Page 2 of Fifth
Ropes still bound her wrists when she reached him. Her scent struck him next, sting of tears, iron of blood, faint floral beneath, the lighter sweetness of some earth-fruit caught in her hair. Adrenaline surged through her veins. Areflex jolted through him, setting every nerve alight until his skin tingled with heat. Hunger rose, sharp and undeniable. She was small,delicate-boned, yet the curve of her body ignited something far more dangerous than simple possession—an aching, relentlessneed.
Her breath quickened, though her gaze remained steady, fixed on him as if searching the lines of his alien face for answers buried deep withinbone.
“You’re not like them,” she whispered.
“I am not.” His voice came low, even, the register he used to calm terrified recruits on a shot-up transport.
“What are you?”
“I am Fifth.” A pause. “My brothers call me Locus.”
She studied him, suspicion sharp as a blade. He caught the scent of her fear, metallic and raw, and heard the hammer of her pulse beneath it. Still her gaze never paused, always moving, measuring, calculating. Each breath was survival, each line of her body threaded with defiance.
Her gaze catalogued him—short white hair catching light, amethyst eyes glowing, pointed ears, inverted brows marking him Vettian. She drank him in with disbelief. He endured it, certainty hardening in his blood.
This one.
The scarred leader cut the rope at her wrists and shoved her forward into him. She struck his chest and stiffened, bracing for pain, but his arm came around her swiftly and held her steady. Her heartbeat thundered against him, wild and irregular, while heat spread beneath his palm at her hip. She was soft, curved, perilous, whereas his kind were forged for war, not gentleness. And yet this fragile resistance unsettled his control more than any weapon could.
He lowered his mouth to her ear. “You are mine now.”
She shuddered. “Like hell I am.”
Laughter roared around them, achorus of men certain she would break. The sound battered against him, but he refused to believe it. She wouldn’t shatter. Not with him holdingher.
This was no mistake. It was the first step onto a path he had chosen.
And it was only the beginning.
He didn’t release her when the slavers scorned and shoved them onward, their insults following like snapping dogs. Floodlights burned white cones across the packed dirt. Generators coughed. Smoke trailed up from oil-drums turned to fire pits. He counted weapons—eight rifles, three pistols, knives everywhere. Two lookout towers stitched to scaffolding. Afence with sensors he didn’t recognize, all cheap, all loud. The camp was a wound that the night couldn’t scab over.
She stayed pressed against his side, rigid as a braced spar. He carried the certainty of his choice forward with each step, deeper into the reek of smoke and cruelty. When she tried to pull away once, twice, he didn’t tighten, didn’t hurt her. He simply refused to let hergo.
Finally, she hissed up at him under her breath, voice sharp despite the tremor in it. “If you think I’m just going to follow you quietly, you’re insane.”
“You will follow. Quietly.”
“You don’t own me.”
His chest tightened. Ownership was wrong. What was true was the drive carved into his bones. She was his to protect. His to free from these slavers. His to keep alive.
“I claimed you,” he corrected. “There is a difference.”
She blinked, startled, then gave a bitter little laugh. “Yeah, well, you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t see the difference. These men are slavers—they sell women like me.” Her voice shook, but she forced the words out. “Until you pay for me, I’m not yours at all.”
He studied her closely, tone flat and certain. “Until I pay, you are correct. You are not mine to claim.” He didn’t miss the hitch of relief that cut through her fear, or the anger that chased it. She didn’t wantanyversion of belonging. Notyet.
Her chin lifted, eyes sparking with both dread and curiosity. “And if you do? If you buy me?”
His grip firmed around her waist. “Then you belong with me, and I will keep you safe. No one else will ever touch you again.” He didn’t add the rest, that safety and belonging weren’t the same thing, that he’d learned the hard way how different those words tasted in the mouth.
She didn’t respond. Words wouldn’t change the truth already pulsing in his blood. He adjusted his hold on her, drawing her tighter to his side, her breasts a faint brush against his ribs. The contact jolted through him like an electric surge. She gasped softly at the same moment, her head tipping back as if she’d experienced it too, though she quickly covered it with a glare.
Every step after that, he was hyperaware of her body against his, the heat of her skin through thin fabric, the faint brush of her hip into his thigh when the path narrowed, the scent of her hair drifting to him when the wind shifted. It was distraction, dangerous and intoxicating, and it gnawed at him. Vettian discipline urged him to control himself: breathe, choose, hold.He forced each breath to steady. And he’d chosen. Now he would hold her until time ended.
Her words lingered in his mind, striking deeper than he expected. Ownership. Payment. The brutal exchange she described stirred something sharp inside him. Abruptly, he stopped, his gaze snapping to the scarred leader. “What do you want in exchange for this female?” he demanded.
The question cut through the laughter. Rifles rose a fraction. Men exchanged glances that tried for bored and landed on afraid.
