Felt her body sucked down by gravity.
The landing jolted her painfully and she inhaled a hiss of a breath.
The ring of metal against something wooden drew her gaze like a homing laser. Her head swiveled in that direction of its own accord and she saw the sword he’d been carrying vibrating in a wall studded with dozens of other weapons—saw more slam into, or against it, forming a growing pile of shields, swords, hammers, axes and knives below as the warriors ‘returned’ the accoutrements of war.
“No harm liddle ting, k?”
The deep, deep voice that rumbled from the broad, broad chest barely penetrated her pain fogged mind. It didn’t sink in to question his usage of English, even very bad English, at that moment. Instincts took over, however, and she struggled to get a grip on the bouncing giant that hit the ground running with her clutched in his arms.
She discovered to her dismay that she couldn’t command her numb appendages to do anything at all. She couldn’t feel her hands and fingers or even her arms.
Thankfully, he seemed to have a very firm grip on her because she discovered as she looked back over his shoulder that there appeared to be a raging hoard hard on their heels!
Darkness abruptly swallowed them.
She thought for a handful of seconds that she’d passed out. Then she realized she could hear—deafeningly. It seemed the sounds had been magnified the moment she’d gone blind.
As her eyes adjusted, she could discern a good bit of movement behind them—which is when she realized that the horde of warriors were right behind them, not just running in the same general direction.
She grabbed at the alien man running with her again. The instinctive move sent pain shooting through her arms and hands and commanded all of her attention for an indeterminate space of time marked only by the throb of her heart as it pulsed painfully. When she could redirect her mind, she discovered they had passed through some sort of corridor—underground, she thought. They’d reached a dimly lit area that looked like the bottom side of an overpass in the slums. Crumbling concrete dominated the décor. Rusting bars accentuated the mold and vine infested, fractured concrete columns and arches. Beyond those she could see cubbyhole rooms with dirt floors that contained hard cots with ratty blankets.
A jail of sorts, then.
Lacking in even the most basic comfort for men who were about to die.
The male carrying her charged through a door made of rusty bars and the male directly behind slammed the door and locked it.
It was dim in the room, but there was plenty of light to see that it was only the three of them in the cell.
Elly stared at the one that had locked them in and then looked at the one still holding her and then at the first one again.
“Uh oh.”
The comment seemed painfully inadequate even to her, but her brain had turned to mush. She couldn’t seem to get further in her assessment of her situation than the fact that she was tracked in a tiny room with two alien warrior males that looked like they were about eight feet tall and four feet wide at the shoulders.
The male carrying her set her down very gently on the filthy bedding of one cot. A cloud of dust rose as she settled that sent her into a brief sneezing fit. The alien was looking at her with a mixture of what appeared to be faint amusement and a touch of discomfort. He paused in his efforts to loosen her bindings and glanced around the cell they occupied.
He was frowning when he returned his attention to his task.
After a moment, the other man knelt and began working on her ankles.
The pins and needle pricks of returning circulation was almost beyond bearing. Elly gritted her teeth, wishing she could pass out.
“You ok?”
Elly opened her eyes, stared at the man that had spoke for several moments, and then launched herself against his chest, hugging herself as tightly to her savior as she could get. The urge to squall like a baby hit her as she felt his warmth seep into her to thaw her fear-frozen body, felt the strength of his powerful arms and chest as he curled around her and held her.
She wanted to stay there, right there, forever more, cuddled against his safe harbor in a baffling sea of alien people and places. He dwarfed her, made her feel like a child beside him, but that only made her feel safer.
Abruptly, he gathered a fist full of the hair at the back of her head and pried her face away from his chest. Startled by the abrupt change in his demeanor, she opened her eyes wide to stare at him.
She had just enough time to absorb his size and his alien-ness before his mouth covered hers in a kiss so filled with heated desire that she felt scorched by it. It was as if he set her blood on fire.
Her brain imploded instantaneously. Doubts—fueled by her last impressions—scrambled around her skull but couldn’t seem to make any sort of connections. Interspersed with those was a sense of rightness, inevitability, need. Her fight or flight instincts collapsed into a molten puddle of ‘want to’ somewhere in the region of her belly.
Confusion warred with desire and a vague sense of the life or death need to surrender without a fight.
A wave of dizziness washed over her as he carried her down onto the cot.
