His Captive Mate (3 page)

The man didn’t move. He simply held Zaer’s gaze with those burning eyes. His look made her moisten even more. If there was time later tonight, she resolved to have him for herself.

The two stayed there for some time, staring at each other. Zaer admired his resolve, but continued to hold his gaze. The only thing worse than showing fear, was backing down. She was glad that the nurse wasn’t watching when the massive man made his move because she knew the woman would have screamed and caused chaos and panic on the whole below decks.

He was fast. Surprisingly fast for his size and if Zaer hadn’t been in the same situation dozens, perhaps hundreds of times before, he may even have been fast enough to wrap his hands around her neck. But right before he could do so he seemed to slam into an invisible wall, his face writhing in pain.

Zaer squeezed the meaty sack of his balls in her hands. This one would produce excellent seed. She was sure of it. Looking up into the man’s red face, she held the same smile she’d had as they’d stared each other down.

“Oh, you will make a fine specimen for our purposes,” she whispered at the giant, giving his balls another squeeze. He groaned and his face grew redder from holding his breath. “Now remember,” Zaer went on, “if you can play nice, I will too.” She leaned in and took a whiff of the man’s scent. She closed her eyes and reveled in the smell. Sheer power. Made for one thing and one thing only. The wetness between her legs thickened. When she released the man, he fell to his knees, clutching at his now swollen sack.

Zaer stood for a while watching him, then slowly turned and walked out of the cell, closing the bars gently behind her until she heard the soft click of the latch. She nodded at the nurse, who was still holed up in the gatekeeper’s room, then stole one last glance at the man as he began to recover. Evening couldn’t come soon enough.

Zaer Gwel stood behind the large glass door of the docking pod and watched the wind howl as the Tranquility carrying the rescuers and survivors touched down lightly on the tarmac. The sound of the engines spinning down was drowned by the massive outer doors closing. As soon as the echo of the slam had dissipated through the chamber, the light above the door went from red, to yellow, and finally to green and the inner doors opened quietly.

Zaer watched the women descend the staircase that had sprung up from the ground at the Tranquility’s main hatch. Jasmine seemed the least shaken of all of them and she helped some of the others step down the stairs. A tiny bubble of irritation rose in Zaer’s throat at the fact that she would have to spend the next hour or so consoling the hapless group. The women began to walk toward her, but only once they got close did they recognize the figure standing in the shadows. As soon as they realized who it was, each of them knelt down on one knee and bowed their heads in greeting.

“Alright,” Zaer said dryly, “enough of that nonsense. Get up so I can look at you.”

The women glanced at each other. Despite the fact that Zaer had been commander for more than a year now, some still hadn’t become used to her brusque manner. Zaer glanced at all of the women, looking them over for any obvious signs of trauma. Once she was satisfied that none of them needed to be looked at by a medic immediately, she felt some relief. “I’ve a room waiting where we can talk. Follow me.”

The room Zaer had arranged was just a few doors down from where the Tranquility ship had docked. The women seemed somewhat taken aback by the interior: couches and beds in stark whites with bright lights, an almost antiseptic smell, and baths filled with warm water. They looked at each other, obviously puzzled by what it meant. Zaer turned around to face their confusion.

“Remove your clothes. I’d like to speak with each of you about what happened. But we must get you examined and bathed quickly. Rumors have already spread about your… incident. It’s important we control our message.”

The women began to slowly peel away their uniforms, though the confusion remained on their faces. Zaer walked slowly toward Jasmine, who’d already taken off her entire uniform and was standing in her underwear. “I’d like to speak with you first,” Zaer said dryly and motioned for Jasmine to follow her.

The two moved to a door off to one side of the room and it opened to allow them inside. The small room beyond was just as Spartan as the one they’d come from and contained nothing more than a table and two chairs. Zaer motioned for Jasmine to sit and took a seat herself. The door closed silently.

“What in the name of Hadrens Gates happened out there?” Zaer spoke quickly, her usual steely calm replaced with an urgency.

“Ma’am, I…” Jasmine began, but was interrupted.

“Oh, stop with the ceremony, Jas. What happened to my daughter?”

Jasmine swallowed and nodded.

“I… I mean, we didn’t really know what was happening. The captain, the pilot, she did her best and Daz… Daz, she helped as she could. The others wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for her.” Jasmine’s words began bubbling, her breathing quickened, and Zaer realized she’d probably made the girl hysterical for no reason. She took a deep breath to calm herself. Of course she would have to be strong, to make sure she got the best information possible out of each of the women. Jasmine was probably just as upset as she was about what had happened. She might even be in shock. Zaer reached a hand across the table and took one of Jasmine’s.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.”

“No, I mean, of course I understand. She’s your daughter.”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s your friend. We’re both allowed to be upset,” Zaer consoled. “Now take your time and tell me what happened.”

Jasmine looked down at the table and took a few deep breaths to control her breathing. She took a moment before going on.

“We were on the approach. As we did in the simulators. The doors had just opened and the wind was blowing inside, just like in the simulators.”

“You’d spotted a group already?” Zaer asked.

“Yes,” Jasmine replied, nodding. “Yes, there were ten or twelve of them and they were in a clearing. The pilot, Ashea, she called out as soon as she spotted them and we began to get the nets ready.”

“Yes, then what?” Zaer urged, feeling her impatience beginning to rise again.

“Yes. Then, then I remember Ashea saying something. Something like we might have to hold because they had moved toward the forest and we couldn’t fly low over forest. Then a bang.”

“A bang?”

“A bang. The loudest thing I’d ever heard,” Jasmine said, looking with scared eyes at Zaer. “It sounded like… like… it sounded like two ships crashing.”

Zaer furrowed her brow. She had no reason to distrust the girl. But she had no idea what could make such a noise.

“Go on,” she said, trying to sound calm.

“Then—then the engine, the one that started smoking, it started… screaming, roaring. It was so scary…”

Zaer shook her head and squeezed the girl’s hand, trying to be empathetic. But her mind was racing. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Nothing like this
could
happen. The Tranquilities were the most well maintained ships in the entire fleet precisely for this reason. The very foundation of their society was built on the hunt. No mother would agree to send her daughter to a strange planet if she knew there was a risk of something like this happening.

“When you heard the bang,” Zaer asked, “did you hear anything else? Did you feel anything?”

Jasmine nodded in response.

“Yes. Yes. I felt the ship shake. It shook so much it almost knocked me from my seat.”

Zaer let go of Jasmine’s hand and straightened her back.

“Was there anything else? Did the pilot, did Ashea say anything?”

“Yes,” Jasmine nodded, “when she was talking to Daz. Once the ship had been struck, Daz went up to the front. I heard Ashea yelling. She was yelling that the ship had been shot.”

The color drained from Zaer’s face as she breathed in slowly. It was not impossible what the girl was saying. The council had known that a day like this would come. But no one expected it to come so soon. And not in this way. Zaer forced a tight smile.

“Tell me about Daz,” she said simply.

Jasmine nodded.

“Everyone was screaming. Screaming or crying. I—I was… I couldn’t move. I just stood there staring,” Jasmine’s voice cracked at the memory and Zaer reached over to touch her hand again. After a breath, she went on. “Daz? Daz was a hero. Ashea told her what to do, how to open the target. Then, when the other Tranquility shot a line over, she just started pushing us across. Clipping us on and pushing us out the door.”

Zaer nodded, trying to ignore the tightness in her throat.

“Then, I could see from the other ship that she went back to the cockpit. She was there for, I don’t know… it seemed like a long time. When she came back, she clipped up and… clipped up and jumped and then…” Jasmine’s hand shot to her mouth as she cringed and tears began to stream from her eyes. Zaer squeezed her hand and bit the inside of her cheek, trying to keep herself from crying with the girl. It wasn’t becoming of a commander.

It took some time for Jasmine to compose herself. Sobs kept spilling from her each time she tried to resume the story. Zaer held her hand, pushing back her own grief until finally Jasmine managed to calm herself.

“Right after she jumped,” Jasmine said, her voice quiet, “there was another bang and the engines screamed even louder. I couldn’t see what happened but the Tranquility began to fall. Daz must have felt it. She must have known she would get pulled down. We had to push the button. We had to let the rope go or we would have been pulled down with the other Tranquility…” Jasmine managed the last few words before breaking down into quiet sobs again.

Zaer held her hand quietly while the young woman composed herself once more.

“Jasmine,” Zaer asked quietly. “Did she have her crash suit on?”

Jasmine looked up and nodded instantly, biting her lower lip. A wave of relief flooded through Zaer, the likes of which she hadn’t felt in a long time. There was still a hope that her daughter was alive.

They walked in silence for hours, through thick jungle, through forest, through wide open meadows that turned into rolling hills. The men didn’t speak and Daz didn’t dare say a word. It wasn’t just that she’d never seen a man this close before—far less a group of them—but she had always been taught that all men were barbarians. Savages that were good only for one thing. Even if she had been the chatty type, what would she have said? Nice weather they had here?

They had crossed rivers on makeshift bridges of rocks and logs. Like the simulators back home that Daz had played in with her friends so many times. But this was much different. This was real.

When they had come to the bottom of a line of hills, one of the men spoke.

“Sir, we should put the blindfold back on.”

The man who had rescued Daz from her fate back in the forest where she’d crashed turned and looked at the man who’d spoken, then nodded.

“Don’t worry,” he said as one of the others began to place the blindfold back over Daz’s eyes. “It’s for your protection. If you knew where we were taking you, you would be kept caged. This way you can be with the other women.”

Daz’s heart jumped. Other women? There were other women here? How was that possible? She’d never heard of anything like this happening before. No one had ever said that other women had crashed while hunting, or been captured. They had told her the opposite—that what was happening to her now was impossible. The fabric of the blindfold tightened against her skin and she felt a hand on her arm urging her to walk.

It was more difficult now, slower. With each step she wondered if she would fall. For another hour they walked like this. When finally they stopped again, the blindfold was removed.

Daz gasped at the sight before her. She had expected groups of men huddled over smoldering fires, like the pictures she’d seen in class. This was a city.

Giant walls rose up from the ground in front of her. A pair of gates swung wide open and beyond were buildings of all shapes and sizes. Daz stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed, unable to believe that the stories she’d been told about the planet were all lies. The leader’s voice snapped her from her awe.

“Dismissed.” The command was curt and dry. The men shuffled but stood in place until one of them spoke.

“Sir, our orders were to…”

“Your orders have changed. You are dismissed. I will take the girl to processing.” The men looked back and forth at one another as the tall one, the one who’d dismissed them, the one who’d saved her stared at the group. One by one they began filing toward the gates until they’d all walked off into the distance and into the city. Now Daz stood alone with the stern commander, who turned his gaze on her and looked her up and down.

“Hawk. Hawk Agnon.” His voice was deep, dark, and smooth and he extended a hand as he spoke.

Daz looked down at it, unsure of what to do.

“Take it and shake it.” His voice left little room for debate and Daz gasped again at being spoken to in such a way. “It is our greeting.”

“I will not.” Daz jutted her lower jaw out in resolution. She was not of the underclass, to be touching a man with her bare hands! The man, Hawk as he called himself, smiled an amused smile.

“In time, you will. You are just like the others. So proud. So arrogant.”

Daz’s face contorted with her shock at the insult. How dare he, a man no less, call her, a Sister of Tranquility, arrogant!

“You’ll watch your mouth around me!” she snapped.

“Or what?” the man answered, his question immediate and curt. “You’ll run again? Don’t forget what happened last time. This is not your home planet. There is order here but it is not the same that you are used to. Now,” Hawk said, stretching out an arm again, “you’ll greet a man properly, or I’ll teach you how myself.”

Daz smirked, shook her head, and folded her arms across her ample chest. She barely saw his hand move through the air, and she felt his fingers clutching her arm only after he’d bent her over his lap. Then she felt his strong hand pulling at her trousers and a moment later she felt her rear exposed.