Alien, Mine (16 page)

A hot, intoxicating wave of relief flooded her system. She moved against T’Hargen’s hold, but the big Angrigan merely stood with her in his arms and climbed back onto the path. Feet dangling, she cast him a querying glance over her shoulder. Eyes hard with flinty speculation bored into hers.

“What?” she demanded.

Frost barricaded his gaze and he dropped her like a hot potato. She staggered, gained her balance, then shrugged off his peculiar humour. She had worse things to worry about.

“Well?” she demanded in a harsh whisper and waited for the next order.

“This way.” Eugen motioned downhill. “Remain behind me.”

What, me do something I’m not ordered to do? Perish the thought.

She matched the brisk jog he set along the fern-edged trail into the quiet forest.

Anger gnawed at Mhartak. He’d allowed the Bluthen to outmanoeuvre him and force them onto this planet into their waiting arms because he’d underestimated Sandrea’s importance to them.

What lay behind their apparent intent to capture her alive and uninjured? What intelligence swayed the council to determine her safety be paramount? Were the two linked?

It seemed likely.

It was also the excuse he’d proffered his brother for assaulting him. The human woman was of great military importance to the Alliance and he’d feared T’Hargen had eliminated a valuable tactical advantage.

By then, they’d failed to find Sandrea’s body amongst those of the Bluthen and assumed she’d escaped via the river. He’d divided the troop into search-and-rescue pairs and sent them out. His brother’s suggestion that Sandrea be a collaborator had received the scornful denial it deserved. She had no desire to return to the Bluthen, her evident terror proved that conclusively. That aside, he doubted she had a duplicitous cell in her beautiful body.

A horrifying suspicion raced through him like flame along a wick. Had emotion impaired his reasoning?

His deplorable behaviour when T’Hargen fired the ion wave gun and every shred of professional conduct had vaporized in the face of Sandrea’s possible demise came back to taunt him. A corner of his mouth compressed.

g’Nel, I tore into those rocks like an immature, undisciplined . . .
He quashed the memory.

He could not afford a lapse in judgment. Not now. He knew exactly what had caused his aberrant behaviour and ruthlessly caged the burgeoning emotion. The tender feelings he felt toward Sandrea could not be indulged. He must deny the deep craving to hold her close, to offer support, to resolve her aversion of him—for now.

This situation demanded a military perspective. He would keep it.

But,
Paradise’s indignant Angels
, he couldn’t help but admire her courage and tenacity. Sandrea must be exhausted, overwhelmed by the constant hunt and threat of recapture, yet she retained enough fire to face their circumstances with fortitude.

“We will rest,” he ordered and led them into the shelter of a thick clump of brush.

However strong his resolve, he couldn’t silence the voice wondering what it would be like to spend the rest of his life with this woman.

Sandrea settled gratefully to the ground and leaned her back into a trunk.

“Where’re the rest of the squad?” she murmured.

“Making their way to a holding of T’Hargen’s.” Eugen’s deep voice, floating down from where he stood, soothed her frayed nerves.

She turned her gaze to T’Hargen. “You live here?”
In this cold climate?

“Yes.”

Good heavens.

Silence hung in the air. Hell, it practically savaged any noise. An odd vibe drifted down her spine and skated across her senses. She flicked her eyes between T’Hargen and Eugen. The silence hung between
them
. Why? Clash of alpha males?

No, this seems deeper. Personal. They know each other?

A strange, compressed, fragmented buzz drifted into hearing. Eugen’s head lifted.

“X-EM rifle,” T’Hargen muttered. “Bluthen. About a mile away in the direction we are headed.”

He’s familiar with the sound of Bluthen weaponry?

Eugen’s comm-pod bipped.

“Leaf in the tornado. Leaf in the tornado.”

Confusion and a shot of amusement crinkled her brow.

“Do you require assistance, Sergeant?” Eugen responded.

Concern for Kulluk tightened her shoulders.

“We have a minor situation, Sir. Bluthen interrogating villagers objected to our intervention.”

Bile rose in her throat.

“Where?” T’Hargen growled.

“Situation has developed—” Kulluk continued.

Kendril’s exasperated voice interrupted. “What the good sergeant is not saying, Sir, is that we could— Ugh!” Laser fire screamed and shattered the background noise, “Use some help.”

Shrenk’?

“Sergeant, who has possession of the ion gun?” Eugen demanded.

“Lieutenant Graegen, Sir. He’s not—”

A burst of static cut off the transmission.

“I’ll go,” T’Hargen snarled.

Eugen’s gaze trained on him for a moment, the tightness of his features concealing fierce emotions.

“No,” he countermanded. “See Miss Fairbairn to your place.”

“I’m just as capable—” T’Hargen argued.

“I am sensible of that fact, T’Hargen. This is no longer your fight. Please do as I ask.”

T’Hargen’s hard stare on Eugen lasted a moment before he jerked a brisk nod. Eugen consulted an instrument on his arm, turned, and bounded away.

Hurt that he hadn’t even spared her a glance before leaving, Sandrea nevertheless whispered, “Take care,” after his departing figure.

“Move,” T’Hargen ordered.

She rose to her feet and dusted off her butt.

“Certainly, kind sir,” she muttered with heavy sarcasm. “Perhaps you would be good enough to point the way?”

The drill of an intense gaze scraped across Sandrea’s shoulder blades. It had been for the last hour or so that they’d hiked through the forest. Her capacity to ignore the relentless stare, the prickle of skin on her back, fast approached non-existent.

She had enough to contend with between Eugen going all aloof military on her and the Bluthen breathing down her neck. If T’Hargen thought he could provoke her, make her uncomfortable . . .

Dammit! He is.

She spun, prepared to crawl up one side of him and down the other. Her sight skipped over his shoulder through a framework of trees and up the long, grassy slope they had just descended.

Bluthen.

Holy shit!

“Run!” she yelled and whirled.

Self-preservation fuelled her speed along the track.

“Keep your pace to mine, or I’ll let you face whatever you run into on your own,” T’Hargen bellowed at her.

Fear ripped through her gut. Down here in the valley, breeze was practically non-existent and the sun, already hidden behind the mountains, made the forest shadows an easy place to hide. She shortened her stride until he drew level with her.

“Can’t you go any faster?” she grumbled, driven by the need to stretch her legs, to run like the wild wind funnelling down a valley, to put as much distance as humanly possible between her and the hated Bluthen.

They ran out onto a dirt track. Old wheel ruts ploughed its surface. T’Hargen herded her along and she picked up the pace.

Glimpses of a bridge flickered between the trunks ahead. The track turned and aimed straight for a river. They dashed toward the crossing and for a microsecond her heart sank. Half the damn bridge had been destroyed. Given the choice between facing the Bluthen and jumping into rushing water again, she’d gladly choose the latter.

T’Hargen did not.

His big body veered into hers. Their legs tangled, and they went down in a thumping mass on the threshold of a dilapidated abutment. Jarring impact with the ground ricocheted through her bones. Dazed and spitting dirt from her mouth, she rose as T’Hargen hauled her upright. She shoved him off and darted for the river. Her vest tightened to a restraining hold that almost flipped her off her feet.

“Angrigans don’t do water,” he muttered and dragged her backwards, his fist clenched in her vest.

She stared over her shoulder at him, struggling to keep upright.

What the fuck does that mean?

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she yelled. “The Bluthen aren’t that great in the water. I’ve seen it. We could lose them.”

T’Hargen continued to haul her backwards. The rigid set of his shoulders mirrored the tension in his stiff neck.

“Move!” he barked at her.

The river and freedom called.

“But—”

T’Hargen yanked her around and jerked her into him. His eyes blazed as he shoved his face into hers, his fists crushing the labels of her vest.

“We are not, repeat
not,
going into the water.”

“Then
I
will.”

His glare flamed vehement and his grip tightened. “The hell you will. I’ve been charged with your safety and you’ll do
exactly
as I say.”

“Fu—”

“Move!” He thrust a finger toward the forest. “You can go voluntarily or not. Choice is yours.”

Defiance ground her teeth together. She could make a dash for the river, but he’d be on her before she could so much as flinch in that direction. And with every word they crossed, the Bluthen pounded closer. She sprinted into a thick copse of screening conifers, T’Hargen on her heels, and fear feeding her blazing anger.

“Have you any idea where we’re going?” she demanded.

“Shut up and keep moving.”

Great. Translated, that sounds like ‘No, but being a superior male I’m not about to tell you’.

She sprinted along a thin, winding, ribbon of a trail. Ahead a rocky, fern-draped bluff forced the river through narrows. The dirt path petered out at a rock ledge hemming the water at the base of the squat cliff.

How fortuitous, otherwise he’d have to ‘do’ water.

She stepped onto the perilously wet rock, struggled to contain the urge to trip T’Hargen into the water and moved as quickly as her sure-footed balance would allow.

A few minutes later, she jumped down to the rocky floor of a gorge and raced on. T’Hargen’s heavy footsteps followed as she skirted a magnificent, clear pool of green tinted water. Her chest screamed for respite, but the menace of capture spurred her on.

The walls of the canyon swerved away behind the quiet lake and she sped along beside the river that fed it. The unmistakable sound of falling water reached her ears. She turned into the next gorge and beheld the glorious splendour of a long, plunging cascade as it tumbled through a scooped out bowl of moss-covered rock.

Behind the curtain of water a dun-coloured, sheer rock wall crowned with three towering round-topped buttes rose to daunting elevation. Alarm eclipsed the beauty before her. She lurched to a halt, gulping air.

“Oh, well done,” she sneered through panting breaths. “You’ve led us up a blind canyon.”

She glared at the scenery. Carved into the high buttes, open shafts too vertical to have been created by nature seemed to glare back. And then there were the steps.

“I know what this is,” T’Hargen said.

She scowled at him. “Do tell.”

He returned her glower. “A way out,” he growled and strode toward the carved rock stairway.

She narrowed her eyes on his retreating form and wondered what her chances were of limpeting to his back up the stone stairs. There had to be at least a hundred of the bloody things, possibly more, climbing perpendicular beside the waterfall.

Who in their right mind carves steps
beside
a waterfall? The damn things will be slick with slime and spray.

Her knees felt weak just looking at them. Anger and anxiety locked her jaw and she stomped after T’Hargen.

“Don’t do water, my ass,” she grumbled.

The waterfall greeted her with cool sprays and the thunder of a vigorous fall. She scrambled carefully up behind T’Hargen and focused her anger into ensuring the security of each foot and handhold. T’Hargen climbed as if suction cups lined his boots. His impatience with her slow progress fell on her like snow on a tropical flower. She kept her unwavering gaze on the stone steps.

The yawning, wide-open space of a steep drop tugged, tugged, tugged at her back. Tears stung her eyes and icy terror shivered through her muscles. Every step became a minor hell. Her breath rasped in short, sharp bursts and her body shook so hard her anxiety shuddered toward hysteria.

Eons passed. A large, flat rock appeared before her strained gaze. With violent trembling mastering her limbs, she crawled onto it and forced her hyperventilation into deep, calm breaths.

“We can’t stay here all day,” T’Hargen muttered after a few moments, could have been a lifetime.

Did he think she didn’t know that?

She edged forward, unable to even contemplate standing, certain that if she did, gravity would pierce her with invisible tentacles and haul her backwards off the cliff. On her hands and knees, she followed a steep, dirt path that left the slab of rock and veered away from the cascade through tussocks of grass and short shrubs.

Her terror receded in minute increments as she moved away from the sheer drop.

“Can’t you go any faster?” T’Hargen muttered.

“Fuck you,” she bristled, straining her willpower to not submit to the screaming heebie-jeebies.

She sensed land surrounding her, and the tremors wracking her body lessened. Dread eased enough to allow the ache of her muscles to pass to her awareness. A small wave of strength washed through her body, providing enough courage to allow her to rise into a half crouch. She grabbed the twiggy branches of a bush, as much for moral support as physical.