The Hand of Vengeance

by Renee Rose

  When she put one arm behind her back, then the other, he released a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He made quick work of knotting them together at the small of her back, taking care not to make the binds too tight or too loose.

  “Bend over, Doctor.”

  “I really don’t think this is necessary.”

  He waited. He didn’t need to threaten or glare. He knew his presence was frightening enough. Indeed, she lasted about twenty seconds before she thrust her jaw forward and folded her torso over the log. Without her hands to hold her, she toppled forward, off her feet. She grunted and kicked out, her legs flailing.

  He steadied her, holding her bound hands. “I won’t let you fall on your head.” He looked at the sight she made, her blue leggings stretched taut over her tight little ass. His cock hardened. The outline of a G-string showed over her sacrum. That’s right...the women on Earth wore only tiny scraps of fabric for panties. Which meant he could pull her leggings down to bare her cheeks and still give her the dignity of having her twat covered.

  He grasped the fabric in one fist and yanked down.

  “Hey,” she shouted in protest. “What are you—” She trailed off as the whoosh of his belt leaving the loops filled the air.

  Universal God, she had the cutest ass he’d ever seen. He shouldn’t have bared her, because the sight made his head swim. Looking away, he wrapped the buckle end of the belt around his fist to shorten the length of the strap. He could do this. He drew a breath, searching for some form of lecture. “You disobeyed me, Doctor.”

  “Don’t you think getting shot at is punishment enough?”

  He drew his arm back and let it swing. The leather strap snapped across both her cheeks, leaving a raised mark on her bare skin.

  She shrieked.

  He squeezed her hands but admonished, “Shh, keep it down. There are predators in this canyon that hunt humans for dinner.”

  He swung the belt again, making another stripe below the first. “I told you not to build a big fire.” He whipped her again, and she kicked her feet and shook her head, moaning. “I told you I would protect you.” He delivered several more welts as she howled. “We lost our dinner because of you. You nearly got us both killed.”

  “Ow, stop it,” she yelled. “This is ridiculous.”

  He swung the belt again. He really shouldn’t have bared her ass. His breath rate had increased. “I am waiting for an apology.”

  “I’m sorry,” she screeched immediately. “In the name of the Universal God, is that all you wanted? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  “Three more.”

  “No,” she wailed. He interrupted her with a snap of the belt, putting a little more force into the swing.

  She drew her breath in across her teeth.

  He delivered another stroke across the backs of her thighs.

  “Ow! Damn you,” she hollered.

  He made the last one count, catching her at the juncture of bottom and thigh. And then he heard the growl.

  ~~*~~

  Her vision blurred. She blinked the tears back. She wasn’t going to give the damn rebel the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Even if she never sat again. And, at this rate, she doubted she would. It felt like he’d flayed the very skin off her ass.

  Suddenly, he pulled her to her feet, yanked her leggings up, and worked on the knot at her wrists.

  Don’t cry. Do not. Cry. She had to stop thinking about how much her backside throbbed.

  “Up the tree, Doctor.” Blade’s voice sounded urgent as he lifted her toward the branches of a huge tree.

  Her muddled brain couldn’t dissect his meaning.

  “Climb, Doctor! Get up there now.”

  A ferocious growl shocked her out of her stupor. She looked down to see they were surrounded by a pack of snarling… she didn’t know what kind of animal they were. If they were found on Earth, she’d never seen them. They looked mostly like wolves, only taller, with ugly, broad foreheads and two rows of fangs. She screamed.

  “Stop screaming,” Blade said through clenched teeth. “You’ll bring in more of them.” She clamped her lips shut. Catching hold of the branches, she scrambled up the tree. The bark abraded her raw cheeks, her leggings doing nothing to protect her. She ignored the pain, propelled only by the desire to get away from the fearsome beasts.

  Blade swung around, picking up a heavy stick in one hand and holding his dagger in the other. He bent his knees.

  “What are you doing? Shoot them! Don’t you have a laser gun?”

  He inched around the tree, keeping his back to the trunk. “Laser fire will show up on the Republicans’ monitors.”

  One of the animals leaped for his throat.

  She screamed again then snapped her jaws shut. “Oh God.”

  Blade stabbed the beast through the heart. He withdrew the bloody blade and whirled to slash the throat of the next one lunging. A cacophony of snarling erupted as the entire pack attacked. Blade brought the club down on the side of one animal’s head. Another he picked up and slammed against the tree, breaking its spine. Yelps and whines filled the air.

  She might save lives on a daily basis, but, to her great shame, she did nothing to help the warrior. She simply froze there in the tree watching the scene unfold as if watching a hologram, and not a real man fighting off twenty wolf-like creatures.

  We’re going to die. We’re going to die. We’re going to die...

  Blade spun and slashed, in a silent dance with the pack of beasts. Fur flew and animals yipped in pain.

  It might have been a minute. Maybe even less. Ten beasts lay bloodied and dying at his feet, and the remainder of the pack began to slink away. Blood dripped from his dagger. He dropped the club and wiped his blade on his pants.

  “Come on down,” he said, without looking up.

  As it turned out, her body wouldn’t move. Not even an inch. She clung to the branch she straddled, her body petrified with shock. The giant waxy yellow leaves shivered, as if reflecting to her fear.

  Now he looked up, frowning. “I said, come down, Doctor.” Damn, if he didn’t have the stern command down pat.

  He must have caught her expression because his brows lifted in surprise. “Are you scared?” He held out his arms. “Drop and I’ll catch you.”

  She shook her head. She knew it was irrational, and yet she couldn’t convince her body to move.

  “Dr. Simmons...Lara. It’s okay. They’re gone, but we have to get out of here before the smell of blood attracts larger predators.”

  She gulped. Larger predators than those? What did they have on Jesel, dragons?

  He put his hands on his hips, staring up at her. “Are you scared of me?”

  It was a logical question. He had just whipped her till she screamed. But no, she’d take him over the wolf-things any day.

  “I—” Her tongue didn’t seem to work. Her mouth was too dry. “I can’t move,” she managed to say.

  In one fluid movement, he swung up into the tree, like a little boy rather than a giant warrior. He climbed to her.

  She flinched when he touched her, not because she thought he would hurt her, but because she’d developed a sudden and irrational fear of falling.

  “Come on,” he coaxed. “You’re okay. We have to go now, doctor.”

  She shook her head, the tears that hadn’t come during the whipping now spilling down her cheeks. “I can’t.”

  “You can.” He produced the same rope he’d tied her hands with and looped it around her torso, under her armpits. He tossed the other end over the branch above them and pulled down the slack. “I’m not going to let you fall,” he promised. “You’re safe. I can either lower you down like this, or you can try to climb down yourself and know that I’ll have you if you slip.”

  She shook her head again. “I can’t climb,” she whispered.

  He inched closer to her. The branch bowed under his weight. Reaching out, he wrapped one strong arm around her waist.

&nb
sp; She screamed, but he had already pulled her against him, and they were in the air, sailing down at a rate tempered by the rope sliding through his hand. He landed on the ground and dropped her lightly to her feet, unwinding the woven fibers.

  She picked up his hand and turned it, inspecting the rope burns he’d just inflicted on his palm.

  He yanked it away so fast, she jumped. “I’m fine,” he said curtly. “We need to get moving and find a place to camp for the night.”

  Her brain and body had shut down. She heard his words but barely processed them, the image of the snarling pack of wild animals still projecting in her mind. She hugged her arms around her waist.

  Snatching up his jacket from the log, Blade wrapped it around her shoulders and zipped it. She realized she was shivering—he must have noticed. From shock, probably, not cold. It cooled off at night, but, in general, Jesel’s climate remained warm year-round. Blade removed his hat from his head and put it on her, smoothing the edges around her face with a gentleness that shocked her.

  “Let’s go.” He picked up the smallest beast and heaved it up over his shoulders, walking briskly ahead. He didn’t hold her hand or wait to see if she’d follow. He must know at this point, she’d be too scared of being left alone in the dark with the wild animals not to trot along behind.

  ~~*~~

  Twilight turned the purple canyon walls into glowing maroons, oranges, and pinks. In the sky, Jesel’s eighth moon rose. The other seven already spanned the sky in a perfect line, their silvery bodies growing brighter as the planet rotated away from their sun.

  The doctor stared up at the sky, and her mouth opened with awe. “Wow.”

  “Have you never seen it before? You’ve been on Jesel for three months already, haven’t you?” He knew the details of her stint on Jesel with the Interplanetary Samaritans from Bailey’s research.

  She rotated a full 360 degrees, her gaze tracing the spectacular canyon with a look of appreciation. Blade’s people revered nature. Before Treedle had invaded, they’d lived at one with the bounty of the planet, which its original settlers had found so similar to Earth. They’d taken only what they needed, living in reverence of the beauty they had discovered here.

  Something in his chest thawed to see her pay it the respect it deserved. He wanted to show her more, suddenly, as an ambassador of his country. He wanted to share all the secret places he knew—crystalline caves of rainbow diamonds. Twin waterfalls, one hot, one cold. Meadows of wildflowers.

  He gave his head a shake. That was foolish. His mission was to bring her to the rebel camp. Immediately. This was not a nature hike.

  He stooped and cut a stalk of sweet reed and handed it to the doctor. “Suck the juice out of the stalk to quench your thirst.”

  Her hand was steady when she took it, but her color was still off, and her face was pinched and tight. “Thank you.” She put it to her dry lips and sucked.

  His cock twitched, and he forced himself to look away before he had a full-on erection. Inappropriate, Blade. Completely inappropriate. Something about the little doctor fascinated him. No, not something—everything. He admired her pluck, even if she had caused him a world of trouble with that bonfire. And when he’d seen her so shaken by the rye-wolves, it had taken all his restraint not to wrap his arms around her to try to offer some comfort. But, of course, she wouldn’t want that from him. Especially not after the way he’d just punished her.

  They walked downstream for another half-mile before he found a good protected area to make camp. “Collect some wood and kindling for a fire.”

  She obeyed without answering.

  He gutted the beast he’d hauled with them and built a little spit to cook it on, arranging the kindling she brought to him underneath it. “Hand me my lighter.” When she didn’t move, he looked up.

  She licked her lips, her gaze darting nervously to his face. “I set it down when I made the bonfire.”

  He scowled. “Do you know how hard it is to start a fire without flint?”

  She winced.

  “Of course you don’t,” he muttered. “Find me the smallest pieces of kindling. Something easily flammable, like dried leaves.” He picked a good stick and set it on top of a small piece of bark. Rubbing it back and forth, he created friction where the stick rubbed against the larger piece of wood, making a groove. Smoke began to rise as bits of sawdust flaked off and heat built. He was being an asshole. It had become such a habit over the years, it was hard to break now. Starting a fire with friction was a pain, but he could do it. Hell, he’d done it often enough in those early years on the run, after he’d escaped slavery.

  The doctor brought the dried leaves and knelt beside him.

  “Make a little nest of them on top of the kindling.” He tried not to bark the orders, but his words still sounded harsh. Right. Because he was missing the niceties like thank you or I’m sorry I’m such a dick. Being in the presence of the refined, educated Earthling made his own roughness stand out like an ugly scar.

  He worked up a substantial ember and transferred it to the little nest Dr. Simmons had built. Her nimble fingers had made a tidy pile, layered for air.

  “Well done.” There. He had said something nice. He shouldn’t have glanced over, because the softness the two words gave her face made his chest tighten. Universal God, she was beautiful.

  He crouched down low to blow on the embers, helping them to catch fire. His first attempt failed—he blew too hard and the ember went out. The second one also went out.

  The doctor crouched next to him, too close. Tension radiated from her, adding to his guilt. Finally, he got the little bundle lit, and, eventually, built a small fire.

  The doctor watched his face, a crease of worry between her brows. He wanted to rub it away with his thumb. No, he wanted to kiss it away. “This will do.” He’d have to settle for gruff acknowledgement.

  She relaxed and stepped back. “Now what?”

  “Sit down and rest.”

  He put the meat on the spit over the fire and let it sear. Darkness fell, leaving only moon and firelight to guide his movements. The meat cooked quickly, and he pulled it off.

  When he kicked out the fire, the doctor gave him a wounded look. She sat huddled close to it, drawing warmth.

  “We can’t risk attracting attention.” He handed her a piece of meat, watching as she put it gingerly toward her lips.

  She took a bite and grimaced.

  “Rye-wolf isn’t tasty, I know. I had caught a fine field deer, but I had to drop it back there when you got us fired at.”

  Her jaw clenched, and she looked away.

  What an ass. He’d already punished her; he didn’t need to keep throwing it in her face. Mule Goats had more cultivated manners than he did. He’d been living in war camps for too long.

  He wasn’t used to being around women, other than those who sought him out. He’d had casual couplings with them—rebel women showing their appreciation or adulation. Or whatever. He didn’t really know their motivation. They would show up at his tent flap, and he’d use what they offered. There was no place for relationships on the battlefields.

  He wished Commander Bailey was here to make the poor doctor feel at ease and look after her needs. Except the thought of another man taking care of her had him clenching his fists. He shook his head. Damn, how did she get under his skin so quickly?

  The doctor didn’t eat more than two bites of the tough, sinewy meat, and he didn’t blame her. It had a strong, musky taste. “I’ll cut some more sweet reed. It will tide you over,” he said. “In the morning, I can hunt again.” He walked down to the river and rinsed the charred remains of the meat from his fingers. The sounds of the canyon echoed off the rock walls—the steady trickle of the water, the rustle of trees, insects calling their mates. From farther away, he heard the pack of rye-wolves howl to celebrate a kill.

  When he walked back, he handed Dr. Simmons the sweet reed. She sat with her back against a tree.

  “Try to get so
me sleep, if you can, Doctor.”

  Her gaze swiveled to his. Exhaustion showed in her face, but she looked dubious about his suggestion. He supposed she’d be unused to sleeping without a bed and blankets. He wished he had more to offer her for comfort. Hopefully, by the following day he’d find a way out of the canyon and back to rebel headquarters outside Parth where the talented doctor was desperately needed.

  He moved the remains of the cooked meat several hundred yards away from their camp so it wouldn’t attract scavenger rodents or birds. When he returned, the doctor’s eyes were closed, but she looked far too uncomfortable to be asleep.

  He cleared a swath of rocks and lay down. He heard the doctor adjust her position. He woke several hours later to her movements. She had moved right up against the coals of the fire they’d used to cook the meat.

  “Are you cold, Doctor?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  It was odd that she called him sir. She outranked him in every way. He was nothing but an escaped slave, with no education, and she was a highly accomplished medical professional. “Don’t call me sir. Come over here.” He patted the ground in front of him.

  “What’s your title?” Her voice sounded beautiful in the darkness—slightly husky, musical. Intelligent. He didn’t know how a voice could sound intelligent, but hers did.

  “No title. I’m nobody. I don’t exist.”

  “You were a slave.”

  He didn’t answer. He bore no shame over his past. In fact, it had become a source of pride, as his own rebellion had stirred the uprising that had taken the entire country by the nuts. But he had no desire to stir it up, especially with her. She didn’t need exposure to his darkness.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Come here, Doctor. I won’t molest you.”

  He didn’t actually expect her to come. After all, he’d done nothing but terrify the poor woman through gruffness and discipline. But, to his surprise, she climbed to her feet and walked over.