Kidnapped By Her Husbands (Wings of Artemis Book 1) (11 page)

“Here’s the deal. I don’t want to—but, I cannot live in a world where we leave that child to die. So you’re going to open the force field and let them in, or I am going to throw myself against it. I don’t want to hurt my baby and I have no desire to die. But I won’t be able to make it, to live another day, if we don’t put that little boy in your machine and fix him. What if my daughter needs help some day and there’s some cosmic justice or something and she doesn’t get it because we’re not helping now? Maybe that sounds crazy. Maybe I’m nuts. I don’t care. I’m basically powerless. I get it. Try me on this.”

I wasn’t even bluffing. I had played my only card.

“Fuck.” Dane charged forward, tapping on his wrist as he did. I heard a whoosh sound. “You stay here. Right where you are. We’ll bring the child on. His parents and the other kid stay outside. I won’t have them destroying the ship because we decided we were a hospital.”

Dane passed me as he gave his orders. I let out the breath I’d held. He was going to help them. He reached the family quickly, pulling the mother to her feet and taking the young child into his arms. I couldn’t hear what he said to them, his voice low, but the mother shook her head violently and tried to tug her bleeding son into her arms. Dane resisted, motioning toward the ship with his shoulder. The father roared at him.

Before I could even think about it, I ran to them, grabbing onto Dane’s arm and pulling him toward the ship even as I turned to face the scared family.

“Go,” I called to him. “Get him inside.”

“No.” The mother gripped my shoulders. “I have to go with him.”

I could understand her absolute need to not let her dying son out of her sight. “Listen to me. Dane can’t let you on that ship. We don’t know you. This is the world we live in.” I wasn’t even sure where my words came from. What did I really understand about the politics of the universe? My whole memorable existence had taken place in a center designed to make me a good wife to a person who never sees this kind of pain. “We let you on that ship and what if you do something to harm us? He’s a doctor, a good one. Not only does he have a machine to stabilize your son, but he can fix him so he doesn’t suffer from this horrible day anymore.” I really hoped Dane could. “Let him go. Do you see those buildings over there? Wait there. We’ll bring him to you.”

“No.” The father grabbed at my shoulders. “My wife stays with him.”

“Hey.” Dane didn’t so much yell as he roared. “You fucking let her go.”

The gentle doctor had cursed twice. That couldn’t be a good sign.

“Okay. Okay.” I placed what I hoped was a calming hand on the father’s arm. “I’ll stay with you. We’ll all go to those buildings. Dane keeps your boy. You keep me. Then we trade. Sound okay?”

Dane shook his head. “I’m not agreeing to this, Mel.”

“Get the kid onto the ship, Dane, before he bleeds to death or a bunch of crazies get closer with their machine guns. Please. These people don’t want to hurt me. They just don’t want to lose their son. We can all be okay here. I promise.” I stepped out of the man’s arms. “Come on. Quicker he goes in, quicker he comes out.”

Dane’s eye twitched. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.”

“I’m not giving you a choice. This isn’t a consent thing, it just is what it is.” I patted the man on his arm. “Let’s go get your family safe and let Dane do what he does.”

The baby kicked me hard, right in my left rib, and I grunted at the pain before I turned and led the family to the office building where I wanted them to wait. If the gunfire made it to Artemis, I didn’t want them in the fray. The door to the one-story office space was unlocked, with office supplies, chairs, desks, and lamps strewn everywhere. I wondered if, when the fighting started, everyone inside had run for their lives.

“This is insane,” the father screamed to the ceiling.

I needed something better to call these people than mother, father, son, and injured boy. “I’m Melissa.” Maybe if I gave them my name, they’d give me theirs.

The mother was short with brown hair and blue eyes. She had freckles over her nose and she walked with a limp, which hadn’t stopped her from carrying her son to us in the middle of a warzone. She spoke first. “I’m Natalie. This is my husband, Peter, and our son, Brody. Your man took David onto the ship.”

I nodded, reaching out to take her hand. Locked in an office building with these people did not seem the time to argue that Dane was not my man. “He’s a very good doctor.”

“Everyone in the hospital went running. Everyone is afraid. The doctors the Nobles send here are not very good anyway. Not like Ochoa, where I came from. The ones there were the top students on Kakstan. I can’t imagine what training your man would have had to end up a rebel. The good doctors are all Nobles, not rebels.”

The Nomads hated that word. I let go of her hand. Natalie didn’t need to hear what little I knew about Dane’s education. He’d helped design the mind wiping technology. Probably, he was as smart as any doctor she’d ever known. If she’d been born on Ochoa, how had she ended on Hall? What did they do on Hall anyway? It hadn’t been in the star maps I’d learned. We were too close to the edge of what the Nobles deemed acceptable planets. I’m sure she had a story, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask about it. For a man to have a wife on Hall, he must have importance. The lessons on Master’s had been clear. The further out in the galaxy a man lived, the harder it was to have a woman without having a strong connection to the Nobles. I looked at Peter. He stood tall, almost as big as C.J., but not as broad.

What had he done to earn a wife?

No wonder Dane hadn’t wanted them on the ship. We weren’t saving some poor couple who needed help. I rubbed at my eyes. She’d been born on Ochoa. Natalie wasn’t a local girl who somehow found love and got to stay on her planet.

These people were Nobles or maybe as close as Hall got. And they’d been in the way when the bombs went off.

I pulled a chair to a nearby window and climbed on top of it to look outside. Dane hadn’t wanted me to go with them. I’d basically strong-armed him into it after I’d called him a coward. Goosebumps broke out on my arms. Why was I afraid? I’d wanted help from people who could turn me over to the Nobles, and here I was locked in a room with two of them who could probably do just that.

Yet, I remained silent.

“Your name isn’t Melissa. It’s Melissa-Fucking-Alexander.” Brody spoke finally, looking at me with his mother’s blue eyes. I started at his words, my whole body going cold at his easy use of profanity. “You’re the rebellion’s princess. We see you on the airwaves when you take them over. Blow them to bits, you’re always saying.”

His parents both sucked in their breaths and stared at me. Natalie’s mouth hung open and she grabbed Brody’s shoulder before tugging him to her like I’d suddenly become a threat. Peter narrowed his gaze and stepped in front of his wife.

“Look,” I tried to soothe as I had outside the ship. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I had my mind erased a little while ago. Truth is, whatever I did, I have no recollection of it. What I know is I’m not armed, I’m pregnant, and I convinced the doctor to help you when you came to us begging. You had to know who you were asking for assistance. Whatever our political differences were—and I’m using the past tense, because with no memory I have no interest in the Nobles or the Nomads—let’s put them aside and remember we’re all human beings. At a very basic level, they have your son, you have me. You want him returned, you give me back. If nothing else, let’s go with that.”

They were silent, which didn’t mean they were going to act reasonably. With what little I knew, I could see how stress made people do ridiculous things—like calling Dane a coward had him lowering force fields he’d never have messed with otherwise.

I leaned against the window and stared at Artemis. Nothing changed about how much I wanted the boy to live. Children shouldn’t be killed in the wars of adults.

The baby kicked me, hard. She clearly had her own opinions.

Artemis was an ugly ship. I’d never seen it from the outside before. Her insides had seen better days, and so had her outside. She’d been painted green, had been rusted, and graffitied. Red roses and lion faces swirled across the outside in nonsensical designs. Her wings were outstretched, although I believed they would pull in when she took off.

How did I know that? I rubbed at my head, expecting a headache but none came, which seemed odd. Any time I tried to figure out unexpected knowledge, I got a headache, except now. Maybe it was the adrenaline…

Nolan, C.J., Geoff, and Wes ran toward the ship, followed by three men I’d never seen before. They must be the other Nomads. Two of them were blonds and one had dark brown hair. I couldn’t make out much else as they all ran full speed onto the ship. The door rose behind them shutting before the engines roared to life and Artemis rose from the ground toward the sky.

Oh no
…

They were leaving. I turned around, hoping Peter and his family hadn’t noticed, but by the look on Peter’s face as he stared at the window next to me, no way he could miss it.

“They’ll be back. They just don’t know. Nolan probably took off, assuming I was on board and having no idea your son was there.” Or not. Nolan pretty much hated me. He’d never said as much, yet I’d have to be a complete idiot not to feel his disgust every time I came anywhere near him. Maybe he’d finally had enough. I’d asked to leave. This could be him giving me what I wanted.

Only I didn’t wish for it here. Not in a room with Peter, whose pacing made me wonder if he might explode any second.

The man pulled out his gun and aimed it at my head. I raised my hands. “I see you’re armed.”

“We’d be crazy not to be with rebels around.”

His wife grabbed his arm. “Peter. No. They have David. They’ll kill him.”

“We’re never seeing him again. They take children to that moving planet of theirs and they never come back. I told you not to do this. The rebels don’t help. They only make things worse. We should have let David die. He’d be better off. His life will be a living hell. And they discarded their trash by leaving her here. What good is a former leader who doesn’t even know what she did for them?” He laughed, a long harsh sound, and my head pounded, pushing any questions I had about what he said away from my mind. “My father did a service and I got you, sweetheart. I’m going to do the Nobles another solid, and they’ll give Brody a bride.”

I stepped away from the chair. “You don’t want to kill me.”

“Oh, but I do.” His eyes widened with every word he spoke. “I’ve never wanted anything more.”

“How about delivering to Prince Cooper Jackson a baby girl? They’re rare, right? The Nobles love to have girls brought to Ochoa.” I was really stretching my worth. I had no idea whether or not Ochoa wanted babies delivered to them. From the way Peter’s eyebrows sloped downward when I spoke I wondered if he also didn’t know. Well…I was going to have to go for it now.

In for a penny…

“What a boon it would be for you. Prince Cooper knows me personally. He helped me in Master’s.” Exaggeration couldn’t hurt. I’d been sort of responsible for stealing his shuttle. That alone should have made some kind of impression. “Call his people. Tell them you have me. He’ll get you a girl for sure.”

Natalie fell to her knees. “David. David. I want David.”

I wanted him, too. “Prince Cooper can get him.”

Boy, I was really making the prince out to be powerful. The guys hated him; C.J. going as far as to want to slit his throat. I hoped I hadn’t promised them an angel when a devil would actually show. What I really needed was the guys to return with David. They couldn’t possibly want a child on their ship. Did they drop prisoners off at some particular planet? If I got out of this situation I’d study star maps until I memorized every planet in the universe.

“Call him.”

Peter stayed silent for a moment before he punched forward, hitting me square in the jaw. Natalie cried out, covering her mouth with her hands and pulling Brody closer. I fell to my knees, pain making stars appear before my eyes.

You stupid, stupid girl. You’ve ruined everything. They’ll never take you pregnant. Do you know what we went through to get you here, and you picked them over our future?

I wasn’t sure whose voice I heard in my head, but it wasn’t anyone in the room with me. I’d heard those words the last time I’d been hit in the face. A woman had spoken them in anger. My head ached and not from the hit, but because of the memory. I wiped at tears as they slid across my face. What had I done with my life that I’d been punched in the face before?

I looked at Peter, my hand fisting as though I might be able to fight. I breathed through the anger. I was very pregnant, and I had no idea if I could hit anyone or not, even if the muscles in my hands seemed to think I could.

With nothing else to do, I crawled to the corner. He would either call Cooper or he wouldn’t. The prince either could decide to help or not. I had no power. I’d made a very big mistake. My gumption, which had had me calling out Dane and threatening suicide by force field, fled.

Eventually, Peter pulled a phone out of his pocket. The guards at Master’s carried them. He dialed a number and spoke sternly into the device while his wife carried Brody and held him on her lap on the other side of the room.

“I need to speak to a representative of Prince Cooper.” So, Peter wasn’t important enough to get right through. This could work to my advantage. If it took a little time to get Cooper on the phone, the guys could return with David.

I chewed on my fingernail. I really didn’t know how much the machine would fix the child and how much would have to come from Dane himself. I didn’t really think Dane’s job involved solely hitting point and click on a computer screen.

We could be in this situation for a while. What would happen when the people who worked in these offices returned?

“Natalie, I want you to know I only meant to help David. That was my only intention.”

She didn’t answer me or look in my direction. Whatever had made her initially trust me, she no longer did.