Page 9 of Stealing Mercury
“Three and a half minutes, Sam.” Drake’s voice made her jump.
She pushed to her feet and made a fast, wide arc around Diablo to get to the one they called Carnage. Stars, he was big. Even lying down. She didn’t think she wanted to see him standing up close. She quickly dropped down, just out of his reach, and held out the bar.
“Please,” she said. “If one of you takes it, you can all eat.”
He rolled up to a kneeling position, facing her. A silver scar cut across his jaw, an old wound. Four parallel cuts, newly healing, wrapped around his ribs and dark shadows rimmed his black eyes. “If you want to help us...” His voice was low, barely more than a whisper. “Get us off this ship.”
The pain-filled request gutted her. The rendezvous with Sevti’s friends couldn’t come soon enough. She wanted to offer reassurance, hope, but the men at the door kept her silent.
“Two minutes, Sam.”
Drake’s reminder was a weight settling across her shoulders. Why had she thought it would be easy? Stars. She’d never been a quitter. The ration bar’s wrapper crinkled as she nervously tapped it against her thigh.
Carnage’s ears flicked and his gaze tracked to the source of the noise.
A flare of hope had her fumbling the package. Her fingers found the pull tab, and the wrapper fell away. She broke off a corner and popped it in her mouth, then held out the rest of the bar. She chewed, then swallowed, dismissing the pain of working the still too large chunks of dry protein mixture down her throat. “See? Nothing wrong with it.”
Diablo growled. “Leave him alone, human.”
His earlier accusation echoed in her thoughts. He’d accused her of being there to taunt them and she’d effectively done just that.
“Not going to try me, little female?”
She looked up to find him looming in the corner of his cage, teeth bared, eyes flashing. Samantha pushed to her feet. With all his rage, it would be easy to convince herself the pain she thought she’d seen had been a mirage. That this man might have lost all his humanity.
Diablo’s lips pulled back further, trembling with a growl so low it rumbled across her skin and made her shiver. She could see it in the expanding muscles of his chest. His hands flexed, scraping claws along the metal bars. The sound drew her shoulders tighter. The tension in the room crackled like electricity building up to a strike.
Suddenly, it was harder to breathe—as if everyone in the room had taken in a deep breath all at once, stealing the oxygen.
He could kill her.They could snap her neck. Resler’s voice echoed in her head.
She stepped forward, still well out of reach. She couldn’t have more than thirty seconds left.
A sharp bark sounded from Mercury’s cage and Diablo answered back.
Distantly aware that Mercury had sprung to his feet and started a steady growl, Samantha stepped forward again.
And again.
She felt the prick of Diablo’s claws on her arm before she saw him move. The icy chill of panic washed over her—the fire of his hand on her forearm seemed the only warm place left on her body. He’d had to stretch to reach her and for a frozen moment she registered the muscles of his shoulder and arm, sharply defined as they pulled taut. She registered the cacophony of growls and shouts that swelled to fill the room. She registered the soft whisper of fabric tearing and the tug on her wrist as he tried to pull her closer.
Samantha jerked hard against his grip. Her ass hit the floor, and she crab-walked backward, scrambling out of his reach. Hands reached from behind, grabbing her beneath her arms and pulling her up and away, wrenching her tight muscles in a stab of pain. She sucked in air as her feet found the floor.
She shot out an arm to bar Resler from reaching Diablo with his stun-stick. “No!”
“But—”
“No,” she said again.
“Time’s up, Sam.” Drake’s words came low and mean near her ear.
She cradled her arm against her chest, hiding the skin bared by the ripped fabric. “I know.”
Drake’s hands squeezed her shoulders. “I hope I’ve made my point.”
His point? She knew he wanted this to prove to her that his prisoners, his slaves, were nothing more than animals. Dangerous. Deadly.
She studied the caged men. They were all on their feet now. Agitated, breathing heavily, waiting. She still struggled to breathe past a tight throat and a tugging sensation in her diaphragm. But it wasn’t from fear.
