“Oh no,” she whispered. “What’ve I done?”
“You’re so responsive,” he said, his voice gruff with passion. “And honest with your passion. A man can get jaded out here, among the slavers, but you, Jordan, you—”
She pushed him off her and grabbed the towel to cover herself. He got to his feet, but she held out a hand. “Don’t!”
“Jordan, I won’t hurt you.”
“You’re a human traitor! You took me from my only family. You plan to sell me. You’ve hurt me in ways you haven’t even comprehended.”
He flinched and shook his head.
“And the first chance I get, I’ll escape.”
“There’s nowhere for you to go, Jordan,” he said. “Think about it. This is a Xyran station in Xyran space. Humans are nothing but slaves. Right now I’m a slave. Escape would be foolish.”
She reached out and grabbed the clothes that had fallen out his hand. “Not trying to escape is what would be foolish. And I can’t believe you’re willing to settle for this type of life.”
She rushed into the bathroom and shut the door. Her heart raced and her body yearned to return to his embrace, but she ignored it. She could never, ever, surrender. Tears rose in her eyes, and she impatiently wiped them away. She refused to cry because what was done was done. Her stupid body might want to go back to David, but her brain looked for a weapon.
So she took a deep breath and pushed the unbelievable experience to the back of her mind. She had to forget how he made her feel, how even now her body felt empty without his hands touching her, and instead she dressed in some weird clothing. Although they were too big for her, at least they weren’t see-through. She rolled up the pant legs and the sleeves and took a deep breath. Her eyes landed on the lid of the towel dispenser. It was just a door that stayed bolted, for the most part, and she opened it to inspect the hinges. It was flimsy enough that a few tugs and pulls managed to tear it off, and now came the difficult part of her hastily put together plan. Truthfully, she didn’t want to hurt David, but he and Laith left her no choice. She couldn’t stay here and meekly follow along while they sold her into being a sex slave. Her rash and foolish actions had brought them to this station, so she had to take advantage of this. She’d rather steal on board a ship going back to Earth. Surely there was some type of vessel heading toward her home planet that she could slip onboard to steal a ride. She’d have to do some research although she didn’t have a clue where to begin that investigation.
She put the small door panel behind her back and opened up the bathroom. David stood with his back turned toward her, staring at a viewscreen that was streaming data. She didn’t even give him a chance to turn around. She rushed at him, brought the panel up and hit him over the head with a solid whack. He fell forward, and his forehead smacked against the bulkhead.
Jordan winced as he fell like a stone. She dropped the door panel and checked to make sure he was breathing. He had a lump on the back of his head as well as the front, but he seemed fine, so she stood and squared her shoulders. She’d always followed through on her decisions, and this was no exception. She ran from the room, being careful to look around corners to make sure Laith wasn’t nearby. She noticed the door to the ship was wide open and with a feeling of relief, ran for it. As she rushed outside, she ran into a big body and stumbled back. A strange Xyran man stared at her in surprise. A tool belt hung around his hips, so she realized he must be working on the repairs. Like she always did when confronted by strangers, she dropped her shoulders and tilted her face down to step around the worker. He grabbed her arm, and, in a panic, she turned toward him and brought up her knee between his legs. He grunted and let go of her to grab his crotch, so she took off running.
Jordan ran for all she was worth, weaving and winding among the startled looking Xyrans. They all tried to reach for her, but fear and desperation had her slipping by them. She darted out of the hanger into the main part of the space station, and it was there that she slowed down to figure out where the heck she was. But a hand came down to haul her up by the back of her shirt, and as she kicked and spun at her new abductor, she came face to face with a fierce Xyran raider. He wore some type of military insignia on his lapel, and at his hip was a blaster.
He said something to her in his language, and she stared at him blankly. Then he spoke in the common tongue, English, and she was thankful that she’d learned it as a child in school.
“How did a human get onto this station?”
“Let go of me, asshole,” she said back in her accented voice.
He shook her until her brain rattled in her head and laughed at her obvious distress before pulling her along behind him. She felt the stares of a thousand eyes boring into her, but she knew none of them would help her. It finally slammed into her head how right David and Laith had been and that she was a very stupid girl for trying to escape the relative safety of their ship. Her mother always said she was too headstrong, and now, she may have just left the frying pan and jumped into the inferno. The Xyran raider dragged her away, and she stumbled along, unable to get on her feet before she was thrown into a room.
“Stay here until I finish business and find the Commander,” the big brute said.
The door banged shut, and she was left with a small glowing beacon that gave more shadow than light. The room was some type of storage room with all types of machinery shoved aside. And from one darkened corner came a small, hiccupping sniff. Jordan spun and strained her eyes, trying to make out the shape of who was there before the darkness coalesced into a girl.
A very young girl, perhaps no more than four or five.
Holy crap, these barbarians sold children, too?
Disgust filled her, and she took a hesitant step toward the child.
“I won’t hurt you,” she said in accented English, deciding to use the common language. “My name is Jordan.”
She saw the little girl turn. “Are you going to hurt me?”
“Oh no, sweetie. I’m going to get out of here. Do you want to come with me?”
The girl nodded, her long black hair swinging in front of her face. “Yes. I want my mommy and daddies.”
Daddies?
“I promise I’ll help you get home. What’s your name?”
The little girl took a little step forward, and Jordan’s mouth fell open when she saw the two small black horns and golden eyes staring at her.
“My name is Rell. You’re human.”
“Oh my God,” Jordan said. “And you’re Alphan, aren’t you?”
Chapter Six
David groaned as he grabbed his head and sat up. She’d warned him, but he’d ignored her and now his head throbbed. Of course, it seemed to pulse in time with his cock because even though she’d just brained him, he still wanted her.
“David!” Tarrn shouted.
“In here,” he called back as he used the bed to help him get to his feet. “Did you see Jordan?”
“The human female? She kicked me in my flutas and ran away.”
David swore and hurried from the quarters. “Where’s Laith?”
“Went to scout out information.”
“Call him back and tell him what happened,” he said. He went to leave the ship, but Tarrn stalled him.
“You can’t go out there. You are Laith’s slave, remember?”
David glared at him but knew he had a point. He nodded. “I’ll call Laith.”
He didn’t have to wait long. As Laith rushed into the ship his eyes settled on the cut on David’s forehead.
“What happened?”
“She escaped.”
“What do you mean, she escaped?”
“She brained me with a lid and ran out of the ship. Does that make it clearer?”
Laith glowered at him. “We have to find her.”
“Agreed, but I’m a goddamn slave, remember?”
Laith sighed. “Follow me.”
They hurried out of the ship and into the hanger, looking frantically arou
nd. Dozens of Xyrans swarmed around the docks but not one human girl.
“Tarrn, did you see where she went?” Laith asked.
Tarrn pointed. “She went toward the market.”
They didn’t wait. Laith led him into the thick of people who’d come to this station in need of ship repairs. This place wasn’t like the Targin Market where anything could be bought. He dodged through the Xyrans trying to barter for anti-gravity plating and high performance cylinder heads, making sure to stay at Laith’s back like any humble slave. But no matter where they searched, it was if Jordan had disappeared into thin air. Nothing looked out of place or out of the ordinary until they came to the end of one row and David saw the back of a raider uniform heading away from the main showroom floor.
It wasn’t necessarily the uniform itself that almost stopped his heart. There were plenty of Xyrans wearing the standard issue. It was the insignia vowing allegiance to one particular tribe that chilled his blood and left him slightly lightheaded.
Kath’s raiders were here.
“Laith,” he said in low voice. “Kath’s raiders are here.”
Shock flared on Laith’s face. “What? Where?”
“I saw one of his officers going into the back, where the maintenance crew is housed.” Laith made a jerking movement toward the area he’d pointed out, but David held onto him. “No. Not yet.”
“Tarrn told me his battle cruiser is out of commission. That he only has a small contingent.”
“Fewer people we have to fight,” David said. “I like these odds. But we have to rescue Jordan.”
“David, this gives us a very good opportunity to kill Kath. If we go now, find him, we get the upper hand.”
David grabbed Laith by the lapels and yanked him close, mindful of hiding them from the general eye. He could be whipped for laying a hand on his master. “You’re bartering with her life. If we fail to kill Kath, we’re leaving her at the mercy of whoever has her. She will be sold. For real. And she won’t last long as a sex slave.”
Laith froze before reaching for him and pulling him close. His tongue came out to touch David’s mouth briefly before Laith stumbled back in shock. “Her essence is on your lips.”
“Yes,” he admitted, holding Laith’s gaze. “I pleasured her, but I didn’t deflower her.”
Laith’s brow creased. “I do not understand what a flower has to do with this.”
David shook his head. “It’s an urban reference to taking a woman’s virginity. Laith, she’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met. Responsive, beautiful, and more than a match for us.”
“Us? No. She’s just a human we were going to sell.”
David shook his head and headed toward the back rooms. “Lie to me all you want, but don’t lie to yourself. I know you better than anyone.”
“I do not have to lie, David. She is nothing more than a human I will use to avenge the death of my sister.”
“Then you’re a damn fool,” David said before disappearing from view.
****
Jordan studied the room where she and the little girl were being held prisoner. She tried to concentrate on getting out of the room, but her mind was in turmoil. What the hell was she supposed to do with a child? It was obvious she couldn’t leave the little girl with monsters who would sell her to even more monsters, but how could she get the child back to her parents? She didn’t even know where Planet Alpha was!
Jordan closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. She had to remember Mr. Meier’s words. Don’t panic. There were always two avenues of escape, the first being physical, and she looked at the four walls holding her in. The second avenue was the human reason, or in this case, the Xyran reason why she was taken. She was trapped because someone had locked the door, so to escape, simply eliminate the reason to be trapped. There was only one way in, and from what she remembered, they were still on the space station. She pursed her lips as she thought about David and Laith. Could she possibly talk them in to taking Rell back to her family? Remembering what she’d done to David, she wasn’t so sure.
She felt a tug on her hand, and she looked down to see the little Alphan girl staring at her with big, fearful eyes. She knelt down to stare at the child eye to eye.
“P-please don’t leave me,” Rell stuttered, her fear obvious.
Jordan felt her heart crack. She pulled the little girl in for a hug. “I won’t, sweetie. I promise. I’m just trying to figure out how to get us out of here.”
In her head she heard Mr. Meier tell her that sometimes things had to be done that she normally wouldn’t ever consider, like breaking the bones in a hand to get out of a pair of handcuffs. In order to save this child, she was going to have to compromise some of her beliefs and values. Briefly, David’s dark head between her thighs flashed across her mind, but she pushed it away. She didn’t have time to reminisce.
The muffled sound of voices suddenly came through the door, and Jordan tensed, wondering if the Xyran assholes who took her were about to burst inside. But after a few minutes, she realized the sounds were the clinks of bottles, which let her know they were getting ready to drink.
“Shh,” she told Rell and then gestured for her to come close so they could both listen at the door. She could hear the Xyrans talking, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. “Do you understand what they’re saying?”
Rell nodded. Luckily, the door either wasn’t very thick or the Xyran assholes spoke really loudly. In any case, the little Alphan girl began to listen intently, speaking every once in a while.
“They’re talking about me,” she whispered. “They’re saying how clever their leader was to break away from his men. Better reward for all. I’m worth a lot of wealth. Oh. They’re talking about you. How they want to … I don’t understand the word. They’re laughing, and I think they’re saying really bad things.”
The child began to cry, and Jordan pulled her away from the door to hug her again. “Why are you worth a lot of money?”
The little girl shrugged.
“Okay,” Jordan assured her. She took a deep breath. She really didn’t want to do this, but she was going to have to go back and grovel to David and Laith … and possibly never see her mother again. “We’re going to get you out of here and back to your parents. Okay?”
Rell looked so small and fragile, probably how Jordan herself had looked when she and her mother had been uprooted from Berlin. She’d only been a little older than this girl when she’d gone to live in the camp and had assumed her boy persona. No child should have to endure situations like theirs.
“So … how would Mr. Meier get out of this room?”
Jordan sat for a long time, thinking of different strategies and discarding them, until it became obvious the men standing guard were drunk, if their slurred speech and carousing was anything to go by. And that she could work with.
She studied the equipment littered around the room. Although she didn’t know what most of it did, she did recognize an air compressor. The one for the camp refrigeration kept breaking, and Mr. Meier was forever fixing it. This one looked like it was attached to an air suppression stream for cleaning filters. An idea formed.
She told Rell to lie in the corner of the room and not move. Then she scoured the machinery until she found a few broken pieces. A screw had worked once before, so why not use several this time around?
It didn’t take much effort to take the filtration canister off the compressor. Then she grabbed a hose off something else and used a seal to affix it before angling the machine in front of the door. The last thing she did was put a clamp on the hose.
Once she flipped the compressor on, there’d be no hiding the sound so she had to make sure everything was lined up perfectly. She looked at Rell and gave an encouraging nod before grabbing the hose and dropping her collection of screws into it. They fell to the clamped off section. She braced her legs, held the hose, and hit the on button.
The compressor rumbled to life, loudly. A second later, a Xyra
n came rushing into the room. She aimed the hose and let go of the clamp, and the compressed air blasted the screws forward with a loud pop. They found their mark, on his face, and blood erupted. He dropped, lifeless, to the floor.
“Come on, Rell,” she said, tossing the hose aside. The Alphan girl got up and ran up to her. “I need you to stay right next to me, okay, sweetie?”
Rell nodded.
Jordan leaned down and picked up the blasters. But just as her hand reached for it, another Xyran beat her to it. With a growl, he picked her up and threw her against the wall. She screamed as her body connected with the hard, unyielding surface. He loomed over her, his face snarling. Behind him she saw Rell in the arms of another Xyran, and for the first time, she felt terrified. It wasn’t just about her now. She was responsible for that little girl.
Just as the Xyran aimed his blaster at her, dual whooshing sounds erupted. Not only did her captor lurch and fall at her feel, but so did the Xyran holding Rell. Right before her eyes their skin began to change colors, fading to sickly grey.
When she looked up, she saw David and Laith. And she’d never been happier to see two people in her whole life.
Chapter Seven
“Jordan has delivered us a better opportunity,” David said as they worked their way deeper into the belly of the station. “Without her antics, we wouldn’t have stopped at this station. We wouldn’t have known about Kath not recruiting.”
“Enough, David,” Laith said as he eased around a corner. “If we find Kath I get to deliver the death blow.”
“Of course, although I wouldn’t mind making him bleed before you tear his heart out.”
That brought a grim smile to Laith’s mouth. They were about to enter the engineering section when movement up ahead had him grabbing Laith’s arm. They heard drunken laughter ahead and moved cautiously forward. Then there was a loud rumble and a high pitched scream. They activated their armor clothing, letting their skin turn black to blend into the shadows. Laith brought his blaster up, and David did the same. They waited, tense, counted to three and entered the holding room. He barely registered the fact that Jordan was on the ground, looking terrified, before shooting the Xyran guard. David killed the second.
Defiance Page 4