Dual Abduction (11 page)

“So, if we survived, then chances are they did too. We just need to go outside and find their section.”

Xarn fidgeted. “Yes, and that brings me to the second problem. We need to evacuate soon as our compartment has landed in a marshy area and is sinking. If we do not get out within the next thirty galactic units or less, we will be submerged.”

Mouth open wide, she stared at him. From bad to worse. Or did he still have more to impart? “Anything else, oh bright ray of sunshine?”

He frowned. “Did the crash addle your wits? The sun is not shining. Actually, it is overcast and I predict a possibility of rain.”

“You went outside?”

“Yes. The air is thick, and the humidity levels very high, but they shouldn’t prove harmful.”

He and Brax continued to discuss the surface conditions, while scrounging through some cupboard, stuffing stuff into some bags. Stunned, she tried to process the fact her girls might not have survived. She couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t. They’d not made it through shitty childhoods only to die now when a new life beckoned.

I’ll find them. They’re out there somewhere, I know it.

Decided, she brought her attention back to her purple hunks and whistled low under her breath. They’d stripped off their shirts, revealing slabs of mauve muscles that made her almost drool and definitely incited a hunger that owed nothing to do with food. The lack of nipples on their developed pecs didn’t look as odd as she’d feared when she first heard about it. Besides, they had more than enough ridges to make an exploration of their upper torso fun. Not that she would do any exploring.

Over their bare chests, they put on a harness and then used them to sheath honest to god swords down their spines. They were like barbarian warriors come to life. And holy hotness.

Something of her awe—or arousal—must have shown in her face because Xarn caught her eye and grinned—a smile that said ‘I know what you’re thinking, and I second it’. “If I’d known how impressed you’d be by our swords we would have shown them to you sooner.” Of course, her gaze immediately dropped to peek at their groins, and she blushed as she watched the fabric stretch.

Brax groaned. “You choose the worst time to show an interest in that. We must go.”

“Yes. You’re right.” She shook herself mentally. She needed to focus on something other than the ache between her legs. Like rescuing an alien planet from her girls because god only knew what they would do alone, without supervision.

Something came flying her way and she caught the odd rubber object, and frowned in confusion. “What is it?”

“We call them slips. You put them on your feet to protect them,” he said. “You cannot hope to go out there bare foot, and while not as sturdy as our boots, it will offer some comfort.”

Examining the rubbery thing more closely she noticed there was actually a pair, with a hole in each one. She pushed her foot into it and the strange textured slipper wrapped around her foot. She slid the other one on and stood. Spongy to walk on, she wondered how her feet would smell, sockless, after a day spent sweating in them.

“Got any underwear in there?” she asked, realizing that while a long shirt, on board, worked to cover her girly parts, outside might prove a whole different experience. A documentary she’d seen years back about the Amazon made her think of little critters that liked to crawl up warm wet places. Probably not the best thing to think of at a time like this.

“If you mean undergarments, then no, nothing that would fit your smaller frame. Fear not, we will guard it from unwelcome entry.”

But who will guard it from the two of you?
Because with her resistance pretty much gone where they were concerned, it was only a matter of time before she let them seduce her.
Or I seduce them.

“Come. We must make haste.”

Forcing her thoughts away from the direction they tended to go when in their presence, she went to join them. She jumped when Brax slid a belt around her waist, its weight heavy with a pistol and knife.

“Just in case you need them.” he said at her surprised look.

“And he doesn’t mean on us,” Xarn added with a slap to her bottom.

“I’ve got better weapons to use,” she sassed, and she cupped them both for a second before walking past them and out into the hall. She let their matching groans distract her from the fact she was about to set foot on her first alien planet.

Holy shit. Screw NASA’s one small step for man. This is one big step for Louisa.

Standing in the hatch, peeking out at a dimly lit landscape, she couldn’t help shaking her head. Science fiction movies and Star Trek just couldn’t prepare a person for the reality of an alien planet. First of all, the colors were all wrong.

“Bubble gum pink water? Really?” Who knew how many light years from planet earth, and she’d landed on a pastel planet that looked like it belonged in Barbie-verse.

“It is the minerals that render it that hue,” Brax supplied coming up behind her.

Startled, she swayed, but he caught her around the waist. Anchoring her with an arm, he pulled her against him. She ignored how nice that felt and continued with her perusal.

“How do you know that? Have you been here before?”

“This planet in question is not known to me.” He snagged her hand and tapped it against a device at his hip. “The analyzer is feeding me information.”

“Cheater.”

He chuckled. “I prefer the term prepared.”

“Okay smarty pants, so if minerals make the icky water pink, then why is that tree thing over there, sitting in it, white?” And freakish looking. She understood it wasn’t a tree in an earthly sense, but what else to call the tall thing with its weaving, feathery limbs.

“The water leaches the color from it. You will see once we leave the marsh. The foliage will probably span a range of colors.”

“Speaking of leaving, how are we going to do that?” she asked peering with a wrinkled nose at the muck. Pink or not, she did not want to set foot in it.

“Lucky for you, all of our ship sections come equipped with basic emergency gear such as a hover platform. You won’t need to get your feet wet.”

Still loosely held in Brax’s grip, she turned at a sound behind her. Brax shuffled them back as Xarn waved them aside holding aloft a little black box. The distraction of Brax’s body against hers didn’t completely tear her attention from Xarn, but only because she forced herself to watch.

With a grin and a flourish, he tossed the cube into the air, and her jaw surely dropped as the box pulled a magician’s trick and unfolded into a hovering platform. Only about an inch thick, and appearing solid, while her brain couldn’t grasp what magic held it aloft, she found herself suitably impressed.

“That was cool,” she breathed and then smiled at Xarn.

“He had nothing to do with it,” grumbled Brax from behind her.

“Come my, little barbarian, and I will show you how to guide it.” Xarn hopped onto the floating raft, which barely wobbled, and held out his hand. She clasped his fingers, but before she could leap, a pair of hands grabbed her bottom and heaved her forward.

“We have to leave now!” Brax said, his tone urgent. Tumbling forward, she landed against Xarn. She squeaked as Brax leapt on the platform and it dipped. She clung to Xarn, who chuckled as his hands stroke her back.

“Fear not, little human. We will not sink. I can’t vouch as much for our ship though.”

Turning, Louisa could only watch as the command center sank, the pink mud swallowing it whole and releasing an air pocket burp.

She scanned the swamp around them, wondering if the spaceship section her girls found themselves in suffered the same fate, but with them trapped inside. A tremble shook her as tears formed in her eyes.

He read her thoughts. “No crying,” Brax said, his thumb brushing at her lower lash to wipe the moisture. “Your halflings are much too vicious to allow themselves to sink in a quagmire.”

“That is if they even landed in it. Look past my body and you will see there is solid surface not far from us.”

“And according to my calculations,” Brax added holding up a handheld item that resembled an iPad, but made of clear plastic. “Their section should have found itself propelled in that direction.” He pointed behind her.

Her eyes followed Brax’s pointing digit and she peeked around Xarn’s arm, to see the colored trees he’d previously claimed would appear the further they got from the bog.

“Thank you,” she replied softly, touched at their attempts to raise her spirits.

“Thank me later when we’ve found the little demons.

“And when he says thank us, he means naked,” Xarn added with a waggle of his brows and a suggestive leer.

With laughter erasing her tears and bolstering her determination to find her charges, they set off, the platform hovering over the thick muck and guided by a simple lean of their bodies when they stood on a green square. They almost managed to reach dry land when Brax said, “I told you we’d keep you dry.”

Xarn yelled, “You idiot! Why would you say that?” before disaster struck, and even odder, Louisa could have sworn she heard a disembodied chuckle before it hit.

Chapter Ten

The tentacle struck out of nowhere, wrapping around Brax and yanking him off the hover craft.

Louisa shrieked, “Giant marsh squid!” and pulled out her gun, which personally, Xarn found scarier than the creature attacking them.

“You’re not funny, Murphy,” Xarn growled, speaking to thin air, knowing the troublesome entity hovered nearby. It didn’t take a genius to figure out he was probably next to get his feet wet. Xarn drew his sword, just in time as more waving appendages sprang from the muddy waters. He sliced them before they could snare him or touch Louisa, but while he kept her unencumbered, he was unable to prevent the chopped stalks from spraying her with a milky ichor.

“Eeew!” She made a moue of distaste, but didn’t faint like many females would. Definitely not weak in spirit, a trait he appreciated. A sense of relief allowed him to loosen his tense poise as Brax’s head popped up from the surface of the pink quagmire. Not that he truly worried about his sword brother. Or so he told himself.

Brax waded to the side of the platform while Louisa clapped her hands, happiness shining on her face at his reappearance.

“Brax! You’re alive.”

Xarn snorted. “Of course he is. You did not seriously think a mere swamp creature could best one of the Dual Terrors? We teethed on creatures scarier than that.”

He should have heeded the warning glint in her eyes. He didn’t, thus he was not prepared for the shove she gave him that sent him over the side, head first into the bog. The bottom proved not far, and he planted his feet and pushed himself to the surface. Emerging from the mire alongside his brother, he spat out a mouthful of gunk and glared at her. She laughed.

“Not funny, human,” he growled.

“Funny depends on where you’re standing,” she taunted. Planting her hands on her hips, she beamed down at them, probably not realizing that in her current apparel—Brax’s shirt and nothing else—they possessed a clear view of what she hid. And it looked enticing.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Xarn muttered.

“Most definitely.”

They reached up and each grabbed a hold of a corner. Rocking in one direction, then the other, they wobbled the floating platform.

“Hey, what are you doing?” she yelled.

Xarn, his eye on the prize which kept flashing him as she spread her legs to keep her balance, grinned. “Revenge.”

“Is my middle name,” she laughed before plopping herself onto the deck and crossing her legs tight. “Now, if you’re done trying to cop a peek, can we finish getting to land before some more nasty swamp creatures show up?”

Not wanting to cover her in the same mud they bore, they trudged alongside the raft until they reached solid ground. Striding forth, in gear heavily coated in grime, Xarn grimaced. “We need a bath.”

“Yes you do,” Louisa agreed. “You stink.” She held her nose for emphasis, her eyes twinkling with mirth.

This time, they didn’t even look at each other before they acted. He and Brax sandwiched her between them, rubbing their murk covered bodies against her. Retaliation was the goal, but pressed against her lush body, her laughing shrieks and giggles music to his ears, an urge of a different sort assailed him. And he wasn’t alone.

He could see the same lust on Brax’s face. Oddly, it didn’t bother him as much as it had in the beginning. They’d shared a lot of things over the years, almost everything, actually, except a shared genetic background and women—although given how often they hung out with each other, their parents and family just treated them both the same. Was it truly that insane to think that when it came to a mate the same female would draw them?

“Okay, you’ve made your point,” Louisa laughed pushing at his chest, her eyes bright with amusement. “No more making fun of you guys even if pink is your color.”

Xarn tweaked her nose and left a smudge of mud on the tip. He kissed her quickly before she could squeak. But one kiss wasn’t enough. He possessed her mouth, and it yielded under his touch, opening for him, her tongue venturing forth to tangle with his own. He gripped her hips, pulling her tighter against him, and became aware his friend still remained pressed against her back. He opened one eye to see Brax kissing her neck. Even more fascinating than the fact he found it intriguing to watch, Louisa didn’t seem to mind at all.

Perhaps Brax’s earlier suggestion of sharing wasn’t so far off the mark after all. Did they really need to make her choose? Couldn’t they …?

The rain he predicted chose that moment to come down in torrents, its only saving grace its warmth, and the fact it sluiced the mud from their bodies. But it also ruined the moment. Louisa broke free of the embrace with a gasp, a blush coloring her cheeks.

They let her move away from between them at her gentle shove, but Xarn couldn’t help his mind moving in a different direction, one that no longer involved a competition to make her choose, but one where he shared her with his best friend. A matter he’d discuss with Brax at the earliest opportunity. First, they needed to locate her students, find or create shelter and try to discover exactly where in the galaxy they found themselves.