There’s no Spice in the air here, a little voice in her head reminded her. Whatever attraction he had to you is probably going to dissipate pretty soon…if it’s not already gone.
Turning over on her other side, she tried again to get comfortable, wrapping her arms around herself and pulling her knees up to her chin.
“C’mere, sweetheart.” V’rex’s voice was a low rumble in her ear and then she was being pulled up close to his big body, so that his broad chest was pressed against her back.
“Thanks.” Gratefully, she snuggled against him. Maybe the Spice wasn’t completely out of his system yet or maybe he was just being nice but either way, it felt good to be close to him again. His big body put out heat like a furnace and despite a desperate day of running through the jungle, he smelled wonderful.
“Welcome,” he rumbled. “Better now, little girl?”
“Better,” Penny whispered and her eyes at last drifted closed as sleep took her.
Eighty
Penny awoke to a big hand shaking her and a voice murmuring in her ear that it was time to get up.
“Huh? What?” At first Penny thought they were still in the Compound and she was going to be late to her job in the bakery. Then she remembered the events of the day before and woke up more fully.
It was lighter in their little cave now—a gray, pre-dawn radiance filtered in through the tall grasses that blocked the entrance. And she didn’t ache so much either, though she was still pretty stiff.
Probably all that exertion you did yesterday, whispered a snarky little voice in her head. I wonder how many calories you burn chopping off a guy’s dick, huh? Bet there’s no listing for that on your Calorie Tracker app!
Penny pushed the thought away and sat up, looking around.
“Is there anything to drink?” Her mouth felt terribly dry.
“Afraid not, sweetheart,” V’rex said apologetically. “If we can find some water, I can purify it for you with my lust-honey, but there’s none around here—at least none that I can find.”
“Okay.” She sighed. “I guess the best thing we can do is get to the NeverBreeders’ launching pad and steal a ship as soon as possible, huh?”
“Got it in one.” The big Hybrid nodded. “And since we don’t know how far that is, we’d better get going.” He hesitated for a moment, staring at her intently. “You, uh, ready to let me sting you again?”
“I guess so.” Though she felt a deep sense of apprehension, Penny held out her arm to him. She had a memory of him stinging her the day before and in her head, his sting was associated with horrible, fiery pain.
But she told herself not to be silly—V’rex’s sting had been pleasurable in the past—if extremely intense. Probably she was just imagining the pain—it had only been a fever dream brought on by the toxins of the plants that had poisoned her.
V’rex himself seemed hesitant to sting her. But then he gripped her wrist, elongated his tongue, and struck, sinking his stinger into the underside of her forearm.
It was like being stabbed with a hot, blunt needle.
The very first time the big Hybrid had stung her, on the day of their Unification Ceremony, the pleasure had been so intense she had screamed. The pain she felt now was every bit as intense as that pleasure—it felt like he was pouring fire through her veins, setting every nerve ending alight with agony.
“Ow! Stop!” Penny gasped, attempting to jerk away from him. “Stop, please, stop!”
V’rex withdrew quickly, his tongue going back to its normal size and shape as it left her arm.
“I hurt you,” he said. “Gods, my lust-honey actually hurt you!”
“It burned.” Penny took in a deep, shaky breath and swiped at the tears that had come to her eyes. “It was kind of awful. I’m sorry,” she added, seeing the stricken look on his face. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt me.”
“I’ve never hurt a female with my sting before.” He sounded stricken. “It only brings pleasure.”
“It’s probably like you said—your, uh, lust-honey is reacting with the plant toxins or something. It’s not a big deal—honestly.”
But she could tell from his face that it was a big deal—a very big deal to the big Hybrid. He looked so upset that Penny had the urge to comfort him, only she wasn’t sure he would welcome comfort from her or not.
She couldn’t help remembering the night he’d told her about how his mother had been killed and his father had abandoned him. He’d taken comfort from her then, pressing his face to her breasts and holding her close.
But that was different—it was back in the Compound, she thought. And the Spice was everywhere, making him want me all the time. Making him think I was some kind of beauty queen.
And right now she looked anything but beautiful, she was sure. Parts of her toga were still stiff with dried blood and she hadn’t had a shower in two days.
“Um, if you think you gave me enough protection, maybe we should just get going,” she suggested.
“I think you should be okay.” V’rex squared his shoulders. “So yeah, let’s get out there. But if you feel sick or dizzy or faint or you can’t breathe, let me know and I’m afraid…” he sighed unhappily. “Afraid I’ll have to sting you again.”
“Okay.” Penny nodded and tried not to wince at the idea of another painful sting. “I’ll let you know.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
And V’rex led the way out of the hollow tree trunk and into the jungle.
Eighty-One
They trekked through the jungle until they came to the NeverBreeders’ road and followed it carefully, keeping a sharp eye out for the little orange bastards either coming or going. To V’s relief, they saw no one, though the road seemed to stretch on and on forever.
Of course, he had been knocked out on his earlier trip between the landing pad and the Compound, and Penelope had only been awake for part of her own journey, so they had no idea how far they had to travel. V just hoped they could get to their destination before they died of thirst. The steamy humidity and heat of the jungle was merciless, making them sweat freely, which meant they were losing a lot of moisture without being able to replace it.
At least the second sting he’d given Penelope seemed to have protected her from the poisons. V’rex was glad about that—he didn’t know if he could bring himself to sting her again. Watching her recoil from his sting and seeing the tears of pain in her big brown eyes—tears he had put there—had been fucking awful.
And this time her emotions hadn’t been muddled so the pain he had caused her had come through loud and clear. It had been horrible to feel her agony and know that he had caused it—fucking unbearable.
No Kindred ever wants to hurt his mate, even by accident—it’s unthinkable. The way V’rex felt about causing the woman he loved pain was the same way a mother would feel about accidentally slamming her child’s hand in a car door. Even though the pain was inflicted by accident, it still caused a flood of shame and horror and distress—so much so that he could hardly concentrate on anything else.
So much so that he almost missed the NeverBreeders guards coming towards them with a cartload of new breeder males for the Compound.
At the last minute, his eye picked it up, though and he grabbed Penny’s arm and dragged her off the road.
“What? What is it?” she gasped as they hid themselves in the undergrowth.
“NeverBreeders with a fresh load of males for the Compound,” V’rex growled softly. “Comin’ our way.”
“They are?” She leaned forward and squinted at the road. “You must have amazing eyesight—I don’t see anything.”
“Kindred vision,” V said shortly. “Now listen—here’s what we’re gonna do…”
Eighty-Two
Drace struggled against the manacles that bound his wrists behind his back. They were made of some kind of unbreakable polymerized alloy he’d never encountered, but that didn’t stop him. He was a Havoc which meant he never gave up, no matter how hopeless the odd
s.
The little orange bastards who had kidnapped him were walking along beside the hover cart, which was winding its way through a jungle. It was fucking hot and Drace had a headache—a pounding in his skull which was probably the direct result of whatever knock-out drugs his kidnappers had used.
Nor was he their only prisoner. There were two other males in the cart with him—a huge two-headed Trollox who took up most of the available room in the cart on his own, and a squinty-eyed Turpine who had been trying to sell Drace on the idea of new ion thrusters for his ship before both of them had been drugged and abducted.
There were nine guards—nine little orange bastards walking around the cart—all of them with either blasters or pain-prods. Those actually wouldn’t have been bad odds if the three prisoners in the hover cart had been unbound, Drace speculated.
The Trollox alone could probably rip the heads off six of their abductors in a matter of seconds if given a chance. All four of his beady red eyes were glaring with anger at the little orange humanoids and red drool was running down his tusks. The side of the cart he sat on was listing downwards so that the bottom of the hover cart was nearly dragging in the dirt. He looked so menacing, that even their captors seemed to have doubts about him.
“I do not think that we should have captured the Trollox, Voone,” one of them was saying to another. “His potential for violence is vast and I do not know if he will be susceptible to the hypno-whispers.”
“But did you see the size of his maleness, Roone?” the other guard argued. “His fertility is extreme! He will be able to father many fetuses for our Glorious Leader.”
Drace wondered what in the Seven Hells they were going on about. Who was the Glorious Leader and what need did he have for a super-fertile Trollox? What kind of a fucked-up mess had he been dragged into, anyway?
Knew I shouldn’t have gone to Hell’s Gate Station, Drace berated himself for the hundredth time. All those rumors of abductions… But of course, he’d thought it was only females being abducted. He’d had no idea that males were also on the ticket. He—
Suddenly he felt the manacles on his wrists click open. Eyes wide with surprise, he pulled his hands out from behind his back and looked down—sure enough, he was free.
And he wasn’t the only one.
The shifty-eyed Turpine was also staring down at his bare wrists. And then, the Trollox suddenly pulled his arms free as well.
“Free,” one of his heads growled, looking down at his thick, gray wrists. “Grox is free!”
“Kill,” the second head snarled, looking at the little orange captors. “Kill all orange half-men!”
“Watch out!” one of the little orange captors shouted. “They’re free! Who opened their manacles?”
“It wasn’t me, Voone!” one of them shouted.
“You hold the remote, Roone!” another one yelled. “Did you press the lock-release mechanism?”
“Kill all!” roared the Trollox and half jumped, half-fell out of the cart.
As all of their little orange captors rushed forward to stop him, Drace jumped out of the cart himself and rushed one of the guards. He wrestled with the little humanoid—who was surprisingly strong—and finally managed to get his pain prod away from him.
He gave his former captor a nasty jolt with the business end of the prod that made him howl.
“No, breeder—you must not!” he gasped, as he staggered to his feet. “Do you not know that we are attempting to bring you to a paradise where you will live the rest of your days in peace and harmony?”
“Fuck your peace and harmony,” Drace snapped. “I’m going back to my ship and I hope I never see any of you little orange fuckers again!”
By this time, most of the rest of the little orange men were going after the Trollox, who was roaring with rage. Drace decided he’d had enough of this fight. If he’d had a blaster, he might have joined in, but the pain-prod was a short range weapon only and it wasn’t even lethal.
What was lethal were the Trollox’s tusks. The huge two-headed male was in a rage and Drace knew from experience that if you got in the way of an angry Trollox, you had only yourself to blame for the results.
Slowly, he started backing away. He was about to slip into the jungle and make his way back through the trees, when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Not that way, friend,” a deep voice said. “Not unless you have immunity to poisons. Do you? Are you Kindred?”
Drace turned in surprise to see a male who looked a little like a Beast Kindred standing beside him, wearing a tattered red garment.
“No, but I’m Havoc,” he answered.
“Close enough. Help me kill the NeverBreeders—if any escape they’ll alert the Compound.”
“The who? And what did you call them?” Drace asked but the other male only shook his head. “Come on! Not a single one must escape!”
The fight was bloody, brutal, and short. The Trollox did most of the work for them, killing eight of the nine captors the Kindred male had called “NeverBreeders” himself. But before he killed them, they managed to force the two-headed giant into the jungle…the very place Drace had been heading for safety.
Then Drace saw what the other male meant about poisons. Even as the Trollox grabbed a NeverBreeder in each hand and bit off their bald heads with his tusks, he staggered and stumbled to his knees in the middle of the brilliant green and turquoise plants.
“Wha’s wrong?” one head demanded, looking around with bleary red eyes. “Don’ understan’. Feel dizzy…”
Then he toppled over with a thunderous crash like a huge tree falling. He flattened both the last NeverBreeder and the shifty-eyed Turpine merchant, who had been fighting in his shadow.
Abruptly, the fight was over.
Which left only Drace and the male who had warned him about the poisons in the jungle. Well, and also a lovely little full-figured female in a tattered blue garment, who came out from behind a tree on the far side of the road when the dust had settled. Drace wondered how she had immunity to the plant life—she didn’t look Kindred.
“V’rex!” she exclaimed, speaking to the male who looked like a Beast Kindred. “I can’t believe it worked! How did you know the Master Control would release their manacles too?”
“I didn’t.” He shrugged. “But I knew that I used it to remove the non-contact bracelets from my own arms so I figured it was worth a try.”
“That’s brilliant!” the female said, smiling up at him. “But how far are we from the NeverBreeders launching pad?”
“Just a few clicks down the road,” Drace told them, speaking up at last. “I’ll come with you and show you if you don’t mind.” He looked around the jungle, the corpse of the huge Trollox, and the many smaller, NeverBreeder corpses littered around it and shook his head. “Think I’d like to get the Seven Hells out of here.”
Eighty-Three
V was sorry more of the prisoners hadn’t escaped with their lives after he’d used the Master Control to set them free. But he had to admit it was just as well in the case of the Trollox. They were a savage race and he wouldn’t have wanted to travel through the jungle with one, especially with Penelope and her luscious curves on display through the ragged, blue toga which was ripped in places.
In the end, the one who was left was a Havoc—an offshoot of the Kindred family tree with one main difference to the Kindred. They didn’t form a permanent soul-bond with a female and spend their life in a mated pair, preferring instead to roam the galaxy free of emotional encumbrances. But they were still honorable and fierce warriors—good to have at your back.
This one, a fellow named Drace, seemed like a solid ally. Once V’rex explained about the Compound and its practices, he thanked them profusely for setting him free.
“That sounds like a seriously fucked-up place, Brother,” he said to V. “Thank the Goddess you two came along before those little orange bastards could get me there.”
“The Goddess put you in our path as wel
l,” V told him. “Can you lead us back to the NeverBreeder launching pad?”
“With pleasure.” Drace nodded eagerly. “I can also tell you that their ships are only lightly guarded—at least as far as I could tell.”
“Good man.” V nodded shortly. “We’ll take care of them, no problem.”
V had thought to take some of the blasters from the dead NeverBreeders, so he and Penelope and Drace were all armed when they at last came upon the landing pad. Drace was right—there were only two NeverBreeder guards standing by either of the two ships on the pad.
V dispatched two before they could even draw their blasters and Drace killed two as well. Penelope seemed reluctant to fire, which was understandable to V. She was still shaken by the actions she’d taken against Skrug and wasn’t, by nature, a violent person.
When the short battle was over, they stood on the landing pad—which was really just an extra-large clearing in the jungle—and V offered Drace a warrior’s clasp.
“I thank you for your help, Brother,” he said to the other male seriously.
“I owe you my life,” Drace replied. “If ever I can repay the debt, let me know.”
“Thank you for the offer,” V told him. “But now it’s time we part ways. Penelope and I will take one ship and you take the other. That way the NeverBreeders have no way to come after us and no way to go kidnap anyone else for their cult.”
“Agreed.” Drace nodded again, the sunlight catching the concentric rings of gold, brown, and copper in his eyes. They matched the highlights in his black hair. “This has been an interesting side adventure, but I need to get back to my ship.”
“Same,” V agreed, nodding. “Maybe we’ll meet again if the Goddess wills it.”
“If she wills it,” Drace agreed and then they each took separate ships with Penelope following V as they boarded the NeverBreeder crafts.
Eighty-Four
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