Dark Solstice (3 page)

It hit her forcefully at that moment.

Raathe sensed her discomfort and wondered idly if he’d lived like an animal so long now that his senses had been honed to the keenness of a predator or if he was just hypersensitive to her because it had been so long since he’d been around a woman. Wryly, he thought it was probably both. He’d been more predator than man before he was incarcerated else he wouldn’t have survived as long as he had on Phobos. It just wasn’t something he’d actually been conscious of until … her.

It would be hell for her to have to live as he’d lived. It had been hell to him and he’d grown immured to situations as crude, or worse, in the years he’d spent working first as one of the government’s top killers and then as Johann Solutions’ paid assassin. She was still too scared to really take it all in, yet, but she wasn’t going to thrive under the rough conditions she was going to have to deal with. She had a stronger spirit than he would’ve thought just from the look of her or she would’ve already gone psycho on him, but he doubted it would sustain her long. He could see she was holding herself together by a thread now.

Not that there was a hell of a lot he could do about it, he thought disgustedly. He considered himself resourceful, but he didn’t have a hell of a fucking lot to work with here. “You should get dressed unless you want to be marched to the mess hall like that,” he muttered without looking at her.

Rhea felt her face redden when she glanced at him automatically when he spoke. She looked away again, pushing herself upright with an effort. Her suit wasn’t on the floor where she’d last seen it and she scanned the cell, discovering it had been hung up to dry. Surprise flickered through her, both that the iceman had gotten up without waking her at some point and that he’d had the consideration to hang the suit to dry.

Maybe it wasn’t consideration, though? Maybe he’d stepped on the wet, soggy thing and simply tossed it out of his way?

It was still damp, she discovered when she’d crossed the cell to retrieve it, but far closer to dry than it would’ve been if it had been left in a heap where it was. She cleared her throat. “Thank you.”

He didn’t respond, but she really hadn’t expected him to. Shaking it to eliminate whatever dirt she could, she stepped into the suit and pressed the closure together. A sound behind her drew her attention while she was trying to brush the dirt off that still clung to the fabric and she discovered when she’d turned that he’d dragged the thin mattress from the other bunk in the room and leaned it against the wall, forming a sort of tent over the toilet.

He glanced at her when he straightened and shrugged. “Not much privacy, but better than none.”

For her or for him? Somehow, she doubted he cared, but then again, he’d undoubtedly had the cell to himself for a while.

She wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. It beat the hell out of perching on the thing and staring him in the face. Nodding, she hurried to make use of it as she heard a stir outside and realized the prisoners were about to be herded to the mess hall to be fed.

He joined her at the tiny sink when she moved to wash up. It felt strange to hover over the small bowl with him, trying to wash up and brush her teeth while he did. There was only one tooth brush—not surprisingly, but he didn’t object when she helped herself to some of the toothpaste to try to clean her teeth.

“I don’t suppose you’ve any credits?”

They’d moved to the front of the cell to stand before the door, waiting for it to be opened. Rhea looked up at him at the question. She hadn’t realized until she was standing beneath the man just how tall he was—or how massive. It gave her a jolt. Realizing he was waiting for an answer, she searched her mind and discovered she had no idea. “I did before.”

He nodded, as if that was answer enough. “I expect it’s disappeared now like everything else you had.” His face hardened with irritation and reluctance. “I’ll see what I can do about getting a few supplies for you. Don’t expect much. There’s little to be had and it’s not cheap.”

Maintenance? She was still surprised. She would’ve been more inclined to think he’d just get whatever mileage he could and not worry about the quality of it. She nodded. “Thank you.”

He made a derisive sound and she glanced at his battered face again searchingly. “I’d almost forgotten what ‘civilized’ people were like. It won’t last, baby—assuming you do.”

Fear clutched at her. She struggled to dismiss it as the door abruptly opened along with every door within view and prisoners began to pour out into the walkway. Raathe nudged her forward. She studied her feet, trying to close her mind to the potential threat. Guards, she realized after a few moments, strolled along a narrow walkway above them, scanning the prison population with little interest.

The flicker of hopefulness she felt at her glimpse of them died. More likely, she realized, if she was attacked, they would merely watch. They were safe from the prisoners themselves.

Raathe’s hand settled on her arm possessively. She flicked a quick look at him and around at the others crowding them and realized he was staking his claim for their benefit.

It still comforted her. Whatever his reasons, it was patently clear that he was as feared as he was hated by the other prisoners. So long as he made it obvious that she was his possession and he wouldn’t take kindly to claim jumping, she was relatively safe—from the others anyway.

Raathe was another matter.

She wasn’t certain what to make of his behavior thus far. He was a stone cold killer, as cold blooded as they came. Maybe he didn’t particularly relish killing, though, and had no interest in it if he wasn’t being paid for it?

Was that a ray of sunshine in the blackness of her future?

She couldn’t allow herself to think so. No one with as little regard for human life as John Raathe would think twice about killing her if the mood struck, and she had no idea what might trigger his killer instincts.

She didn’t see any sign of any of the other women she’d spotted until they reached the vast cavern that served as a mess hall and looked around. They were focused on trying to pretend they were alone in the universe, however, and none of them met her gaze. They looked drawn and battered and subdued, not like women who were treated well at all. The little appetite she’d had vanished long before she had a tray of food slapped into her hands and allowed Raathe to guide her toward a table. There was certainly nothing appetizing about the food itself. If it tasted half as bad as it looked, she was pretty sure she couldn’t choke it down.

“Eat,” Raathe said in a low growl, tamping the unaccustomed flicker of discomfort it gave him to bully her into eating with the reflection that he wouldn’t be doing her any favors to coddle her. Beyond the fact that she was going to have to be tough to survive, she couldn’t afford any show of gentleness on his part. The others were watching. They were always watching for any chink in his armor. Any hint that he wasn’t completely indifferent to her beyond her usefulness as a handy hole for his lust and they’d be all over her like rabid dogs faster than he could spit.

He didn’t need the fucking headache she represented.

If he’d had any choice in the matter, she wouldn’t be sitting beside him now. He would’ve been completely content to sit in the stands and watch some other poor bastard lay his life on the line for a chance to fuck her—or rather entertain the fucking warden and his men.

He’d actually been surprised there
was
a prize for the winner of the contest beyond breathing a few more days. As often as not, that was the only reward in the offing—a little more time in hell if they could manage to get through the arena with their body still, relatively, intact.

He could
feel
their eagerness to get their hands on her,
smell
the stench of lust lying like a thick, putrid smog over the mess hall. Right now they were biding their time, waiting to see if he would farm her out for favors as the other men did their women from time to time. Right now they were wondering if he’d come through the fight in the pit with enough strength left to break their fucking necks if they challenged him.

He hoped they didn’t decide to test it. He was too stiff and sore to move fast if he needed to. Luckily for him, and for her, everybody else had already been in as bad a shape as he was, or worse, by the time the fucking guards had handed out the weapons. He’d managed to come out of the battle with relatively minor cuts—nothing he wouldn’t recover from or that had made him leak more blood than he could afford to lose. He’d been pretty convinced the night before that he had at least one cracked rib, but he was fairly certain, now, that it was just bruising that made it hard to breathe.

Regardless, he didn’t like the odds he had of winning any fight at the moment. If he could just get through a few days without aggravating any of his injuries, get a little time to work some of the soreness out, he’d be alright for a little longer. He’d be able to hold his own.

Rhea stiffened at the order, but she knew balking wasn’t the way to survive.

She wasn’t sure that there was actually any reason to try. What did she have to look forward to? Years of this? Probably not. Months, then.

He shoved a spoon into her hand and curled her fingers around it. “If you’re considering escaping that way, forget it.”

When he relaxed his bruising grip on her hand and finally released it, she spooned up some of the mush and shoveled it into her mouth, trying not to breathe or taste—with dubious success. It was worse than the food she’d been given the night before. Her throat closed when she tried to swallow. She swallowed convulsively a few times and finally managed to get the food down. It hit the bottom of her cavernously empty stomach like a rock and she scooped up another spoonful.

With grim determination, she ate most of what was on the tray. Raathe, after studying her a moment, cleaned up the remainder.

He must have a cast iron stomach, she thought, but then he was made of iron, or steel, wasn’t he? She’d seen droids that showed more emotion.

The horn blast that signaled the end of the meal nearly made her jump out of her skin. Everyone rose and filed to one end of the mess hall where they deposited their spoon, tray, and the cup they’d been given to drink from.

There were guards at the door as they filed out that were directing the prisoners, some down one hall, others down another. One placed his rifle between her and Raathe, jerking his head at Raathe to indicate the right hand corridor. Raathe’s hand tightened on her arm. “She stays with me,” he said in a low, rumbling growl, fixing a cold, steady gaze on the guard.

For a moment, Rhea thought he would lose the battle of wills, but, to her surprise, the guard yielded. “Take her, then.”

She saw as they followed the right hand corridor that the majority of the prisoners had been directed that way. They came eventually to another large cavern. Men were grabbing PEC suits and scrambling into them. Raathe dragged her to one of the nearest bins, grabbed a PEC, or Personal Environmental Control suit, and tossed it to her. “Check it carefully. They don’t give a fuck if it’s got holes or not.”

Horror washed over her. She blinked at him a couple of times, but grabbed the PEC he’d shoved at her and checked it carefully while he grabbed another and examined it, noting that it was the sort of heavy duty PEC designed specifically for long hours of hard labor. Bladders had been built into the crotch and inner legs of the suit to carry away waste and contain it until it could be vacuumed out. Water and feeding tubes ran up either side of the upper torso along the back of the suit to connect with the light weight, ultra thin life support unit that would be carried on the back. The tubes terminated just above the shoulders so a person could reach either one just by turning their head slightly to the left or right for water or liquefied sustenance.

She was still checking the suit for the possibility of microscopic holes when he’d stripped and donned his own. “Not that carefully,” he said dryly. “Get in it before they open the bays.”

That explained why the prisoners, despite the possibility that the suits they’d been given might not be safe, hadn’t spent a great deal of time examining them. She hastened to comply, her hands shaking with urgency as she quickly removed the suit she’d been wearing and pulled the life support suit on and began to fasten it up. Raathe dragged her to a long row of helmets while she was still trying to finish closing it up, grabbed one and settled it over her head, clamping the closures to seal her in. Shoving a breather into her hands, he left her to shrug into the lightweight apparatus and attach her tubes and grabbed another helmet and breather for himself.

An alarm went off. Rhea’s stomach went weightless as she felt a slight shift in the pressure around her and realized they’d already begun sucking the air from the room.

From somewhere in the room, Rhea heard a man’s voice bellowing that his suit was ripped. The terror in his voice made it all too clear that Raathe hadn’t exaggerated the situation. It caused a commotion, but everyone was too busy checking their own life support to spare much attention to his dilemma as he battered his way between the other prisoners in a desperate search for a suit.

He screamed as the horn blasted again. The sound cut through Rhea like a knife, drawing her instinctively to look.

Raathe jerked her around, hauling her toward the line of men who were preparing to board the shuttle that would carry them to the planet below. She shot a quick glance at his hard face, torn between horror that he could be so unconcerned about the man and both surprise and relief that he’d guided her into her own suit when she’d been too ignorant to understand the situation.

She didn’t look for the man again as they shuffled forward to climb the gangplank into the waiting transport. She didn’t want to know what had happened to him. If she didn’t look at least she could tell herself that he’d found a suit and managed to get into it before the doors opened, sucking what little oxygen remained in the room out into space.

She tried not to think about the possibility that she was the one extra person not accounted for, that she was wearing the suit the poor man might have had if Raathe hadn’t been determined to take her with him. She didn’t know why he was unless he was just dead set on not letting his ‘prize’ out of his sight.