Wolf in the Woods

by N. J. Walters

  If he could, he’d rescue all the women here. That just wasn’t possible, but he could rescue one. He let his eyes drift over her right arm. The tattoo on the woman was an unusual one, a stylized pattern of flowers that covered her left shoulder and ran all the way down her arm to her hand. There was no missing it. At the very bottom, a thorny vine wrapped around her wrist. Exactly as Digger had described.

  “So how are we doing this?” Garth asked.

  Kal rubbed a hand across his scruffy chin. He hadn’t bothered shaving in a few days, and it added to his disreputable appearance. The jagged scar on his left cheek didn’t hurt either. Both he and his brother were wearing the drab shirt and pants that labeled them as laborers from the planet below. But beneath them, both of them wore battlesuits, body armor that was practically indestructible while being totally lightweight. That kind of protection didn’t come cheap, but all the brothers owned a suit.

  “You create a diversion, and I’ll get the girl. As soon as I’ve got her, we make a run for the ship.” It wasn’t much of a plan, but Kal and his brother had worked with worse.

  Garth stood and hitched up his pants. At six-one, he was the shortest of the brothers, but he was the widest, and not because there was an ounce of fat on him anywhere. No, Garth was built like a bull, thick and muscular, and always ready for a fight.

  “One diversion coming up.” He swiped up his drink and weaved his way toward a table filled with miners. They were a rough and rowdy lot and were known not to tolerate outsiders.

  Kal shook his head. His brother was crazy. But then again, the same could be said about all of them. Garth pretended to be drunk when Kal knew he hadn’t so much as taken a sip of his drink. Neither of them had. No telling what was in the rotgut they served aboard this ship.

  Garth was almost on top of the men now. “Harcon, old buddy. Haven’t seen you for a while.” He held his arms wide open as if he were going to hug one of them men.

  “Piss off,” the man growled. “You got the wrong guy.”

  Kal stood and slowly began to meander toward the cage containing the woman they needed to talk with. He didn’t hear the next thing the miner said to his brother, but he heard Garth’s reply.

  “No need to be so unfriendly.” Garth waved his arms wide and spilled his drink over two of the other men seated at the table. “Whoops. Sorry about that.”

  Kal bit his bottom lip to keep from smiling. Garth was enjoying himself just a little too much. Kal was right next to the cage when one of the miners slammed his fist into Garth’s jaw. Kal winced and not for his brother. It was well known that Garth’s jaw was as hard as granite. The blow didn’t even knock his brother back an inch. Instead Garth shook his head, roared his displeasure, and rammed his fist into the miner’s gut. The man dropped like a stone, and the fight was on.

  The guards hurried toward the combatants before things got too out of hand. Kal turned his attention to the woman in the cage. Like the rest of the crowd, she was watching the fight.

  He reached into his pocket, withdrew a thin metal box, and attached it to the lock. The device ran through the sequence of possible combinations faster than the speed of light. In ten seconds flat, he had the door to the gilded cage open.

  The woman gasped and jerked away from him when his hand touched her calf. Her amazing blue eyes widened when she realized the door to her prison was open.

  “If you want to get away from here, come with me.” Kal gave a quick look over his shoulder, wincing when Garth picked up a man and launched him at another table. The table didn’t survive. Kal wasn’t sure the man would either, not without extensive medical attention.

  This was quickly getting ugly. “Make up your mind. We’ve got to go. Now.”

  Not that he was going to give her any choice in the matter, but it would be easier if she came of her own free will.

  ****

  Aurora Banks had seen just about everything in her twenty-two years of living, and most of it wasn’t pretty. But this was the last thing she’d expected to happen when she was shoved into the dancing cage a few hours ago.

  The man standing before her with his hand out was tall and broad and downright intimidating. His eyes were a piercing green, and his silky black hair fell around his shoulders. A thick scar ran from just below his eye by his nose all the way out to his ear.

  If she were totally honest, he was handsome in a rough-looking way. Not that it mattered. He was a way out of this nightmare. Rory only hoped she wasn’t jumping from one bad situation to an even worse one.

  Trusting her instincts, she reached out and took his hand. It was warm and strong as it closed around hers and pulled her to the edge of the cage. He lifted her down from her gilded prison, wrapped one strong arm around her, and hustled her toward the wide red door that blocked their path to freedom.

  “The guards.” She had to yell to be heard above the din of the yelling and fighting. They called themselves bouncers, but they were here to do more than keep the peace. Their main job was to make sure they didn’t lose any of the merchandise or the money. And all the women on board were considered prime merchandise.

  “You let me worry about them.” Her liberator reached inside his shirt and drew out a compact-sized blaster.

  Something crashed behind her, and she automatically began to look toward it. He caught her chin and turned her face away. “Look forward, not back.”

  That was good advice. She ignored the noise and the fighting and hurried to keep up.

  One man, a Crebian by the looks of his greenish-blue skin, tried to stop them. The man beside her didn’t even pause. He simply raised his hand and shot the blaster. The Crebian fell to the floor, and the men around him stepped back, giving them a wide berth.

  Rory didn’t know how her rescuer had managed to get the weapon on board the Exos, as there were stringent controls in place to keep such a thing from happening. She should know as she’d spent the past month trying to find a weak spot in their security system so she could plan her escape.

  They pushed their way through the door. The man beside her tightened his grip on her wrist. His urgency became hers. “Run,” he told her. Giving no thought to the mistake she could be making, Rory ran, her bare feet slapping against the metal floor as she was practically dragged behind him.

  “We’re coming in hot.”

  At first, she thought he was talking to her. It took her a moment to realize he was speaking into a communication device strapped to his wrist. And it wasn’t just any communication device. This one was top-of-the-line and went for at least one-thousand Alliance credits, maybe more.

  Who was this guy? Laborers and miners didn’t waste their hard-earned money on fancy communication devices. They tended to splurge on booze and women when they had a few extra credits.

  “Roger that,” a deep voice replied. “Hurry the fuck up.”

  Rory shivered. Whoever the voice belonged to, he did not sound happy.

  “Just fire up the engines and be ready for anything.” He picked up his pace. “Not much farther,” he told her. “We’re docked at J portal.”

  Rory glanced at the sign on the wall. They’d just passed the H portal. She did her best to keep up with the pace he set, but it wasn’t easy. She wasn’t used to having to run for her life.

  He stopped suddenly, slammed her body against the wall, and threw himself on top of her. She heard the sound of a blaster, and then his big body jerked against hers.

  Rory screamed. Her rescuer had been shot. She wasn’t going back to the cage. She wasn’t. She scrambled for the blaster in his hand even as the pounding of boots got closer. But when she lunged for the weapon, it was already out of reach.

  Her liberator whirled around and returned the guard’s fire, the blaster steady in his hand. She peeked around his shoulder in time to see the two burly guards drop to the deck. “Come on.” He tugged her behind him, practically dragging her. She tripped but managed to stay on her feet.

  The J deck came into view. Inste
ad of relaxing, she grew even tenser. She knew better than to think this was over. No woman had ever been taken off the Exos. The captain wouldn’t allow it to happen. His reputation was on the line. If one woman was taken, then many would see all of them as fair game. The Exos would be constantly under attack. Pleasure ships stayed in business by being utterly ruthless to any who broke their rules and by having impenetrable defenses.

  The panel whooshed open, and he practically threw her through it. “Get on the ship. Now.”

  A fairly large deep-space-class trader was docked on the other side of the portal. The door to the vessel slid open, and a man stood there in full body armor, holding a massive blaster cradled in his arms.

  Rory moved closer to her rescuer and clutched the hem of his shirt. He didn’t pay her any attention as he was too busy peering around the panel. “Come on. Come on,” he muttered under his breath. It occurred to her that he must have had an accomplice, someone who had aided him in her escape.

  The man with the massive weapon beckoned her forward, but she wasn’t going anywhere. Not without the man beside her. She may not know his name, but she trusted him more than the unknown man waving her toward the ship. He’d protected her from the guard’s blasters. She’d be dead if he hadn’t.

  Boots pounded against the metal floor. “Move it,” yet another unknown man yelled as he ran toward them, head down and legs pumping.

  The man beside her startled as if surprised to find her still beside him, grabbed her hand, and yanked her through the portal and on to the waiting ship. Honestly, she was getting a little tired of being dragged around as though she were space garbage and he a salvager.

  They passed the sentry as they boarded. He didn’t even glance at them. All his attention was on the portal. The other man burst onto the deck, raced through the portal, and launched himself onto the ship. The door slid closed and locked behind him. The man with the huge blaster hit the communication pad next to the door. “Go. Go. Go.”

  The ship banked sharply and dropped as the captain released from the docking station and took off hard and fast. Rory flew toward the wall, but before her body could smash against it, strong arms snatched her out of midair, anchoring her. “I’ve got you.”

  She shivered at the sound of his voice. He certainly did have her. His arms were like hot manacles wrapped around her midsection. He slid down the wall, braced himself against it, and dug his boots into the floor. The scratchy material of his shirt was rough against her arms and back, making her very aware of her lack of clothing.

  With the intensity of their flight, and her need to escape, she’d forgotten she was wearing nothing but a scrap of what couldn’t really be called underwear.

  The ship suddenly banked again, and she gripped his arm tight. The two other men grabbed the bulkhead above them and rode out the wild ride with seeming ease. She envied them their strength.

  “They’ll send fighters after you,” she felt compelled to point out. The Exos had six fighters in her fleet along with several shuttles for ferrying customers from the surface of whatever planet they were currently orbiting.

  The man who’d race on board behind them grinned at her. “They’ve got to catch us first, babe.”

  Then the deep voice came over the intercom once again. “Hitting boosters in three, two, one.”

  Rory knew what that meant and wrapped her arms around the man holding her. The ship shimmied and then was whipped forward at a massive rate of speed. This was obviously no ordinary trader ship. Boosters cost huge money and came with an element of danger as well. Flying at such incredible speeds meant it was tough to avoid another ship or a meteor if one crossed your path.

  Just who were these men? And what did they want with her?

  The longer they sat there, the more comfortable she got, which made her uneasy and confused the hell out of her. She was practically naked and sitting on a man’s lap, a man she didn’t know.

  Something hard dug into her side, and she knew it wasn’t his blaster—the weapon was much too small to be the foreign object pressing against her. Considering she was sitting on his lap, that left only one possibility. Her rescuer was aroused.

  She swallowed hard. Had they brought her on board to service the crew? She began to shiver, fear adding to the chill of the loading bay airlock. She’d fight if she had to. There had to be a safety shuttle somewhere on board. All she had to do was find it.

  He pulled her closer and ran his big hand up and down her back, his touch rough but gentle. “We’ll get you some clothes just as soon as we’re out of booster mode.”

  That gave Rory pause. It certainly didn’t sound as if he were getting ready to rape her as soon as they leveled out. That had to be a good sign. Right?

  She nodded because there really wasn’t anything else she could do or say at the moment. She could feel the other two other men watching her and made sure her hair covered her breasts. She didn’t want to give them an eyeful, or at least any more than she already had. Who knew how much of her they’d already seen?

  Rory didn’t know how much time had passed before the ship slowed, coming out of booster mode and into regular flight. She had no idea where she was. Not that it mattered. The only home she’d ever know was gone, stolen by a devious man, someone she’d trusted.

  “Let’s get you up and find you something to wear,” her liberator, or captor—at this point she wasn’t quite sure what to call him—said. It was getting tiresome not knowing his name.

  “Who are you?” She had to know.

  He held out his hand to one of the other men and was dragged to an upright position. He kept one arm around her, taking her with him, and settled her on her feet beside him. “I’m Kal Marks.” He raised an eyebrow when she didn’t say anything. “And you are?”

  Shock hit her square between the eyes. “You don’t know who I am?”

  He shook his head, causing a lock of hair to fall across his forehead. She fought the urge to brush it away. Honestly, she was losing her mind. “Then why did you kidnap me?”

  “Rescue you,” he amended.

  She’d give him that. At least until she knew more about her situation. “Okay, why did you rescue me?”

  He released her wrist. It was the first time since he’d offered her his hand that some part of him wasn’t touching her. She missed it more than she should. She felt bereft, set adrift. Which really didn’t make any sense. She might have a name for him, but he was still a stranger.

  “Because of this.” Kal reached out and rubbed a finger over the base of her tattoo, tracing the thorny vines before stroking upward over the trail of colorful flowers covering her arm. He started at her forearm, moved up to her elbow and then all the way to her shoulder.

  “You took me because of my tattoo?” Had she heard him right?

  He nodded. “What’s your name?”

  “Aurora Banks. Call me Rory.” Only her father had called her Aurora, and only when he was angry with her. Everyone else had called her Rory for as far back as she could remember.

  Kal nodded. “Well, Rory. Welcome aboard the Abigail. These are my brothers Garth and Amos. You might recognize Garth from the Exos. The one with the big gun is Amos.”

  Now that she was really looking at them, the family resemblance was obvious. They were all big men, although Garth was more heavily built than the other two. And they all had black hair with a shock of white in the front. She looked from one to the other. She hadn’t noticed the lock of white in Kal’s hair during their dramatic escape. No wonder. It had taken everything out of her just to run and stay on her feet.

  Amos was missing the pinky finger on his left hand. No doubt these were tough men who’d lived a rough and deadly life. She had no idea what they did for a living and wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Since their ship was a trader she wondered if they were legit or mercenaries. They could well be smugglers, men who’d run anything if the price was right.

  Both of the men nodded at her. They were studying her as if waiti
ng for her to say something. She didn’t exactly know what to say, so she nodded back.

  Heavy footsteps came toward them, vibrating through the floor. A red light on the wall flashed to green and the door to the loading bay airlock opened. It had been secured from the other side.

  Rory might have wondered more about that, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the giant of a man standing in the doorway. He was taller than the rest, his black hair buzzed off close to his skull. But she could see the short strands of white and knew he was another brother. A black patch covered his right eye, and his right hand wasn’t skin and bone but robotic.

  “What the fuck are you standing around for? What does she know?”

  End of sample chapter

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