Chapter 7

SEVEN

Zanner

The lashes whipped my back, flaying the skin to pieces. I bit down on the wooden stick in my mouth, refusing to cry out or make a single sound. I kept my gaze on Huki Carruxic, the fucking Radian who set me up to take the fall for his crime. He sat watching my punishment with no remorse. I was just some humian after all, some low life who didn't matter. What did he care if I was marked for life and sent to work on Xal?

The lash hit my back again, like a fire brand, and I closed my eyes, vowing to never again trust another living soul.

A cry reached my ears, an unfamiliar sound that didn't belong here. Arms tugged me, a softness pressed against my face, and then the fire was gone. The pain was merely a dull ache, and the only sound I could hear was a pleasant tinkling, like the wind chimes my mother had made out of old cans.

I blinked my eyes open, but my vision was blurry. All I saw was a pair of bright blue eyes and a full mouth set in a brown face. Something glowed a warm red. When a cool, wet strip of cloth landed on my forehead, I let out a long sigh and closed my eyes.

The next time I woke, my sight was clear. I blinked at the ceiling of my bunker as I tried to sort out what happened. Pieces of the last day or so filtered through my mind like gray clouds.

When I frowned, something tugged on my forehead, and I prodded the skin there, which was scabbed. My fingers came away topped with flakes of dried blood.

A hand swatted mine, and I jerked to find the female looming over me. She had a piece of substitute meat jerky sticking out of the corner of her mouth. Strands of her hair tickled my face.

She touched the cut on my forehead and then peeled away a bandage at my ribs. I glanced down to see a nasty cut there, and memories of the fight with the wolpert came rushing back like a wave. His claws had torn into my flesh, and I could still feel the hot blood dripping down my legs.

The female's touches were light, caring, and I swallowed as the earlier memories—the ones before the wolpert showed up—also reared up in my mind. The flashes of her vettes and the warmth of her body pressed against mine.

My cock remembered, and despite my injuries, the shaft thickened against my thigh.

"That's healing. Let's check out your thigh," she murmured and lifted the edge of the blanket around my waist.

Alarmed that I was naked below the blanket, I grabbed her wrist. She squeaked and shot me a surprised look. "I'm fine," he muttered.

"I should check?—"

"I'll heal." I said through gritted teeth.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, and I swore she muttered, "stubborn," under her breath. She twisted her wrist until I let go. My muscles seemed to protest the small action of grabbing her as my arm flopped back at my side. With a groan, I lifted my hand to my head. This was a fucking disaster. If I didn't show up to work my shift…

005 would know. He would know .

The female—she said her name was Taki—fetched some water and food for me, but when I tried to sit up, my body wouldn't cooperate. I wanted to scream out my frustration. When Taki placed her hand behind my back to help me, I resented the action greatly.

"I can do it myself," I snapped.

"Sure you can," she said with a pointed look. I'd killed someone in front of her, and yet she was no longer afraid of me.

I grumbled but let her help me. After eating and drinking, I lay back down. I wanted to stand and start getting my strength back, but I didn't want to risk reopening the wound in my thigh, which was deep and still weeping blood.

Taki sat beside me with her legs curled under her, munching on some hard crackers. I tried not to think about what she'd looked like naked, but that was impossible, especially as her vettes continued to glow a soft blush.

"Why didn't you leave me?" I asked.

Her head shot up, and her big eyes blinked as her ears wiggled. "Leave you? In the cave?"

I nodded.

"Why would I do that?" She sounded annoyed. "You couldn't walk back on your own."

"I slowed you down. You might have been caught trying to help me."

She fidgeted with the edges of her torn clothing. "Then I guess I would have been caught. I couldn't leave you. Not after all you've done for me." Her eyes shown. "Not after you killed for me."

I now remembered snippets of my dazed confession, and an embarrassed heat slid up my spine. What else had I told her?

"I'm sorry," she continued. "I'm sorry that you were in that position because of me. The wolpert would have left you alone if I wasn't there, right?" I didn't answer, which was all the answer she needed. Her face fell as she nodded. "Thought so." Her hand settled on my arm. "Thank you for defending me."

As I was battling the wolpert, I thought it was the last time I'd see the female. Surely, she would leave to save herself. Or now consider me terrifying after I'd killed someone. But she'd had neither of her reactions. Instead, she was thanking me.

I'd expected a pampered female when she'd tried to sell me her jewelry, but she'd proved to be capable of fighting for her survival, in her own way, all while maintaining a conscience and some inner morals. I hadn't thought there was a place on Xal for any of that.

Her hand slid up my arm, and her vettes glowed a deep red. I knew what that color meant. I'd tried to ignore every time her vettes changed color and had been in denial about the way the vettes on my thighs and hips burned. This couldn't be right. I would never be a choice for a Radian female. Bonding her to me … was cruelty.

But fuck, her eyes glowed as her fingers tapped up my chest to curl around my neck. Her long nails tickled my hair, and I felt my Radian blood flare in desire.

"Taki," I forced myself to say her name, which was maybe the wrong choice, because a soft gasp of delight escaped her lips. "We cannot."

Her vettes dulled, and I expected her to turn away at my words like she did in the cave, but she then her chin jutted out. "I trust my vettes."

"This planet might be messing with them?—"

"My body is correct," she whispered, and her voice had deepened to a husky tone that gripped my balls in a vise. "I have chosen you. Do you not want me?"

Despite my fucked-up life, I did want her. And not just because she was a beautiful Radian female, and my vettes ached to feel her legs around me, but because she'd awoken something in me that I long thought dead.

Ignoring the twinge of my injuries, I surged up to reverse our positions. She let out a gasp as her back hit the sleeping pad, but she didn't resist at all. Her body went slack in my grip, and she arched that slender neck I so desperately wanted to mark.

We could do this. We didn't have to complete the bond, but we could ease the ache in our bodies and settle our blood for a little while. She'd leave me soon, and that was the way it should be.

"Zanner," she whispered.

I hadn't heard my name for five years. I couldn't remember the last person who'd even said it. I'd been 032 for so long that I had nearly forgotten what I once was.

I molded my mouth to hers, and she immediately opened for me. I slipped my tongue inside, licking into every corner of her mouth and tangling my tongue with hers. The scent of her arousal perfumed around us as her legs fell open so I could slot my hips inside. I tugged down the front of her dress to reveal her fuller upper breasts. Plucking a dark nipple, I sucked it into my mouth and moaned.

I made quick work of her clothes until she lay naked below me. The lantern light flickered over her brown skin and her four breasts lay heavy and full on her chest. But it was her pussy that drew my attention, as her slit leaked with slick. I'd never had a Radian female, but I'd heard the tales of their magic pussies. The vettes on her inner thighs glowed, nearly pulsing with a brilliant red as I drew my fingers across the top of her mound. Her slit flexed as if searching for a cock to fill it, and the flesh around her entrance rippled.

"Inside, Zanner," she cooed at me, and that wind chime sound was back, rattling from her throat like a mating call. Entranced, I slid up her body, unable to look away from her captivating blue eyes. Her thighs drew up over my hips, and a distant voice in my head whispered that I should be taking her in a different position, that this wasn't the right one, but then her fingers drew me toward her. The head of my cock touched her entrance, and her nipples brushed my chest while her breasts vibrated with her chiming.

"Taki," I whispered back. Her smile widened and then her cunt sucked me into pure, hot bliss.

Taki

My suvette sucked his thick rod inside my body, and the fullness pushed the air from my lungs. I gasped and wriggled my hips as the slight discomfort quickly gave way to pleasure.

The folds of my suvette lengthened and latched onto his groin while massaging his balls, and he let out a strangled cry. He blinked away the dark hair in his eyes as his lips peeled back into an almost feral snarl. Yes, I wanted my chosen male to take me, to conquer me. This was what my vettes wanted, and that was why I'd drawn him into the heated wetness of my suvette. The only cock I had ever taken inside of me.

The only cock I would ever take.

His hips snapped forward, pushing me up the sleeping pad, and I whimpered at the strength. My suvette flexed and sucked, keeping him locked inside of me until we would both eventually reach our climaxes.

"Oh fuck," he muttered, staring down at where our bodies met. He pulled his cock out halfway, but that was as far as my suvette would let him. Plunging back inside, he arched his neck with a groan. "Oh fuck, you feel like a dream."

His eyes bulged as he continued to work himself inside of me deeper and deeper while I hitched my legs onto his hips. My vettes burned nearly to the point of pain, and I felt the moment they tore open to release the bonding seal, which his hip and thigh vettes would absorb. I cried out as he roared while fucking into me harder. The smell of our vettes mixing their seals filled the small bunker, overwhelming me as my entire body felt like it was engulfed in flames. I held onto my mate, seeking his seed because that was the only way I could be free of the fire.

My hands slipped into his hair, wet with sweat, and I tugged as I whispered in his ear. "Fill me, mate. Fill me full until I leak with you."

A strangled sound left his throat as his mouth crashed onto mine. Flames consumed me, my suvette clamped onto his cock with an iron grip, and then his seed splashed my inner walls. The first spray was like water dousing a flame, and I screamed at the relief from the fire while a climax tore through my body like a rocket.

He held me as our vettes cooled. The sealing fluid dried, and my vision went blurry as my weak arms slipped from his neck to fall limply to the sleeping pallet.

He panted above me, one hand in my hair and the other around my neck while his cock remained locked inside me, as it would for a little while longer. I couldn't release him yet, not without pain for either of us.

I blinked at him hazily and felt a dopey grin slide across my face. "Thank you, my mate."

While his expression was slack with his climax, a slight wariness remained in his eyes. "Taki, that was… our seals…"

"I meant for it to happen." I yawned as I rolled us to our sides, my leg still propped over his hip while we remained connected.

"But Taki?—"

"I'm going to sleep."

He let out a huff of frustration. "But we need to talk?—"

"Oh, so now you want to talk." I laughed, and he seemed surprised at the sound. A small smile curled his lips. The shift of muscles transformed his face, and I brushed my fingers across his rounded cheeks. "You're more handsome when you smile."

His smile dimmed but didn't fade. "I haven't had a lot to smile about in a while."

"Until me?" I meant it as a joke, but he didn't laugh.

"Until you." His fingers slipped into my hair. "I thought this planet broke me and killed Zanner. But you reminded me of who I used to be. Before Xal."

"Tell me. I want to know what happened."

His jaw shifted. My suvette finally released his cock, and he slipped from my body, but didn't go far. His hand cupped me, and a finger plugged my entrance. He glanced down, and I shivered at the possessive glint in his eyes.

His finger twitched before he withdrew it and curled a possessive hand around my hip.

"I wouldn't say I'm an innocent, but I'm innocent of the crime they charged me with. I worked as a driver for hire, and I was called by a wealthy Radian to pick him up from his home. When I arrived, his mate was dead on the ground—hit by a car—and he said he'd pay me extra to help take care of the body." He shook his head. "It was stupid, but I was desperate and hungry. I got behind the wheel to get rid of the evidence, but the authorities showed up. The wealthy Radian blamed me. And everyone believed him. Why wouldn't they?"

My lips parted as I cupped his cheek. Sincerity leaked from every one of his pores, and my vettes reacted with a fierce wave of protectiveness. "You're really telling the truth."

He nodded with a slow blink before his gaze dropped to my necklace. He flicked it with one finger. "And this is what I do here now."

I frowned at my necklace. "Do what?"

His eyes met mine. "The RCE finds ways to get rid of us humians so they can send us here to mine fraxis."

A chill went down my spine. "That's…that's what you do here?"

His head cocked. "You didn't know how fraxis was mined? We have to fill a quota every day or we don't get fed."

"I—I thought—" My words failed me. I didn't know what I thought. Because to be honest, I had no idea how fraxis was mined. I had assumed by workers who were paid, not prisoners on a lawless planet. My gut churned, and the necklace I'd once been so proud of felt like an unbearable weight around my neck.

"Hey," he said softly. "It's okay."

I shook my head as my vettes blanched white. "But it's not okay. I didn't know. I don't think a lot of Radians know."

"I'm not sure they would care?—"

"I care!" My voice rose with a crack. "I care." I scrubbed at my face. "You should hate me."

"I did a little when I first saw you."

"But you still protected me."

His throat bobbed with a slow swallow. "I did."

"You protected me even though you hated me."

"I wasn't about to see you ripped apart by 005 and his crew."

I cupped his face. "You're good, Zanner. And you don't belong here."

"To be fair, most of us on this planet don't belong here. But this planet has turned us into what Radians believe us to be. Savages. Barbarians."

"I'm sorry." The words weren't enough. Not even close.

"It's not your fault."

"But I benefit from the system that condemned you to this planet."

His eyes crinkled in a sad smile. "You don't benefit here, and yet you still acted with heart."

"But—"

"Enough," he ordered softly as he curled my body into his. "I don't want to talk about something we can't change. I want to enjoy the peace while we have it."

And I wanted that too. I pushed thoughts of injustice and fraxis to the back of my mind as contentedness spread its tendrils into every limb. Laying in privacy with my mate was everything I hadn't known I wanted. "I wish we could stay in this bunker forever."

His fingers squeezed my hip. "I wish we could too. But we can't." Suddenly a shadow passed over his face, and his brow furrowed. "Wait, how long have I been out?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe a day."

His eyes went wide as he sat up with a jerk. I immediately missed the warmth of his body. "Fuck," he cursed. "I missed a day of quotas…"

"It's okay, we have enough supplies?—"

"No, it's not that. The wolpert and I will be reported missing, and 005 will search for us. I've managed to keep this bunker a secret, but they'll be able to follow our tracks here. I'm sure we left a bloody trail."

Guilt made me clutch the blanket to my chest. "I'm sorry I didn't cover our tracks?—"

"You did all you could. Even I wouldn't have been able to cover our tracks for that distance, not with all the blood." He cursed again as he rose to his feet. "We need to move."

"Move?" I squeaked.

"Move," he repeated with a gleam in his eye as he pulled on a pair of pants. "If we keep changing our positions, it will be harder for them to find us. And hopefully…" he chewed his lip. "Hopefully we get word soon that a rescue is coming for you."

I was already on my feet dressing into the spare clothes he'd retrieved from the escape pod. My dress was no longer wearable—the straps broken and the fabric caked with dried blood. Zanner picked it up and shoved it into our pack. "I don't need that."

"I know," he said. "But I don't want to leave any evidence you were here. I want 005 to think this is my abandoned bunker."

In a short time, we'd packed all our food and a few meager supplies into Zanner's sack. With my boots, new clothes, and hair pulled into a thick cloth cap, I could maybe pass for a very small human. When I suggested this to Zanner, he snorted a laugh. "Everything about you screams Radian. It's fine, but at least with those clothes, you won't sparkle in the sun with that bejeweled dress."

We emerged from the bunker to the sun beginning its daily descent. Zanner grabbed my arm and tugged me along after him. In the ashy dirt, a clear path was visible—our two sets of footsteps plus a dark trail of Zanner's blood. Covering it would have taken an enormous amount of time, and Zanner said 005 would still be able to follow it.

We ran in the opposite direction of the escape pod and parallel with the trail leading to the cave. This time, Zanner did cover our tracks until we reached a path of lava rocks which concealed our footprints. A few times, I slipped on the cragged surface, but I understood why this way was better than in the easily tracked ash.

We had made decent progress picking our way over the lava rock field, when a shout could be heard in the distance. Zanner swore and pulled me between two rocks in a small valley where I huddled next to him. Through a small crack in the rocks, I detected movement in the far distance, coming from the direction of the cave.

"Glad we left," Zanner muttered just as the familiar form of 005 and his crew could be seen following the blood trail.

They banged their weapons together and shouted rallying cries as they jogged through the ash.

"Why aren't they quiet?" I asked.

Zanner didn't speak for a moment. "Because they're not afraid."

His words sent a shiver down my back. I was very, very afraid. I trusted Zanner, but we were only two, and this 005 and his crew were over a dozen strong.

I felt a vibration at my hip, and nearly let out a squeal in fright. Grabbing for the locator, I stared at the screen, barely able to believe the timing. Because the small map displayed a location for me to travel to. The reason? A rescue ship was on its way.