doing fine on my own,” I snapped. “Like you said, I can use this thing.” I waved the cattle prod in the air.
My rescuer took a half step closer, so I had to tilt my chin up. “Yeah, I saw that. The blue female, she was supposed to deliver you to Cerberus legion on Rogue 5.”
I had no idea where that was either, and I didn’t care to find out. “Not happening. The way you took her out, it doesn’t seem like you two are friends.”
He frowned. “Friends? Never. Now? We’re enemies.” He looked at his wrist, at some kind of small screen. “Fark. She retracted her credit. And she has the integrations.” He paced in a circle with his hands on his hips.
“What does that even mean?” I wondered.
“I sold her something. Earlier. After our little… escape, she retracted her credit.”
“Space money.”
“Yes,” he confirmed. “She wasn’t happy I got in her way.”
I bit my lip. “Sorry.” I wasn’t, but it probably wouldn’t be smart to say so right now.
He set his hands on his hips and paced, lost in his angry thoughts.
I took a step back while he was distracted then another. He might be broody and gorgeous, but he also ran hot, which meant he was unpredictable. I was better off looking at him in my rearview mirror.
He looked up, took in the distance between us. “Where are you going?”
I thumbed over my shoulder like he had. “Trion.”
His dark gaze lowered to my breasts then widened. How he hadn’t noticed the outline of the chain through my tight brown tunic, I had no idea, but the swaying golden links and the piercings they were attached to were clear as day now that my nipples were hard as rocks. Damn it.
“Trion. Why do you want to go there?”
“I was brought here from Trion and given to the stinky lizard guy. Well, not given. Actually, I was unconscious for most of it, so I don’t know how I got here. But I do know who to blame. I’m going to make Bertok regret it.”
“Bertok?” The guy’s mouth fell open.
“You know him?”
“He’s a Councilor on Trion. He sold you to Jirghogis?”
I didn’t really know what a Councilor was, but it was something important on Trion. I nodded. “He’s also a douche canoe who killed my mate, so he could sell me here on… wherever the fuck we are.”
When his eyes widened in surprise, I couldn’t miss how dark they were. He stepped close and cupped my jaw. “You had a Trion mate?”
“For all of two minutes,” I grumbled then moved away from his touch. He was surprisingly gentle for a guy who had such rough edges.
I thought of Naron. He hadn’t had any rough edges, at least from what I’d been able to tell. I didn’t mourn him because I knew him. I mourned him because he’d been an innocent caught up in Bertok’s fucked up plans. And because he represented a dream, a dream that had died with him.
My rescuer stepped toward me, all swagger and dark brooding. “Are you telling me you’re an Interstellar Bride?”
I shrugged again. “Not any longer. My mate’s dead. I’m going back to Earth.”
He laughed at me, and that totally pissed me off.
“Gara, you’re a citizen of Trion now. Not Earth.”
That word, that endearment, was what Naron had called me, too. The word from this male’s lips affected me like he’d licked my skin, the sound sensual and threatening all at once. And that double-edged sword made me want him close. Made me want to trust him. Which was stupid. Just fucking stupid.
“Don’t call me that.” I moved to stand toe to boot with him, but I had to tip my chin back even further to meet his eyes.
“Then tell me your name, human,” he countered.
“Zara.”
He said it aloud, as if testing the sound of it on his tongue. “There isn’t much difference between Zara and gara, now is there?”
I rolled my eyes.
He smirked.
“Well?” I waited.
He frowned. “Well, what?”
“Your name.”
“Isaak.”
“Isaak, I will go home to Earth. It hasn’t been thirty days yet,” I countered.
Slowly, he shook his head. “Trion’s in a different part of the galaxy. When you transport to and from Trion, time bends.”
“Bends? What does that mean?” I crossed my arms over my chest, felt the chain press into the backs of my arms.
“It means when you are on Trion, three months pass out here in a blink.”
My mouth fell open. “Three months? That wasn’t on Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica.”