letting out a long breath that she hadn’t realized she had held, she bandaged the wound and covered him.
She smothered the small fire, turned off the lantern, and checked Kyl one more time. He was breathing steadily. Satisfied she had done all she could, she lay down and wrapped her blanket around her, suddenly aware of her exhaustion. He’s in the hands of the Gods now was her only thought before sleep bound her to the world of what might be.
She awoke sometime later in the closeness of the small tent, disoriented by the endless summer daylight. She had no idea how many hours she had slept and was rapidly losing track of how long they had been on Ror. Fully awake now, she dreaded the thought of throwing off her warm blanket, but thoughts of Kyl prodded her out of her makeshift bed.
He was in a fevered sleep, his skin hot and sweat dampening his brow. Dina changed his bandage and opened a packet of waterless cleanser to wash his face. She had plenty of time to study the features of her captor as she slowly swabbed the planes of his face with a corner of the cleansing cloth.
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