Bounty, page 18
part #1 of Barbarians of the Sand Planet Series
Danica thought of her friends and crewmates, and her stomach tightened.
He'll find them, she assured herself. She may have still been upset at K’alvek for doping her up with his magic hands and trying to convince her that their mental connection had something to do with fate, but she knew he would come through. If there was one thing she knew about him, he was determined.
She thought about the big alien and the look in his eyes when she'd accused him of tricking her. He'd looked like a kicked puppy. That is, until he'd looked angry enough to strangle her. But she preferred either of those looks to the hardened dead eyes he'd given her when he'd left. After feeling so close to him the night before, seeing him look at her like a stranger made Danica feel like she'd been slapped.
She should have said something before he left. Once she'd cooled down from the initial anger, she could admit she'd been a bit hard on the guy, especially since he didn't seem to be able to turn whatever energy he emitted on and off like a switch.
It was fun while it lasted, she told herself, trying to play it off to herself like another meaningless encounter. But even as she said the words she knew they were lies. It hadn't been like with the other guys. It had been different. He'd been different, and he'd made her feel different.
"And then I ruined it by pushing him away." She turned away from the console, needing a break from the screen and a break from her own thoughts.
Walking up the sloped floor, she pressed the panel to open the door and squinted as bright sunlight hit her face. No traces remained of the Dothvek camp below. The footprints of the jebels had blown away, and no trace remained of the fire that had burned earlier in the day. The only clue that they'd ever been there in the first place was the single warrior standing with his hands clasped behind his back facing the sands.
From the strands of silver shot through his long dark hair, Danica recognized him as the leader of the caravan. She had no idea how old he was, or what old even meant on this planet, since he was still impressively muscular and had abs a twenty-year-old would kill for.
She dropped down onto the ground and sank up to her ankles in sand, then made her way over to where he stood feeding the one remaining jebel and rubbed its furry waddle. The animal brayed and shifted its wide feet as it ate the handful of feed. He glanced down at her, and gave a slight nod before returning to his work.
The heat rising off the sand felt good, although she knew it would only grow more sweltering as the day wore on. She took a breath and realized that her lungs had become accustomed to the thinner air, and she no longer felt moments of dizziness.
She eyed Tommel's broad back as he nuzzled the creature. These Dothveks might look tough, but they definitely had a soft side. She couldn't stop the warm feeling that radiated through her body as she thought of K’alvek.
No matter how much she tried to force all thoughts of him from her mind, they kept creeping back in. She couldn't sense his thoughts anymore and suspected the distance and the mountain range he was trekking through had something to do with it. Even though it felt nice to have only her own emotions, it also felt unnervingly quiet.
Get used to it, she reminded herself. As soon as her crew returned and got the comms systems up and running, they were putting the sand planet in their rearview mirror.
Good luck finding someone as smoking hot as K’alvek again, Danica told herself. She shuddered at the thought of the hygiene-challenged guys that hung out at the outposts they frequented for supplies. She let her eyes close and pictured K’alvek—his muscled chest, his long hair, his ringed cock. She shuddered again, this time from pleasure. Yeah, she would definitely miss that.
Before she could open her eyes and return to reality, she clutched her chest as a sharp pain shot through it.
Tommel turned around, his hand already reaching for a blade. “What is wrong?”
She held both hands to her chest, not sure what was happening. The pain had gone as quickly as it had come. "I don't know."
Tommel's eyes scanned the dunes around them, but Danica knew there was no one else nearby. They were alone on the sands. Which meant either she was having a heart attack, or she was feeling what K’alvek was feeling. If that was even possible.
“I think K’alvek is hurt,” she told Tommel.
Tommel looked to the mountain range, his wide eyes narrowing as he focused. “Your link to him is stronger than mine, but I sense a battle.”
She pushed herself to her feet. “We have to help them.”
Tommel didn't move, and Danica sensed his conflict. He’d promised to keep her safe, and taking her into a battle was the opposite of that.
“It's my decision,” she said. “If K’alvek gets mad, you can tell him I forced you. He's already mad at me.”
Tommel stared at her, briefly touching the translator device behind his ear. “I thought you wanted to leave.”
Danica closed her eyes. “I don't know what I want anymore, but I know I have to help him.”
Tommel angled his head at her. “You are a strange female.”
“You aren't the first person to say that.” Danica trudged through the sands until she stood beside his jebel. She felt another stab of pain, and then her own panic spiked. “I think K’alvek is dying.”
He swung her onto the back of the jebel and got on behind her without another word. Kicking hard, he spurred the jebel forward, and it spit sand behind its feet as it ate up the desert.
She was glad Tommel had one arm tight around her waist, or Danica felt sure she'd be pitched to the ground. Jebels did not gallop smoothly, but she was grateful that the jostling distracted her from the terrifying thought that K’alvek might be dead. And worse, that she was the reason.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
When K’alvek came to, he was sitting propped up against a rock, the boulder no longer crushing his chest. He swallowed, but the sharp taste of blood in his mouth was a memory.
Kush leaned over, his face a mask of concern. When K’alvek opened his eyes, he sensed his relief. “You are alive.”
K’alvek looked behind him to where four females stood together watching, and a ring of bruised and bloodied Dothveks gathered protectively beyond.
Kush followed his gaze. “We rescued one of them.”
“What about the other?”
Kush lowered his eyes. “One Crestek managed to escape with her.”
K’alvek attempted to push himself up from the rocky dirt, but his arms were too weak. “We must go after them. We must get her and bring her to the ship.”
Kush placed a palm flat on his chest. “It took all of us to get the rock off you. We had to choose, and your life force was leaving.”
They chose him and let the Cresteks escape with one of the females when he'd promised Danica he would return her entire crew to her. He did not tell them they chose wrong, even though that is what he felt.
K’alvek pressed his eyelids together. He failed. One more reason for Danica to despise him.
Kush's hand clasped his shoulder. “We will get her back. They have not gone far, and Cresteks are no match for us.”
K’alvek looked up at him, noticing blood smeared across the heavy black curling across his chest that marked his cousin as a Dothvek warrior. That was true. A single Crestek dragging a female with him did not stand a chance against them.
Caro approached, her breathing heavy and her hair now spilling loose around her shoulders. She glanced at K’alvek, but addressed Kush. "We need to get Max."
K’alvek wondered about the strange names of the females, as the one with the mass of dark curls joined them. She wiped the two needle-like sticks against her pants and left dark smears that K’alvek guessed were blood. Her cheeks were flushed with exhilaration and for the first time, he saw a grin tease the corners of her mouth. It was clear she was a born fighter.
"We haven't come this far to lose our bounty now," she said.
Caro put one hand on her hip. "After all she's done to help us, you can't be serious about turning her in."
Tori shrugged. "How else are we going to pay for a new ship or for buying the parts to salvage the one we've got?"
"There are other bounties out there." Caro narrowed her eyes at her crewmate. "As far as I'm concerned, Max is a part of our crew now."
"Fuck, yeah, she is," the female with flowing red hair said as she walked up. Her colorful top was torn in a few places, revealing thin straps across her shoulders the same color as her hair. "Max is the reason we're going to be able to get off this giant ball of sand. Her theory of rerouting the ship's circuits was inspired. If those asshats hadn't surprised us, we'd already have sent out a distress call."
"Thank you, Holly," Caro said, patting the woman on the back.
Tori sighed, clearly outnumbered. "Fine. Either way, we need to get her back."
Holly glanced behind them to where Bexli sat, with Pog in her lap. Both shifters were back to their normal states. “Luckily, Pog’s wound was superficial. Still, I don’t think Bexli will be up for any more fighting today.”
"Agreed," Caro said, then turned to Kush. "What about you? Are you coming with us?"
Kush darted a glance down at K’alvek, who grimaced through the pain and waved a hand at him, telling him to go. Still, he hesitated.
Holly watched the silent exchange. "I'll stay with him and make sure he doesn't code on us." She jerked her head at the makeshift sling around her arm. "I should give my arm a rest anyway. The adrenaline is starting to wear off, and it feels like I took a blaster to the shoulder."
K’alvek raised a hand to his own tender shoulder and flinched. The pain was no longer sharp—a good sign—but his entire body ached from the impact of the boulder. He wanted to tell the female that he did not need her to stay, but he knew that would be a lie. He still felt too weak to stand.
Kush met his eyes. “I will return with the last female.”
K’alvek watched as his cousin motioned to the other two females and several nearby Dothveks, and the group began running in the direction of the Crestek city. The females took two steps for every long Dothvek stride, but they stayed in the middle of the pack for as long as he was able to follow them with his gaze. When they disappeared around a bend, K’alvek allowed himself to relax against the rock.
Holly knelt down next to him. "You look a little better. You've got more color, at least, although I don't know what pale would look like on you guys." She studied his face, lingering on his eyebrows and then his ears. "You look a bit like the dickheads who took us, but way more sexy."
“Thank you.”
She winked at him and stood. “Anytime.”
One of the remaining Dothveks stood above him, holding out a water skin, which K’alvek took and drank from gratefully. He offered it to Holly, but she waved him off as she gave the Dothvek who'd walked up a thorough up and down, her mouth dropping open as she got a closer look at his ridged back. As her large eyes grew even wider, K’alvek reminded himself that it had taken Danica a while to adjust to their differences.
He tried not to think of Danica, who was safe on her ship, as he took stock of the remnants of the battle. A few Dothveks sat on the ground like him, recovering from blaster wounds or pressing yellow parsi tree leaves to open gashes. Only two Dothveks lay unmoving on the ground, and K’alvek felt a stab of pain and anger that they had lost more good warriors to the Cresteks. He could not help feeling pleased that a larger number of Crestek bodies lay crumpled beneath their long cloaks, their faces obscured by the hoods.
A loud noise drew his eyes to the sky, and he raised a hand as he stared at the black vessel that had dropped out of the sky and hovered over the sands, far in the distance. This vessel did not look like Danica's, and the sight of it awed K’alvek.
"You've got to be shitting me," Holly said, her voice grim. It was clear she recognized the ship as she put a hand to her mouth and shook her head. "I can't believe they followed us here."
Before K’alvek could discover what she meant, a bright flash of light came from beneath the ship and there was a roar of sound followed by a massive cloud of flames and smoke. Even where they sat, the ground trembled and pebbles rolled past him as they were shaken loose.
"No, no, no," Holly wailed, not taking her eyes from the black smoke billowing up from the sands. "He wouldn't."
K’alvek felt the first stirrings of panic as he watched her, and he made a mental calculation. The smoke rose up from the sands. There was only one thing on the sands to shoot.
“You know that ship?” he asked.
She whipped her head around and blinked rapidly a few times. "It’s Mourad's. He's the asshole who made us crash-land here in the first place. I guess he came back to finish the job." She turned back to the trail of black snaking into the white sky. "So much for our ship. At least none of us were on it."
K’alvek felt dizzy even though he was still seated. He'd left Danica and Tommel at the ship only hours earlier. Would they have seen the other vessel appear above them in time to escape?
He attempted to reach out to her with his mind, but the fear coupled with his injury had made him weak. He felt nothing. He tried to tell himself she was too far away. That Tommel would have sensed danger and gotten her out. But he couldn’t rid his mind of the fear threatening to choke him. His ears rang, and the noises around him sounded like they came from a long distance—as if he was in a deep cave and the rest of the world was far above.
He could not feel her. Thoughts careened through his head, and he could not know if they were his or if they belonged to others. He put his hands to the sides of his head to block the howling. When he opened his eyes, he realized the sounds were coming from him—deep, guttural roars that echoed off the rock face and left a ringing in his ears. The female gaped at him in silence, and the other Dothveks held their blades as if ready for battle.
Danica and Tommel escaped, he told himself. Tommel would have noticed the approaching vessel and gotten her to safety. If he had time, another voice whispered. If she had not refused to leave or argued with him.
Holly put a hand above her eyes as she peered at the blackness staining the sky, then she met K’alvek's eyes. "Was Danica on the ship?"
He squeezed his eyes tight so he did not have to look at the worried expression on her face. As long as she did not know for sure, she would not feel the despair he did. He reached out his mind again, hoping for a flicker of Danica's thoughts—or Tommel's—so he could dismiss his worries as foolish. He felt nothing but empty silence.
“I do not know,” he finally answered, as he opened his eyes but did not look up.
Holly's hand flew to her mouth and her eyes filled with tears. "Well, we have to go find out. Maybe she's injured."
One of his Dothvek clansmen approached. “Should we join Kush on the hunt, or track the vessel in the sky?”
K’alvek attempted to clear his mind from the thoughts of Danica. “We should divide our group. Some follow Kush, and some should track the vessel in case it landed. The rest stay with me.”
As the warriors divided themselves and began preparing to leave, Holly opened her arms wide. "Where's everyone going?"
K’alvek flicked his eyes to the sky where a trail left by the attacking ship slashed across the surface. The ship had flown out of sight, but he needed to know if it had left the atmosphere or if an alien war party was being unleashed on his planet. “To find who did this.”
Holly rolled her eyes. "You're sending them to find Mourad? Good luck with that." She appraised the huge aliens as they wiped their bloody blades across patches of scrub grass to clean them. "He’s probably left the atmosphere by now. He’s not the kind who sticks around after wrecking havoc. But a fight between his guys and yours is one I’d like to see."
K’alvek repeated the name 'Mourad' in his head, rolling it around until it the bitter word was burned into his brain. He would get his vengeance on this Mourad, as well as on the Cresteks. He would punish them all. He clutched his chest, startled by the physical pain that wracked his body as he thought about Danica.
He gave instructions to the twin warriors Dev and Trek, who stood nearby. “We must return to the sands and the ship to assess the damage. You will go ahead with the females.”
They gave brusque nods and immediately flanked the female with flame-colored hair, their blades drawn. K’alvek noticed her raise an eyebrow as she gave the towering warriors the once-over, but she followed them, taking Bexli and Pog with her.
K’alvek watched the warriors run off in opposite directions, leaving only the bodies of the fallen Cresteks scattered on the ground. When they'd gone far enough that he couldn't hear the hum of their thoughts, he tried again to find Danica or Tommel.
When he found nothing, he eyed the rocky cliff to one side and staggered toward it. Living with his father's loss had been hard enough. He did not know if he could survive losing his bond with Danica. It had been one thing to know she was leaving, but would still be out in the universe somewhere—a faint echo in his memory.
He leaned against a sharp rock at the edge, hearing only his own ragged breath. He did not know if he could survive knowing she was no more. Or if he wished to.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“I can't sense him,” Danica told Tommel.
They had been running through the rocks for what felt like forever. She pressed both hands to her side, but it didn't do much for the shooting pains. Danica tried to breathe through her nose, but she ended up sucking in hot breaths through her mouth. Life aboard a space ship hadn’t done wonders for her endurance, she admitted to herself.
“The mountains make it harder,” Tommel replied, not stopping to turn around.
That didn't make her feel any better. Since they'd begun running through the mountain pass, she hadn't been able to sense him. The fact that she was too exhausted to focus could have had something to do with it. It was hard to concentrate on being empathic when you were gasping for air and trying not to fall on your ass.
“Your legs are twice as long as mine,” she said to Tommel when he glanced back, and she gestured to her legs.
