How had she forgotten how beautiful they were? She didn’t realize she was staring until Diablo’s low growl drew her gaze to his eyes. Red fire flashed in the depths.
He spoke in a voice full of teeth. “Come to taunt us?”
The question startled her. Not the question so much as his speaking at all. They’d been so silent, not even talking to each other.
“No.” She looked to Drake who nodded.
“Five minutes,” he said.
She stepped forward and held out the protein bar where they could all see. “I brought ration bars.” She smiled, but she knew her nerves showed in the tightness of her lips.
Diablo was directly in front of her. His whole body had gone on high alert the moment she’d stepped forward. His eyes stalked her, his body twitched in readiness, drawing her attention to his sleek muscles. She wanted to stroke a hand across his skin to ease his hurts, but the memory of his claws swiping at her face kept her from walking toward him. Instead she kept well out of his reach and headed for Mercury—the man who’d touched her with sensual promise.
He lay still on his side like a sculpture, all defined muscle and the sharp relief of golden skin stretched tight over cheek bones, ribs, hips. He looked relaxed at first glance, but his muscles were taut and his storm cloud eyes followed her, alert.
She kneeled in front of his cage and held out the ration bar.
He didn’t move.
She huffed out a breath. “I need you to take it.”
His eyelids lowered and opened in a slow-motion blink. His gaze shifted past her to the men at the door, stun-sticks in hand.
Samantha lowered her voice. “They aren’t going to hurt you. Please. Take it.”
His nose flared and his eyes traced her face as gently as the soft press of lips. For one pregnant moment she thought he’d reach for it, but instead he rolled over, turning his back. The thick, white scars marring the muscular expanse lashed at her determination. Why did she think a man who’d been treated so cruelly could trust her offer?
“Three and a half minutes, Sam.” Drake’s voice made her jump.
She pushed to her feet and made a fast, wide, arc around Diablo to get to the one they called Carnage. Stars, he was big. Even lying down. She didn’t think she wanted to see him standing up close. She quickly dropped down, just out of his reach and held out the bar.
“Please,” she said. “If one of you take it, you’ll all be allowed to eat.”
He rolled up to a kneeling position facing her. A silver scar cut across his jaw, an old wound. Four parallel cuts, newly healing, wrapped around his ribs and dark shadows rimmed his black eyes. “If you want to help us…” His voice was low, barely more than a whisper. “Get us off this ship.”
The pain-filled request gutted her. The rendezvous with Sevti’s friends couldn’t come soon enough. She wanted to offer reassurance, hope, but the presence of the men at the door kept her silent.
“Two minutes, Sam.”
Drake’s reminder was a weight settling across her shoulders. Why had she thought it would be easy? Stars. She’d never been a quitter. The ration bar’s wrapper crinkled as she nervously tapped it against her thigh.
Carnage’s ears flicked and his gaze tracked to the source of the noise.
A flare of hope had her fumbling the package. Her fingers found the pull tab and the wrapper fell away. She broke off a corner and popped it in her mouth then held out the rest of the bar. She chewed then swallowed, dismissing the pain of working the still too large chunks of dry protein mixture down her throat. “See? Nothing wrong with it.”
Diablo growled. “Leave him alone, human.”
His earlier accusation echoed in her thoughts. He’d accused her of being there to taunt them and she’d effectively done just that.
“Not going to try me, little female?”
She looked up to find him looming in the corner of his cage, teeth bared, eyes flashing. Samantha pushed to her feet. With all his rage it would be easy to convince herself the pain she thought she’d seen had been a mirage. That this man might have lost all his humanity.
Diablo’s lips pulled back further, trembling with a growl so low it rumbled across her skin and made her shiver. She could see it in the expanding muscles of his chest. His hands flexed, scraping claws along the metal bars. The sound drew her shoulders tighter. The tension in the room crackled like electricity building up to a strike.
Suddenly, it was harder to breathe—as if everyone in the room had taken in a deep breath all at once, stealing the oxygen.
He could kill her.
They could snap her neck
. Resler’s voice echoed in her head.
She stepped forward, still well out of reach. She couldn’t have more than thirty seconds left.
A sharp bark sounded from Mercury’s cage and Diablo answered back.
Distantly aware that Mercury had sprung to his feet and started a steady growl, Samantha stepped forward again.
And again.
She felt the prick of Diablo’s claws on her arm before she saw him move. The icy chill of panic washed over her—the fire of his hand on her forearm seemed the only warm place left on her body. He’d had to stretch to reach her and for a frozen moment she registered the muscles of his shoulder and arm sharply defined as they pulled taut. She registered the cacophony of growls and shouts that swelled to fill the room. She registered the soft whisper of fabric tearing and the tug on her wrist as he tried to pull her closer.
Samantha jerked hard against his grip. Her ass hit the floor and she crab-walked backward, scrambling out of his reach. Hands reached from behind, grabbing her beneath her arms and pulling her up and away, wrenching her tight muscles in a stab of pain. She sucked in air as her feet found the floor.
She shot out an arm to bar Resler from reaching Diablo with his stun-stick. “No!”
“But—"
“No,” she said again.
“Time’s up, Sam.” Drake’s words came low and mean near her ear.
She cradled her arm against her chest, hiding the skin bared by the ripped fabric. “I know.”
Drake’s hands squeezed her shoulders. “I hope I’ve made my point.”
His point? She knew he wanted this to prove to her that his prisoners, his slaves, were nothing more than animals. Dangerous. Deadly.
She studied the caged men. They were all on their feet now. Agitated, breathing heavy, waiting. She still struggled to breathe past a tight throat and a tugging sensation in her diaphragm. But it wasn’t from fear.
Yes, they were dangerous. Yes, she knew they could be deadly. But if they were nothing more than animals, why was the arm cradled to her chest uninjured? No blood, no pain, no scratches.
And, because she’d failed—for Diablo, Carnage and Mercury—there would be no food.
The Dove
Earth Alliance Beta Sector
2210.149
Four days into the trip and Samantha was exhausted. Exhausted and lonely. The exhaustion was no surprise. The
Dove
was intended to have a four person crew. Most of the systems were automated, but systems checks and navigation updates ate up her days. Dinners with Drake and Resler taxed her better nature and did nothing to make her feel any less lonely.
The loneliness was the biggest surprise. She’d told herself she’d become self-sufficient. That she needed no one. Stars, how she’d lied.
Samantha pulled her legs up onto the seat and rested her chin on her knees as she stared at the blackness of space. It filled up the exterior monitor and threatened to spill into the small pilot’s station. The work area to her left was completely dark, the empty seat turned with its back to her. A small monitor to her right provided the only light, a soft glow as her calculations for the next skip-point crunched by in a scrolling fountain of numbers.
The metal wall that curved up from the monitors to curve over her head was bare. On her father’s ship the walls had been covered with paintings she’d made as a teenager, her first year traveling with him. She couldn’t help but wonder if Shred had left them or had the walls been scoured back to the metal. Back on the Reliable, she’d been too busy crawling around the enormous ship’s systems to dwell on the betrayal of her father’s crew—men she’d lived and worked with for years. And then there were the more complicated emotions twisted up with her father’s death.
She tapped the monitor, switching to a view of the cargo-hold. Like every other time she’d checked on them, the strangely beautiful men were all lying on the floors of their cages. Not sleeping, but quiet and calm. They were probably conserving energy. She sighed. These so called “dogs” had been better passengers than the jerks currently drinking their way through a container of whiskey in the crew commons room.
Samantha zoomed the view on Mercury’s cage. It had been bad enough to know they were going hungry while she ate her fill, but now she was facing the prospect of watching them starve for three damn weeks.
The rendezvous ship should have been waiting at the last skip-point. Ten hours ago. If they didn’t show at the next one, chances were they weren’t coming. And she’d have to make a decision. One that could cost her any hope of holding any job in Alliance territory, let alone the chance to pilot her own freighter.
On the small monitor, Mercury scrambled to his feet. Samantha tapped the screen, returning it to the wide view of the hold. All three men were up and agitated.
Her feet dropped to the floor like the clumsy legs of a marionette and her spine straightened. She was leaning toward the screen when the back of Resler’s head came into view. She pushed back, unable to think of any good reason why a drunken Resler would be in the hold in the middle of the night.
As he moved further into the room, more of him came into view. He held a stun-stick in one hand. She bolted for the nearest hatch and the corridor beyond. Samantha sprinted down toward the cargo-hold. Her heartbeat echoed the heavy thunk of her boots on the decking.
A tiny voice in her head warned that getting between Resler and his prisoners would be dangerous. Would make things harder for her if the rendezvous ship never appeared and she did have to make the hard choice. But all of that was later. Right now she couldn’t let him hurt them.
Sliding to a stop at the cargo-hold hatch, she jabbed the code into the entry pad then twisted the handle and shoved. The moment the seal broke, she heard the shouts and snarls and agonized yelps. She shoved open the door. Resler stood at the end of the line of large cages on the far side of the hold.
He shoved a stun-stick into the nearest cage. “That’s right,” he taunted as Mercury’s body twisted and bowed. “Can’t get away now, you bastard. You need to learn to keep your damn mouth shut when I’m talking.”
In the next cage Diablo snarled and snapped.
“Hey!” Samantha yelled, but Resler seemed too engrossed in his torture to notice. Bile rose in the back of her throat as another bolt jerked Mercury’s body. His muscles locked in response to the shock, making him helpless to avoid the next attack.
“Hey,” she yelled again as she sprinted across the hold. She closed the last few yards and gave Resler a solid shove. His heavy bulk landed hard against the metal floor, pulling her down with him. He expelled a whoosh of breath as Samantha landed on his ribs.
She fisted the heavy cloth of his shirt and shook him. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Despite the adrenaline giving her an extra boost of strength, she expected him to throw her off, but his hands came up and he latched onto her arms. He leaned up, shoving his face inches from her nose. “You want a piece of me, bitch? I’ll give you what I was saving for Carnage’s whore.”
Spittle and rank air struck her face as solidly as a blow. She jerked away instinctively, but his grip on one arm tightened to bruising force while he released her other arm and took a swing at her.
Pain bloomed in her cheek as her head reeled. She leaned in close not wanting to give him a chance to put any more power behind his next punch.
His body jerked beneath her and he was pulled toward the cage. “Fuck!” His eyes widened like the boggle-fish of Celas5.
Taking advantage of the moment, Samantha rolled, jerking free. On hands and knees, she panted. She had to catch her breath. By the time she scrambled to her feet, Resler was thrashing madly.
He wrapped a hand around her ankle, trying to pull himself away from the cage in a belly crawl. “Get him off! Get him off.” Red faced, he screamed.
Samantha’s gaze shot to Mercury. Reaching out of the cage, he gripped one of Resler’s legs. Resler kicked his free leg back toward the bars, but he couldn’t connect with Mercury and his kicks weren’t well-planned enough to get any momentum pushing off the cage. He was doing more thrashing than anything. Mercury jerked Resler back and used the bars to wrench his leg. The sickening snap of bone blurred with the sound of Resler’s high pitched squeal and, suddenly, her ankle was free. Over the din she heard the slap of feet running toward the hold. She hadn’t bothered to close the door and the noise must have carried through the corridor to Drake. This was only going to get worse.
“Wait!” She leapt toward the bars and fell to her knees to get down to where Resler and Mercury were locked in violence. “Mercury, stop.”
His eyes snapped up to her and his lip curled in a snarl.
Her heart pounded in her chest. He could easily release Resler and rip out her throat. Taking a chance, she stretched out a shaking hand and laid it over his.
His hand jerked, but he kept his grip on the still squirming Resler.
“Drake is coming,” she said. “Please, you have to stop.”
Gaze still locked on her, his grip eased but he didn’t release Resler completely. He breathed hard, nostrils flaring, body still taut and ready to fight.
Samantha spoke softly, “Resler, be still.”
“Fuck that. Get him off!”
“Shit.” Drake’s muttered curse echoed weakly from the hatch. Samantha kept her eyes on Mercury but spoke to Drake. “Come get your man, Mr. Drake. And,” she said, deliberate and even, “don’t bring any weapons over here or make any threatening moves.”