“And I will not stop you.”
He nodded, kissed Cierra on the forehead then passed her back to Lana. “Stay here and watch over her. I’m going to get Eryn.”
“Ram, the floor below is crawling with armed security,” she advised.
“How did you get past them?”
“I’m small and fast.” She gave a small smile. “And I waited until the guards changed shifts. They’ll be patrolling by now.”
“I’m armed, twice as big, and furious,” he growled and threw a leg over the entrance to the air shaft. “I think that gives me the advantage.”
“Wait, please, let me go. I don’t know if the vents will hold your weight. You might come crashing through the ceiling and then where will you be? More importantly where will that leave Eryn and the others?”
“We’ll split up,” Trask cut in. “Half in each lift. We’ll take them out as they come then move to the next level, and so on, until we find her.”
“That’s foolish,” she snapped.
Ram noticed her comment earned a sharp glare from the general, unused to being called a fool or having a female question his orders. Confident though she was, her gaze still skittered away under the intensity of his stare. He would have enjoyed this sparring match between them—better Trask than him for a change—if the enemy hadn’t been holding his mate in his clutches.
“I’m not waiting all day while you two argue.”
They both frowned at him.
“I have a better idea.” Lana faced one of the other warriors and pointed to his belt. “Are those gas pellets?”
“Similar, it’s an anesthesia grenade.” He reached for one of the egg-sized spheres hanging from his weapon’s belt. “If we use them, it will incapacitate the guards, but also everyone on the floor, including the pilots and any females.”
“Will it harm them?”
“No, but it will paralyze them for a short time,” Trask answered for him. “It is the same gas we used on the Odyssey to capture you.”
“Do you have masks?”
Ram held up a small pocket-sized mask. “The weapon isn’t much use if it takes us out, too.”
“Then, this is what we do,” Lana suggested, intelligence and cunning glinting in her eyes. “I’ll go back down through the vents and drop the grenades. We search for Eryn while you big guys carry the other women up here. If we don’t find her, we repeat the process on the next floor, and on to the bridge, if necessary.”
Ram glanced at Trask. “She’s right. It is the safest way. If we go in blasting, any one of the females could be injured and it would alert the crew on the levels below. This way, everyone is out safely, including Eryn. In fact, we can gas all three lower levels, and while they’re still out, there is no risk to the Dauntless when they deactivate stealth to transport us back. At that point, we can blast the slimy bastards into dust particles.”
“I agree.” Lana handed Cierra to Ram then grabbed Trask’s mask from his belt and two gas grenades from one of the warriors. “Do we have enough of these?” she inquired as she secured the mask over her face.
“No, we have one for each man,” Trask grumbled, putting extra emphasis on the last word.
“Correction.” With the mask covering her mouth and nose, her voice was muffled, but it didn’t detract from the defiance glittering in her golden-brown eyes as she met her former mate’s gaze. “One of you big guys will have to stay with the baby.” She took Ram’s place at the ventilation shaft, lifting one leg over. “You decide while I go gas these suckers. I’ll knock three times to signal when they’re passed out.”
She threw the other leg over and disappeared with a near-silent whoosh, Trask staring in bemusement after her. “Who was that?” he murmured.
“My mate’s badass friend. She’s changed since you last saw her.”
“Badass is an understatement,” Torq pointed out. “I like these ballsy females. If she isn’t mated, I might try for a match.”
Trask whirled on the man and growled. “Mine.”
The one word rose from his chest in such a menacing rumble, the seasoned warrior took a startled step back.
“I’m sorry, General. I thought your bond didn’t take.”
“Think again,” he snapped as he stalked forward, Ram keeping pace in case he needed to intercede.
“Trask,” came his soft warning. He clasped his friend’s arm, but he threw it off.
“The Earth female is mine. Do you understand?” He met each man’s gaze, holding it until they nodded. He scowled when he came to the unfortunate man who’d made the mistake of verbalizing his thoughts aloud. “And you,” he grated out, as he stabbed the air in front of the Torq’s chest, “just got assigned babysitting duty.”
Three sharp knocks echoed up through the air shaft behind him.
“There’s Lana’s signal,” Ram announced with some urgency.
The general stared down the warrior one more second then nodded. “Let’s move out.”
* * *
Cold and hard, the tile floor beneath her made for an unforgiving bed, but Eryn was too sick to move. She’d crawled to the commander’s table and tried some bread and a few sips of chilled wine, which had helped settle her stomach, but the waves of dizziness wouldn’t cease. But, not having enough energy to stand, let alone investigate all the strange noises coming from the hallway, she slithered to the floor. She couldn’t move her head without the world tilting on end. The sound of thudding footsteps and a slamming door made her curious enough to crack open one eye. She wished she hadn’t, because the revolting commander had returned.
“Hulking Primarian bastards,” he cursed, his bulging eyes locked on the door as if he expected it to explode inward at any moment. “How did they find us?” He spun toward her. “Are you wearing a tracking device of some kind?”
Shouts in the hall had him twisting back, raising his fusion zapper and training it on the one entrance to the room. Nervously twitching, he backed up, ignoring her like an idiot. Eryn knew this might be her only chance, and, despite feeling like she’d been run over by a speeding Jeep HC3, she managed to haul her aching body to its feet.
Swaying, she waited until he took a few more steps and came within range then she attacked. With more strength than she thought she could muster, Eryn aimed the tip of one square-toed boot between his legs and connected hard. He collapsed, first to his knees with a wheezing groan, and then forward, falling with a clatter on top of his gun.
Before he recovered and her strength disappeared, she needed to restrain him. She staggered to his enormous four-post bed and removed two of the corded tiebacks from his gaudy gold curtains. Obviously, he had loftier views of himself, perhaps a sultan, or a king.
“A frog king, more like,” she muttered.
Her mistake, not bashing his head in with one of the gilded statuary littering the room, because when she turned back around, he had his deadly zapper aimed at her chest.
“I can disintegrate you where you stand, bitch. On your knees.”
Her mind resisted bowing to a slimy toad, but her body made the decision for her when her legs gave way, and she dropped to her knees with a thud. It hurt. She couldn’t break her fall, unable to move after expending all the energy she had left with the kick to his nads. As he lurched to his feet, dread rose with a bitter ache to her throat.
Hunched over while holding his crotch with one hand, he limped over to her and pulled the drapery cords from her hands. It took him a moment with her weak struggles, but he bound her hands tightly behind her back yet again.
“I planned to treat you well,” he hissed, while circling her, his protruding eyes staring down at her with contempt. “To pamper you, dress you in fine fabrics, with servants to attend to your every whim. All I wanted was your milk to nourish me, and your body for my pleasure. Now, you will be no more than a slave. Shared for the nourishment of as many of my people as is possible. You’ll be fed and cared for, like we do with the other animals we raise for food. Nothin
g more.”
He reached down and tore open her dress, revealing her breasts, heavy after hours without nursing. They ached from the fullness.
Hunger lit his murky green gaze. Roughly, he grabbed a nipple and tugged hard until a stream of milk shot into his hand. He raised it to his mouth, lapping it up with his greedy tongue. “Mm, such sweetness,” he murmured. “You will serve me first, bitch, before the others.”
“You forget, you have been boarded. My mate will be here any moment.”
He laughed, the wheezing nasal sound making her cringe. Then he plunged his hand in her hair and began hauling her across the floor. She cried out, her scalp on fire.
“I am the supreme commander of the Denastrians. Do you think I don’t have an escape plan?” he sneered.
At the curtained wall, he pressed a button to reveal a life pod expulsion tube.
“My pod is big enough to hold two. We’ll escape right under their noses, and as we do, I’ll avail myself of those luscious tits.”
“Wrong, worm. Those tits are mine and will nourish only my daughter.”
He yelped in surprise, releasing his grip on her hair as he fumbled with his weapon. Before he could gather himself enough to take aim, he went flying across the room, landing with a loud crash and a pathetic whimper against the wall.
On the floor, her hands rubbing her burning scalp, Eryn blinked back tears. When her vision cleared, she saw Ram stalking after him, a vicious-looking blade in his hand.
“No, please,” the commander squealed. “We can make a deal.”
“No, we can’t. I won’t abide you to live after touching what is mine.” Although his large body blocked her view, Eryn didn’t need to see to know from the gurgling sounds, Ram had cut the frog leader’s throat.
She closed her eyes, limp with exhaustion, both the drama and her illness taking their toll.
“Mate,” he murmured as he knelt by her side. “Are you injured? Did he hurt you?” His hands moved over her body, tracing down her limbs and sliding gently up her abdomen.
“Cierra, they took her from me. We have to find her.”
“She is safe. Lana had her well taken care of when we arrived.”
“Thank God, I was so scared.”
“I’ve never been so terrified as when I heard you and Cierra had been taken.” When his hand brushed the tender cheek where the frogman had slapped her, she flinched, and his expression clouded with rage. “That slimy bastard struck you. If I could, I’d kill him again.”
“I’m fine, Ram. Feeling ill, but I think it will pass.”
“Ill? How?”
“Sick to my stomach.”
“Are you also dizzy, feverish, with sharp pangs intermittently stabbing into your gut?”
She blinked up at him. “Yes, how did you know?”
“I have been afflicted, too. It’s separation sickness.”
“But we’ve only been apart two days. We went months before.”
“We have all the signs. Believe me, if it had continued, it would have become worse. As to why, I’ve given up trying to figure out anything about our mating, except we are life mates, we’ll be together forever, and I love you, Eryn.”
The air locked in her chest, her heart pounding. “You love me? Even after—”
“Yes, dammit. I’ve said repeatedly that I forgive you. What is it going to take to convince you?”
A cry of relief broke from her lips. “Oh, Ram, I never thought to hear those words. I love you, too.”
He pulled her into his arms, cradling her tight against his chest. Heart soaring after being uncertain for so long, she leaned into him, letting his love surround her. She also drew upon his strength, still feeling weak and dizzy. “This sickness, it’s awful, like I’m dying without you.”
“Never again, because I’m not letting you out of my sight.” He raised her head and brushed her damp hair back from her flushed cheeks. “You’re burning with fever and flushed.”
“And the room is reeling from the dizziness. Is there something I can take for it?”
His breath brushed her cheek this time as he murmured, “There is one cure for what ails you, sweet rebel.”
“Can you get me out of here so I can take it?”
“After I kiss you.”
“Now? Here?” She didn’t mention the frog corpse in the room with them because thinking about it made her sick.
“I am your cure, Eryn. As you are mine. Being together again, touching, kissing, fucking—especially fucking—will make the symptoms abate.”
She blinked. “Seriously? What are we waiting for?”
With amusement gleaming in his golden gaze, he crushed her to him, yet his lips were gentle, moving over hers more like a caress than a kiss. It was tender, loving, and hot, and she didn’t think she’d get enough of it.
When he raised his head minutes later, she whimpered, “More, please. I’m starting to feel better.” With her fingers threaded in his hair, she tried to pull him back—but he resisted. Her eyes opened. “What’s wrong now?”
“I’ll kiss you on the worm’s bedroom floor, Eryn, nothing more.” His quiet reply held an undertone of contempt. “Let’s get out of here and back to the Dauntless. Once there, we can see to the rest of the cure.”
As he scooped her into his arms, her bare breast brushed against the raised design on his uniform. She moved her hand to shield her sensitive nipple. “Cierra, we must find her. I must tend to her before anything, Ram. I’m sorry, but I ache.”
“She wants her mother as well,” he assured her, carrying her to the door. “First, you must bathe that diseased frog’s loathsome touch from your skin.”
“Definitely.”
He tore a strip of the gaudy red velvet drapery from the wall and used it to cover her exposed breasts. “This is temporary until we find something else,” he muttered. “Then we’ll burn it.”
She laid her hand against his cheek, drawing his golden gaze to hers. “Thank you for coming for us, Ram.”
The arms holding her tensed as the gold began to shimmer. “Did you have any doubt?” he replied fiercely. “Always, Eryn, you and Cierra are mine.”
She smiled up at him through her tears, her fingers lightly stroking the smooth line of his jaw. “I’m starting to believe it.”
“So very stubborn. I knew we were mates from the moment I saw you and told you as much the moment we could communicate. I shouldn’t have let anyone or anything convince me otherwise.” He turned his head and placed a gentle kiss in her palm. “We will discuss this ridiculous notion of running off to Primaria to appear before the council without me, later.”
“How was I to know nasty aliens were lying in wait for us?”
“That isn’t the point. You and Cierra do not go off without me. Another point we will discuss at length once we are off this cesspool of a ship.”
“Um, these upcoming discussions, they don’t bode well for my backside, do they?”
“Count on it, mate.” He dipped his head and rested his brow against hers. “I never want to feel this debilitating fear again. Therefore, when I say never out of my sight, I intend to use all the weapons in my arsenal to keep you with me and safe. Even if it means a lesson over my knee or tied hand and foot to a mate’s helper.”
“A what?”
His answer was a wicked grin that sent a delicious shiver through her from head to toe. “I will demonstrate with pleasure, little rebel, but it will wait—”
“Let me guess,” she cut in. “Until later, right?”
He chuckled, becoming serious again when he reached behind him and pulled two flexible masks from his belt. “Neural gas will be deployed in the hallway soon. We need to put these on.”
“These flimsy things will protect us?”
“Without a doubt.” He slipped the loops over his ears. Once on, it resembled a surgical mask. He assisted her with her own. Then, their eyes met and held for a long moment.
“Are you ready?” he asked, the gold gleamin
g bright over the dark mask.
“If you’ve been sick, too, should you be carrying me?”
“You are no burden, little one. I would carry you to the heavens and beyond if you needed me to.”
She couldn’t help it; her eyes welled with tears.
“What is it? Are you in pain?”
“No, Ram, what you said… It was beautiful. And I would do anything for you. I’m just sorry because of me, we’ve wasted so much time.”
“We have a lifetime ahead of us, Eryn.” A series of thuds and bangs resounded from out in the hallway. “Lana has deployed the gas.”
“Lana?”
“Yes. Your friend missed her calling when becoming a scientist. She’s got the shrewdness and daring of a warrior, and the balls for it, too.”
“Lana?” she repeated.
He laughed, and despite the mask, she knew the elusive dimple graced his cheek. “That tale is also for later. Let’s go.”
* * *
Through the opening in the ceiling, Lana listened as bodies fell to the floor one after another. The mission hadn’t gone exactly as planned, but progress had been made.
After kicking out the grate in the ceiling, she’d deployed a gas grenade on level three. Minutes later, Ram, Trask, and the others had swept through the level unopposed. Everyone—Denastrian frogmen, the human females, and the two pilots—had been incapacitated.
The three women were carried up to the fourth level to await transport. Flinn and Noran, too big to carry solo, had to stay put with a warrior standing guard until the ship was secured and they could be transported back to the Dauntless from their location.
After this is when their well-constructed plan went awry.
Alerted to their presence, the Denastrians waited to engage the warriors on the second level. Pressed on by a demanding Master Warrior near out of his mind to find his still-missing mate, Ram and two others had gone ahead, getting there before she could deploy her anesthesia bomb.
Though outnumbered, they made short work of their smaller, weaker opponents. And when the others joined them, they were well in hand. It was almost too easy. She would have taken a few minutes to enjoy the show, especially with her bird’s-eye view from the ceiling, of Trask taking on frogmen two or three at a time, and winning handily, but Eryn still hadn’t been located, and they had one floor left to search.
His Rebellious Mate (Primarian Mates Book 3) Page 35