The Druid Gene (13 page)

W
hen Raub came
for Darcy that night, she was ready for him. Instead of catching up on sleep, she’d spent the dark time planning a strategy. They were unevenly matched and she was tired of always coming out on the bottom. In the past she’d managed to gain the upper hand for a while, and a few times she’d even thrown him, but she was rarely able to pin him, unless they were practicing a specific pinning technique. It was time to turn the tables and the only way to do that was with the element of surprise.

She lay there, breathing slowly and deeply as though she were asleep. When his hand reached in to tap her foot to wake her, she grabbed it and yanked hard to throw him off-balance. Then she swooped her feet out and down, making contact with his head and neck and knocking him out of the way as she slid down to her feet.

She followed the sound of his movement. He hadn’t vocalized yet, but she could hear his footfalls as he staggered away. She moved in, alternating punches and kicks, and made contact with his midsection. She heard the satisfying hiss of the air being knocked out of him, but she knew that wasn’t enough. She had to keep pressing the advantage. It wouldn’t last long. He’d recover from that blow quickly.

She kept moving, building momentum. She crouched low and swept her leg with all her strength. She managed to get the timing right and he fell on his ass. Now she knew for certain where his body was, but not any of his limbs. She wasn’t sure if he was sprawled out on his back or sitting. She kicked low, finding only air, and crouched into a low side kick where she hoped his head or chest might be.

It was a miscalculation. He grabbed her leg and twisted her off her feet. She rolled and slammed into the wall. Bright white stars dotted her field of vision. She heard his grunt of satisfaction and didn’t let herself stop to feel the pain. She followed the sound he’d made and launched herself at him with a roundhouse kick, then hopped back out of range. She seemed to have caught him just as he was getting to his feet.

He growled, soft and low, and she braced herself in a defensive stance, ears straining. He was coming. All her advantage was gone and he was pissed.

She realized she was smiling. It was weird how much she’d grown to enjoy these sessions. The fact that she’d actually caught him off guard and even knocked him down felt like such a victory. She’d enjoy it while she could, because she was about to get her ass kicked.

She was expecting punitive punches and kicks, but he’d decided to mix it up too, because he barreled into her, pinning her to the wall. All the breath went out of her in a whoosh. As she struggled to breathe and worm her way out of his tenacious grip, she realized something was very different about the hold he was using.

She squirmed, trying to suck in air, and he held her even tighter. She’d naively triggered something in him, something she didn’t really want to experience. “Raub?” she uttered in a strangled whisper.

He was bigger and heavier. He leveraged that weight at an angle, his upper body pressing into her chest, his hands pinioning her wrists on either side of her head. He crushed her. She could only breathe in shallow gasps.

She waited for him to release her and give her a harsh lecture. He didn’t.

She wrenched and twisted, but his grasp was relentless. At some point during the fight her loose ponytail had slipped out, leaving her hair hanging over her shoulders. Raub’s face was pressed against the base of her neck, his breath fanning over her skin.

Something wasn’t right. He didn’t normally get winded just from sparring with her.

His tongue, cool and moist, licked her from collarbone to earlobe in one long, slow motion. She shuddered and a strange, cold sensation spread through her body.

Pins and needles rippled through her extremities. She saw a faint blue glow in her peripheral vision. She opened her mouth, but no words would come out, just a startled wheeze.

She wondered for a second if she should scream. If the hymenoptera came, would that be better or worse?

Should she struggle harder or just go limp? If she shocked him, would she kill him, as she had the hymenoptera? Should she reason with him? What would make this end?

She’d read once that anxious people actually do better in times of crisis than most because they’ve imagined bad things happening so many times that they instinctively know how to act when shit gets real. She’d felt reassured about choosing medicine as a career after reading that and never doubted that she could handle anything thrown her way, even if she ultimately chose a path that led her to work in the ER or the surgical suite.

Her heart was pounding out of her chest, but her head was cooling and she forced herself to stop struggling. As calmer thoughts prevailed, the blue glow in the margins of her vision receded. That was good. She was gaining control over it. She could call it back if she needed to. She hoped she wouldn’t have to.

It was the fight that had brought this on. She wouldn’t give him any more fight.

She should have known. He liked the fight too much. She’d been aware of an increasing sexual tension between them, especially as her skills had improved, but she’d dismissed it because he seemed to dislike her so much and they were different species, after all. That had been naive. She couldn’t really say she knew him or what he was capable of.

His mouth was open wide against her neck, sharp teeth pressing into her skin, tongue lapping at the curve where her neck met her shoulder. He vibrated with a low growl that rumbled through her upper body.

She was acutely aware that if he simply clamped down his jaw and pulled back, he could rip open her jugular vein and her life would drain away within minutes. She wondered if he knew that, if that was an implicit threat to keep her quiet.

His skin was cool to the touch, like always, but there was something pulsing and twitching rhythmically against her thigh. She’d never seen him naked, but knew instinctively that he could use that unseen appendage against her. She didn’t want to find out how that would work. She shoved that repulsive thought aside and focused.

She pushed away the paralyzed feeling and let her body sag, forcing him to hold her up against gravity as dead weight. She swallowed convulsively and worked spittle into her mouth so she could speak. “I don’t want this,” she croaked. Then she cleared her throat to try again. She couldn’t sound the slightest bit hysterical. “No. It’s time to stop.” She sounded stronger the second time, matter-of-fact, dispassionate.

He barely loosened his jaw and spoke around his mouthful of her neck. “Come now, Leebska. I won’t hurt you. Much.” She couldn’t see his face, couldn’t read his intention. She sensed there was some humor there. Maybe he hadn’t completely gone off the deep end.

Possible options spun through her brain. She kept her limbs slack, though she longed to tense up and fight. He’d slowed down. Maybe it was finally sinking in that she wasn’t fighting anymore.

He pushed her arms up, extending them straight over her head until they touched. He ground her wrists together with one hand while the other clicked the button to loosen the jumpsuit and slipped over her, pulling her garment away until it stretched open to her groin.

“No!” she commanded. “Don’t do this.”

Her shoulders ached and her arms burned with the strain of holding all her weight, though dangling her aloft by her wrists seemed to be effortless for him. He eased his upper body back slightly and she breathed deeply, to get enough oxygen, to be ready to fight again.

It no longer seemed likely he’d set her loose and lecture her on her dreadful tactics. She refused to be his victim. She would not allow him to violate her.

He groped her.

She brought her knee straight up in a sudden, forceful jab, point-blank into his throbbing junk.

His teeth tightened on her neck and for a terrible moment she thought that was the end. She squeezed her eyes closed and tensed up, waiting for it. But it didn’t come.

“No means no,” she grated out. Her voice sounded raspy and she berated herself. She didn’t know for sure what he would find sexy. Clearly, he was hot for aggression from females.

His breathing was ragged. He pulled his hand away from her groin. His growl quieted. But his teeth were still set into her neck and he kept her suspended there.

He laughed, a quiet wheezing sound, and she felt his teeth release their grip on her skin.

A fat tear rolled down her cheek. She sniffed and looked up into the dark overhead in a vain attempt to control her emotions.

She could feel his breath on her face, knew that he was examining her, though she had no idea how much detail he could see in such pitch-black conditions.

Without warning, he released her and she fell to the floor, limbs flailing. The sound was so loud in the absolute stillness that it felt like a bomb had gone off. Instantly, she pulled her garment up over her breasts and simultaneously down over her knees. She huddled against the wall, knees drawn to her chest, tears flowing freely. She covered her mouth with her hand so she wouldn’t sob aloud, her body shuddering as the adrenaline subsided.

She felt him brush against her arm as he settled down next to her. She froze. There was nowhere to run or hide from him. If he made another move, she’d scream bloody murder and bring the hymenoptera running to separate them while she fought him off with every dirty trick she could conceive of.

If that didn’t work, she’d use the blue light before she’d submit to him, no matter the cost. She wasn’t going to keep being a victim.

“Your offensive was strong, initially, but that single blunder cost you dearly. Had I been a real predator, you’d have been raped and murdered five times over by now, Leebska,” he murmured into her ear, calmly, thoughtfully. Then he continued more urgently, “You must know your opponent, anticipate every possible approach. You cannot hold back. Once you lost the advantage, your defense crumbled, utterly. You knew what needed to be done. Why did you wait so long to change your strategy?”

She reeled at his sudden rational turn, as if he hadn’t just been mauling her like a rutting bear moments before.

“I—you can’t touch me that way!” she retorted with quiet venom.

“Can’t I? I think I just did. Do you think a slaver will be different? How will you stop it from happening? I think you liked it.”

She smacked his face, hard. The sound echoed against all the surfaces of the room. She didn’t question how she’d managed to strike him so squarely in the dark. She didn’t care about the consequences. She stood over him and spoke aloud, each word grated through clenched teeth. “If you ever touch me like that again, I’ll rip off whatever you’ve got growing between your legs and feed it to the hymenoptera larvae.”

He chuckled softly, and she heard him mutter as she stalked back to her sleeping cell, “I do believe you would.”

D
arcy
no longer slept as easily as she once had. Though their routine stayed the same, and Raub acted as though nothing had happened between them—for her, things had changed. She’d always known he was dangerous, but at some point she’d grown too familiar, become too habituated to his gruff manner, and had lost some of her wariness. That had been a mistake.

She had to be more vigilant, less quiescent. Raub was clearly an opportunist. She didn’t know what he had to gain from training her, but there was a reason and she needed to know what that was. It could very well make the difference in her survival.

She lay awake on her back in her cell, hands cradled beneath her head, elbows akimbo, thinking. Raub was quiet, but she didn’t hear his deep, measured breathing from one of the other cells. He wasn’t sleeping either. She had no idea what the time was, but it felt like it was still a few hours before they would rise for the day.

She breathed in a way that she hoped was indistinguishable from her normal sleep sounds. She wasn’t sure why she did it. It just seemed like the thing to do.

She heard a rustling sound and strained her ears to try to distinguish his activity. Raub was getting up. Perhaps it was later than she thought. She waited for him to tap her foot and bark at her to rise, but that didn’t happen.

Instead, she heard the door open and shut. Raub had left the rooms they were imprisoned in. That was a distinct change in routine. Now she was curious.

Darcy slipped from her cell, raced to the door, and put her ear against it, in hopes of catching some remnant of conversation as they walked away. She was in the habit of doing this whenever he left the rooms, though normally she heard nothing beyond a few curt words.

This time, she was in luck. They hadn’t yet moved. Raub and at least one hymenoptera spoke, just on the other side of the door. She couldn’t make out the vowel sounds the hymenoptera made. They were too soft to be heard through the door. But she could hear the clacks of the consonants he spoke and Raub’s voice was audible. She was able to piece together most of the conversation, though she didn’t understand all of it. They were using plenty of terminology that was unfamiliar. Those words translated inside her head, but they didn’t mean anything to her.

At first they were talking a lot of numbers and how they related to stars and planets. It took her a few moments to realize that the insect was explaining to Raub their current position in relation to other worlds. Then he described their trajectory, rate of speed, and the seven planets that lay within reach of that route. Then they discussed timing, duty schedules of various ship personnel, and routes within the ship to a short-range vehicle bay.

Raub was planning an escape attempt.

She stiffened and her nails dug into her skin. She wondered if she fit into this developing plan in some way. He’d said he was training her so she would be a competent ally. But how had he gotten the hymenoptera’s loyalty? What did he have to offer him?

The conversation concluded abruptly. She didn’t have time to do more than back away from the door a couple of steps before it opened. Raub strode through swiftly and switched on the lights. She couldn’t even disguise her reaction to what she’d heard. Her fingertips tingled. She didn’t need to look down to know that the nerves under her skin were glowing faintly. Any kind of strong emotion seemed to bring on this state.

Raub looked mildly surprised. Then he blinked slowly and drawled, “Have you broken the fast yet, Leebska?”

He knew the answer to that question, but it helped her remember to hold her tongue, that the walls had eyes and ears. She took a few shallow breaths, her chest heaving, and shook her head. She closed her eyes for a second and focused on calming herself. When the blue blaze behind her lids dimmed she opened them again to find Raub watching her approvingly.

“Let us begin,” he said, and launched into the stretching routine they always performed first thing in the morning.

She stared at him for a few seconds, wishing she had a window into his thoughts or at least the ability to speak freely with him. He was so frustratingly opaque, and there was never an opportunity to question him the way she really wanted to. That would have to end. She needed answers and he was the only one who could provide them.

She began the sequence with him, but her heart wasn’t in the forms. She was sloppy about it and she didn’t care. She stared him down as though daring him to correct her.

When he moved in to adjust her stance, he whispered into her ear, “Your eyes are on fire, Leebska.”

He pulled back and she hated his smug smile. She didn’t think. She lunged at him, throwing a quick punch and whirling into a turning kick. He blocked them both, easily, as if he expected them. In fact, he caught her leg in midair. She hopped in place and fought to get her balance back.

Her knee twisted painfully from over-rotation as her momentum carried her through the kick. She hoped she hadn’t torn the meniscus in that knee. That would lead to a lot of pain and wouldn’t heal well under these conditions.

His lip quirked up into a feral leer, and he leaned in. “I believe you’re angry.” He released her leg and resumed the stretching sequence. Darcy put a few more paces of distance between them and tested her leg carefully before returning to the sequence herself.

She wanted desperately to confront him, but she might ruin all his plans if she said anything out loud. And what if by some chance those plans included her? She couldn’t risk blowing an opportunity to escape. So she bit her tongue and bided her time.

Raub acted as though it were any other day. Meals were the same gruff affairs. Exercise was just as rigorous as ever. The only difference was her simmering temper and his knowing smirk.

Finally, the time for rest came. The lights went out. She passed the time recalling some of the last things she’d been studying before she was taken—toxic proteins and their effects on neurochemistry. Enough time had passed that it was getting harder and harder to remember this stuff without the reinforcement of flash cards or notes. If she ever got back to Earth, she’d be so behind she didn’t want to think about it.

When she heard Raub’s telltale rustle, she rose, making as little sound as possible. She wasn’t sure what to expect from him, so she maintained a defensive posture and moved to where she thought he might be. He was stealthy like a cat, barely making a sound. When she bumped into him, he pounced.

He knocked her back into a bank of cells and attempted to gain control of her flailing limbs. She struggled to keep panic at bay. This felt too much like that other, dangerous time. She hissed a single word as she broke out of his grip: “No.”

But he followed on her heels, stalking her. She fended him off, time after time. Whenever they got close enough to talk quietly, he was on her, and she was barely keeping him at bay.

He’d never give her a chance to talk. He was relishing this. He knew she’d overheard, that she wanted to know more about his plan, but he would draw this out and enjoy every moment of her discomfort and uncertainty.

He was toying with her, and she had no choice but to let him. He was bigger, stronger, and a better fighter. But if she kept thinking like that, she’d never find out what he was up to. He’d keep her guessing forever. He never volunteered anything important, even when directly questioned.

She threw a punch and he blocked it by shoving her arm up so the swing went over his head. She grunted and pushed herself harder. She had to change her strategy.

She didn’t hold back. She delivered heavy power slaps in a random pattern to his head—hoping to reduce his visual acuity. He’d told her that landing open-handed hits was better for her size than punching, especially against a larger opponent, but he’d given her little more than an hour of training on that technique. Well, she was getting in some practice now. She found that she liked it. She was rewarded when he took a step back.

With this technique she could deliver stinging blows without as much risk of hand injury, which was always on her mind when jabbing and punching. She could move quickly and dart into his defensive zone, slapping his offensive moves away while moving in with the other arm. Raub was bulky and lumbering compared to her—no wonder he’d let her discover the power of this technique on her own. At least for now, it was leveling their playing field.

Her fingertips stung. She felt sure she was leaving marks on him and that felt good. She pushed him back until he was the one pressed into the wall of sleeping cells and the sound of the slaps she rained on him echoed back eerily from them.

He threw a heavy punch. She slapped it off course, then dove low and jerked his arm down hard, letting his momentum carry him over her shoulder. He tumbled. Before he could regain his feet, she swiveled, landing a kick to his head to disorient him. He tried to rise, but she landed her full body weight on one knee, square on his chest, just as he’d showed her, and grappled with him until she held him immobile.

He wheezed until he caught his breath, then rumbled with soft laughter. She couldn’t help but smile. She’d done it. She’d finally pinned him.

“Fine work, Leebska. You’ll be an asset when we leave this cesspool.”

“We?” He sounded completely normal, but nevertheless she released him slowly, carefully. She was worried that she might have unleashed his dark side again.

“Would I leave you behind after investing so much time in your development?”

“Okay. Good.” She remained in a fighter’s crouch, her brow furrowed. “Raub, we’re not going to…”

“What?” She sensed, more than saw, him lumber to his feet and take a step to steady himself. He sounded amused. He stayed close enough to speak quietly, but didn’t move to engage her again.

“What happened before. That wasn’t okay.”

“Yes?” He was being obtuse on purpose.

“Quit it. You know what I’m talking about. We are not having sex, you and me.”

“Hm. No.” He sounded unimpressed and like that was the farthest thing from his mind.

She heaved a sigh of relief that she’d finally said those words to him. “Okay, then. Tell me how this is going to happen. What’s the plan?”