She couldn’t imagine anything less fine. She was well aware of the seriousness of the danger she’d landed in. Samantha looked over to the nearest cage and the man inside. The tips of his pointed ears peeked up through a shoulder-length fall of dark hair. They twitched, but his attention focused in the direction the workers had gone. The prisoner’s broad shoulders and wrists were marred by silver ropes of scar tissue that made her ache to look at them.
He might be a victim, but that didn’t mean he was an angel. They fight to the death and share their females, she reminded herself. But if they cared so little for life and for their mate, why would they infuse their howls with such grief?
When she started forward again, urged on by Sevti’s insistent tugs, the Arena Dog jerked around to press against his cage directly in front of them. He gripped the unrelenting bars tight enough to make his knuckles whiten and the muscles in his arms bunch. Thunder clouds and lightning flashed at her from the depths of his silver-gray eyes.
Her mouth turned into a desert and tiny bumps rose across her skin. A steady low growl rumbled up from somewhere in the man’s chest. His facial features weren’t dog-like, but they weren’t wholly human either. His face was all sharp angles and wide, flat nose.
The rest of him seemed more human, if overly large. He hunched over, too tall for the cage that could have held her with more than a dozen centimeters to spare. Bruises in a rainbow of hues mottled his ribs and chest. Knee length black pants hugged him tightly and rode low across his hips. A pair of black, ankle high flex-boots completed the outfit.
Sevti leaned close putting his lips near her ear. “You can’t tell them.”
“What?”
“The Dogs. They don’t know what we have planned and you can’t tell them.”
It occurred to her that maybe Sevti hadn’t gone crazy. Maybe she was the one who’d lost touch with reality.
Sevti tightened his grip on her arm. “The Dogs have led simple lives. They’re naïve. They don’t understand lies and deception. They might give it away. We can’t put the resistance at risk. You have to keep them in the dark until our team makes it to you.”
Samantha pulled her arm free of his grasp. “Okay. I get it.”
But she didn’t. Not really. The Arena Dog was clearly used to violence. How could Sevti call him naïve?
Gaze locked on the lethal looking man behind the bars, Samantha strode straight toward him—the Arena Dog with the stormy eyes. Behind her Sevti called out, “Don’t get so close. They’re dangerous, Samantha.”
Slowing, she closed the last meter more cautiously as Sevti’s voice faded out of her awareness. The world drew down to the bubble of stillness where she stood face to face with a man in a cage.
“Hello.” The word whispered across her lips.
The man’s ears twitched and his features softened for an instant. His nose flared and his head tilted as he studied her. In a flash of movement too quick to follow, his hand shot out and he grabbed her wrist. She gasped, but managed not to struggle or panic.
At least on the outside.
Inside her heart raced like an over wound crank. He gripped her firmly and pulled her forward, crushing her breasts against the bars and threading her hand through one of the gaps.
The heat of his palm branded her skin. She couldn’t look away from the flashes in his eyes, flashes she couldn’t interpret. Something about those eyes called to her. They held intelligence and maybe even a fascination as powerful as hers.
She flexed her fingers, accidentally brushing the sharply defined muscles of his abdomen. They jumped beneath her touch but he held steady, as implacable as a glacier, as volatile as a sun. This close, she could see the sadness behind the thunder and lightning of his eyes.
He lifted her hand and pressed the tender inside of her wrist to his nose. The touch sent a tingle along her nerves. The warmth of his breath on her skin was beyond intimate.
Giving in to instinct, she leaned in and breathed him in. The ordinary citrus tang of a commercial cleanser common throughout the sector surprised her. Beneath that a hint of something wild and utterly masculine teased her senses.
The scrape of boot heels behind her startled them both and his attention flicked to something over her shoulder. He released her then snarled and threw himself at the bars.
Samantha jumped and stumbled back. Her surroundings snapped back into focus and she realized Sevti had been calling her name. He pulled her away from the cage as a brutish hulk of a man barged past her. The man jabbed a stun-stick into the cage. The stun-bolt crackled as the Arena Dog’s body jerked. Was this why they used such a ridiculously designed cell? All the easier to torment the men inside?
A chorus of howls went up from the other Arena Dogs. The steely-eyed man who’d held her wrist so tenderly crouched in the corner of his cage, tossed back his head and howled.
Loud, terrifying, heartbreaking.
“Shit-for-brains pilot.” The new arrival, dressed in work trousers the color of rotting leaves and a simple shirt, towered over her. Tufts of short brown hair stood up in clumps atop his head making him look as if he’d received a shock from his own weapon.
“You didn’t have to hurt him.” She ground it out through clenched teeth.
He scowled. “You’re cracked. These Dogs are trained to fight to the death. Trained to make it gory for the arena fans.” His face had colored up in angry red splotches. “They’d as soon eat you as hump you.” He shook his head. “Shit for brains.”
A second man stalked into view. “Funny how the brainless always choose that insult.”
The idiot looming over her stepped aside. “She should be thanking me, Drake.” He gripped his belt, adjusting it on his hips. “That Dog had a grip on her.”
“And you played the hero, giving you the right to berate the lady. Is that it, Resler?”
“Yeah. I mean no. I mean...” The man shifted his feet. His jawed tightened, a muscle twitched as he locked his jaw, biting off whatever he would have said and making it clear that the other man held the authority.
Sevti spoke up, filling the void. “Gentlemen. Let me introduce you to Samantha Devlin.” He introduced Ivor Resler and Jansan Drake, the two men Owens had chosen to accompany her. Just great.
“Mr. Resler is one of the guards in the arena and Mr. Drake is a trainer.” Sevti’s smile slipped as he continued. “The title is whip-master, I believe.”
Drake was lean with close cropped hair and a narrow chin strap beard. He dressed shoulder to ankle in soft, black synth—comfortable and practical without looking it. Bracers circled his wrists and a coiled whip made of brown leather hung from his belt, providing the only contrast.
“Let’s not stand on titles. My apologies, Sam.” He extended a hand. “For my rude colleague and for any trouble our Dogs were causing.”
She gripped his hand firmly, noting the roughness of calluses that lent credibility to the whip he wore like an accessory. The oil he used to care for the leather tinged the air and wrinkled her nose.
Drake looked her up and down, subtly. Not rude but not indifferent either. The personal scrutiny bit at her like a sand burr against her skin.
“We should get out of the loading crew’s way.” His eyes narrowed and something cruel glinted in the soft brown depths. “These three Dogs have caused my boss a good deal of trouble. He wants them gone as soon as we can get them loaded.”
“Of course,” Samantha said. She offered Sevti a restrained farewell then watched him stride away. She hadn’t felt so adrift since she’d been left on a nowhere planet, staring at the empty platform where her father’s ship should have been waiting.
“You’re lucky, Sam.”
Drake’s comment pulled her attention back to him and the men caged behind him. “Am I?”
“You picked the right Dog to be careless around.” Seemingly unaware of the verbal slap he’d delivered, he strode over to the cage, wrapped his hands around the top bar and leaned forward. “This is Mercury.”
The man inside tensed, his gaze locking onto a slender green code-key dangling from Drake’s neck. It was clearly a taunt. The code-key might unlock the cages and, if Mercury were willing to try for it, the cord around Drake’s neck could serve as an improvised garrote. Resler moved around behind the cage, stun-stick ready and eager to inflict pain.
“Mercury is actually the least bloodthirsty of this lot,” Drake continued. “He’s the thinker. The others look to him. His leadership made their group one of the most successful in the arena.” An undercurrent of bitterness laced his words.
Samantha pressed her hands flat against her thighs, resisting the urge to tighten them into fists. “You call them dogs, but you credit him with leadership?”
He straightened, tucked the cord beneath his shirt and met her gaze baldly. “I trained them. I know what they are and what they’re capable of and I know my job. I’ll stick to my job and you’d better stick to yours. Do that and I’m sure we’ll all get along.”
With a flash of teeth, Drake’s expression shifted. His whole body softened from hard-ass to swagger. “I sense you’re feeling sorry for them and that’s dangerous, Sam. Mercury and his pack were champions of the arena until they decided to incite a pointless insurrection. Last week they made it over the arena barriers, got into the crowds and attacked a group of our high profile patrons.” Drake strode toward the next cage, motioning her to follow. “This is Diablo and over there...” He pointed at the third cage where a brawnier male with shoulders as wide as a shuttle and sad eyes howled softly. “That’s Carnage.”
Samantha licked her dry lips. From behind the bars, Diablo studied her with night black eyes. Red embers flecked the black, making it easy to see how he’d come by his name. Like Mercury, he was leanly muscled with dark hair and pointed ears, but his jaw was more pronounced and prominent canines pressed against narrow lips.
A large hand landed in the middle of her back with a firm shove. One minute she was standing there and the next she went flying forward. Drake’s fist in the back of her pack stopped her short of tumbling into the cage. A hand full of claws swiped at her so close the brush of air whispered against her cheeks. Samantha jumped back, colliding with Drake. She gulped air past the constricted muscles of her throat, heart racing. The howls of the other two caged men turned into low growls that vibrated through her body.
“A month ago,” said Drake, voice ice cold, “he clawed up another patron, a woman.”
The man in the cage snarled, jerking on the bars with mindless determination. As her heart rate steadied, Samantha couldn’t look away. There was rage in him to be sure, but there was something more in those eyes, in the mindless way he struggled against the bars that caged him. The man they’d named Diablo radiated pain with every movement, every breath.
What had they done to these men?
Samantha spun on her heel, breaking free of Drake’s grip. “You shoved me!”
He grinned. “I also held you back.”
Samantha swung. Her fist connected with Drake’s jaw with a satisfying smack. His head snapped back. A stifled laugh told her Resler had enjoyed her punch more than she had. The moment the explosion of rage receded she regretted it. He’d likely make her pay for punching him, but oh did he deserve it.
Drake stroked his jaw and frowned as if her efforts had yielded no more than a tap. “I thought you should understand what you’re dealing with here. Why Mr. Owens wants them gone. Today.” He spit blood onto the hangar floor.
Samantha watched him thumb the remaining blood from his lip. She had to swallow to dampen her throat before she could speak. “Have your men start loading.” She turned and took a step toward the ship’s crew entry. “I’ll be clearing us for launch.”
“Sam!” Drake’s shout stopped her before she made it halfway across the hangar. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you better. I love a challenge.”
Samantha should have hit him harder. “You want a challenge, I’ll be sure to give you one.”
Confusion churned as Mercury watched the female walk away. She moved differently from the females of his kind—sensual but not intentionally seductive, full of energy but not aggressive enough to survive the arena. His hands could easily span her narrow waist, too small, too breakable to be a fighter, but he’d never be able to resist running his hands down her hips and around to her toned, muscular ass.
Pushing away the unwanted thoughts, he threw his head back and howled. He needed to reassure the others. His pack brothers were hurting.
The whip-master’s taunting had Lo in an unthinking rage and Carn, still weak from their last battle in the arena, was mad with worry for his mate. He’d gone wild when his cage was loaded into the ground transport and he’d only just recovered from the tranquilizer the handlers had used on him.
They needed to be alert to watch and listen for anything that might give them an edge. There had to be a way to get Carn back to his mate. The mate Mercury had promised to protect with his life. They all had to restrain the instincts telling them to fight. Drake was looking for a reason to kill them all and Mercury couldn’t allow that. He sucked in air and threw his head back in another howl, willing his brothers to join him.
When he heard the change in their baying, from raw to purposeful, he allowed his thoughts to drift back to the female. He shouldn’t have reacted to her nearness. Shouldn’t have allowed her to become a distraction.
He’d wanted to find out how her skin would feel beneath his touch. He’d wanted to taste her soft lips. He’d wanted to free her gold-brown hair and bury his nose against the pale skin behind her ear, to drag in her feminine scent.
It had been her scent he’d noticed first. Irresistible. Like honey. She smelled...right.
He could no longer see her, but her scent lingered, mixed with the vile stench of the whip-master. She worked with the whip-master. He’d let himself be distracted by a female in league with his hated enemy.
He’d failed his brothers too often. Lost control of his rage in the arena. Acted on instinct without thought, like an animal. He’d gathered his brothers together one by one. Jupiter and Seneca were dead but Lo and Carn still lived. Lo, the first of his brothers. They’d been raised in the same nursery. Learned to take a lashing together at the hands of the whip-masters that had begun sorting them by aptitude at the age of four. Carn had joined them later. He’d been an oversized and uncooperative monster headed for a short life in the cage matches until he’d learned to fight as part of their team, their family.
Mercury tugged at the unbending strength of the bars as he watched the red-suited workers load Carn’s cage into the ship. His belly twisted with the realization that they weren’t going to be removed from the cages until after they left Roma, probably not until their journey was over. How long would Carn’s mate be left defenseless in the clutches of the monsters that ruled the arena? For now all they could do was stay alive. Stay strong. Ready to act when the cages were finally opened. He had to believe it wouldn’t be too late. Too late to save what was left of his family.
CHAPTER TWO
The Dove
Earth Alliance Beta Sector
2210.146
“You can’t be serious.” Samantha spun around to face Drake. He and Resler sat at the table tucked into a corner of the crew commons room. Twenty-four hours into the journey and they already looked comfortable and relaxed, while she was still suffering from the nerves chewing a hole through the lining of her stomach.
Drake had again dressed in all black, wearing the synth and leather like a macabre uniform. The precise cut of the thin beard that defined his jaw provided a stark contrast to Resler’s unkempt appearance. The man must not own a comb. A deck of silver and white lambda cards stretched across the shiny black expanse of the tabletop like an asteroid field. Their half-eaten meals had been shoved aside to make way for the game.
“Very serious,” said Drake. “No food for the Dogs, Sam. None.” He met her glare with a calm that beat against
Samantha’s outrage like water on baked coolie-clay. One good tap and she’d explode like a shower of pottery shards. “Come, sit.” He waved her forward with a flick of his wrist then scooped up the cards and shuffled them. “We’ll deal you in.”
“Hey,” Resler grumbled, “I was winning.”
“Don’t be an ass.” Drake tapped the cards on the table.
Samantha rolled her shoulders and waited for their bickering to die down. Stars she was tired. It had been twenty grueling hours of flight prep, getting up to speed on the peculiarities of the Dove and getting them all safely into skipspace—that wonderful state that bent the laws of ordinary physics and made faster than light travel possible.
She’d spent the last four hours walking the ship, doing systems checks, and she needed sleep before she had to be back at the pilot’s station to prep for the first skip-point. At each skip-point the ship had to drop back to normal space for the skip-field generator’s cool-down period before jumping again. The Dove was top of the line. She could probably recalculate to a 48 hour interval between skip-points. Unfortunately, she had to stick to the standard 36, if she wanted to end up at the rendezvous coordinates on schedule to meet Sevti’s people.
The ship was in tip-top shape, but she couldn’t boast the same. She needed to find a bed and climb in, but first she needed fuel. And she refused to fill her own belly until the Arena Dogs had been fed. Their cages had built-in waste and water units, but no rations. She couldn’t let Drake’s decree stand.
Patience gone, she filled her lungs, ready to shout for their attention. “The Arena Dogs, Mr. Drake. I won’t let them go hungry.”
He flipped the triangular cards through his hands again. “It’s not your concern, Sam.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and willed away the building headache. “As pilot, the wellbeing of everyone on board is my responsibility.”
Drake set the cards down in a tidy stack. “They aren’t passengers.” He twisted in his seat to face her more fully. “They’re property. And my responsibility, not yours. But, if it will ease your mind, there’s nothing to worry about. The Dogs were engineered for endurance and efficiency. They can easily survive without food for the three week journey.”
Stealing Mercury (Arena Dogs Book 1) Page 2