Shadowed: Brides of the Kindred book 8 (11 page)

Then the wormhole grabbed them and yanked them through.

Chapter Ten

Nina was too frightened to even scream as the little ship dived into the swirling blue maw of the wormhole. Despite the man who had abducted her saying they would be fine, she didn’t believe him. She could see his arms bunching, the muscles under his skin twisting like pythons as he fought to keep the ship on track. There was a fierce concentration in his hooded silver eyes, and his face was twisted into a sneer of effort.

I’m going to die now,
she thought numbly as the brilliant blue light swallowed them whole and the ship began to rock and shake.
This is how it ends. Being kidnapped by an alien lunatic I’ve only seen in my dreams and torn apart in space by a freaking cosmic phenomenon.
It was so bizarre it would have been funny if she hadn’t been too afraid to laugh.

The ship began shaking even harder, and it felt like something had hit its side. Nina didn’t hear any metallic clangs like she had when the bullets hit, but it jerked hard and then started to wobble all over the place. Her stomach lurched up in her throat, and for a moment, she was sure she would throw up.
I’ve never liked rollercoasters,
she thought inanely.
Not even the Scooby Doo coaster at Lawrey Park.

The man who had taken her was swearing steadily under his breath—sometimes in English and sometimes in some other, guttural language that sounded alien and strange. Nina wanted to ask him what was going on, but she didn’t dare distract him from his task. He looked like he needed all his concentration to keep them from flying right into the wormhole’s walls.

You
should
distract him,
a sour little voice in her head whispered.
It would be better to die out here—quicker, cleaner—than to go through whatever it is he probably has planned for you.

The voice was almost certainly right, but Nina remained silent. Honestly at this minute, she was afraid if she opened her mouth she was going to puke. So she kept her teeth clamped together and her lips shut, struggling with herself, hoping she didn’t have to spend her last few minutes of life throwing up.

Then, as suddenly as they had entered it, they shot out of the wormhole…and straight at the side of a large purple planet.

“Shit!” her abductor growled and then repeated the sentiment in his harsh alien language.

“What’s happening?” Nina’s voice sounded curiously calm and detached in her own ears. “Why are we headed straight for that purple world?”

“Gravitational pull,” he said, answering her to her surprise. “The steering system is shot, and the thrusters seem to be too.”

“Then what’s…what’s going to happen?” Nina asked.

He spared her a quick glance. “We’re going to crash, sweetheart,” he growled. “That’s what’s going to happen. Better brace for impact.”

“Oh my God,” Nina whispered. She was pinned back against her seat by the incredible G-force of the ship hurtling toward the ground, and her chest felt tight and heavy like an elephant was standing on it—she could hardly breathe. She wished she could at least close her eyes so she didn’t have to see her impending doom, but the side of the purple planet loomed larger and larger in the screen in front of her, and she found herself powerless to look away.

Mehoo,
she thought as a huge violet landmass came up to meet them,
Who will bring you your favorite hamburger now? Who will learn to make your healing medicine? I’m sorry, so sorry I didn’t learn more…

Suddenly, everything went blue as currents of strange blue-green gel foamed out of the console in front of her. Nina looked around wildly—it seemed to be coming from everywhere.

Oh my God! What the hell?
Apparently, she wasn’t going to die in the crash after all—she was going to drown in blue gel instead. The view of the purple planet rushing up to meet them took on the look of a strange, underwater landscape. The gel had covered Nina’s mouth and was almost up to her nose. She couldn’t even swim to get away—her hands were cuffed, and she was bound to her seat.

Going to die! Going to die,
going to die!
screamed the voice in her head.

There was a crunching noise, and she felt her head jerk forward and knock against something that was soft at first and then hard. She took one last breath of air, lifting her chin frantically to rise above the seething gel…and then everything went dark.

When she woke up, the cabin was bathed in a sickly greenish light and her head was pounding. The view outside the windshield-like screen at the front of the ship showed only darkness and vague purple humps that might have been hills or haystacks or simply shadows.

At first, Nina couldn’t remember where she was or what she was doing there. Her last memory was of telling Mr. Witherspoon she absolutely would
not
give him a “happy ending” for his massage. How the hell had she ended up here, strapped to a seat with her hands cuffed and her head aching?

Then it all came rushing back—the man from her dream, the one with a shadowed face and burning silver eyes…the way he had abducted her and shot them both into space…the crazy, nausea-inducing trip through the wormhole in the wobbling ship and the crash landing on the vast purple planet.

But everything turned blue right before the crash. I thought I was going to drown. Was that my imagination?

Nina blinked and looked around. No, she hadn’t imagined it. There were still clumps of blue gel clinging to the console and puddles of it on the floor at her feet but it seemed to be melting even as she watched. Maybe it was some kind of cushioning system—the Kindred version of an airbag in case of collision. Nina could still feel the sticky remains of it on her cheeks.

She lifted her hands instinctively to wipe it off and remembered afresh that she was cuffed and helpless. Looking at the copper-colored cuffs that seemed to have molded themselves to her wrists made her think of her captor—where was he?

Looking to her left, Nina saw that the pilot’s chair was empty. Had he left her? Abandoned her in the wrecked ship while she was helpless and unconscious? The bastard! Where the hell had he gone? Nina wriggled in the tight harness, filled with righteous indignation. But then, by craning her head around the side of her seat and looking over her shoulder, she saw him at last.

He was slumped in a sitting position in the narrow walkway behind the cockpit area. His head was sunk on his broad chest, his face hidden by his shaggy dark blue hair, and his hands dangled limply between his spread legs.

The sight gave Nina a sudden chill—he looked like a marionette whose strings had been cut. She couldn’t be sure if he was breathing or not, and a strange squeezing feeling began in her chest. Part of her was glad he’d been injured and possibly killed in the crash—at least now he couldn’t hurt her or do whatever horrible thing he’d had planned for her.

But if he’s dead, you’re trapped. Marooned on an alien planet in another part of the universe miles—no—
light years—
from Earth. How will you ever get back?

It was a good question, and as Nina considered it, she felt panic rising in her chest, filling her throat like dry cotton until she couldn’t breathe…couldn’t think…

I need to check on him. Need to see if he’s okay or not.
She scrabbled frantically at the side of the tight harness, but the alien locking mechanism defied her suddenly clumsy fingers. Trapped—she was trapped and couldn’t get out.

“Hey,” she shouted at him—or tried to shout, anyway. Her voice came out in a tight little whisper instead. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Hey—are you okay, Mr.…uh, Reddix? Come over here and let me out of this thing!”

There was no response.

“Oh God…Oh my God…” Nina heard herself mumbling.

Suddenly, it was as though Meehoo Jimmy was whispering in her ear.

Slowly, eecho—take a deep breath. Going crazy won’t help you now. You have to be calm.

Yes. Calm. Nina took a deep breath, following her Meehoo’s advice. She had to stay calm if she was ever going to get out of this mess. She closed her eyes for a long minute and put her head down, concentrating on breathing. When she opened them, something between her feet caught her eyes. Something with the same dull, coppery sheen as the cuffs around her wrist.

The key thingy!
Excitement shot through her. If she could get her hands on the key to her cuffs, she was halfway to being free.

The difficulty was getting it. The harness she was in wasn’t like an ordinary seatbelt—it had a lap belt and two thick straps crisscrossed over her shoulders and chest in an X. These straps seemed to have tightened during the impact—so much so that Nina could barely breathe. She wiggled around a little, and they loosened some—but not enough to slide out of the harness altogether. She felt for the locking mechanism on the side again with no luck, though she had the maddening feeling that if she’d just had both hands free she could have figured it out.

Finally, she decided the best thing would be to try and get the small copper key-thing with her feet. Blessing the weekly yoga class she always made time for, Nina managed to grip the small device, which was about the size and shape of a lighter, between the rubber soles of her tennis shoes. Raising her feet carefully until she felt like her hips might pop out of their sockets, she was able to snag the copper mechanism with two fingers.

She almost dropped it at that point, but somehow, after a moment a frantic cursing, she managed to juggle it back into her palm. She gripped it tight, being careful not to press any buttons, and sent a silent prayer of thanks. Step one completed—she was halfway to being free.

Her first impulse was to start pushing buttons, but Nina forced herself to stop and study the device carefully instead. After all, what if she pushed the wrong button and the cuffs tightened so much they cut her hands off?

As it turned out, the copper key looked like a very simple device. There were only two buttons on it. The top one glowed a soft blue, and the bottom one glowed red. Taking a deep breath, Nina pressed the top one.

She was all ready to push the red one in case the cuffs started tightening, but she was pleasantly surprised. With a soft hiss, the cuffs abruptly opened, freeing her hands instantly.

“Thank God!” Nina whispered under her breath. She rubbed her wrists for a moment even though the strange alien handcuffs had left no marks on her—no cuts or bruises. She wasn’t even chafed from wearing them. All the same, she was extremely glad to get them off.

Once the copper cuffs were off, the locking mechanism of the harness proved to be a snap. Literally—it made a snapping sound when Nina finally released it. She drew a deep breath of relief when the X-shaped harness slid away.

Standing up, she tried to get the pins and needles out of her fingers and toes.

“You are now free to move about the cabin,” she muttered to herself and had to smother a giggle that rose in her throat and popped like a soap bubble. God, what was wrong with her? She felt positively giddy with relief in being free but how free was she, really? True, her captor was out of the running—injured or possibly dead—but she was still marooned on an alien planet light years from her home.

Stop giggling like a fool, eecho,
she heard Mehoo-Jimmy scold.
And get busy finding out where you are and how you’re going to get home.

Right. She needed to check on Reddix—what an odd name, but then, he wasn’t exactly a normal guy—and see if the only person who knew how to fly the ship was dead or just incapacitated. Taking a breath to calm her nerves, Nina stepped toward him.

Even slumped down as he was, he was still huge—like a mountain of muscle at rest. She found her heart was pounding in her ears as she got closer to him. What if he was putting on an act? Waiting for her to get close enough that he could grab her and strap her down again?

Slowly, she reached for him, meaning to check for a pulse. But her fingers lingered just above the strong column of his neck, unable to make contact. There was something about him—something that made her reluctant to touch him. It wasn’t just the electric shock she remembered from their first contact—it was the way he smelled. A warm, deep, masculine musk that seemed to invade her senses until she felt almost dizzy. That scent brought back every strange dream she’d had of him—along with the strangely entwined sensations of dread and desire that had accompanied them.

She stood there hovering over him so long she got a sharp cramp in her back from bending over. Putting a hand to her lower back with an angry little cry, she massaged fiercely.

This is stupid. Stop being such a coward and just do it!

Leaning down again, she forced herself to press the pads of her first two fingers to the side of his neck, feeling for the carotid pulse. Except…did Kindred have carotid arteries? Apparently they did because after a moment, she felt his pulse, strong and steady and slow, as though he was simply asleep.

Feeling braver, she pushed his head back carefully until it rested against the cabinet type panel behind him. He didn’t even stir—just kept breathing slowly and evenly with his eyes closed. Hmm. Bolder than ever, Nina pushed his shaggy dark blue hair out of his face and looked at him—really
looked
at him—for the first time since he had abducted her.

He had a cut above his left eye that looked nasty—it was going to leave a scar, which was a shame with a face like his. The blood had trickled down the side of his cheek along his strong jawline, which was badly in need of a shave.

But even the ugly wound couldn’t diminish the perfection of his features. Nina bit her lip as she stared at him. Her first assessment had been right—he really was almost inhumanly gorgeous. With a face like this and his huge, muscular body, he could have any woman he wanted. So then, why had he bothered to kidnap
her?
It couldn’t be for her looks—Nina knew she was pretty in a girl-next-door kind of way, but she was nowhere near beautiful enough to match this man. Honestly, she didn’t know if
anyone
was. He’d said something about her being the one he needed though, back when he was shouting at the other guy on the ship’s radio—what could a man who looked like this possibly need from her?