The Rebel's Mate Page 3

  “Leave me alone,” she said. “I don’t like you. Don’t touch me again. I don’t care if they shock you a thousand times.”

  “They’re not going to do that again,” he said. “I know how we’re getting out of here.”

  Lyra gave him a dour look. “We? We’re not going anywhere. Besides, it’s locked. There are hundreds of Vonyak out there. You can’t escape them.”

  “I’ve escaped them half a dozen times,” he said. “It’s just a matter of putting pressure where they don’t know how to deal with it.” He grabbed her by the forearm, twisted her around hard against his body, and wrapped his arm around her upper chest just under her neck. His lips were almost touching her ear as he growled, “You just became my hostage.”

  Before Lyra could respond to that, he lifted his voice. “Open this door, or I’ll break her neck!”

  When nothing happened, he reached down with his free hand and smacked her across her bottom hard enough to make her squeal.

  “What are you doing?!”

  “Showing them I mean business without actually breaking your neck,” he growled in her ear. “I figured you’d like to keep that intact. Or is it just your hymen you care about?”

  “Let me go!” She squirmed hard enough to slip down in his grasp, which didn’t set her free but did almost cause her to choke herself on his arm. Rake was forced to renew his grip on her, which was not easy given her ferocious flailing.

  His hand clamped down hard on the back of her neck, momentarily stilling her. “Tone it down,” he growled in her ear. “I don’t want to accidentally actually hurt you.”

  “You’re such a gentleman,” she spat back at him as he hauled her into his arms once more. For years she had been put up against various beasts, many more powerful than herself. None of them had made her feel quite as helpless as Rake did. Something about his body, so masculine and so perfectly designed to control hers, made her think twice before struggling again.

  “Open the door!” He shouted the words to unseen eyes. “If you want your precious champion to keep breathing, do as I say!”

  Lyra had had quite enough of all this. She drove her elbow back into his midsection and stamped her heel down on his toes hard enough to make him swear—but not let go.

  “Cut that shit out,” he growled in her ear. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Lyra turned her head and hissed at him. “Didn’t you see any movies back on earth? Hostage situations never work out well for the hostage taker.”

  “That’s because most hostage takers make the mistake of taking a bunch of low value targets the authorities don’t really care about one way or another. I have just one. You. You’re worth enough to them that they’re not going to let you be harmed in any way.”

  At that moment the door opened. A dozen Vonyak wielding guns in each of their tri-tentacled arms stared them down.

  “Unhand the girl!” The mouth fringes of the leader of the contingent wobbled with serious annoyance.

  “No,” Rake said. “Stand back or you’ll lose her forever. You know what I can do.”

  Lyra didn’t know what he could do, but a chill went down her spine as he spoke. There was something behind those words, an intensity that suggested he was a man whose reputation preceded him.

  To her surprise the Vonyak actually did as he said. They seemed somewhat confused by the turn of events. It was as if nothing of this nature had ever occurred before. It probably hadn’t. The way the aliens handled her had always made her feel as though they considered her along the lines of an amusing cat or a preppy poodle. They certainly never saw her as a threat. Rake was something different though. They seemed to fear him.

  “Come on,” he said, pulling her out into the hall. “We have places to be.”

  She didn’t bother asking where he was taking her. She figured that she’d find out soon enough. And she did. He took her all the way down to the shuttle bay where a long-range transporter was waiting. Rake pulled her inside, sealed the door, and made his way to the bridge without another word to her.

  With nothing else to do, Lyra followed after him. “Where are we going?”

  “Far, far away from here,” Rake informed her. He was manipulating controls designed for eight-limbed beings with surprising ease, and the ship was responding. Lights were flashing, the hull was humming, and soon they were moving out into space.

  The Vonyak were strangely slow in responding to the situation and Rake’s ship made it out of dock without so much as a shot being fired. Thoroughly puzzled by the apparent lack of aggression by the Vonyak, Lyra began questioning Rake again.

  “Are they just going to let you go?”

  “I doubt it,” Rake said. “They’ll be having one of their meetings to discuss a strategy to retrieve you and then they’ll come after us.”

  She had noticed in her time with the aliens that the Vonyak were very big on organization and consensus. It was a trait that had clearly aided their expansion across the universe but apparently it also slowed them down when unexpected events transpired. This was clearly a very unexpected event. Lyra was having some serious difficulty processing it herself. She stood and she stared at the back of Rake’s head as he piloted her out of Vonyak clutches and into his.

  Chapter Four

  Stuck in space with a man who didn’t seem to like her but had taken her as his prisoner, Lyra tried to gather her thoughts. This had come out of nowhere; first the alleged mating, then the kidnapping. By rights she should have kicked his ass, but he was ignoring her and it was hard to muster any aggression toward what amounted to a pilot. If she hurt him, she would end up stuck on a ship in the middle of nowhere. Not an ideal situation.

  “You need to take me back,” she said, tapping him on the shoulder. “I don’t want to be out here.”

  “Not a chance,” he snorted.

  “If you don’t take me back to the Vonyak, you’re going to regret it.”

  Rake looked over his shoulder at her with an incredulous expression. “You clearly don’t get what’s going on here,” he said. “So sit down and let me get us to safety.”

  “I’m not going to sit here and let you run off with me,” Lyra said. “I have a career to think about.”

  “A career?!” Rake guffawed. “Is that what you call being fought like a pit dog?”

  “I’m famous,” Lyra informed him. “And I’m rich.”

  “You’re neither. Now do as you’re told and sit down.”

  “You need to stop ordering me around,” Lyra scowled. “I’ve fought creatures twice your size and many times your strength. Do not test me.”

  “Are you threatening me, woman?” He laughed as he stood up and faced her, physically responding to the challenge she’d thrown at him verbally. “I’m not one of your half-drugged arena opponents with my teeth pulled and my claws dulled.”

  Lyra glowered up at him, wishing he weren’t so damn tall. “I fight monsters. Worse than you even.”

  A light on the bridge blipped and Rake turned his attention from her to it. He dropped his still shirtless self down into the pilot’s chair and began messing with the controls.

  “Go sit down, Lyra. We’re going to come under fire in about three seconds.”

  “I do fight…” Bam!

  The ship rocked, Lyra came off her feet and fell into a wall. Rake didn’t even turn around to see if she was okay, he just yelled at her over his shoulder.

  “Sit down and put a damn seatbelt on!”

  Lyra just barely managed to drag herself into a chair as the ship rocked back and forth, buffeted by the explosions that were striking on and around the ship. She yanked the belts down and secured them over her body so she was not thrown around as the shuttle was pounded by heavy Vonyak weapons’ fire.

  “They’re going to kill us!”

  “They might,” Rake agreed. He didn’t sound overly concerned by the prospect. Maybe he didn’t care if he lived or died, but Lyra cared about her own survival. Unfortunately all she could d
o was scream and flail as the ship bucked like a bronco, Rake’s evasive maneuvers more sickening than the effects of the attack itself.

  All of a sudden, as quickly as the attack had begun, it ceased.

  “What happened?” Lyra asked the question just as soon as she regained the ability to speak rather than whimper in fear.

  “The ship’s core got to temperature,” Rake explained. “We’re traveling a lot faster than they can now.”

  Lyra nodded and tried to compose herself. Being taken from Earth by aliens wasn’t nearly as scary as being fired on by them was. She was half surprised to find that she was still alive.

  “I thought you said they wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.”

  “I guess they changed their minds,” Rake shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now. They’ll be light-years behind before they catch up.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “Doesn’t have to.” He tapped the controls and stood up, having apparently set the ship to pilot itself for a while. Lyra tried to undo her seatbelts to likewise stand, but she found the unlocking clasp to be much harder to manipulate open than it had been to close. Rake watched her with increasing amusement before finally coming over and pressing the buttons that sat just above her pubic bone. The pressure made her body react instantly. She felt her face flush as her nether regions hummed with excitement.

  “There,” he said. “You’re free. Doesn’t take much to imprison you, does it?”

  “You asshole,” Lyra spat as she stood up and got in his face as best she could for being so much shorter than him. “You put my life in danger.”

  Rake set his jaw in obvious irritation. “Or you could say I just rescued you from your alien captors. And you could say that you were grateful to be freed.”

  “I didn’t ask to be freed! I was doing well for myself! I was famous!”

  “You were about to be knocked up against your will,” he frowned at her. “Have you forgotten that already? They left you to be ravaged by me.”

  “That was never going to happen.”

  “That’s exactly what they wanted to happen though. You have no idea what they had in store for you.”

  Lyra screwed up her face. “I’m a fighter. I would have had your balls off in a second if you’d tried anything.”

  Rake lifted his eyes from her and looked over her head with an expression of annoyance. “I’m going to put you away now,” he said. “Your whining gets on my nerves.”

  “It’s not whining, it’s… hey!” He had wrapped his hand around her upper arm and was leading her off into the depths of the ship. She had no choice but to follow him, for he was much stronger and she was entirely unarmed. She briefly considered driving her fingertips into the side of his neck, but that might incapacitate him for quite some time and she was not at all sure how to operate the ship.

  He took her down a hall, palmed open one of the many sliding doors, and nudged her into the room beyond. It was a very small room with little more than a double bed, a sonic shower, and a waste disposal unit.

  “I’m not staying in here,” she said. “This is disgusting.”

  Rake didn’t reply. He just shut the door, leaving her alone in the little room. Lyra tried to make her way out, but it wasn’t obvious precisely how to leave the room. She tried palming the wall as he had, but either it wasn’t programmed to open at the touch of her hand, or she was touching the wrong spot.

  “Asshole!” She yelled the word for his benefit, then slumped down on the bed. This sucked. Her quarters with the aliens were spacious, well-appointed, and filled with all the wonders of the universe. She’d had all the clothes she wanted, and all the food she desired. Speaking of food, she was hungry. There didn’t seem to be anything edible in the room, or anything to drink either.

  “Ugh.”

  Lyra scowled daggers at the door. If pure hate made doors open it would have flown out of her way, she was sure of that. This man Rake, he was completely insufferable. And he probably had something nasty in store for her too. She would have to be on her guard.

  * * *

  Several hours later, Rake opened the door. She had been sitting up against the head of the bed in vigil, but she startled awake when he walked in, so she must have gone to sleep at some point without noticing.

  “Come on,” he said. “It’s time to go.”

  “Where?”

  “To a bar.”

  Lyra cocked her head to the side. That sounded far too good to be true. “You’re taking me to drink?”

  “Not quite. Come on. You can stay in here, but I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  Hm. A bar or a prison. It wasn’t that hard of a choice to make. Lyra got up and followed Rake’s still shirtless back down the halls of the ship and out into the big wide universe.

  Upon emerging from the shuttle, it became apparent that they had arrived at a substation. It was a higgledy-piggledy jumble of construction that looked as though several ships had been crashed together and then the remains welded and tacked in place.

  “Where the heck are we?”

  Rake didn’t answer the question. He was too busy negotiating their entrance with the bouncer, a large bipedal creature with tusks emanating from his jaw and a great red mane of hair. A great many of the aliens Lyra had encountered or seen at large in her travels seemed to be bipedal and vaguely human in stature. It was as if the universe had some sort of budgetary constraints when it came to creating sentient life.

  After a brief exchange, the bouncer stood aside and indicated that Rake and Lyra should go in. Rake beckoned her close and gave her a little pep talk before going in.

  “Stay with me. You’re a treat in a place like this.”

  Lyra tossed her hair and gave him a surprised look. “I’m a treat?”

  “To these sex-starved maniacs, definitely,” Rake said. “Not many females in these parts. Even fewer that haven’t paid their ways with their bodies if you know what I mean.”

  “If I know what you mean? That wasn’t exactly subtle,” Lyra said. “You’re disgusting.”

  Rake draped his arm over her shoulders. “Stay close and keep your mouth shut,” he advised as he pushed the door open and drew her into the darkened interior of what had to be the seediest place that side of Betelgeuse.

  “Stop telling me what to do,” Lyra snapped as they entered. “You’re not my damn keeper.” She took a breath of the stale air and a look at the bar, and screwed her face up. “This place is gross and it stinks,” she observed somewhat harshly.

  “Quit whining or I’ll give you a reason to whine,” Rake replied. He began moving through the bar, taking her with him. The place really was full of a thick stench that smelled mostly male and somewhat overripe. The Vonyak had kept things pristine in Lyra’s experience. This place was far from pristine. This place hadn’t seen a mop in years. It was like a petri dish for people and people analogues.

  “There are a lot of people here,” she said. “I mean, human people.”

  “They’re not all human, but we do tend to survive and make nuisances of ourselves,” Rake said. “Come on. We don’t have time to linger.”

  “I don’t want to linger here,” Lyra replied. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t…”

  “Nice ass,” someone said. Lyra ignored the compliment, such as it was. She had never in her life been in such a place, where sweaty men rubbed shoulders and God only knew what else. The place reeked of testosterone and unlaundered clothing.

  A beefy hand landed on her bottom, squeezed, and stayed there.

  “What the hell are you doing?” She turned on the offender with a furious scowl.

  “Ease up, lady. It’s just a little fun. We like to have fun here.” The hand left her ass and moved to her inner thigh, moving up toward the apex of her legs. Lyra’s squeal of outrage made Rake whip around. He took in the situation in a single glance, took one long stride and pushed the groping man off his barstool.

  “Don’t put your hands on things that do
n’t belong to you,” he said in a fierce tone. “This one’s mine.”

  “I don’t reckon she is yours,” the offending fellow said. He was sizing Rake up and fancying himself better than him, Lyra could see that in his eyes. The groper in question was a portly humanoid with at least three hundred pounds of thick weight at his disposal. He didn’t seem particularly toned, but he probably had a deadweight sort of strength, momentum from throwing his weight around. “I reckon she belongs to whoever wants to take her.”

  “Is that right,” Rake said, his tone surprisingly restrained. It was almost conversational. Lyra wasn’t fooled by it, but the idiot in front of them was.

  “Damn straight. We’ll fight for her. You win, you keep her. I win, I take her.”

  “Right,” Rake said. “I’ll go first.” He took a step forward, cocked his fist, and drove it hard into the man’s jaw, striking with the quickness of an adder. Lyra doubted his opponent saw it coming. The motion had been so flowing and so swift, she was barely sure she’d seen it herself.

  What everybody did see was the handsy man go down like a sack of excrement and hit the floor unconscious, creating a clearing in the shape of his body amid the general gaggle of onlookers.

  Rake reached out, grabbed Lyra by the hand, and pulled her close to him. He looped a possessive arm around her shoulders and strode forward. The crowd parted for them now, keeping a respectful distance as they made their way to the very back of the dubious dive. There, a steel barred door blocked their way. He pounded on it with his fist three times and then paused and knocked again.

  “Festoon! Open up! It’s me!”

  “Festoon? What the heck is a festoon?”

  “A friend,” Rake said as the door swung open. He took a single step into the darkness then dropped to his stomach, pulling Lyra down with him just in time for the door to close behind them and a heavy dart to fly through the air and hit the steel plate behind them just at the height their heads had been.