Being a lieutenant was yet another life he didn’t want to be leading.
So was knowing with everything in him that when she came back, Boca Ador was going to be the only female he had no choice but to claim.
Chapter 8
When he woke, it was to the feel of something being attached to his head. Opening his eyes as much as he could through the haze clouding his mind, he looked into the doctor’s face and heard him order the assistant to administer another dose of some drug they had already given him.
Grabbing the doctor by the throat, he raised forward and threw the surprised male against the bars of his prison, satisfied to be watching his torturer’s body crumple to the floor. He swiped at the rest of the wires attached to him until he’d freed himself from them.
The pain that suddenly traveled through him like a stun blast slowed his moments, but not enough to stop him from grabbing the guard with the remote. Twisting his assistant torturer’s head until his neck snapped made the pain stop completely. His bleary gaze watched the remote go sliding across the floor with what he thought might be satisfaction as well, but he was way too foggy to judge his own emotions.
Then he saw the door to his cage was open, and no one with a remote blocked it for once.
But the collar was still on him. He felt its weight still resting on his neck. So he stumbled to where the remote had landed and tried to read the strange symbols on it. None seemed to indicate unlock. Instinct made him afraid to press those he didn’t know on a weapon he knew could harm him.
Sliding the remote under the bed, he went to the doctor’s body and searched through his clothing for a key to release the collar’s lock. Repeating the search through the guard’s clothing was equally futile. Giving up, he stumbled out and closed the cage door behind him, glaring a final time at the broken bodies of his captors on the floor.
He walked slowly to the entrance and out of the building, glad to find his freedom from the drugs and the cage, even if he didn’t have any idea where he was going to go.
***
Gwen saw them coming for her at last and sighed. Finally, she thought. Her patience for waiting had been exhausted several hours ago, but she’d managed not to voice it aloud. Barely.
“Time to go home, my beautiful prize,” the chief guard said to the glaring female with a smile, motioning to two other guards to open the cell and let out his new slave.
Gwen rose from the floor and looked back at her cell mates who had stayed in the corner all afternoon whispering as they shunned her. She shook her head, more saddened than angry about their collective victim mentality. Unfortunately, there was no time to work on fixing their will to break free if it didn’t already exist within them. She had her own escape to deal with first.
She turned her back to them to face her captors once more, but soon found herself feeling guilty. Sighing at the urging within her to help the captives, she finally turned back them. Okay, she supposed she could at least ask—damn Zade for these feelings anyway.
“I don’t suppose any of you plan to help me?” Gwen demanded.
The answer she got to that question was a ripple of laughter from the five or six males who watched her now with almost no sympathy in their disbelieving gazes. The females wouldn’t even meet her eyes.
“Fine. Be that way. I’m out of here,” Gwen said flatly, shaking her hands and legs to loosen them enough to fight.
Two guards aimed remotes at her, while the big one, the chief guard who thought he owned her, just smiled. She smiled back at the chief guard and looked beyond him. There were two more guards at the door, both with weapons more dangerous to her than the remotes.
Looking down in disgust at her bare feet, Gwen swore and raised her glaring gaze to the chief male. “I don’t suppose you’re going to give me back my shoes?”
“If the stones hurt your feet, I might be willing to carry you. I can be benevolent or I can be cruel. It all depends how well you please me,” her would-be owner said.
Gwen walked out of the cage and looked to the male on her right holding a remote in a death grip while he eyed her body with envy. Young, she thought. Young and too inexperienced to see past her nearly naked appearance. Earth females appealed to many species. She had concluded long ago that nothing beat a rounded ass and long legs for distracting males.
“You really shouldn’t point that thing unless you intend to use it,” Gwen said to him sweetly, giving him a wink.
He let out a single snort of laughter just before Gwen broke his neck with sharp kick to his throat. She looked at the other guard. “Sorry. I swear I was just trying to maim him. How fragile is your species anyway?”
The second guard, one as young as the first, seemed shocked about his fallen counterpart, and in his shock forgot to press the button on the remote. Gwen laughed as her would-be owner grabbed the device from the shocked male who had obviously not seen a slave fight back, much less kill someone.
Another kick dropped him to the floor as well, and he was calling out in pain when she advanced on the chief guard. The panicking male was now shocking her steadily as he called for help from the guards at the door. She silenced the second guard with a second kick as she walked over him. Death throes of her enemies just tended to annoy her.
Gwen felt her collar buzzing madly and laughed in the chief guard’s face. The only thing keeping her from blowing up the building with one of Chiang’s explosives was the need for stealth—and some misplaced sympathy for her pathetic, unhelpful cellmates.
“You know it’s not like I didn’t warn you this was going to happen if you tried to take advantage of me,” she told him, walking forward as he backed up.
“Keep your distance or be killed,” the chief guard said coldly.
“Not if I kill you first,” Gwen said logically.
The two guards running to assist their boss pulled what looked like stunners from their belts. Gwen saw their thoughts and smiled as she remembered the one good use of intuition she had discovered.
“You’re right. How can I resist a male as wonderful as you? Come hug me,” Gwen ordered, making a run for him as he called out in alarm at her charge and tried to escape.
Grabbing his considerable bulk when she caught him, Gwen got him turned just as both guards fired their weapons in her direction. The body in her arms jerked back and fell at her feet, too heavy for her to hold it up.
“Awww…thanks for the help, you two,” Gwen said, smiling at the two males with weapons now pointing at the floor.
Stepping over the inert bulk of her captor, she stomped a foot down hard on what she sincerely hoped were his bonding parts while the two armed guards stared at her, still in shock at having fired on their chief.
“Yeah—your boss is going to be really upset at you both for shooting him—if he wakes up,” she told them, knowing the chances were slim based on how hard the stunner blasts hit the body. “Sure hope you didn’t have those weapons set to kill. That could be a real career buster. You might find yourselves wearing one of these Xendrin collars.”
Her attention was momentarily diverted from the last two obstacles to her freedom by the large, staggering male stumbling through the door, slamming it open in his struggle to get inside. Everything lifted inside her to see him just before panic set in about the situation he’d happened into.
“Shades of Kellnor—there’s another one!” She heard one of the guards say as he aimed his weapon at a glaring Zade.
“Zade! Look out,” she yelled while running, growling in panic as she leaped.
Gwen took the guard down just as the weapon fired. Zade didn’t flinch as the blast hit the wall beside the door. Instead, he just stared at her, now sitting on the male’s back, as if he couldn’t figure out what was going on. Gwen used her elbow and made sure the male under her was rendered completely unconscious.
The remaining guard swung his weapon back and forth between the two of them.
“You’ll never get us both, and you know it. Drop the we
apon and run. If you don’t, one of us is definitely going to kill you,” Gwen told him.
The remaining guard must have believed her because the weapon flew across the room as the male rushed to the door.
Gwen was surprised when Zade stopped him with an arm, grabbed and twisted his head, and then flung the now dead body across the room with one hand. Then Zade started walking slowly towards her with a determined look in his eyes she had never seen.
Climbing off the guard’s back, Gwen walked to meet Zade, dreading the fact that she might have to fight and subdue the male she’d rather be hugging. His hand came out and grabbed the center of her top, yanking her close to peer into her eyes. Willing herself to relax and show no fear to him, she met his glare, which contained not a shred of recognition.
He was obviously drugged and barely functioning, but what was working was definitely in survival mode. Maybe knowing in advance about his memory loss was a good thing for her after all. Another plus for using intuitive talents, she supposed.
“You didn’t have to kill the one that wanted to run away,” she said sharply.
“He would have told others,” he countered logically. “Who are you? You saved me from getting shot.”
Her body was rejoicing to be close to him again. Her heart was breaking to know he hadn’t a clue who she was. It had hurt in the vision. It was just as bad in reality. Now it also worried her because time spent talking was time not spent running.
“Why should I tell you anything? Who are you?” Gwen asked him in return, fighting logic with logic, something she hoped would occupy his mind enough to defuse his emotions.
He let go immediately and practically tossed her away. “I don’t know who I am, but I am not a slave.”
Gwen looked at Zade a moment, letting her senses gauge how much mental pain his confusion caused him. She walked close to him again until she knew the male who had mated her would feel her vibrations as much she felt his. In his current condition, he might attempt to kill her if he even thought for a second that she was a threat. Gwen had to hope that the mating cord would be stronger than his drug-induced fear of nearly everything.
“Okay, I lied. I know who you are. Your name is Lieutenant Dorian Zade and you are very ill. I seek only your good so please try to trust me,” she directed. “We need to get out of here and find the others.”
“What others?” he demanded.
“Others like you who are not slaves either,” Gwen told him, lifting a hand up to his shoulder. “Bend down and I’ll remove your slave collar.”
He caught her wrist in a grip that Gwen knew was going to leave marks.
“What about your own?” he demanded. “You wear a collar. That means you’re a slave.”
Gwen shook her head and swept her free hand to point at the guards littering the floor. “I’m not a slave, just pretending to be one. I’ve come to rescue you and the others. I’m a warrior and this is my proof.”
Zade let go of her wrist reluctantly. It took all her willpower not to rub it, but she didn’t want him to know that he’d hurt her. No telling what kind of response that would provoke.
“I dreamed of you almost every night. Not all of them were good dreams. When I was running tonight, I felt you in here and could not pass by without…seeing you,” he said. “I could have been killed.”
Gwen nodded, not surprised that he’d found her even in a city as large as this one. But she was trying really hard not to be hurt that he was resentful about it.
“Yeah, well I’m sorry to create a detour in your big escape plan Zade, but I was just as compelled to find you. That’s why I’m on this Klageldon dung of a planet. Now can I please take your collar off before someone else comes along with a remote and points it at you? I don’t want to have to drag your unconscious ass around.”
Gwen stepped close to Zade again, wincing when he grabbed the same wrist just as tightly as he had the first time.
“If you harm me, I will kill you, no matter how I feel about you,” he warned.
“Only if I don’t kick your sorry ass first, you ungrateful Siren bastard. Look—can we argue about our energy connection later? I need both freaking hands on the collar for this work, so let go and bend down just a little. They took my damn shoes and I’m a good six inches shorter than you without mine.”
Giving her another warning glare, he let go of her wrist and finally bent down.
Ignoring the urge to fling herself into his arms when she touched his face and the skin at his throat, Gwen took a deep breath and ordered herself to relax. Closing her eyes, she spoke the word Ania had put inside her. Her body literally shook with the effort of the word working its magic as the collar fell off in her hands.
But it was followed by a sharp, severe pain in her gut that bent her over. “Raging fires of Helios, that hurts—hurts bad,” she exclaimed, holding her stomach and trying not to be physically sick over the amount of pain.
A now obviously more mollified Zade freed of his collar grabbed her arm to help her right herself, then took his collar from her hand and tossed it among the bodies on the floor.
“Now remove yours,” he ordered.
“No—not yet,” she said quietly, shaking her head and patting his hand that remained on her arm, but at least it wasn’t squeezing her hard enough to do damage this time. She remembered him being strong, but not strong enough to fracture the bones in her wrist.
“My collar is special, and it doesn’t hurt me like yours did you. And I have other reasons to leave it on.”
She made herself pull away from Zade, then turned and jumped over dead bodies, racing back to the cage where the others still huddled.
“Want me to free you or not?” she asked them.
“And where would we go and be safe?” the sullen male asked.
Gwen snorted. “Fine. Stay here then. It hurts like hell to remove the collars anyway.”
Going back to Zade, she grabbed his arm. “Come on. Looks like it’s just us. Let’s get out of here. We’re lucky it’s getting dark.”
They walked out the door of the building and immediately into a familiar black mist. Gwen stopped abruptly.
“Malachi?” she asked, watching as the mist wavered in the air.
“I’ll take that fluctuation as a yes,” she said, not sure why the demon wasn’t solidifying his energy enough to talk. “They drugged Ania and have her locked away, but they’re really after you, so be careful. Where’s Synar?”
“Here,” Synar said running up. “Malachi’s speech is energy and can be picked up on scanners. We don’t want to draw any more attention to ourselves than necessary.”
Pleased to see his friend alive and glaring, Synar grabbed Dorian’s arm only to have it immediately yanked from his grasp.
Seeing his reaction to Synar, Gwen picked up one of Zade’s hands, linking his fingers with hers, trying to ignore the happiness every touch brought. She had to remember they still needed to find the others and escape. Fighting to calm herself made her doubly grateful for her Thelorian father.
“Zade—it’s okay. Synar’s a friend. He’s here to help.”
She looked at Synar, who was staring at the lack of recognition Zade had for him.
“Zade doesn’t remember us, but he accepts his connection to me. He broke himself out and then helped me escape my guards. They drugged him pretty heavily I think,” Gwen explained, rubbing his fingers with hers. “But he’s mostly holding it together.”
Synar looked at the male he’d known for a couple centuries, finding it hard to imagine that all they’d shared might actually be gone. Since losing his friend was not an option, he simple chose to ignore the possibility of it being permanent. Instead, he would assume that when Dorian was healed, all would return.
“Gwen is right, Dorian. You can trust us,” he said firmly, noticing Dorian still said nothing in return.
Giving up trying to reassure his friend all was well, Synar turned back to Gwen. They were only half done.
“M
alachi knows where Ania is. Have you found Sarinnea?”
Gwen shook her head. “No, but I know where to look. Got a spare portable com unit on you?”
Synar took off his wrist unit and handed it over. “Take it—I have one built into my jacket.”
Gwen took the com unit and strapped it onto Zade’s wrist while he looked at her strangely. “It’s just like you told me, Zade. If you wear the collar, you’re a slave. Congratulations, you are now my owner.”
The male she addressed only snorted in response, but his gaze on her held interest in her words. Any other time she’d have given him hell for what he was thinking, but there was no time to banter.
Gwen looked at Synar, who was looking more and more unsure about the situation. Her intuition kicked him and she saw the full magnitude of Synar’s concern over his friend.
“Don’t worry about me and Zade. I got this covered, and he’s better off sticking with me. When you find Ania, you’re going into a trap. They’re trying to capture Malachi to make a big sale. Remind me later to tell you about their customer.”
“They seem to have told you a lot,” Synar commented, lifting one corner of his mouth. “I’m guessing your disguise worked well for you.”
“Stop smirking. Clothing design is obviously not my second career choice, but I know how to blend in on a mission. Besides—my captor wanted me to be grateful that he saved me from Ania. He assumed I didn’t know about Malachi,” she said.
Gwen watched Synar look at the mist, saw his eyes glow red, and watched him nod.
“Malachi is anxious. Call me when you have Sarinnea. How will you find her?” Synar asked.
“I saw her owner’s residence in my vision,” Gwen said, not doubting anymore. “Sarinnea’s location was near where they have been holding Zade. Hopefully, he can show me how to get back there.”
Gwen looked up at the male beside her. “Right? You can take me back there?”
“Not going back in the cage,” he said firmly, the words only slightly slurred.
The Siren's Call (Fantasy, Science Fiction, Romance) (FORCED TO SERVE) Page 8