The blue-eyed man is named Callum. And he’s a total grouch. Not that I can blame him; he’s been sentenced to death just like I have. Still, if he hadn’t literally plucked me from the ground and hauled me into a tree seconds before those rabid robo-dogs would have ripped me to pieces, I would have already left him and headed off on my own.

I still might.

As we walk, I stay out of Callum’s immediate reach while I silently weigh my options.

I could strike off into the woods on my own—assuming he doesn’t try to stop me—but despite a month spent setting and checking traps in the woods in zone four, I am woefully unprepared to navigate on my own. I don’t have the time or materials to set game traps. I can’t reach the lowest branches in most of the trees. And in the category of self-defense, my record is abysmal, with the single exception of Steven Hansen, and killing him is what got me into this mess in the first place.

So, on my own, I’m as good as dead.

Callum may or may not be planning to kill me, and even if he does turn out to be a murderer biding his time, would being killed by him be much different than being killed by the hunter?

Either way, the truth is that he’s damn useful, and if I learned anything from Audra and Tyson it’s that if someone offers you help on Devil’s Eye, you take it. Even if there’s a price. After all, Tyson “bought” Audra for sex before he fell for her. And I’m in much bigger trouble here than I was in zone four.

Harris and Dalton didn’t say anything about robo-dogs. The thought of what else they might have neglected to mention is enough to give me hives, but despite Scott Hansen’s unfair advantage, I’m pretty sure I’ve already outlived my life expectancy. And hopefully cost several guards a lot of money.

Thanks to Callum.

My best course of action seems to be learning how to talk to him.

I can’t quite place Callum’s language, which isn’t much of a surprise, considering he’s the first person I’ve ever met who doesn’t speak the common language. But I like the sound of it on his tongue. And the way his mouth looks as he forms the words—even when he’s scowling.

But the asshole really makes me work for a vocabulary lesson.

It takes me forever to break through his grouchy outer layer—though I’m not sure I’ve broken through very far—but eventually he gives in to teaching me some of his words. Soon I realize that if I pretend not to have heard him, he’ll lean closer and say the word again. Despite my certainty that he’s as likely as not to be a cold-blooded murderer, when he leans in like that, his blue-eyed gaze glued to mine, I feel…something.

I feel warmer inside—almost tingly—in spite of the rapidly dropping temperature. He’s oddly magnetic, for a grouch. Possibly because he’s gorgeous, in a hulking, wall-of-muscle kind of way.

We’ve learned each other’s words for tree, and leaf, and twig, and flower, and forest, when Callum stops so suddenly I almost expect to find a smoking hole burned right through his chest by a laser rifle. Pulse racing, I squint into the darkness ahead, trying to find the threat, but then he grabs me by the shoulders and turns me to face him, speaking softly and rapidly in his language.

There’s no immediate threat. He’s worked up about some idea I can’t understand.

I give him a dramatic shrug of my shoulders and shake my head, reminding him that I don’t speak his language, and Callum scowls, irritated all over again by that fact. As if it’s brand new information. Then he starts a moonlit game of charades.

He puts his hands together, side by side, with his palms facing me. Then he slides them apart and makes a soft grinding noise.

“Gate?” I guess. “You’re talking about the enclosure gate?”

“Gate,” he repeats, nodding.

“You want to go through the gate? Back to the Resort?” I ask, but he only scowls again. He doesn’t understand. And I really hope I’m wrong. Going back to the Resort would only get us killed on the spot. If we’re lucky.

“Gate,” he repeats. Then he holds up one finger and arches his dark brows, like a question mark written right on his forehead. Then two fingers and a brow arch. Then three fingers and a third arch.

“One gate?” I whisper, holding up one finger.

He gives me a firm nod and points to the south. In the direction of the Resort, and the gate that let me into the enclosure.

“Or two gates?” I hold up two fingers, and he shrugs and points to the east. Another shrug, and he points to the west. A third shrug, and he points to the north.

Callum thinks there might be more than one gate.

“You want to look for another gate?”

“Yes. Gate.” He lets two fingers walk on his opposite palm, then points to the east, in the direction we were already heading. Then he shrugs, to make sure I understand that he doesn’t know for sure that this hypothetical gate exists.

“Okay,” I whisper, then I nod for good measure. We have to go somewhere, and his plan is better than my non-existent one. “Let’s go look for a gate.”

Not that we have any way to open it, even if we find one.

* * *

I wish I had some way to tell time. Everything about Devil’s Eye is horrific in one way or another, but among the things I miss most about my old life, my personal tech ranks above both convenience food and my parents. Of course, they’re the reason I’m here, so I haven’t shed many tears over Mom and Dad.

My brother, I miss. Chyler, and tech.

Without a tablet, or a wrist com, or a screen of any kind, all I can do is count my footsteps and estimate that at a rate of one step per second…

I still don’t have enough information to calculate anything helpful, because I have no idea how many steps I’ve taken. I can’t seem to count more than a couple hundred of them before the urge to look at Callum becomes too much to resist.

Every time I look at him, he’s facing straight forward, but every time I turn away again, I can practically feel his gaze on me.

When the sky begins to lighten in front of us, casting an eerie red haze through the canopy, I realize we’ve been walking for hours.

The days are shorter on Rhodon than on my homeworld, but it was barely dark when they locked me in that room with a rapist, and I was released into the enclosure no more than an hour and a half later—victim of an insanely efficient penal system. As near as I can guess, that means I’ve been in the enclosure for around four hours without seeing any sign of the metal wall surrounding it. No wonder I’m so tired. If I hadn’t spent the past month walking around in the woods with Audra and Tyson, I’d probably already have passed out from exhaustion.

I wasn’t much of an outdoor girl in my old life. In fact, I’d spent most of my time surrounded by screens and keyboards.

Callum notices the sky lightening and says a word I don’t recognize as he points upward.

“Sun?” I guess, aiming a circle made from both hands at the sky.

He shakes his head and says the word again, pointing in the direction we’re walking. Then he says another word and points to the north.

Oh. Directions. “That’s east.” I point to the rising sun, which is east on any planet that orbits a single star. “East.”

“East,” he repeats. Then he gives me his word, and I say it back to him, though I doubt I’ll remember it, as tired as I am.

I stifle a yawn as I point out the other cardinal directions and give him those words, and he looks…satisfied. As we hike, I hear him repeating them beneath his breath, and I realize he’s studying, clearly more interested in useful words like directions than the names of the plants around us.

It was one thing for me to goad him into speaking, but now he seems interested on his own. Why would a man sentenced to death bother learning a new language?

Callum expects to survive this. Or he’s hoping to, anyway. And strangely, as unlikely as survival seems, his hope gives me hope.

“This place is huge,” I whisper, stifling another yawn.

Callum scowls at me, then stops and turns in a circle, peering into the woods in every direction, clearly looking for something. I tap his shoulder and shrug, asking a wordless question.

He says something, then closes his eyes and makes a snoring sound.

“Sleep,” I say. “Yes, we need to sleep.” But I’m not sure how either of us is supposed to relax enough to rest, knowing that an armed hunter and at least two killer robo-dogs are after us.

When I was a kid, my brother told me that if I ever got lost, I should stay put so someone could find me. Under that logic, the smartest thing Callum and I can do is keep moving. Yet eventually we’ll have to sleep, or we’ll be doing the hunter’s job for him.

Callum is obviously looking for some place for us to stop and rest, but he’s looking up at the canopy, rather than at the ground. I tap his shoulder again, then shake my head and use the word I’ve learned for tree in his language. If I try to sleep on a branch, I’ll roll off and break my neck. Again, doing the hunter’s job for him.

He waves off my objection. I can’t understand what he’s saying, but he evidently doesn’t expect me to sleep in a tree. Unfortunately, without a stronger vocabulary in his language, I can’t expect much of a clarification. So we continue hiking, but now he’s as focused on the leaves overhead as on where he steps.

I’m nearly dead on my feet a bit later when he stops and says something in a relieved voice. I look up and follow the finger he’s pointing, but I can’t tell what he’s looking at.

Callum frowns and tugs me toward the south east, and in a few steps, I see it. One of the trees up ahead isn’t a tree. It’s a post, and there are actually four of them. And…a ladder! “What is that?” I whisper, staring up at the platform in the air. Just beneath the highest level of the crimson canopy.

“Hunter,” he whispers, then points at the platform and mimes holding a rifle up to his eye.

It’s a platform that lets hunters watch from above for their prey. But it’ll be just as useful for us. And it’ll put us out of reach of the robo-hounds, should they pick up our trail.

Although if that does happen, we could wind up “treed” and at the mercy of the hunter. But that’s a risk I’m willing to take at this point, because the alternative seems to be passing out on the ground and waiting to die.

Callum gestures for me to climb the ladder ahead of him, and as I do, I’m very aware of the fact that when he looks up, he’ll be looking right at my butt. So far, he hasn’t seemed to expect compensation for his help. But we haven’t exactly been in the position to take a break.

Up on the platform, out of immediate danger, we will be.

I can do it.

Audra did it, for herself and for me, with no way of knowing that Tyson would turn out to be a decent guy. I’m not naive enough to have such a hope for Callum. He’s definitely capable of violence. But he hasn’t moved past grouchy and irritated into true anger even once, and that’s as good as I could have hoped for.

I can give him sex, if that’s what he wants. As far as prison currency goes, that seems like a fair trade for saving my life. And making that choice for myself is entirely different than Steven Hansen hauling me across his room by my hair, then trying to take my virginity by force. Or some guy from zone four being awarded on-demand privileges just for keeping the other men off me.

As long as Callum lets it be my choice.

If he doesn’t… If I’ve misread him this whole time…

Well, then, I guess I’m no worse off than I was when the guards found me standing over Hansen’s corpse.

I pull myself over the edge of the platform and take a seat in the middle, and while I wait for him to climb up, I try to pluck splinters from palms I skinned when I fell running from the robo-dogs. As if I’m not nervous. As if I’m not terrified that the murderer who saved my life will want more than I’m willing to give. Or want it…roughly.

Callum lifts himself over the edge with no visible effort, his arms and abs rippling with the movement in the pale, reddish light bleeding through the canopy. He takes a seat on my right, then peers out at the forest all around us, on alert for any sign of company. When he seems satisfied, he lies flat on his back and gestures for me to join him.

I hesitate, my heart racing, and with a scowl, he pulls me down. A whimper leaks from my throat and I try to swallow it before he hears, but I’m too late. He props himself up on his left elbow and frowns down at me, saying words that sound like a question. But I don’t know how to tell him that I understand what’s expected of me, but I’m nervous. How to ask him to…go slow.

I don’t know how to explain, without words in his language, that I really need this to be nothing like what happened with Steven Hansen.

Callum looks confused, a predicament he clearly finds irritating. He makes the rifle gesture again and says “hunter” in his strange accent. Then he makes a show of looking out over the edge of the platform.

Oh. He wants me to lie down so I can’t be seen from the ground. In case the hunter comes this way.

I nod, feeling like a fool, and I expect him to lie down next to me again. Instead, he rolls onto his side and stares down at me, and up close, his eyes are the brightest blue I’ve ever seen. He’s so beautiful, in a hard kind of way. Like something carved out of stone. I feel like I could stare at him all day, if only he wasn’t staring back—

He leans toward me, and I jerk away from him. “Sorry,” I murmur, trying to make myself relax. Expecting him to be mad. But he only rises up on his elbow again and looks…puzzled.

“No…” He struggles visibly for a word in my language, but I get the picture. No struggle. No fight. No choice. It’s all the same. “…hurt,” he finishes at last. “No hurt Maci.”

I blink up at him, and a relieved smile sneaks up on me. I’m going to trust him not to hurt me. I don’t really have any other choice. “Thank you.” I take a deep breath, then I force my arms to relax at my sides.

Callum leans toward me again, and this time I close my eyes, expecting him to touch me…somewhere. Instead, something brushes my hair, just above my right ear, and I hear him inhale deeply.

I open my eyes. His nose is buried in my hair. That’s…not what I expected. “Callum?” I ask, and he props himself up again, then slides one hand into his hair and says a word I don’t know, pitched up on the end, in a question. “Hair,” I tell him.

“Maci hair.” He leans down to sniff my head again, and this time he makes a deep sound in his throat that is something between a pleased growl and a frustrated purr. The man can say more with a single sound than I can with a whole sentence.

“You like my shampoo? I wish I could take credit for that, but it’s just whatever they put in the wall dispenser at the Resort dorm.” I’m babbling, which truly isn’t like me, and he can’t understand a word of it, but I’m not sure what else—

He lifts a thick strand of my hair to his face and sniffs again. Then he rubs it on his cheek and says a word I hope means soft. Or pretty. Or something complimentary. Anything other than, “After I kill you I’m going to eat your flesh, shave your corpse, and wear your hair as a braided trophy.” Because that would definitely be a mood killer.

He releases my hair, then lightly runs the back of one knuckle down my cheek as he whispers another word.

“Cheek,” I tell him.

Next, he runs the tip of one finger down my nose, and I name it for him. Then he names my eyebrow and the point of my chin, and with each touch, each word, his face descends a little closer to mine. His voice gets a little softer. His eyes a little brighter.

When he runs one finger along my lower lip, I feel like someone just sucked all the air out of my lungs. Like several private places no one else has ever touched are suddenly…achy. Alive.

“Lips,” I whisper. “Mou—”

He kisses me, just a soft brush of his mouth over mine, and I don’t realize there’s a hungry noise lurking on the end of my tongue until it just slides out.

Callum’s mouth disappears, and I open my eyes to find him staring down at me with a ravenous look in his gorgeous blue eyes. Then his mouth finds mine again and this second kiss is…demanding. This time he takes everything he wants. Gives me everything he was holding back before.

His mouth opens over mine and he licks the seam of my lips, demanding that I open for him, and when I do, he slips one hand beneath my head, cradling the base of my skull, then claims my mouth for himself.

His body is pressed against my right side, and his free hand slides across my stomach and curls around the narrowest part of my waist, holding me close as if he’s afraid I’ll try to scoot away again. But I’m not going anywhere.

I’ve never been kissed like this. As if I’m a meal about to be devoured. He’s everywhere, not in the groping sense, but in the sense that there’s so much of him, it feels like he’s taking up the entire horizon of my existence.

I thought this would be scary. Overwhelming. And in a way, it is, but it’s also…exhilarating. I’m hungry for something I’ve never tasted. Something new and delicious, and—

His hand slides up my side and over my ribcage until his fingers slip beneath the elastic of my top, brushing the curve of my breast. I suck in a breath that sounds half-startled, half-excited. Man this is moving fast.

Callum lifts himself again until he can see my face, and I realize I’m breathing too hard. Practically panting. His eyes are dilated, his gaze glued to mine. Then his focus shifts to the south and his hand slides out of my bra. For a single heartbeat, I’m disappointed. Then I feel his finger trail over the lower curve of my breast, agonizingly slowly, so that by the time he reaches my nipple, it’s already hardened into stiff point in anticipation.

His gaze meets mine again and he whispers a word as his finger lazily circles my nipple through the thin material. Drawing it into an even tighter point.

Warmth swells between my thighs, and suddenly I wish his hand were there. I wish I had the nerve to ask for that.

He whispers that word again, still tracing soft circles, and I realize he’s asking me something.

“Um…nipple. Or maybe breast.” I’m not sure which word he wants.

He repeats both of them with a frown, evidently frustrated by his inability to talk dirty to me with unerring accuracy, and I would probably find that funny, if his finger weren’t driving me crazy.

My hand shakes as I unclench it from my side and slowly move it up to cup my own curve. “Breast,” I whisper. Then I suck in another breath as he softly squeezes the other side.

“Breast,” he repeats, and his accent is the hottest thing I’ve ever heard.

“Yes. That’s good. That’s really good.” I fight not to close my eyes and live in the sensation. I’ve been grabbed, but this is the first time I’ve ever really been touched like this. It’s… It’s…

“Breast?” he asks, rubbing his thumb over the hard peak.

“No. Well, kind of. That’s my nipple.”

“Nipple,” he repeats. Then he leans down and bites the stiff tip gently, drawing a surprised gasp from me. This is nothing like when Hansen bit me. This doesn’t hurt, and it clearly isn’t intended to. It feels like there’s some kind of direct electrical conduit between the point where Callum’s teeth were and the place where I really want his hand, and the signal keeps bouncing between those two points. Lighting me up like a switchboard.

I moan and arch up, pressing my breast into his hand, and before I have a chance to be mortified by my own inexperience and neediness, he groans and leans down again. This time he sucks my nipple between his lips, through the material, and I feel something hard press against my leg.

“Oh my god,” I murmur, and I’m grateful when he doesn’t ask for a translation, because my thoughts aren’t flowing clearly anymore. We’re beyond words.

He sucks my nipple, rolling it with his tongue, and without even pausing, he captures my wrist and places my hand on his side, where a rigid line of muscle shifts with every movement he makes. He wants me to touch him.

I can do that.

My fingers are shy at first, sliding slowly across the defined bumps of his abs, then up toward his chest.

Callum groans, then his free hand pushes my top up, freeing my right breast, and suddenly this is a whole new game. His mouth is hot against my bare nipple, his teeth sharper, but not cruel. He opens his mouth and takes my entire nipple in, teasing the tip with his tongue, and when I moan, he presses his erection harder against my thigh.

When I don’t object, he takes my wrist again and slides my hand down his stomach and onto his cock, hard and straining against the thin, stretchy material of his shorts. Then he looks down at me with his brows arched in question.

“Penis,” I tell him. “Cock. And about a million other terms.” Why do guys have so many words for their equipment?

But he shakes his head. That’s not what he’s asking. “Maci, yes?” He slides his hand between my thighs, and his fingers press against me, through my shorts. “Yes?”

He’s asking. Not taking. “Yes. Oh my god, yes.”

And it’s like I’ve flipped a switch.

Callum rises onto his knees and grabs my shorts with both hands, then pulls them off in one swift, experienced motion. His eyes widen when he sees that I’m…bare. Then he lowers himself over me, balancing his weight on one hand while he pushes his own shorts down with the other.

I only have a second to get a look at his cock—hard, and straight, and eager—before he spreads my legs and lowers himself between them.

My head spins. I said yes, and I meant it, but this is so fast. My hands scrabble on the wooden platform beneath me, searching for something to hold onto. But there’s nothing, so I clutch at his arms.

He slides one hand over my bare pubic bone and groans as his fingers part my folds. He makes several breathtaking circles around my clit, and my legs open wider as I begin to lose myself in the sensation. This is exactly where I wanted him.

Then he groans, eager, and slips two fingers into me, testing.

I’m wet. I can feel that, and oh, I can hear it in the sound his fingers make sliding in and out of me. But it’s tight. Maybe I should tell him...

His hand disappears, and he positions himself at my entrance, and the head of his cock feels so much bigger than his fingers did. He leans down to take my exposed nipple into his mouth, teasing it with his tongue. Then he pushes into me.

I gasp and bite my lip against the pain. I knew it was coming, and there’s no real way to prepare for that, so…

He stops moving and abandons my nipple so he can look down at me. “Maci hurt?” he whispers, frowning.

I shake my head. “It’s okay. Don’t stop.” It’ll get better. If that weren’t true, people wouldn’t do this.

He pushes forward again, and I flinch and let my head fall to the side, so he can’t see what I’m feeling.

Callum grabs my chin and turns my head so that I have to look at him. “Maci?” He looks mad. “Hurt? Not…sex?”

I know what he’s asking, but I don’t have the words to tell him I’m a virgin. Or, I was. I didn’t think that’d make him mad. I thought men liked that. But Callum looks furious as he pulls out, leaving me sore, and damp, and oddly, frustratingly empty.