Rescued by the Dragorian Read online

  “You look good.” I commented. “Are you feeling better?”

  She flushed right down to the roots of her hair. Pippa embarrassed? I never thought I’d see the day.

  “Yes. Sort of,” she replied, almost shyly.

  Mekvar explained what Boran had told us. Most of the Dragorians were stunned, but they seemed to follow his lead.

  “Your man’s good,” Pippa said, as we watched him diffuse concern after concern. “Hopefully, he’s good enough to get us out of here.”

  “He is,” I said, proudly. I had no doubt he would help us escape. I’d never really thought about how hard his job must be before. How he had to captain his ship, fly into a place like this and try to save his people. How he had already failed once and had the crushing pressure of defeat to overcome.

  I’d always admired a man who hustled. My whole life I’d seen men get where they were by not really doing very much, and not giving a shit about anything. My boss at the office was the son of the owner and I definitely worked three times as hard as he did, for a quarter of the pay. My foster dad sat back and drank beer as my foster mom paid all the bills, made all the meals, and ran the show.

  I vowed that I’d rather be single than waste my life with a man like that.

  But Mekvar wasn’t like that. He gave a shit. He had a work ethic. He acted for his people and he cared. And he made me want to care too—not just about escaping, but about helping his people as well. About helping mine.

  He looked over at me and our eyes met. He sent me such a searing look, I felt it right down to my toes. I’m sure I must have flushed beet-red. I was transported back to the gladiator pleasure house and all the ways we’d had sex there. My nipples pebbled and pleasure shot to my pussy. His lips quirked as if he knew exactly what I was thinking and feeling. I’d never felt so connected to anyone before. It couldn’t have just been the Rushing. It had to be something more. It wasn’t just the Rushing that made me admire him like I do, or care about the things he did, or want to be with him even when we weren’t having sex.

  I smiled at him, and I could tell he wanted to charge forward and throw me over his shoulder with the look he was giving me. But hearing about what the Wolgons did to his people made me think about something else too.

  Children. Hope.

  That’s what mates were to the Dragorians. If you didn’t have a future for your people, you had nothing. And Mekvar was trying to give that to his people.

  Was that what I was to Mekvar? Was I that hope?

  None if this mattered if we didn’t get off this planet. I thought finding the scientist would be hard but now I realized it would be getting a group of human sex slaves out of here and away from Bardoa. It wasn’t as if we could just walk onto their ship and fly away.

  “We have everything we need. Now we get everyone out of here. The humans and the scientist.” Mekvar spoke in hushed tones, but his crew were hanging on his every word.

  The Dragorians were nodding. Priya burst into tears at his pronouncement. All the human women looked relieved. Kat and Mei were there, but they had an air of wariness rather than happiness.

  “We have to get out of here first,” Mei said to Priya. “Don’t count your chickens.”

  “Is Nisha coming as well?” I watched the pain lace across Kat’s face at my question.

  “I couldn’t find her,” said Mei. “I’m fairly certain she wants nothing to do with this escape attempt. The last one affected her very badly—she was close with one of the girls who was thrown to the pits.”

  “We can’t just leave her here,” I reasoned.

  “If she doesn’t want to come, there isn’t much we can do,” said Pippa, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “We need to stop talking as if we have already managed to escape. We haven’t gotten out of here yet.” Mei’s mouth was set in a firm line.

  “Why are you two here, then?” I was curious. If Nisha was so dead set against joining us, how had we managed to convince the other human women?

  “We’ve never had this kind of help before,” Kat said, slowly, glancing around at the Dragorians. “Not like this. We’ve never had a bunch of organized warriors with a fast ship and a willingness to help us get out of here.” Kat shrugged. “I like our odds this time.”

  “I like our odds, too,” I responded, with a smile. I really hope this worked because it seemed like our last chance saloon.

  “Let’s go over the plan once more,” said Mekvar, though I strained to hear. There was a lot of commotion from outside the dining tent. It sounded like a truck rumbling towards us.

  As it grew louder, I realized it for what it was. The pounding of feet. The clanging of metal. Getting closer.

  Mekvar seemed to realize it as soon as I did, and he lunged for me. “Get the females out of here!” he shouted, but it was too late.

  The dining hall was swarmed with guards at every exit point.

  We were trapped.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Beatrice

  The guards circled us, their laser-shooting-spears aimed directly at the Dragorians.

  At Mekvar.

  “No!” I shouted and tried to push in between Mekvar and the laser spears. I couldn’t believe they would kill their precious human sex slaves, even while remembering the other humans Bardoa had thrown in the pit. At this point, I didn’t care. Mekvar was not going to die for me. He was too important to his people. They had to escape and get Boran out of here.

  “Don’t hurt him!”

  The guards stood frozen. Their golden helmets masked a lot of their faces, but from what I could see of their pressed mouths, it did not bode well. They must have found out about our plan to escape.

  “Beatrice,” Mekvar didn’t look at me, and his voice sounded as if it were being dragged out of him. “Get back. We will take care of this.”

  “No! I am part of this too. It was my decision that led us here.”

  “Beatrice, please. I want you to be safe. No matter what happens to me, I could not bear it if you were harmed.” His eyes pleaded with me, and the golden color was a burnished black in the torchlight. I swallowed, a lump in my throat forming as I tried to tamp down the tears springing to my eyes.

  I’d only known him a few days, but right now if Mekvar were killed I don’t know what I would do. He’d become almost a part of me somehow. A partner, a friend, a lover. I hadn’t felt alone anymore when we’d met.

  And I’d been alone for so long.

  “What a touching scene.” A slithering voice from behind us pierced the fragile moment. “When they told me Dragorians didn’t take concubines, I didn’t believe them. Every male is driven by the need to fuck, even at some base level.” Badoa appeared, his bulbous head and slug-like features coming into view as his miniature body hopped between the rows of soldiers. “Maybe you still are, but you are a possessive lot, aren’t you? Trying to steal my new shipment of human women? You’ve paid me well for their use, Dragorian, but not well enough compared to the money they would have made me over their lifetime. But I suppose they can make up for it in the fighting pits. Patrons pay an incredible sum to watch females die, you’d be surprised.”

  I shuddered at his lecherous smile.

  Mekvar squared his shoulders. “They are more valuable to you alive, Bardoa. It is we who have broken your laws. Not the humans.”

  I moved to object but felt a strong pressure on my shoulder. Mei had her hand on me and was shaking her head firmly.

  “He’s trying to save you,” she hissed under her breath.

  I whirled back to Mekvar and Bardoa. She was right. Mekvar was trying to stop us from ending up in the pits. But surely Bardoa wouldn’t do that in this case? We hadn’t actually made it very far in our escape, and I was under the impression that we were too valuable to get rid of so easily. I hoped so anyway.

  “We wanted to steal your women,” Mekvar said, his voice unnaturally calm. “They didn’t really have much of a choice. We forced them into it.”

/>   It was difficult to read Bardoa’s froggy face. He was either amused or had just eaten something vile and was going to throw up at any moment. Perhaps both. But we didn’t have to wait long to guess.

  “No. I don’t think that’s true. Not from what I heard.”

  Who had told him about our plans? I looked around at our little group, the humans were all huddled together. The Dragorians stood in front of them menacingly, like warriors. The only one who wasn’t here was the girl who’d been warning us against doing this all along. Was Nisha capable of betraying her own people?

  Bardoa swept his gaze over us. Some of the humans, especially Priya, shrank away from him.

  But I didn’t. I stood with my shoulders straight, and head held high. If he already knew we were trying to escape, there was no point in hiding it. There was no other option for me. What should I have done? Stand around and wait to be raped by a bunch of aliens? Nope. I had to try. Not trying was infinitely worse.

  Even still, I wasn’t prepared for Bardoa’s next words. It seemed that neither was anyone else. Priya fell to the ground. Tsanel gripped Hazel tightly as she wept almost noiselessly, with big fat tears rolling down her brown cheeks.

  And Mekvar, Mekvar strained against the guards holding him back to get to Bardoa, as soon as he said, “Throw them all in the pits.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Mekvar

  I’d failed everyone. Again.

  Except this time, I had a lot more to lose. We were so close to getting off this planet with a potential cure that could save our people and give us a fighting chance against the Wolgons. As the black trench of guilt ate away at my insides, there was another thing that made this failure unbearable.

  Beatrice. My mate.

  I had finally found her, finally had a partner, a future, a life. And now I had nothing, and I had sentenced her to die with my thoughtlessness. I had been so quick to fight with Boran, I hadn’t thought to be discreet. Now we were paying the price. Beatrice, and all the human females, were paying the price.

  I paced the cage they kept us in, all the males anyway. Boran, Raitek, and my crew. I didn’t know where they had taken the females. We could hear the sounds of the arena outside our darkened cage. The voracious cheers of the crowd, the anguished roar of a dying animal, and the sickening crunch of bone and tearing of flesh. Maybe they would throw the females into the pit and we would hear their screams as they were killed.

  At that thought, I lost control.

  I let loose a howl. My claws fully extended and I launched myself at the metal bars, willing them to snap. I could feel the Rushing rage fester inside me. I knew my golden eyes were entirely black. But the bars didn’t move. I couldn’t save her, nor could I save my people. That knowledge would tear me apart until my own death.

  Which would likely be in just a few moments once they threw us into the pits.

  “Don’t waste your energy in here,” Raitek commented, when I’d stopped hurling my body at the cage. “Dragorians are fierce warriors, but Bardoa will be releasing a tide of fighters that will be like getting pummeled by a thousand storms. Conserve your energy now.”

  “They won’t let us live,” said Boran. “So what’s the point? Best to die quickly.”

  Raitek smirked at him. “Didn’t think I’d hear you say something like that, Wolgon, with the way you fought in the ring last time.”

  “I fought that way then because I had something to live for. Now, we have no chance at winning. Bardoa will throw everything he has at us until we drop from exhaustion or injuries. And I am not a Wolgon,” Boran said, with his chin raised high.

  Something about the mulish set of his face looked so like a Dragorian, it was possible to look past the Wolgon features and see one of us. Not that that mattered anymore. I hadn’t thought to see past my blind fury earlier, and now we would die together in the pits.

  “Today we will die the same, Vordax, Dragorian, Wolgon.” I nodded at Boran. “We will die with honor. We will die fighting.”

  The rest of my men went from slumping to standing tall, their shoulders firm. Mal met my gaze, the emotion in his eyes nearly overwhelming.

  I clapped my hand on his shoulder. “We have been through a lot together, brother.”

  “Yes, we have, Captain. It has been my pleasure to serve with you.” He paused and tilted his head. “And I know what it meant for you to find your mate. I am sorry you were not able to live a long life with her, or have any young.”

  I didn’t respond. I couldn’t speak about Beatrice with him. I felt as if there was a blackness in my heart about to swallow me whole.

  “You Dragorians give up too easily,” said Raitek, watching me.

  “You think there is a way to get out of this?” asked Tsanel, with hope in his voice. My mouth flattened into a thin line.

  “In my experience, it isn’t over unless a spear is sticking out of my chest,” said Raitek, his voice easy.

  I was about to respond when light flooded the dark room. Bardoa hopped through a large door, flanked by guards. With him was a short green male with long antennae and webbed feet. It was a species I didn’t recognize, but something about him was familiar.

  “Where are the females?” I lunged at the cage, claws drawn, fangs bared.

  Bardoa laughed, and his squashed body too far to reach.

  “Still so possessive of my human whores? Don’t worry, you will see them soon. I made sure of it. I want you there when they die. You have cost me much, Dragorian. But I have to maintain my reputation with the other pleasure planets.” He laughed again, a squelching sound that heaved between his lungs. “You have this male to thank.” He gestured to the large-eyed green male. “Perhaps next time don’t discuss all your secret plans in the pleasure house viewing rooms.” The green male beside him smirked, and I wanted to tear his face off. That’s where I knew him from—he was the male that wanted to join us in the gladiator pleasure house.

  I curled my lip in disgust at both of them. “I will destroy you, Bardoa.” I said, but my words were empty, and he knew it.

  I could no more destroy him than I could save my mate from the pits.

  She would die today, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Mekvar

  The arena was bright and stunk of death. They were clearing away bodies as the guards dragged us in by the chains around our necks. Jeers of the crowd filled the air as we entered, and I swept my eyes around the stadium. We had cuffs around our throats like the other gladiators, but they gave us no weapons. The ground was compacted sand—rough and hard—and yet still skidded beneath our feet. Large patches were stained red.

  We were alone in the arena and I wondered if this would be our punishment—being forced to kill one another.

  I couldn’t imagine anything worse.

  We were in the centre of a large circular fighting pit, and there were various sized doors surrounding the walls of the pit. I imagined that’s where different fighters entered—from the two-headed torasit monsters with their gnashing teeth to heavily armed fighters who’d been trained to fight all their lives. I hoped we didn’t have to fight a torasit monster.

  A large door on the other side of the arena slowly began to rumble open. We tensed as a group, taking in a collective breath, readying for what was on the other side. It was big enough that it could have been anything—large beasts that would swallow us whole, or an army of fighters equipped with swords where we were weaponless.

  But it wasn’t any of those things.

  And if I thought there wasn’t worse than being made to kill my brothers in a fight to the death, I was wrong. Because walking through the door was a small group of human females, all huddled together, arm in arm. Terrified.

  The crowd grew louder, cheering at the presence of the females, then taunting, hurling insults in all manner of dialects, some even my translation modification could not catch. But I didn’t care about the crowd as the most heartbreaking sight I
had ever seen entered the arena.

  Beatrice.

  She was standing at the front of the group, arms linked with the fire-haired female like a Goddess stepping out of the sky. My fierce female entered the gladiator pit like a true warrior. And then I knew what was worse.

  Having to protect my mate with no weapons and endless threats coming at us.

  Having to defend a group of females, knowing that I would likely fail.

  And watching them die.

  But we had to try to protect them. I knew the other males felt the same. Raitek tensed beside me and swore under his breath. His gaze was pinned on the flame-haired female standing next to Beatrice.

  “Flank the females!” I shouted to the other males. The other Dragorians nodded, furious and savage, as their fangs began to protrude. I glanced to Boran, who met my eyes with his similar ones and nodded. No matter what I thought of the Wolgons, we were comrades today.

  We rushed to the females, and I ran ferociously, terrified that Bardoa would pierce them with a hundred arrows before I got there. The females’ faces were filled with fear as they saw us rushing them, likely not realizing we were allies. But I recognized Beatrice relief mixed in with her dread.

  “Mekvar!” she shouted, coming to me, and wrapping her arms around me. I held on tight, wanting to protect her from everything, devastated I would not be able to.

  “My mate. Have they hurt you?”

  “No. Not at all. They just threw us in this room for while, then dragged us out here. I thought they might give us to the guards for sex or something, but I guess Bardoa wants us killed quick.” She laughed, the sound hollow. Her body shook from her fear, but her mouth was set. My brave mate.

  “Stay behind us,” I drew her and the other females into the centre with the males surrounding them. As long as we could last, we would protect them. We formed a tight defense around the women, and then we waited.

  The crowd grew more restless, screaming obscenities at the females, and at us. Rotten food hit the grounds of the pit. The putrid food just added to the stench of killing that already permeated my nostrils.