Page 22 of Seduced By the Alien Mercenary

Chapter 17

Irena

I was so scared when they strapped me to the jumpseat inside that shuttle. Scared because letting myself get caught was so counterintuitive to what I wanted, but also scared because Flack’s plan to escape had just hit a huge snag. There was a horrible collar fastened around his neck now, and he acted defeated as Dimon ordered him to kneel on the floor of the shuttle. A slave collar. There was no escaping that.

Only too well did I recall the one I’d been forced to wear when I’d first been woken from stasis inside that auction house on the Yengar space station. It had felt like a fist around my neck, a constant, terrible reminder of how little control I had over my life. The pain that thing inflicted was so unbearable that I’d have done anything to avoid feeling it again. Then Isen had carved up my face, and the pain collar’s agony had paled in comparison.

What did this mean for us? Everything else was going as Flack had planned, but this surely threw a massive wrench into things. Those collars were impossible to tamper with. I’d been extremely lucky in that regard. The auction house had demanded an extra fee from the pirates to keep the one around my neck, and they hadn’t bothered. Not a strange choice, as there wasn’t really any place I could run, confined to a spaceship. They didn’t need to worry about escape. Not like with Flack.

Flack was forced to kneel for the entire flight down to the planet we were in orbit around. He kept checking on me, but only through his lashes, hiding that he was doing it. His eyes were fierce when he glared at everyone else around us. There were a lot of them; they’d turned out in full force to bring us to the planet. They all looked worried too, and I had rarely seen the crew of the Vidu so on edge. Did that mean they feared Flack, even shackled and collared? Or was that unease about the looming threat of the crimelord they owed?

It wasn’t until we’d landed and Flack was being dragged out of the shuttle that I caught an expression on his face that set my nerves at ease: a wink. He’d definitely winked at me from beneath a lock of silky white hair, hidden from view from everyone but me as they hauled him outside. That wink could mean many things, but it made me feel like Flack was telling me all was well. That the plan was still on. I really hoped so.

I was escorted off the shuttle by Sil, one of the few crew members I still knew by name. He regularly got called out for being an idiot, and this time was no different. “No, not there—put her over here,” Dimon warned, pointing to a spot at his side. Being this close to the captain had rarely worked in my favor, so my heart rate spiked.

Like Flack, I was ordered to kneel, and I hurried to obey, my stolen pistol awkwardly pressing against my thighs where I’d bound it with scraps of cloth. I knew Flack had told me to hide it on the ship, but I’d felt better knowing I could arm myself and fight back. I never wanted to feel as helpless again as I had in the moments before Xathena had nearly struck me with her knife.

Dimon went into one of those far too long talks of his, rambling about what Flack needed to do and how this would save all of us. I tried to use the moment to calm my nerves and study my surroundings. It was the first time I’d set foot on an alien planet, and it wasn’t quite what I expected. So far, all I’d seen was a space station run by lowlifes and a spaceship. This was very different.

We were in a forest, and daylight filtered through the trees. Light that felt and looked much the same as that of the sun back on Earth. My skin warmed beneath the rays, and a soft breeze blew across my bare legs and arms. The climate here was like a warm autumn day back home, not unpleasant but a little brisk given how thin my dress was. I was suddenly cold, and I hadn’t been cold inside the sweltering, stuffy heat that filled the Vidu before. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be cold, and it made me worry over lots of new things. How cold would it get out here at night?

The trees didn’t have branches, but rather massive leaves a bit like a palm tree. They provided dense cover in the forest that prevented light from hitting the ground. In this clearing, though, the sunlight was pleasant enough to keep me from freezing. I shivered anyway, my skin breaking out in goosebumps. In the distance, a mountain loomed tall, pointing at the sky in one jagged peak. It was capped with snow, warning me that this planet definitely could get cold.

“You’re going to have to undo these shackles to let me steal the diamond, Dimon,” Flack taunted, drawing my attention back to the men in the clearing with me. Flack knelt proudly, eyebrow raised and blue eyes twinkling with amusement. Definitely trying to needle Dimon, and succeeding in getting under the captain’s skin. “And you’re going to have to restore my ability to shift, too.”

That made the whole clearing grow hushed, and the crew glanced uneasily around. They really didn’t like that, but Dimon still seemed unruffled. He held up the pain controller to the slave collar as a warning, a reminder. “I’m in control, Flack. One false move and I take you down with this. Don’t forget it.” Flack snarled, the response full of fury, but he didn’t lunge, didn’t fight.

After that, things moved shockingly fast. Shackles removed, some kind of injection given, and then we were ordered to get going. A tight two-hour window was given for us to complete the task. I wasn’t quite sure what was expected of me when Flack rose to his feet. I’d been hauled along but otherwise ignored. When Flack rose and began walking, I was certain I was supposed to simply follow.

I took one step, and the dirt, twigs, and oddly star-shaped nuts that littered the clearing crunched sharply beneath my bare feet. This was going to be extremely unpleasant to walk on, but I’d take it if it meant getting out of here. Of course, Flack wouldn’t let me take much more than two steps and, heedless of everyone watching, suddenly picked me up and threw me over his shoulder.

I feared my skirt would lift enough for the pistol to be seen, but he clamped his arms around my thighs to pin me against him. Then he jogged away so quickly that nobody even had the chance. That already felt like escape; each step he put between us and the pirates waiting in the clearing made the hope for freedom surge in my veins. I could taste it then, the escape, the plan he supposedly had to get us out of here. For the first time in forever, I was off the ship, and there was a whole world to disappear into.

“You okay, my sweet?” Flack asked, not even winded after carrying me at a fast pace through the woods for what had been over five minutes by now. He must have waited to be absolutely certain we were out of hearing range before he spoke to me. Now he halted and began lowering me in his arms until he held me in front of him, our eyes able to meet. His were glowing with barely banked excitement, and I felt the steady thump of his heartbeat against my breasts.

“I think so,” I whispered. “What now? What are we going to do about that?” I raised a hand to indicate the collar sitting like an angry black mark around his neck. I couldn’t bring myself to name it; it was that distasteful. It made my stomach roil with painful memories.

He smirked like it was nothing. “Oh, that? Not a problem. Let me take care of it right now.” He put me on my feet very gently, his hands lingering on my waist until he was certain I was steady. His fingers gave me a gentle squeeze around my waist as if to say, I love touching you, and I can’t get enough. Then he stepped back and, with a flourish, bowed for me. His grin was so wide I knew he had something good planned.

I think this might be the first time I’d seen him shift in daylight, or what passed for daylight beneath the shade of all these trees. His body rippled, changed, and then shrank before my eyes. Oh, I got it now. When he finished reshaping, he was the tiny little fox that had first slipped into my hideyhole on the ship. Cute, but so small that the big slave collar hung around his neck all the way to the ground. When I went to my knees in front of him, I could lift it straight off without any trouble at all. He yipped cheerfully, wriggled his body, and wagged his plumed tail, and then he grew.

He kept growing until he was the massive fox that had barreled to the rescue when I’d been cornered by Xathena. From tiny to massive, he now towered over me. His snout was as long as my forearm, his fangs terrifying, but his big, mobile ears somehow still equally cute. He plucked the collar from my fingers with that fanged maw, crunched down on it with a growl, then dropped it to the forest floor.

A moment later, he’d shifted back into human shape, still somehow dressed in black pants and boots. I hadn’t paid the right amount of attention to him, I realized, to figure out how he did that particular trick. Shouldn’t the clothing have fallen entirely off him when he got small, just like the collar had? He’d definitely been fully naked last time...

He spread his arms out as if to say, “Tada!” for a magic trick he’d just performed. He might as well have; it did look like magic to me. How was one man able to take shapes of such incredibly different sizes? It didn’t seem possible. I clapped softly for him as I let the full weight of my relief wash over me. With the collar off him, there was nothing stopping us from vanishing into the forest without a trace, was there? Had we done it, escaped?

Flack picked up the now-broken collar with a curl of distaste around his pretty mouth. He reached into the broken control unit and tore tiny internal components free, only to hurl them with a whip of his arm deep into the forest in one direction. The collar was hurled the other way, scattering the pieces so they would be extremely hard to recover. “With that sorted,” he said, “ready for a fun ride?”

I wasn’t quite sure what “fun ride” meant in his book, but the twinkle in his eyes only promised good things. I’d learned to recognize that look by now: naughty with a hint of mischief. He shifted back like he was quicksilver, shedding his human form so easily it felt like I’d barely blinked. A fox the size of a pony, he was as tall at the shoulder as I was, and covered in that thick, lush white fur. His tail was tipped with black, and his ears and eyes were rimmed with the same dramatic shade.

It was breathtaking to stand face to face with a beast this large and dangerous. He was distinctly fox-like in shape, but looked as deadly and dangerous as a wolf, or some other big predator. His ears wiggled, his tail wagged, and that made all the difference. When he moved, it was so sleek, but then he dipped into a playful bow, tongue lolling, and wriggled before he rolled onto one shoulder and threw all four massive paws up in the air. I giggled, my hand slapping across my mouth as the sound escaped, because damn it, that was cute. It was also bizarre behavior for a beast this size; it just didn’t look right.

When he bounced back up, playful as a puppy, he padded toward me with a tail wagging so wildly I could feel the wind it generated. Perhaps he was simply showing me I had nothing to fear, but I had a feeling he was also acting out a little just because he enjoyed being his big, predatory self. When he went to his belly in front of me and jerked his pointy snout toward his back, I finally got the “ready for a ride” statement from earlier. He wanted me to climb onto his back…

It was also the first time I truly looked at his hindquarters and realized he was still covered in black panels of armor. His hind paws were also encased, protected by what had previously been his boots. Somehow, they’d stretched, shifted, changed; exactly in the same way his body had. Whoever had created that armor, they’d known exactly what they were doing to make it work for Flack’s needs. This essentially meant I was eye to eye with a fox wearing pants, and that kept me giggling as I moved to his side to do as he wanted and climb onto his back.

I’d gone horseback riding a few times before, though I’d never really taken lessons. Riding a massive fox was nothing like that, and I struggled to find something to even compare it to. For starters, he was just shaped very differently, and the fur that covered him was extremely thick and shaggy. The fur was so thick that, when astride his back, it took a moment for his warmth to seep through into my skin. When he moved, it was also with much faster, more fluid motions, agile in a way a horse’s body simply never could be.

I had to cling to handfuls of fur to stay on his back, lying low against him to keep my balance. His pace, when he broke into a trot, was very steady and even, so his back barely swayed as he ran. Those massive paws and long legs ate up the ground like it was nothing, dirt and trees blurring when he picked up speed. It was, despite the even pace, not entirely comfortable. His back was straight and too smooth, so I constantly felt like I might slide down the side and fall off.

It was exhilarating anyway. The best ride of my life. To go that fast, and know that each long step took me further away from the pirates, it gave me a sense of freedom and joy that brought tears to my eyes. Running through those woods atop his back, it was special; it made me feel like we were flying. He’d done it, he’d fulfilled a promise I’d scarcely been able to believe when we first met. I’d never take freedom for granted again. It didn’t even matter that I had no clue where he was taking us, or what we’d do now that the danger was over.

Then, through the trees in the distance, I could see a change: more light, and the gentle, undulating slope of the mountain rising beyond. A building appeared as we got closer, and Flack began to slow his ground-eating pace. It sprawled in a U-shape, surrounded by tall walls and several outbuildings. A building much like a massive estate, a mansion meant for parties and extravagance.

This had to be the place where the diamond was kept. All at once, something akin to betrayal began to unfurl in my belly. A first hint of unease, a horrible feeling of impending doom. He’d taken us to the one place I thought we didn’t need to go. Did he want to steal the diamond anyway? And if he did, what else had he been hiding? Had I chosen to trust the wrong man after all?