by Mina Carter
He urged her again. “Eat.”
Picking up a bright purple piece that resembled a cross between an apple and banana, she bit into it and groaned at the flavor. She ignored the juices that flowed down her chin and demolished the fruit like she hadn’t eaten in days.
“This is amazing.” Jenna beamed up at Ranaar. “Thank you.”
He smiled, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her closer so she rested against him while she ate. She tried to offer him some, but he shook his head. “It’s all for you.”
Shrugging, she settled in and polished off the rest of the fruit.
Pushing the leaves to the side, she settled back against Ranaar. She loved the feel of his arms around her—all contentment and protection. It was strange how she never ever thought she was in need of a man in her life, kicking them to the curb quicker than asking their names. Yet now…it scared her on a level. She had been so independent for so long…her thoughts tapered off.
They had only slept together. It wasn’t as if they were going to get married and fly off into the starry galaxy. Hell as soon as they got off the planet, she had to go fetch that bounty. She did have a reputation to uphold.
Would Ranaar come with her?
* * *
Ranaar rumbled in contentment as his little human rested against him. He wrapped his arms tighter around her and dropped his lips to the top of her head. With a deep breath, he took her scent deep into his lungs. She was perfect. His. He was never letting her go.
It would be fine. She would adjust to her new reality. With him.
A sound outside made his eyes snap open. His hearing was way better than hers so he easily picked up the rockfall outside that meant they’d been found.
“Up, up, up,” he urged, pushing her to her feet. “Get dressed. They found us.”
She gasped but moved quickly, and he was blessed with the perfect view of her bare ass as she scrambled for her flight suit. He stalked forward, putting himself in front of the entrance, knees bent, body relaxed.
He looked over his shoulder. “Get as far back as you can. Tuck yourself into one of those gaps.” He nodded toward crevices in the rock wall. “If they take me down. Run.”
He heard her mutter something under her breath as she moved toward the back of the cavern. He wanted her as far away from any fighting as possible. He would protect her with his life, even if it meant scaring her away by showing her his true side.
His focus changed to the males pouring in through the front entrance of the cave. Fighter pilots, they’d obviously managed to get a brain cell between them and work out his location. His gaze flicked over them dispassionately. Physically they were as big and heavily muscled as he was, and the similarities in their facial features said they were from the same clutch.
He cricked his neck and beckoned them in. An arrogant move, it was a “come on if you think you’ve got the scales” gesture.
Yet they didn’t attack. They waited, fanning out around him. Ranaar adjusted his footing in preparation. Small steps sounded behind him and he growled. Jenna should be hidden within one of the wall cavities, yet he could hear her at the pool’s edge.
If they got out of this alive, he would be having words with his rebellious mate.
The noise got the attention of the male on the left. His gaze slid past Ranaar and his face split into a wide grin. Ranaar’s roar split the air as he launched himself at the male in the same instant he made a move toward Jenna. They met in a crash of heavy muscle and scaled skin. Even as he lashed out at the male’s throat with his talons extended, Ranaar knew it wouldn’t be enough. The other two were already moving in. A former champion to the hive queen, he was way more experienced than any of them, but he was just one male. He couldn’t keep them off his little mate forever.
Not like this.
Movement again from behind him made him growl until he heard the muted cries of some of the other men. A quick glance to his mate showed her throwing pebbles at the males’ heads. With almost perfect aim, she was attempting to crack their skulls and distract them.
Pride swelled within but was joined with concern. She had gained their full attention now, and even her perfect aim would not hold them off.
Another roar was ripped from his chest, the sound ringing against the walls. He caught the male nearest to him and threw him at another. Rounding on the one trying to get to Jenna, he barreled forward, tackling him low and hard. They tumbled backward, splashing into the pool and sinking to the bottom. The water didn’t bother either of them, their scales flaring and covering their skin as the fight raged on the bottom of the pool. This one was more experienced than the others, and it showed as he fought back, forcing Ranaar to defend more as he waited for the male to give him an opening—anything that would allow him to get claws through the male’s defenses and shred his throat. The scales were lighter and more delicate there, just under the jaw. It was an area all Draakon knew to defend from birth.
He could hear the muffled sounds from the surface of the pool mixed with Jenna’s angry screams. Anger boiled within him as he his acute hearing picked up the muffled telltale sound of flesh being hit, even under the water. Scaled bodies didn’t make that sound, only the delicate flesh of a Terran.
His roar was muffled by the water, but not his talons. More mobile in the water, his fury gave him the boost he needed. With a surge forward, he wrapped his opponent up in hard, scaled arms. Flipping him over, Ranaar’s back scraped the bottom of the pool as he got his arm around the male’s throat. With no room to get his claws in, he wrapped himself around the other male, legs around his opponent’s. Ranaar held him firmly as he stretched him out into a hard arc. With a savage twist and a crunch of bone, he snapped the male’s neck and dropped the body.
Fear for Jenna bursting through him, he barely gave the dead male another thought as he propelled himself to the surface and burst from the pool. But the other two were already gone.
So was Jenna.
* * *
“You know what?” Jenna screamed. “I’m bloody fed up with being thrown over people’s shoulders.” To emphasize her dislike, she balled her fists and hit the back of the male carrying her. Not that it did much.
She received no reaction at all, not even a growl. Personally she wanted to gut the two who now escorted her back down the mountain and into the forest. One had crossed the line when he had backhanded her. Her cheek still throbbed from the contact and so did her head where she had hit it on her way to the deck. Jenna had only been unconscious a minute or so, but that had been enough time for them to snatch her up and leave.
She had watched Ranaar vanish under the surface, but he hadn’t come back up. Neither had the other male but she worried…no worried wasn’t a strong enough word. Her heart hurt at the prospect that the male she was falling for could possibly be gone—taken from her before they even had chance to explore what was between them.
Tears stung her eyes. He couldn’t be dead. She refused to believe it. Not Ranaar, the biggest, baddest male she knew. Lashing out again at the back of the male who carried her, she screamed at the top of her lungs. Mostly calling his parentage and sexual prowess into question.
That got a response. She was dumped on her ass, the two males looming over her. She tried to scramble backward, not liking the look in their eyes, but one caught her around the ankle in a crushing grip.
“It’s ssssmall and weak,” one commented. His features were odd, less human than Ranaar’s. Like he was a less-formed version. “Was he keeping her for food?”
“Get your fucking claws off me,” Jenna screamed again and kicked out with her free leg. A small smile of victory crossed her lips when he let go.
“Do I look like fucking food to you?” she shouted back but then stopped. “Actually, don’t answer that.” Moving back, Jenna plastered herself against a tree.
“Ahhh he fucked her.” The males grinned at Jenna and the victory she had felt vanished as a wave of nausea swept over her.
&nbs
p; Fuck!
Both males stepped forward, excitement on their faces. “We fuck you now,” they said in unison. Only the loud roar that filled the air stopped them. Its intensity was so great any flying creature in the vicinity fled. Jenna smiled. Her heart swelled as it recognized the owner immediately.
She looked the two males in the eye.
“No,” Jenna stated calmly. “You are the ones that are fucked now.”
But she didn’t recognize the creature that landed in the center of the small clearing, the ground literally shaking as it’s great, clawed feet kicked up clouds of dust. She screamed again as the male in front of her was snatched away by something from one of her nightmares. Huge and scaled, it resembled some kind of bastard love-child between an old Earth dinosaur, the kind she’d seen in simulations, and a dragon. It tossed the asshole that had been taunting her up into the air, snapping at it with a mouth full of blade-like teeth. She jumped and skittered backward as it tore the male apart and threw the bits away.
Rounding the tree she had been leaning against, she peeked out, not wanting to watch the carnage yet unable to look away. The second male made a run for it but was snatched up in the creature’s great claws and held there. Mumbled words fell from the male’s lips, all in another language that Jenna didn’t recognize. She could really do with one of those translator matrixes…
For a second Jenna was convinced the beast would release the male until she watched as it tore the male’s head off.
Jenna gagged and probably would have stayed conscious, but when the beast spat it out like he was spitting a seed from a fruit out, she lost it.
By it she meant the contents of her stomach. Every damn thing she had eaten came up to say hello, but she looked up and met the eyes of the beast that had saved her life.
“Ranaar,” Jenna managed to whisper before her body had had enough and she did the ladylike thing and swooned.
A fraction of a second later, she came back to, finding Ranaar looming over her. He’d gently lowered her to the ground. He was covered in blood but very man-shaped. Not the… thing he’d been before.
It had been a dream. It had to have been.
“You…” she began to say but couldn’t seem to form the words. The only words she could think of were monster. Her gaze darted around the clearing looking for any sign of the creature or any of the males that had attacked them.
Nothing remained.
Her gaze returned to Ranaar, only to find his eyes filled with worry. But it was gone in a flash as he pulled her to her feet, his hand on her arms to steady her.
“Can you walk? We need to move”
She nodded, letting him lead her down the side of the mountain. Every so often she snuck glances up at him. How had he… how did… What was he?
The creature had been huge, so how was it possible for it and Ranaar to be the same. Yes, she was scared. Who wouldn’t be. Yet it had protected her, fought for her.
She wanted to ask so any questions. She was first and foremost nosy, so once over the initial scare, she wanted find out as much as she could. Only the words wouldn’t come, so instead she followed Ranaar in silence.
Had he really gone from man candy to man tank in the blink of an eye?
He led them down toward the flyers the others had been using to track them, all “parked” for want of a better word, on a clear ledge a little way down from their cave. How they’d found her and Ranaar she didn’t know, but they had. Ranaar kept shooting little glances at her as they walked, holding out a hand every now and then to help her down particularly steep inclines.
But she couldn’t get the image of the monster out of her mind, removing her hand from his quickly each time.
“It’s going to be a tight fit,” he murmured as he boosted her up to the cockpit of the nearest flyer.
Jenna nodded but didn’t say anything has he strapped her into to one of the seats before sliding in front of the main console. His hands were a blur has he got the flyer engines online and quickly had them airborne. Finally, Jenna was getting her wish and getting off the planet, but what would happen now?
12
Three weeks later…
* * *
He’d left her. Ranaar had left her.
Jenna stared morosely into the bottom of her glass, as if searching for the meaning of life, or at the very least, what the fuck went on in a sexy alien mind. He’d barely spoken to her as he’d piloted the small shuttle and gotten them off planet. His species’ technology was way better than hers because within hours they’d reached the edge of human space and he’d dropped her off at a trading outpost.
And that… she lifted the glass to her lips… was that.
The smell of the alcohol made her feel sick and she groaned, setting it down on the tabletop in front of her with a clunk. Fuck’s sake. Couldn’t a gal with a broken heart even get drunk now?
Most things made her feel sick lately. She hadn’t eaten a proper meal since her little break on the planet from hell.
“Whoever gave me this bug can kindly have it back now. I’m done with it,” she murmured and finger waved the bartender back over.
“Water,” she stated simply and sighed.
Fucking men…things would have been much simpler if she had kept her hands to herself and not gone down the Ranaar road.
“Grrrrr bastard,” she grumbled to herself when all she wanted to do was cry, but she couldn’t. She was a hard ass bounty hunter with a reputation to uphold.
Bounty hunters didn’t cry.
A single tear slid down her cheek and she swiped it away quickly, downing the water someone slid across the bar to her.
“Well they do now. Well done, Jenna. Hard ass to crybaby,” she mumbled.
She was so deep into her own misery that she missed the tension in the room. Normally, she’d have been all over it like white on rice and had at least one blade within a finger-twitch. Instead, the first she knew of the team around her was a hard hand on her shoulder.
“Jenna Brown?” a deep voice snarled.
“Oh for fuck’s sake.” She slid off the stool and turned around, meeting the gaze of the small bounty team known throughout the star system as the Razoclaws. They were good, she would give them that, but she had always been better.
“What?” she asked sharply and placed her hands on her hips, her right hand mere inches from her favorite bladed weapon. If they wanted a fight, she was game. Jenna had enough anger and frustration to take out the team and then some.
Their leader smiled a gap-toothed grin. “Too slow, girly… you’re already done.”
Which was when she felt it—the weakness in her limbs as whatever they’d slipped into her drink took effect. Trying to spin, she got a quick glimpse of the grinning bartender, another member of the Claws.
“Well… fuck,” she murmured as her body folded gracefully.
The guy behind her caught her before she hit the deck and a second later, she was hoisted over a broad shoulder. It was like she was drunk, the world swaying as she was carried out of the bar.
Her limbs felt so heavy Jenna was unable to even lift and arm to try and punch the male holding her. She was starting to really dislike being carried like a sack of old Earth potatoes.
“Just…you…wait,” she slurred and hung her head as nausea rose up and she fought the need to empty her stomach.
A pat on her bottom followed by a squeeze made the nausea worse.
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head. We are going to take good care of you.”
She would have argued, fought back, done something, but she had nothing left. Ranaar had left her. A single tear rolled down her cheek to plop on the deck plating as they passed. No one was coming to help her and the one man she could ever see herself falling in love with was gone.
No… she closed her eyes against the pain… not could fall in love with. She was in love with Ranaar, no matter if he spent part of his time as some kind of old holo-vid monster. She loved him.
&
nbsp; But he was gone, and she was alone…
* * *
Three weeks, two days and seven hours… That’s how long it had been since he’d seen his little human.
Ranaar sat in the captain’s chair of the small frigate and brooded, his hand rubbing against his stubbled jaw as the bridge crew bustled around him. After gaining his freedom and dropping Jenna off near her people, it hadn’t taken him long to re-establish himself as a force to be reckoned with in the intergalactic bounty hunting community. A former champion to the queen, his reputation preceded him. He hadn’t even had to change when bringing in two of the biggest bounties this side of the Gerlishian cluster. They’d taken one look at him and his scars and known what he was… who he was. One had passed out on the spot. The other had hidden in his private bathroom until Ranaar had fished him out from behind the waste tanks.
Those two had paid for this ship, the crew who manned it and the weapons upgrade. And they’d put Ranaar’s name back on the map.
But… it meant nothing without Jenna. He loved her, even if she hadn’t been able to look at him in the end.
She didn’t love him. Couldn’t love him. To her he was a monster out of myth and legend. So how could she?
“Boss… you might want to look at this.” A deep voice drew his attention and he looked up toward his second in command. Jai was an outcast from Draakon society, like him. The big male was outfitted like Ranaar, ready for combat, his expression grim as he pulled up a record on the bridge’s main screen.
It was a bounty chit, the same as countless others Ranaar had seen, but he sat upright, his breath stolen at the image of the woman on screen.
“Jenna,” he breathed.
“Looks like a team called Razoclaws have put in on this one,” Jai added, hands flying over the console. “They’re in the Tristonian sector.”