Chapter Six
Annika was fuming as she stalked back into the chamber she’d been using as a bedroom since she’d arrived.
Since the bastard had kidnapped her, she mentally corrected.
Her body didn’t even feel like it belonged to her.
She was hot and throbbing all over, like she was swollen everywhere, dizzy—and she didn’t know what to attribute to nearly dying and what she could safely blame on the inconsiderate asshole that had taken her to the very pinnacle of passion and then fucking left her there!
She plunked down on the makeshift bed so hard in her anger that she damned near drove her tailbone through the top of her skull. For several minutes, she was preoccupied with the pain and nothing else.
But although the pain effectively doused the flame, it didn’t distract her from her sense of ill usage.
Stark, mindless terror still clawed at the back of her mind. The fact that she refused to acknowledge it didn’t make it go away. It simply wound itself up with all of the other things tumbling through her mind.
Like who in their right f’ing mind would live in a hole on the side of a freaking cliff a fucking mile from the ground below?
For a handful of moments she relived the horror of leaping into thin air, the feeling of falling endlessly. She recalled the terror and desperation of trying to gyrate her body enough to ‘fly’ toward the cliff face so she could grab a hold—knowing there was no way in hell that she could.
Because she was so focused on escape, on gaining her freedom, it didn’t occur to her to check for danger outside before she launched herself out of the opening!
All she’d had on her mind was getting enough of a head start to hide from him so she had some chance of success.
Shuddering, she shoved the memories to the back of her mind and packed dirt over it.
It was her second freefall experience and it wasn’t getting any easier to deal with!
He had wings, stupid! She should have guessed he would prefer to be in the air rather than on the ground. That was the advantage of flight—being able to escape ground based predators.
Except she really didn’t think of him as an alien being with wings, she realized.
In spite of everything—the inability to communicate, the wings, the hawk–like features, she still thought of him as human, as being the same.
Maybe that explained why she’d tried to rape him after he’d saved her?
She shook that thought. Sex hadn’t actually crossed her mind. She just desperately needed to feel him close, around her, to feel safe.
Inside was ok by her, too, as long as he held her suffocatingly tight and she knew she wasn’t going to fall anymore.
But then everything changed when he kissed her and tore her clothing off to chew all over her in such a delicious way she thought she’d lose her mind.
It was a damned good thing she was wearing a self-repairing frigging nano suit. Otherwise she would have picked up a rock and brained the damned barbaric alien idiot!
Not that it hadn’t been exciting in the heat of the moment!
But it was the only damned thing she had between her and naked!
A shudder went through her, this time not prompted by fear but rather a rise of sexual heat in response to the memory of how she’d felt, the way he’d made her feel with his touch.
Right up until the moment the asshole had cum and left her hanging with a hard-on she couldn’t get rid of!
Well! It would be a cold fucking day in hell before she gave him anymore!
She brooded over that in perverse satisfaction for a while—making him suffer over unappeased sexual need—but eventually it dawned on her that she didn’t actually have that option.
She knew, now, beyond any shadow of doubt that she was not going to be able to figure out a way to escape!
The door wasn’t the only impediment to that fantasy, unfortunately.
It did seem to her that she’d noticed something like steps carved into the side of the cliff that led from one opening to another, but then she’d been passing all of them so quickly on the way down she couldn’t be sure and even if she was right, what could she do with that? Hide in one of the other caves until he came to get her?
No. She had to become an ally, enlist his help to get what she wanted.
And he wanted to fuck. Good thing for her that he did. She could use that because, unfortunately it was the only damned tool/weapon at her disposal.
Good thing for her she really didn’t mind!
She absolutely refused to acknowledge that it was a lot more than ‘didn’t mind’ or that her plan included making up for being left hanging.
It was good plan. It made sense. And she damned well couldn’t think of another one.
The only problem with it was that she’d made her displeasure very, very clear when she stalked out. She wasn’t going to be able to try to get back into his good graces until she’d allowed a few days cool down time.
Well, she could try right away and he’d probably accommodate her, but she thought he would be suspicious of her motives if she did.
And the plain fact was that he’d been surprisingly gentlemanly toward her considering he was a barbarian. She’d let him in the door—literally. She couldn’t expect to keep him out anymore.
But she could take advantage.
Maybe.
And the way to do that wasn’t to throw herself at him. She had to make him work for it for it to be any kind of advantage for her. If she gave too freely, it would have no value and she wouldn’t have anything to barter with.
There was no sense in weeping over the situation. That wouldn’t make things any better and she didn’t think it would even make her feel any better.
An explosive climax—like the one promised and not delivered—might have helped relieve the tension, she thought with some dudgeon.
It was a while—hours then days—before she realized the ‘incident’ had resulted in her becoming sole owner of the only bedchamber that had a bed.
She certainly hadn’t expected him to suddenly stop sleeping beside her. He had since he’d brought her to his cave and she was not happy to discover she’d gotten used to it, grown accustomed to his warmth at night when it was cooler, and the sense of being protected, sheltered ….
And all because she’d given him a look like she could cheerfully saw his head off with a dull sliver of rock?
She damned well didn’t know what that asshole had to be pissed about! He had gotten off, damn him!
Some thought produced the possibility that he was pissed because she’d tried to escape, but she thought that was also unreasonable!
She was a person, damn it! He couldn’t just expect to keep her like she was a damned pet or something!
Well she had been trying to escape—which she figured she had every right to do, or try—but it sucked that she was stuck with his interpretation of just every frigging thing because she couldn’t make up a lie.
Not one that she could use, anyway.
After a couple of days of getting a cold shoulder, she decided she was never going to get anywhere if she couldn’t figure out how to communicate.
Hand motions only went so damned far!
And she couldn’t do that without talking to him and getting a response.
Which she didn’t get the first few times she tried to engage him in conversation. He pretended he was deaf.
Irritated past bearing and desperate, if the truth were known, she bellowed his name at him. That got his attention.
She didn’t know where the hell to go from there.
Finally, her anger inspired her and she plugged her fingers in her ears. “Deaf? No can hear?” God! It wasn’t going to help to teach him broken English! “You can’t hear?”
His response was a blank, unflinching stare.
She touched her mouth, stuck her tongue out at him and wiggled it. “Dumb? You can’t talk?”
No reaction. She glanced down at the cook pot—which, as far as she could tell—held the same horrible stew that it had held since she’d gotten there. There was just less of it and it got blacker every time he put the pot on the fire. “Pot,” she said, touching the hot metal lightly and then snatching her hand back. “Burn.” She blew on her fingers and then pointed at the food. “Shit.”
Nothing.
On inspiration, she gathered some of the ash at the fringe of the fire pit, spit on her finger to wet the ‘ink’ and drew on the floor.
Ok, so he might not recognize the pot she’d drawn as the one she was trying to depict. “Pot.” She pointed to the pot and then used more of the blackening to form a couple of letters of the alphabet. “Write? Can you write?”
When she glanced at him the blank stare had disappeared. In its place was a sardonic expression.
After a long moment—as if he was trying to decide how to respond—he surged to his feet, beat his chest with his fist and uttered a blood curdling, animalistic noise at the top of his lungs. Annika jumped, and then gaped at him with a mixture of horror and confusion.
His lips tightened. Turning, he stalked through the door and crossed the ‘living room’, opened the outer door and then dove out, disappearing.
Annika stared at the opening for some moments after he vanished, still blank with confusion. Finally, a thought entered her mind and took hold. Discomfort filled her, bringing a blush to her face.
Sarcasm.
She’d gotten through to him alright. Clearly, he’d understood a good bit of it and he’d decided she was being insulting.
It was a damned good thing she’d thought to try to communicate to get them past the ‘misunderstanding’!