by Tana Stone
“Supermodel?” He shrugged. “I do not know what this is.”
She turned her gaze out the front window of the ship. “Someone really hot like you.”
He knew the human culture was different from his, but he did not understand why this small, pale female thought she was not appealing. His cock throbbed just being near her, and he had to force himself to think of anything but running his hands over every soft curve of her body. Unless this was her way of getting out of being mated to him.
“Do you wish to be released from our bond?”
Her head turned quickly toward him. “That’s not what I meant. I only thought you might not…”
Torven reached out one long arm and brushed his finger down the side of his cheek. “For me, there is only you. Whoever these supermodels are, I do not want them.”
She sucked in a quick breath, touching her cheek where he’d stroked her.
He stood quickly and caused her to jump in her seat. “Now that we have settled that, I need to get out of this uniform.”
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything as he walked to the back of the shuttle and opened one of the flush-panel cabinets built into the ebony walls. He found a clean pair of standard-issue black pants and a gray shirt and gratefully shrugged off his uniform jacket.
Torven glanced over to the female, who sat facing away from him. He’d have to wait until they reached the colony to bathe, but at least his clothes would be clean.
He pivoted away from her as he pulled the clean shirt over his head, then dropped his uniform pants around his ankles. Before he could step out of them, a blast of heat hit his back. His head was sluggish as he tried to turn back around. Had their ship been fired on?
Another hit made him sink to his knees, pivoting as he fell. The last thing he saw as his eyes fluttered closed was Trista standing over him, holding a blaster.
Chapter Six
She couldn’t believe she’d actually done it. She’d stunned her Drexian fiancé. Well, the guy who’d been her fiancé before he’d been accused of treason.
Trista looked down at where the massive alien lay facedown on the floor of the shuttle, with his pants around his ankles. “Shit, shit, shit. Now what?”
Her hands shook as she looked down at the blaster to confirm she’d set it to stun, tossed it into her seat and rubbed both hands across her forehead, feeling the beads of sweat along her hairline. What had she done?
“You freaked out and shot him,” she mumbled to herself, bending down and touching her fingers to the side of his neck.
She didn’t know if Drexian anatomy was the same as human, but she soon found a steady pulse. She held her fingers in place, comforted by the thrumming. At least she hadn’t killed him. She let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, and stifled a sob.
She really hadn’t meant to hurt him. She just hated to feel so powerless again, and the thought of another man dictating her life had set her off. Even if it was a guy who seemed to like her. Trista knelt down. It wasn’t actually Torven’s fault that she hadn’t gotten over her asshole ex-boyfriend. She knew that every guy wasn’t like Rick, but she’d also promised herself that she’d never be afraid of a man ever again.
It had taken every bit of strength she’d had to get away from her ex, and she’d done it all on her own. Everyone had looked the other way when he treated her like garbage. There were never any bruises—at least, not ones you could see—and he’d always waited until they were alone to unleash his worst verbal abuse. Even the other girlfriends in the bike club hadn’t wanted to get involved and help her. Finally leaving him had been the hardest thing she’d ever done, and she never wanted to have to do something like that again.
She looked at the broad back of the prone Drexian, his muscular shoulders stretching the T-shirt. She hadn’t actually been afraid of him. Not the way she’d been with Rick. She smiled as she realized Torven was bigger than Rick. By a lot. He could have taken her ex easily, and it made her oddly pleased to know that her new fiancé could beat up the guy who’d made her life hell.
As big as Torven was—and he had to be nearly seven feet tall—he didn’t feel dangerous and mean. If she was being honest, he’d excited her. Maybe that was what actually scared her. She hadn’t felt such an instant attraction to anyone before, not even to Rick. There was something in Torven’s gaze that made her feel like she was under a spell, which was the last thing she wanted to feel.
When she’d originally arrived on the space station and learned about the tribute bride program, she’d been both shocked and relieved. Shocked that she’d been picked, since Rick had done a pretty good job of convincing her no one else would ever want someone like her. But mostly relieved that he’d never be able to find her again. Being taken by Torven had stirred up all that old fear, and even though her gut told her he wasn’t like Rick, her fight-or-flight instinct had kicked in.
“Sorry,” she whispered as she stared down at him. Her gaze drifted from the thick, swirling, black tattoos covering his biceps, down to his bare legs, and the firm ass only covered by a gunmetal-gray pair of tight-fitting boxer briefs. Damn, he was gorgeous.
She rested one hand on the expanse of his back and her fingers brushed a raised bump through the T-shirt fabric. Her breath caught in her throat. Were these the nodes she’d heard the other tribute brides talking about? She knew Drexian males had a series of bumps along their spine. She also knew these bumps hardened when they were turned on. Or was it touching them that made them aroused? It was one of the two, or maybe both.
Trista couldn’t resist running her fingers down the row of nodes. From what she could tell, there was a node at every vertebrae. She stopped when she reached the waistband of his boxer briefs, her heart pounding. She knew she shouldn’t go any lower. Hell, she shouldn’t even be touching him now. What kind of a pervert shoots someone and then feels them up?
She snatched her hand back, her face burning. “Get it together, Trista.”
Torven moaned, and she dived for the blaster, fumbling with it and knocking it from the chair to the floor. She fell back and scooped up the sleek, metallic weapon, then scrambled up and pointed it at him. He didn’t move, so she relaxed. Was she really prepared to shoot him again? She didn’t want to kill the guy.
But what did she want? She stood and looked out the window of the shuttle. They were still flying along the course he’d set in, which was good. She didn’t relish the idea of crashing into a planet.
She glanced down at the smooth, black console with its blinking lights and illuminated star chart. Trista could fix just about anything with an engine, but computers were another matter, so none of the readouts made sense to her. Should she try to get a message back to the space station? Where were the comms anyway? Symbols covered the console, and none of them were anything close to English. The universal translator that had been implanted behind her ear when she’d been taken up to the space station allowed her to understand alien languages, but it didn’t mean she could read them.
Did she really want to turn Torven in? If she did, he was as good as dead. Not only would they try him for treason, but now he was guilty of kidnapping her and evading arrest. She understood why he did it, especially if he was actually innocent like he claimed, but she doubted the bigwig Drexians would.
She stole a quick look over her shoulder. He was still lying motionless on the floor. But what if he was guilty? If he really did betray his people and conspire with the enemy, wasn’t he a danger to everyone on the space station? She’d only been there a few weeks, but she already considered some of the other tribute brides to be friends. She even cared about the crazy wedding planner Serge, and the neurotic liaison Reina. The thought of any of them getting hurt made her stomach twist into a knot.
But Commander Dorn believed him, Trista reminded herself. Dorn was working to prove Torven’s innocence. That had to mean something. The Drexian commander didn’t strike her as someone who would be easily fooled. If Dorn was
willing to go out on a limb for the fellow warrior, it meant he was already convinced.
Trista’s hands hovered over the console. She couldn’t turn him in. Not if there was a chance he was innocent. “As if I even know how to send out an SOS,” she said to herself with a shake of her head.
A flashing red light appeared on the console, and she squinted down at it. That didn’t look good. Another blinking light appeared, and then another, until the entire screen was lit up like a Christmas tree. She didn’t know what it meant, but she guessed it was nothing good.
She bent over Torven. She needed to get him up before they flew into something or blew up. Hopefully he wouldn’t be too angry that she’d shot him. Grabbing his far arm, Trista heaved him over onto his back, breathing heavily from the effort.
“Torven.” She shook him gently and tried to keep her voice calm. “Torven. I need you to get up.”
Nothing. She put a finger under his nose. He was breathing. That was good.
She shook him harder. “Tor—”
Before she could get his name out, his eyes flew open and he’d grabbed her and flipped her onto her back. The air went out of her, as his body pressed against hers. He grabbed her wrists and pulled her arms over her head, pinning them to the floor behind her and holding them there with one hand. His legs were between hers and something big and hard pressed into her stomach. She tried to regain her breath, even as she knew it would be pointless to struggle.
Her body responded instantly to having his pressed against it. Her nipples hardened, and without thinking, she arched her back so that they brushed his chest. A small gasp escaped her lips, only inches from his face.
His pupils widened, making his gold eyes darker, as they flashed both anger and confusion. He panted as he looked down at her, tightening his grip on her wrists. “You shot me.”
Chapter Seven
Torven felt her quiver beneath her. He didn’t mean to scare her, but he couldn’t let her go, either. Not after she’d shot him with his own blaster. Twice.
If he was being honest, he also liked the feel of her soft body underneath his. The hard points of her nipples brushed his chest every time she breathed in, and he fought the urge to bend down and nip at them through her thin shirt.
“You tried to kill me,” he said, attempting to ignore the distraction of his throbbing cock and rapid heart rate.
“I didn’t want to kill you.” Her voice shook as she spoke. “I set the blaster on its lowest setting before I fired. It was supposed to stun you.”
He grunted and saw that tears were filling her eyes. “Why?”
She strained against his hands. “Oh, I don’t know. You’d just kidnapped me and cut me open.”
He studied her face—the flush of pink on her cheeks, the long, brown lashes framing wide eyes, the lower lip that was plumper than the top. A single tear slipped out from under one eyelid, and his irritation melted away. “I am sorry if I frightened you.”
She opened her eyes and glared at him. “You don’t scare me, but I don’t like being told what to do.”
He saw that her pupils were dilated, making her blue eyes look much darker, and he watched her tongue moisten her bottom lip. He loosened his grip on her wrists and lowered one hand to her face, wiping away the tear streak with his thumb. “I would never hurt you.”
Trista took a halting breath. “You have an odd way of showing that, considering you held me at gunpoint and dragged me off the station.”
“I explained that it was the only way to get away. If I didn’t escape, they would have convicted me on false evidence.” He took a breath. “They would have taken you from me. I couldn’t bear that.”
She shook her head. “You keep saying things like that, but you don’t know me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” He dragged his thumb across her lower lip, feeling a desperate need to taste her. She was his mate, the human female he’d been matched with, and who he’d been on his way to marry. He’d been staring at her image for weeks, but the reality of her was even better than what he’d imagined. He loved her small body, her soft curves, and her pale hair. She was his, body and soul, and Torven knew she’d been his from the moment he first saw her in the corridor of the space station. “I know we’re meant to be together.”
“How can you know something like that? I don’t know you at all,” she said, her voice breathy. “The only thing I know is your name, and that you’re a warrior with Inferno Force.”
Her chest rose and fell underneath his, the swell of her breasts a sharp contrast to the hard planes of his muscles. He hesitated, even as the blood pounded in his ears. According to the Drexian High Command, she was no longer his mate. He’d lost her the second he was charged with treason. There was no doubt he’d have been found guilty courtesy of the trumped-up charges, and Trista would have been reassigned to a warrior they considered more worthy. It didn’t matter that he got a jolt every time he looked at her or that her body responded to his the way it did. She was no longer his to claim, even though the desire to make her his was almost overpowering.
“I am a Drexian warrior sworn to protect my people and others in the galaxy who cannot defend themselves.” He released his hold on her wrists, but she did not move her arms. “And I will protect you with my life no matter how many times you shoot me.”
She met his eyes and her lips twitched up. “That might be the nicest and strangest thing any man has ever said to me.”
He was very aware that his cock was still hard and still pressed against her. Claiming her now when she was no longer his tribute bride would be dishonorable, he reminded himself. Until he was proven innocent, he could not take what was no longer his. No matter how he felt or how she made him feel, he knew that even touching her like he was doing now would not be looked upon favorably. Even despite knowing in his gut that she was meant to be his mate. Torven bowed his head, breathing in the floral scent of her hair as he tried to regain control and not scream in frustration.
An alarm sounding from the pilot’s console finally made him lift his head.
“That’s why I was trying to wake you,” she said. “Something’s wrong with the shuttle, but I don’t know what.”
He jumped up, pulling her along with him and tugging his pants up around his waist. Spotting the blaster on the floor, he picked it up and hooked it on the belt of his uniform, casting her a look and watching her blush in response. “I trust you will not shoot me again?”
Trista held up both palms. “I promise. Shooting you means shooting the only pilot on board.”
“I hope to one day give you a few more reasons not to shoot me.” He motioned for her to sit as he scanned the blinking lights. “Until then, you may want to strap in.”
“Strap in?” She fumbled with the straps. “Are we going to crash?”
“Not if I can help it,” he said, as he peered at the warnings flashing across the screen, “but it looks like we got hit with a solar flare. One engine is disabled, and the other is damaged.”
Trista looked over at him, concern etched on her face. “How many engines do we have?”
He fastened his own safety straps. “Two.”
She clutched both armrests. “What’s the worst-case scenario?”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “You want to know the worst thing that could happen?”
She bobbed her head up and down. “I like to know the worst case. That way, I’m not surprised when bad things happen.”
“I’m not going to let the worst case happen.” He swiped his fingers across the console, checking the system readouts and trying to keep the panic out of his voice as the ship shook and jerked. No way was he going to give her the worst-case scenario, since it was difficult to determine which of the possible outcomes would be worse than the other. Floating in space while life support slowly dwindled? Crashing into an uninhabitable planet? Exploding into a thousand pieces?
Torven made a quick decision and changed course. The shuttle was too damaged
to continue to fly safely, and he couldn’t fix it without landing it first. They’d have to set down at the nearest class M planet, even if it wasn’t one he’d heard of.
He leaned in closer to the star chart. The nearest habitable planet didn’t even have a name, just a letter and series of numbers—C-459. That wasn’t a good sign. That meant it hadn’t been colonized, so there were no outposts, no bases, no inhabitants. Of course, since he was a fugitive, this was also a good thing. No inhabitants meant no one who could turn him in for the bounty that was no doubt on his head.
“We need to land,” he said, glancing over at Trista. He noticed she was pressing her lips together tightly. “Are you okay?”
She waved a hand in his direction and nodded, her skin a pale shade of green. “I haven’t flown a lot, and this isn’t the smoothest ride.”
The shuttle pitched to one side, and he tried to right it as Trista clamped a hand over her mouth. The planet came into closer view, and Torven swallowed hard. He hoped the solid-white orb was covered in a thick cloud cover and was not just a ball of ice, although his malfunctioning sensors gave him temperature readings that made his stomach clench. He rapped his knuckles on the console and the numbers flickered. He hoped they were wrong.
Gripping the edge of the console for balance, he adjusted their settings and attempted to keep the shuttle steady as they approached the atmosphere. The hull rattled and groaned. Trista’s eyes were closed, but she wasn’t holding a hand over her mouth, so Torven decided to take that as a good sign.
They dipped below the thick layer of clouds, dropping rapidly as the remaining engine spluttered. Torven fought to keep the nose of the ship up and slow their descent, but the ship fought against him. He stole another glance at Trista, her cheeks pale and her mouth moving as she silently repeated something over and over. Even in her current state of panic, he found her fascinating, and he forced himself to pull his gaze from staring at her pretty lips and imagining all the things she could do with them.