Authors: Maree Dry
“So you didn’t come here for me.”
Even if he denied it, how could she take his word on anything? He was the thug the family sent in to beat up helpless old people who couldn’t or wouldn’t pay their extortion credits.
“Yes.”
“What does that mean? Did you come to take me back or not?”
“No.”
Julia pressed her nails into her jeans-clad knees. “Please make sense. Did you come for me or not?”
The drug’s grip on him had to be escalating. Soon, it would be very dangerous to be in his vicinity. If it wasn’t already.
“I came for you but not to take you back to anyone else.”
She relaxed her hands and leaned her head against her knees. “Why do you want to speak to the man coming here?”
“My leader instructed me.”
“Uncle Jacob?”
Jacob was her mother’s cousin but because he was so much older and much higher in the hierarchy they all called him Uncle Jacob.
“No, Zacar.”
“You switched sides? But you just said you didn’t--” She threw up her hands. “Oh never mind. Uncle Jacob will have you panga’d. Actually, from what I remember, you were one of his favorites. He might panga you himself.”
“I do not know this Jacob.”
Ooookkaaay, memory problems, too
. “Who is your leader?” she asked.
John must have switched sides. Maybe to Chicago, or Boston--that bunch liked their titles.
“Zacar,” he said.
She waited for him to elaborate but he simply crouched there, staring at her, his eyes unblinking. Julia looked pointedly at the bars. “The moment you get your answers, we’ll just walk out of here?”
“Yes.”
“So why did you change sides to work for this Zacar? Is he with one of the Chicago Corporations?”
“I have always worked for Zacar.”
She lowered her head onto her knees again. Did that mean he had been a plant when she knew him before? Nothing he said made sense. She wanted out of here. A terrible stench hung around the cell. It kept bile rising in her throat. The moans of the other captives were a constant torture, refusing to fade into the background.
She brushed at her legs. “All kinds of things with too many legs are crawling on me.”
He came and sat next to her, placed his arm around her shoulders. She smelled ground coffee and spice. She sagged from the weight around her shoulders and his hold lifted a bit. Julia snuggled into his comforting heat. She’d hate him tomorrow, get away from him. For now, she just wanted to feel safe. She pressed back slightly into the arm around her shoulders, trying to figure out what it was she felt. Instead of just a solid arm, something like very small tubes pressed into her skin and for a moment she feared he was shooting up, somehow, with some kind of contraption. Then she realized they were raised veins pulsing very faintly against her.
“I will keep you safe, even from insects.”
“Thank you,” she said absently, still wondering how his veins could be enlarged like that from the drugs without exploding.
They sat in silence for a while.
“We have to help the others.” She looked to the cage across from them where a small child, no more than ten years old, lay eerily still. “I won’t leave the children behind.”
He didn’t answer. She got up on her knees and grabbed his thick bicep. “Please, John, we cannot leave children here. I would never be able to live with my conscience.”
“I will think on this.”
She couldn’t detect any concern or compassion for these people in his voice. Given his profession, it shouldn’t distress her as much as it did. Her own father was an enforcer and she had seen firsthand the atrocities he committed.
They were quiet for a while.
“Do you like children?” he asked her and though he studied his boots she could see the tension in his shoulders.
“I love them. One day I plan to have five.”
He stiffened. “I heard Earth women do not want many children.”
Earth
women? “I do. I want an ordinary husband who has an ordinary job that comes home to me and our children every night.”
Never did she want to be involved with the kind of people she escaped from. Her husband would be decent and hardworking. Not some thug who thought nothing of selling people and using dangerous drugs. Who killed on command.
“You will be a good breeder to your man,” he said, sounding strangely hollow.
It was almost as if her dream of having a family saddened him. Julia shook off that strange impression. She couldn’t afford to forget that he was a monster. One who called women breeders.
Julia tugged at her blouse plastered against her skin. “Why aren’t you sweating? Aren’t you hot?”
“No.”
Was that another effect of the drugs?
“Are you cold?”
She realized she shook so hard, the fabric of the jacket rustled under her. “No.”
“I will warm you.”
With that eerie speed, he moved and picked her up. She found herself settled on his lap before she could think to protest. His heat surrounded her. In this stuffy place, she would’ve thought it would be overly hot and uncomfortable to be this close to him. Instead, the warmth radiating from him comforted her. How was this possible? He used to make her stomach turn and now she had to resist the urge to press closer to him. He smelled good among all the unpleasant odors of the basement. She must never forget what a monster he was. His unfeeling attitude toward the other prisoners showed more than anything what he was.
“We have to get out of here.” Before she convinced herself he was one of the good guys.
“Soon.”
She moved and blushed when his thigh muscles rippled under her. He either used steroids or worked out every hour of every day. She placed a hand on his knee to brace her and frowned. He wore black cotton pants but she didn’t feel cotton under her hands. Even his hands felt different from what they looked. When he’d lifted her, the texture of his palms had been hard, leathery. He made her shy and it infuriated her. How could her stupid body like such a man?
“What are you using?”
“Using?”
“You know the drug that gives you the strength to break us out of here.” She had to tread carefully.
So far he seemed remarkably stable. If he was on Superman Crack, he could turn violent anytime.
“I do not use drugs. I am warrior.” His voice had dipped low, dangerously low.
“Uh, okay.”
His crazy mind must have come up with the fantasy of him being a warrior. She could think of a few apt words to describe him but warrior wasn’t one of them. They sat in silence again, until she couldn’t bear the agonized moans of their fellow captives and the smells and his nearness anymore. She nearly jumped out of her skin when he lifted the cap off her head and allowed her hair to tumble down her back.
“Your hair is like Solari Silk.”
“Uhm, thank you, I think.”
Solari must be a new company or place where the family found a way to do business. Or maybe this mysterious Zacar owned it.
“How do you care for it?”
He moved his fingers through her hair and starting at her scalp he ran them through to the ends. Goosebumps broke out over every inch of her skin. He couldn’t have gotten a better reaction from her if he had gone for the obvious pleasure points on her body.
She searched for something to say, anything to take his mind off touching her hair. This was her family’s enforcer. A vicious man sent to kill or bring her back for torture. She had no business sitting in his lap, enjoying him playing with her hair. “What if the person coming here, can’t give you the information you want?”
“He will not dare to deny me.”
Menace filled the air around them. She could’ve sworn he grew bigger and again she thought she saw red flash in his eyes. He stilled and it was as if he drew any violent emotion deep inside and buried it. The sense of dread dissipated and he seemed to lose interest in their conversation.
John pulled her closer with the arm not playing with her hair. His touch remained gentle, that maddening combing of her hair with his fingers, the inevitable massaging of her scalp.
It all played tricks on her mind, fooling it into thinking it was safe to trust him. To respond to his touch. The hand on her back moved to her waist, glided over her ribs to rest under her breasts.
“I want to kiss you.” He cocked his head and stared at her lips with intent blue eyes. His thumb stroked the underside of her breast and her body surged alive. “And I want to use my tongue.”
Chapter 6
Julia cringed back from him, not caring that she pressed against the dirty wall. This could not be happening to her. She frantically tried to think of a way to distract him. His hand still rested under her breasts, his thumb continuing that maddening caress that elicited a response from what felt like every nerve end in her body.
“Before, when the revered caught us, why did you step in front of me? It’s not like you to sacrifice yourself for anyone else.”
“You question my honor?” he asked in a clipped growl.
The air chilled, stilled and, for a moment, there was dead silence as the moans and screams of the other prisoners quieted.
His jaw clenched and the muscles bunched there pulsed in an angry rhythm. A foreign rhythm.
She ducked under his arm and darted to the other side of the small room. “Uh, no. Wouldn’t dream of it.”
He didn’t follow, just looked at her with those predator’s eyes. Calculating.
“Come here, Julia.”
She held her hands out in a futile effort to hold him off. “Please, don’t.”
“Come here.” He didn’t point, the inflection of his voice didn’t change. And that scared her more than his shouting would’ve done. Whatever she did, she had to ensure she didn’t enrage him. She shuddered and looked at the other cages. What he would do to her and the other prisoners in a drug-induced rage would make her father look like a saint.
It took every inch of control she had to overcome her need to run. She took a shaky step toward him and focused on the third button on his shirt. It was just a kiss. No biggie. She could live through a kiss with a drug-crazed man who’d been willing to stop a bullet for her.
“Please, remember how easily you broke the bars. You could break me, too.”
She prayed with everything in her that he found her wanting in the kissing department. Maybe then he’d never want to do it again.
“I would never hurt my breeder. I have honor.”
“Uh, okay. That’s good to know.”
“Closer.” His voice was husky now, his body taut but with a different tension.
Slowly she stepped closer to him. He reached out and clasped her upper arms--pulled her so close, she could feel every inch of him vibrate against her. His eyes burned with cold blue flames. Once again, he confused her senses, as if what her eyes saw and her body felt did not compute.
“My breeder,” he huffed and then he kissed her.
His lips moved over hers, almost tentatively. She knew he’d had dozens of women, had seen them fawn over him. So why did it feel as if he’d never done this before?
She stood absolutely still. Afraid to do anything to set him off. The kiss changed, became more insistent. He grunted low in his throat and placed his thumb on her chin to open her mouth. She moaned in protest because he kept her uncomfortably wide. Her jaw aching, Julia stood there, unable to do anything but endure while he invaded her mouth.
His tongue touched hers, almost tentatively, and she forgot the ache in her jaw, the uncomfortable angle of her neck. Pleasure bubbles zoomed through her bloodstream. He lifted his head. Angry at him for causing such a reaction in her body, Julia wiped her lips and could’ve sworn his eyes shot sparks at her.
“You do not like my tongue?”
“It’s uncomfortable to have my mouth open that wide.”
This had to be the weirdest conversation she ever had. It was hard to remember who she dealt with when he was this almost sweet person.
Almost.
“You will rest now while I guard you.”
Julia nodded and sat down with her arms across her knees, her head on her arms. She didn’t have the energy to talk to him anymore. He confused her and the way her body reacted to such a thug shamed her.
***
Zurian stood guard over his Julia. He’d used the appearance of many species before but this was the first time a disguise laid this heavy on his shoulders. He wanted her to see him when he kissed her, not an ugly human. Not a human she knew and despised before.
She lay curled up on his spread jacket, her hair shining like a star in the gloomy basement. It disturbed him, the way she fit her whole body so easily on the jacket. When she’d fought with him, he enjoyed her smaller, rounder size--but her spirit made her seem bigger. Now he saw how really tiny she was.
A human in a cage near them jerked upright and screamed hysterically. Julia’s body jerked but she didn’t make a sound.
Zurian moved so that he could look the screaming human in the eye. The little man stopped the noise that upset Julia with an audible gulp. He turned to find her watching him. He resisted the urge to glance at the cage to their left in the far darkest part of the cellar. The male who had come to her house lay there unconscious. He had not moved since they came into the basement but Zurian could hear him breathe. If she knew he was captured as well, she would feel concern and focus on the yellow-haired male.
Zurian had seen the interested glances she gave the male when he came to her house. The same glances he saw Natalie give Zacar. Zurian knew Julia recoiled from his true form. She’d tried many times to stop him from entering her house. Never looked at him the way she’d looked at the yellow-haired puny human. He squeezed the steel bars. She even told him she thought he looked like a demon. An ugly horned creature from their mythology who lived in Hell.
He frowned down at the bent bars on the floor. Human technology was so inferior he still didn’t understand why they had to conquer a planet so far away. They should have left and found another planet. Getting supplies proved nearly impossible and they had not had one worthy battle.
He glanced at her. The only pleasing human on a planet of beings that should be made extinct. He did the kiss wrong. In the human manuals, they said to open the woman’s mouth with your lips and stick your tongue in their mouth. They would try again, until she enjoyed the kiss too. He would stick his tongue farther into her mouth until she learned to crave him.