Wrage (Galaxy Gladiators #11) - Alana Khan Page 0,41
hand and grasps it as if it’s a lifeline.
“Why does my mother want me on Rhoid?” I ask levelly. I don’t want them to realize how badly I want an answer.
“She didn’t stoop to tell someone at my level all the particulars, asshole. She did say I needed to take you immediately. She made sure we got priority at the spaceport. And she said, and I quote, “I don’t want him to ever leave the miserable planet you’re taking him to. Do I make myself clear?’”
My stomach tightens like it’s being gripped in a fist. I should have killed her when I had the chance. Even though Wryth’N has the death penalty, it couldn’t be worse than what that bitch sentenced us to.
One of our captors offers us water, Elyse sips some before I can warn her.
Elyse
Wrage warned me before I could stop my reflex to swallow—they drugged me. I wake up when one of the men slaps my cheek.
“Wake up,” he mocks, “wouldn’t want to miss that honeymoon surprise you were excited about.”
I have to pee so badly I wonder how long I was out. That moves to second priority, though, when I glance out the windows flanking the pointed nose of the vessel.
Is that a planet? The closer we get, the more I understand the pilot’s warning. It’s a swirling ball of red dust.
Wrage is peering out the windows looking dazed. I wonder if they drugged him too. If I know him, even though he’s half out of it he’s planning a method of escape. I’m not feeling optimistic. Certainly, neither of us know how to pilot a ship, and God knows, it looks like that’s going to be our only ticket off this rock.
Landing is a lot smoother than takeoff, and we’re released from our bonds and hustled off the ship into a metal hangar. It’s old and rusty with holes in the metal, especially at the seams. Sand blown by the galeforce winds seeps in through every crevice, pelting my skin and whipping my hair so wildly I have trouble seeing.
My parents took me to Cancun when I was in high school. It was hot as blazes that week and I realized I never wanted to live in the tropics even if other people described it as paradise. One day we were caught in a sudden afternoon storm. One moment it was sunny, the next it was monsooning. We sat in the safety of the old school bus we were touring on with three dozen other strangers.
It was so hot and humid I thought I would die. That’s what it’s like here except it’s combined with blowing red sand that’s abrasive enough to be giving me a facial even as we speak.
Five laser blasters are trained on us, which is overkill considering we’re wearing pain/kill collars. Wrage’s hands are tied behind his back and his feet are shackled so closely together he can’t walk, it’s more like a shuffle. Wrage leans to me and says, “I don’t need a day at the spa. My face will be smooth as a baby’s butt if I just stand in the wind.”
He has the audacity to give me a lopsided grin and a wink.
My heart squeezes with my love for this male. Despite our circumstances, he’s trying to joke to ease my panic.
“Get moving, shitbags,” one of them bellows while another prods Wrage between his shoulder blades.
There’s a huge purple bruise on Wrage’s cheek. I heard the force of the blow when one of them hit him with the butt of his rifle in our room. I thought the asshole might have broken the bone.
I have the urge to kiss it better. Tears threaten behind my eyelids at the thought of how deeply I love this male after knowing him for such a short time.
After four years in captivity, when half the time I yearned for death, not believing that anything good could ever happen to me, I stumbled into this force of nature called Wrage. I found the beauty of wreathing and companionship and silly jokes, and yeah, the amazing physical connection we share.
My brain chooses this moment to taunt me with pictures of my beautiful male looking up at me from between my feet as he adored me with his mouth when he marked me.
Why would fate be so cruel as to tease me with such bliss for a few short days only to snatch it away?
I must not be moving fast enough to suit the male