Chapter 16
Sasha wanted to stare at Jaron’s departing ship like a love-sick version of the kitten he called her, but she forced herself to turn on her bruised ankle and shift. She lurched forward despite the agonizing pain from her back leg and headed away from the guards rushing after her. She didn’t hold out hope that she could avoid The Collector’s men for long.
Dirt spit and splattered around her as they shot at her. Too close for comfort. Were they making an effort to take her back or kill her?
Didn’t matter. Sasha’s cat took prominence in her thought process and the cat’s thought centered on saving her mate.
Mate?
Sasha tripped, but regained her footing. No, no, no, she couldn’t commit to a mating. It was one thing to acknowledge her love for the cocky soldier. A mating was a bond for life to her people. Pushing the worry deep to the back of her mind, Sasha drove herself to fight past her pain and keep moving.
Despite her injury she stayed ahead, ducking and dodging across the landscape. The unfamiliar territory didn’t slow her down. As long as she gave Jaron and his friends time to get away, nothing else mattered.
Thoughts submerged beneath one goal. Survival. Sasha would survive. And she’d send Dr. Kirkem’s men on quite a chase.
It might have worked. Maybe lasted longer than minutes. Then as she attempted to turn a tight corner, her back leg stuttered. Sasha’s front paws flew out from under her and she fell, head over heels. When she stopped tumbling and her heedless flight came to a jolting halt, she was surrounded by armed guards.
They thought they had her cornered. Sasha struggled to stand, holding her hind leg off the ground. She wouldn’t go down easy. If they wanted her dead, they’d have to work for it. Using her teeth and claws to her advantage, she gutted and killed several foolish enough to storm toward her.
Then pain burst in her hind leg. Not her ankle, the agony spread higher, her hip, her lower back. One helmeted guard approached tentatively, the weapon lowered toward the ground. Sasha snarled and collapsed only to receive a kick to the chest which left her sprawled on her side, panting.
“Don’t tempt me to kill you.” He removed his helmet and dropped it with a clatter.
She shifted and came face to face with Dr. Kirkem. A very, angry Dr. Kirkem Sasha concluded as he peered down at her.
***
Day 1
“You will tell me everything you know about the Jutak.”
Chained to the wall, Sasha stared over The Collector’s shoulder, gaze locked on the glass container on a shelf behind him. At least she’d gotten a shower out of the deal. Being clean was the only good thing about being taken again by this mad man and the fact he’d healed her ankle.
As an Argoran she would have healed eventually, but the severity of her wounds would have slowed the process down.
“Tell me, Argoran!” The Collector screamed.
The vastly intelligent, well-mannered doctor vanished. In his place stood a man who’d lost his reason and any pretense. Sasha held her silence. His smacks to her face received the same lack of response. Not by a flinch did she reveal how much it hurt. She only wished she had the energy to combat the sense of despair trying to take over.
She’d wanted so badly to be away from here. The stench of drugs and chemicals nagged at her senses.
Knowing Jaron escaped with his friends was a highlight to cling to. All she wanted now was the temporary peace of passing out. Unfortunately, Dr. Kirkem had used one of his custom created drugs and Sasha found herself stuck between wakefulness and dazed confusion.
“What good are you to me!” He frothed at the mouth and smashed a row of containers. The Marenian assistant, Targa, backed into a corner out of range. The other guard stayed at the door hands clenching in uncertainty. They were the only two she saw though she heard more patrolling outside. Too bad more of his forces hadn’t been decimated in the attack.
The Collector was hiding in this small two room cabin with an underground cellar. In the second room, a length of chain was mounted to one wall with a cuff attached to the other end. She spent her time there when he wasn’t sticking chemical filled injectors in her.
Dr. Kirkem faced her. “Why would you help him? Did you know one another from your work?”
A Jutak warrior and a Bounty Retriever. Sasha’s lips curved up. Too funny. Her work sometimes bordered on illegal. It wouldn’t do for her to blip on the radar of the Jutak warriors. At least not in the past. Now she had a reason to uncover any available information about the elite military force.
“Is it funny to you?” He grabbed the ends of her hair and forced her neck back. Their gazes slammed together. “All of my current subjects are missing.”
Sasha hoped Jaron took Ari, Luna and Minu beyond Dr. Kirkem’s reach and that they never ended up back here.
“That leaves you to test my final creation.” He laughed at her flinch. “Your Jutak couldn’t control his reaction. Let’s see how you do.”
Sasha licked her lips and shook her head, dislodging his touch. Nothing he did would frighten her. “None of this will mean anything after you’re dead.”
More anger as his sun brown skin tightened over the planes of his face. He leaned in close, the corners of his eyes creasing as he sneered, and withdrew an injector from the pocket of his lab coat. “We’ll see how you feel once I’ve given you a taste.”
He plunged his latest formula into her arm without preamble. Whatever was in the cocktail bubbled and hit her system like a rocket launcher. Sasha grew dizzy and violently ill. She faced his wavering image and warned. “I’m going to hurl if you don’t stand back.”
Dr. Kirkem hopped back in time much to her regret. Her head tipped down after she finished emptying her stomach, the buzz left behind causing her eyes to water.
“Why! It worked on him. I need to fix it. Fix it,” he muttered. “Take her away.”
Though hesitant to get near, the two Marenians undid the locks and helped her down. One grabbed a towel and wiped off her face and mouth. They led her out of the makeshift lab and into the second room.
They snapped the end of the chain about her ankle. Sasha sagged along the wall until they left. She straightened and spent considerable time trying to damage the lock, but her claws only scratched at the surface.
She kicked at the stone wall then slumped back against it with a sigh. At least they were still planet side which meant Jaron might find her. If he came back. The thought brought her up short. What if he didn’t come back? He was with his Jutaks. Back in his safe world and fighting crime on behalf of Enotia.
Doubt flickered. She only had herself to count on. Believing someone else cared enough to make sure she was fine set one up for disappointment. Except…Sasha stared at the rough planks of the ceiling in here. Jaron had earned her trust. He trusted her with his identity and details about his family and friends. He trusted her with his real name. Her hands clenched and unclenched at her side. Trust. It all came down to that one word.
“I trust him.” Saying it aloud sent a chill down her spine, but Sasha squashed the feeling.
Jaron knew how she felt about betrayal. He wouldn’t let her down. He would come back for her. She had to believe that or her heart would disintegrate.
***
Day 3
“Let’s go.”
Sasha followed the guard reluctantly. She contemplated overpowering him but wasn’t sure where to run. And she had to hold out hope Jaron would come for her.
“Why does Dr. Kirkem want me?”
Not that Sasha expected an answer. This would be her second visit to Dr. Kirkem today. He usually limited himself to once in the morning. After the last three days, she’d become adjusted to the pattern. This unexpected change didn’t bode well. A warning.
Maybe she should have known something was wrong earlier. During her time in the make shift lab, his behavior had grown more erratic.
They crossed into the next room and Dr. Kirkem waited. His eyes gleamed. “I’ve perfected it. I didn’t realize I had to account for your Argoran genetics. What I tried before was too strong and considering your race is already prone to the mating heat, you wouldn’t react the same as my Jutak.”
Jaron wasn’t his anything, but Sasha held her silence. Targa strapped her into the bindings with the clamps Sasha had yet to break. The upright position against the wall left her body exposed for anything The Collector wanted to do. Even her arms were stretched uselessly over her head.
Dr. Kirkem came closer. He avoided her claws, waving the injector in his hand. Sasha jerked and pulled, her growls and hisses only amusing him.
He plunged the device against her neck with a malicious jab. Desire burned and burst forth. It was as if someone ignited a flame to her insides. The drug blazed a fiery path through her veins. Sasha gasped and pulled from the wall in an unnatural arch as her nipples hardened and her lower lips grew wet.
“Yes. Yes,” Dr. Kirkem cheered, watching her every gyration intently.
Liquid heat seared her blood and a scream broke through Sasha’s gritted teeth. Dr. Kirkem frowned, chewing his bottom lip. “The arousal is there like with him. Where he felt pleasure, you’re feeling pain. Why the change?”
Sasha writhed on the wall, wishing she could claw his dark, glowering face. Her flesh burned. She feared the slightest touch would have her climaxing in front of him as she shouted in agony.
The Collector typed on his data pad, fingers stabbing at the screen. “It should work. It should.”
He said the last on a frustrated scream. Sasha managed a weak laugh, every nerve bubbling to life then cutting like the sharp blade of a knife to her mid-section. “You’re a failure. A worthless, no account scientist.”
The whites of his eyes bulged. He turned to Targa, the female Marenian, hovering in the shadows. “Take her out of here. She can suffer until I know where I went wrong.”
Sasha moaned as Targa loosened her bindings, the rough touch of fingers equating to a sensuous caress. When the sleeve of Targa’s shirt brushed Sasha’s front, she jerked away and bent over at the waist to wait out the sensations.
Never had she felt such pleasure and pain at the same time. The dual input was maddening and Sasha struggled to focus. In front of her, Dr. Kirkem laughed.
He had the nerve to laugh in the face of her suffering. Anger at her situation clouded her judgment. On a lunge, despite the waves of desire, Sasha slashed at him. Fortune or luck was on her side. Her claws caught at the lab coat, tearing a large hole in the side before he darted out of her range.
“Get her out!”
Targa was as strong as she looked and wrestled Sasha to the ground. One blow to the head combined with battling the drug’s effect and Sasha’s mind swirled and clouded. Every step agony, she was yanked to her feet and pushed and shoved. One foot in front of the other, they teetered to the second room.
Unnatural heat. Her skin itched, the roots of her hair sizzled.
“You’ll learn to keep your mouth shut.” Targa’s whisper barely registered before Sasha was chained to the wall by the ankle cuff and left alone.
Hips thrusting, Sasha rolled to her stomach and curled into a ball on the dirt floor, her only thought to work through the fever in her pores.
The fire in her belly swelled and ebbed as she fought the influence of The Collector’s injection. Was this what Jaron went through? Her thighs rubbed together and the pressure tore an unexpected orgasm from her.
Sasha screamed and screamed as her body convulsed.