Devil in the Hold: A Scifi Alien Romance (Fated Mates of Breeder Prison Book 3)

by Tammy Walsh

  I peered out at the sand dunes but no wisps of sand whipped off their peaks from a strong wind.

  What the hell?

  “Get down!” Egara said, stripping off his shirt.

  “What?” I spat. “What is it?”

  Next, he stripped off his pants.

  “Now?” I said incredulously. “You want to fuck now?”

  He tripped me over and lay on top of me.

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  He placed a hand over my mouth but his attention wasn’t on me.

  It was on a shining white object, cresting one of the larger sand dunes.

  Sunlight blinked off its shiny white hull.

  The rushing sound grew louder at the machine’s approach.

  It was the origin of the noise.

  A drone.

  It didn’t take me long to figure out who the drone belonged to.

  By the direction it flew, it had to belong to the prison, and therefore, the guards.

  They’d found us already? I thought. So much for the great escape.

  The drone hovered overhead, kicking up plumes of sand from the tallest peak.

  “Halt!” the drone bellowed from tinny speakers on its underside.

  It must be controlled by the guards back at the prison, I thought. And if they had already found us, there was no chance of escape now.

  “What should we do?” I mumbled around his hand still clamped over my mouth.

  “We can’t move,” he whispered. “If we do, they’ll see us.”

  “Are you kidding? They can see us already!”

  “No, they can’t.”

  It was only then I noticed how hot his skin had become, and the strange dotted discoloration of the flesh of his hand.

  “Do not attempt to run!” the drone yelled through its electronic speakers.

  One moment, the drone was hovering above us, and then suddenly, it dropped down on the other side of the sand dune.

  My breaths were hoarse and strained through Egara’s hand.

  I glanced at him out the corner of my eye.

  He hadn’t moved, so neither would I.

  His attention was still on the sky, over the giant sand dune to our left.

  I wondered what he was waiting for.

  Surely now was the time we ought to run?

  Now, while the drone was distracted by something else?

  Or was the drone attempting to flush us out?

  Suddenly, there was another rushing sound high above us.

  I couldn’t see it without moving my head.

  But the whine of its miniature engines was enough to let me know what it was.

  Another drone.

  It sailed overhead and descended so close it made my clothes flap.

  The sand it kicked up stung my skin.

  And still, Egara did not move a muscle.

  I wondered what he was thinking.

  Couldn’t he see the drone had spotted us?

  “Halt!” the drone directly above us snapped in a hostile tone.

  Halt? I thought. We weren’t even moving!

  Another prisoner came bolting up from between the huge sand dunes, a terrified expression on his face.

  He glanced over his shoulders at something on his tail.

  A red light blinked on the second drone’s underside.

  The prisoner ran as fast as his legs could carry him, his feet churning up the stream’s pebbles.

  He tripped and fell to his knees.

  He crawled on his belly until he regained his feet.

  Panting and exhausted, he returned to running.

  He saw the drone ahead, the one directly above us, and his eyes widened.

  “Halt or we will be forced to fire!” the drone said, so loud it was deafening.

  The prisoner heard the warning but he didn’t slow, never mind halt.

  He bolted to one side in an attempt to avoid the drone but it was no use.

  Zaaap!

  A flicker of blue struck the prisoner full in the chest.

  He collapsed immediately, landing face-first in the cool polluted spring water.

  His eyes rolled into the back of his head and his body shuddered with the shock fire.

  The second drone approached and slapped a pair of metal cuffs on his ankles.

  There was a loud whining noise as both drones activated a powerful magnet that drew the metal cuffs upwards, and each of the prisoner’s feet attached to the underside of a drone.

  The prisoner blinked, coming awake.

  He peered down at us and saw us immediately.

  He waved and pointed at us.

  “Wait!” he said. “Wait! There are others! Right there! There are others!”

  The drones paid him no attention as they sailed off into the sky, careening back toward Ikmal prison.

  Only once the dull rushing air of their powerful propellers had dissipated did Egara climb off me.

  I didn’t get to my feet.

  I rolled onto one shoulder and listened as closely as I could to the surrounding area.

  Hearing nothing, I peered up at Egara, who pulled on his shirt and pants, covering up the sandy appearance of his skin.

  “You’re a shifter?” I said.

  “No, not quite,” he said.

  “But your skin…”

  “I can change it to the color of the sand, of my surroundings, but I can’t form different shapes. That would be a real gift.”

  “I don’t know, camouflage seems pretty cool to me.”

  “Come on,” he said. “We should keep moving.”

  I dusted off my clothes and followed after him.

  Once again, he had saved my life.

  I wondered how many more times he would have to do it before all this was over.

  And would I get the chance to save his in return?

  The heat from the sun was nothing like anything I had ever felt back on Earth.

  It hit me full in the face like a laser beam set to kill.

  What I wouldn’t give for some sunblock.

  Egara had no such concern.

  His skin was already bright red, used to conditions like this.

  I grew up in California and was used to hot weather but nothing like this.

  Egara noticed my discomfort and removed his shirt.

  He did the top button up and placed the collar for the neck over my head, so it was like a veil.

  Only my hair faced the sun now and it was already heating up.

  At least now my face and neck were protected.

  The desert was a beautiful place, but you soon got tired of it when there was no shade to protect yourself.

  Even worse was the harsh breathing from my mouth and lungs.

  I could hardly keep myself from exhaling one breath before I had to take another.

  It was like my throat was clenching shut tight, unable to process the oxygen, which struggled to even descend down my windpipe.

  Egara cast a look over his shoulder at me several times but never said a word.

  Twice already, I had spotted carrion circling overhead but none showed much interest in us.

  It was a good sign, I thought. It meant we hadn’t yet passed the point of no return.

  The twin suns crossed the sky, spinning and twirling around each other.

  Now, they began to set, bringing the night’s early chill with it.

  Finally, Egara said the words I had been desperate to hear for the past few hours:

  “Okay, I think we should set up camp.”

  I would have collapsed, except I knew there were probably jobs I needed to do.

  I was hungry, thirsty, but more than anything, I was dog tired.

  Egara took two wrapped packages from his pocket.

  They were covered in tissue paper.

  Before he even handed one to me, I could smell them.

  I didn’t care what the food he handed to me was.

  I snatched it out of his hand, open the tissue, and gulped it down
one hungry mouthful after another.

  “A fan of Jilaxic biscuits, huh?” he said.

  “I’m a fan of any food right about now.”

  I noticed he only ate half his meal before tucking it back in his pocket.

  I realized how greedy I’d been when I wolfed down the whole meal.

  He hadn’t expected to have someone else along for the journey.

  And so far, I hadn’t offered much in the way of benefits.

  Even worse, I wheezed with the effort required to consume the food as fast as I did.

  “With any luck, we should arrive by tomorrow,” he said.

  “I look forward to it.”

  Assuming I didn’t die from lack of oxygen during the night, I thought.

  I lay on my back but that proved to be a poor decision as I wheezed even harder.

  I lay on my side and that helped relieve some of the pressure from my lungs.

  Still, I gasped.

  Egara lay beside me and took me in his arms.

  I liked the warmth his body gave off as the night chill was already beginning to seep deep into my bones.

  He edged closer and pecked me on the cheek.

  It felt nice, but as he pressed further and nibbled on my ear, I knew he wanted more.

  I gasped like I’d been smoking forty a day for the past fifty years.

  I didn’t think I could survive another one of his marathon sex sessions.

  “I’m not sure I can do it tonight. I can barely breathe.”

  “This will make it better,” he said, nibbling the base of my neck.

  Maybe it would, but right then, I couldn’t take the risk.

  I felt like an asthmatic without a pump.

  I needed to be careful.

  He pressed his lips to mine, gently, and without passion.

  When he pulled back, my breathing ease.

  It was like I’d been injected with medicine that expanded the airways.

  “It is a little better,” I said.

  He leaned forward and kissed me again.

  Once more, the breathing cleared up, becoming almost perfectly smooth.

  I relished in the feeling of a perfectly operating body.

  The kisses became more passionate, and this time, I responded.

  The more we kissed, the easier breathing became.

  Finally, I pulled back, putting a hand to his chest.

  “How is this possible?” I said. “One minute I’m gasping like a fish out of water, and the next, you kissed me, and I’m breathing fine.”

  “This is my habitat. This is how I grew up, where my ancestors evolved. We developed systems to survive in such harsh environments.”

  “I understand that but why am I able to breathe easier after you kiss me?”

  “Because I am passing my strength onto you.”

  He said it as if he was telling me the sky was blue.

  “Passing on your strengths?” I said. “What does that even mean?”

  “It means if I can breathe in this atmosphere, now, so can you.”

  Suddenly, the bruise that disappeared after having sex made sense.

  Most of the species in the prison had the ability to heal quickly.

  After spending the night with Egara, I had benefited from his ability too.

  “How long will this last?” I said, still barely able to keep my surprise hidden.

  “Kissing will last for minutes,” he said, “but it depends how much we kiss. Vulcarians mate a little differently to most other species. We share our strengths, weaknesses, and once we mate, it’s for life.”

  My breath caught in my throat.

  “You’re saying we’re mated for life now?”

  Egara shook his head and had a small smile on his face.

  “No. Fated mates do not become a pair until they are both in love.”

  “How do you know we aren’t fated mates already?”

  “You would know. Trust me. So would I.”

  I smiled and thought back to our experience the previous night.

  If that wasn’t how fated mates mated, then how did I explain that explosion of golden light in my chest?

  I had never felt anything like it before.

  Maybe for him it was normal, but for me, a regular female, it was anything but normal.

  “Are you still hungry?” Egara said.

  “Hm?” I said, lost in a world of my own. “Oh. Um… Not really.”

  My stomach growled.

  “Your stomach appears to be making the counter-argument,” Egara said.

  I rapped my stomach gently and shook my head.

  “He’s always had a mind of his own,” I said. “I tell him I’m not hungry and he insists on eating any nearby chocolate.”

  “I’m the same when it comes to Vulcarian rice cake. I just can’t stop eating it.”

  He got to his feet and dusted off his hands.

  I peered at the desert around us.

  Good luck finding any food in this place, I thought.

  Egara stood up straight and his ears fluttered.

  They turned from one side to the other, his left ear turning sharply one way, his right the other.

  Gradually, his left ear drew around to point in the same direction as his right.

  At me.

  Egara approached me with that same intense look in his eyes that I recognized from making love.

  He was not a big dumb animal like many of the other prisoners.

  When his eyes drew together, focusing, blocking out everything else, he became a man possessed.

  I couldn’t help but blush.

  Then I realized his eyes weren’t really focused on me.

  They concentrated just beyond me, over my shoulder.

  I peered at where he was looking and found a wall of dull sand.

  He approached it, his footsteps slow and stealthy, his eyes and ears focused on the same point.

  When I made to get up, he raised his finger to his lips but didn’t hush me.

  He placed his fingertips to the surface of the sand and smiled, sensing something there.

  What was he looking at? I wondered. What could he sense that I couldn’t?

  He pulled his body back.

  I thought he was going to thrust his fist into the sand and snatch something from it.

  Instead, he pulled his head back and snapped it forward.

  His horns pierced the surface and buried themselves in halfway.

  A high-pitched squeal erupted from a creature in the sand.

  As Egara pulled his head back, a creature wriggled like a flailing fish on the end of a fisherman’s line.

  One tip of Egara’s horns had skewered it.

  Egara reached up and took the small creature from his horn and snapped the creature in half.

  It hung limply in his hands.

  “Sand Fish okay?” he said.

  I just stared at the creature, my eyes bulging and wide.

  I didn’t know.

  Was Sand Fish okay?

  The creature might have been odd in appearance but it tasted much like chicken back home.

  I guess the rule that a lot of foreign food tasted like chicken also extended out here to the far reaches of the galaxy.

  Egara built a small fire in a hole in the ground and cooked the creature inside it.

  The moment the meal was done, he shoved a handful of sand over the flames, dousing it.

  A shame, I thought, as I was beginning to enjoy the heat.

  Egara must have noticed my expression because he dug the embers of fire up again.

  They still glowed with heat as he placed them beside me.

  I could still feel their heat.

  I smiled at his thoughtfulness.

  “Once the charcoal is dry, we can use it to catch larger prey,” he said.

  Okay, so maybe not that thoughtful.

  “Larger prey?” I said. “I thought we would be getting out of here soon?”

  He nodded.

  “
We will, but only if things go to plan. And in my experience, few things go to plan.”

  Egara slipped a black nail into the fish and slit it open.

  He removed the bones and handed half the Sand Fish to me.

  “I’m not sure I can eat all of it,” I said, remembering the earlier meal he only ate half of.

  “Eat as much as you can. We’ll leave the rest out to dry and turn it into jerky for the journey tomorrow.”

  I ended up consuming my half and eyed what remained of his meal with some jealousy.

  Once again, he hadn’t eaten the entire meal.

  “How can you get by on so little?” I said.

  “Vulcarians have very slow metabolisms. We can go weeks without food, even when traipsing through a desert like this.”

  Vulcarians were turning out to be very strange creatures indeed.

  It was pitch dark in the desert at night and there was little light save that cast by a trio of small moons.

  It was beautiful, I thought. Then again, everything was beautiful when you hadn’t seen anything but blank walls for so long.

  I smiled and breathed in the chill night air.

  I stretched, luxuriating in the freedom of space, and the fact there wasn’t another creature for miles around.

  At least, not if we were lucky.

  “Are you sure your friends will have left the shuttlecraft where they said they would?” I said.

  “I’m sure,” Egara said. “They’re my crew, not my friends.”

  “Can’t they be both?”

  “Not if you are an effective captain. There must always be a line between captain and crew.”

  “You’re their captain?” I said, surprised by this piece of information.

  But I shouldn’t have been so surprised.

  He was thoughtful, capable, and a great fighter.

  Why shouldn’t he be the captain?

  “They assured me they would drop off the shuttlecraft,” he said. “I don’t have faith in many things but I have faith in my men. If they said they are going to do something, I can assure you, they will do it.”

  “Is your entire crew made up of Vulcarians?”

  “Most, but not all. We have learned to distrust most other species. The only ones we trust are those that have also had their culture destroyed by our common enemy.”

  “What will you do once you get away from here?”

  “Return to my ship.”

  He didn’t seem altogether pleased with that concept.