No Mercy (4 page)

His musky scent enveloped her, and she was tempted to nuzzle his exposed flesh. Given her druthers she'd just keep licking him like a lollipop until he grew hard again and took her the ways he'd described. Her sex was drenched with need, and a few accurately placed caresses would send her flying.

But that wasn't what this was about. She pulled free of Zan's grasp and got to her feet.

“Give me a minute and I'll return the favor,” he murmured.

She opened her mouth to respond, but the proximity claxon blared.

Zan was right beside her, having tucked himself back into his pants. She could still taste him on her tongue. Her training kicked in, and she dismissed him and his power plays as she leaped for the pilot's chair.

“What is it?” he asked as she strapped herself in. “Is it my ship?”

Gia gaped as the starfield was slowly replaced by the burn of atmosphere. “This can't be right! We were well outside the planet's gravity field.”

“Do we have enough juice in the engines to get us into orbit?” Zan asked, consumed by the task at hand.

Gia tapped in a few commands and brought up the engine readings. “The hull's too distressed. Too much change in too little time. She'll come apart if I try to take her back up.”

Zan cursed. “Duffy? Duffy, do you read me?”

“Not possible.” Gia didn't mean to say it out loud, but as she fought to bring the engine online her gaze took stock of the nav stats.

“What's it telling you?” Zan glanced from the display to her and back again.

Apprehension twined with a real shot of fear. “Don't worry about that. Do you think you can take the helm while I try to jump-start the engine?”

Zan nodded. “Show me what to do.”

She greatly appreciated that he didn't use the words
crash course
as she pointed out the critical operations system. “My command codes are already input, so as long as you tell the stinger where to go, she'll get us there smoothly.”

Flinging herself from the seat, Gia fought against the force propelling her toward the nose and instead gripped the cargo netting to yank herself back to the access panel over the engine compartment.

The panel came up easily, and she let it slide down toward the front of the ship. Flames shot up and she fell back, cursing, gripping the netting so she didn't go sprawling.

“Gia!” Zan shouted.

He turned to face her, and Gia gaped at the landscape behind him. Snowcapped peaks grew larger and larger as they spiraled downward.

“We're going to crash,” she whispered.

“N
ot if I can help it.” Zan fought the controls, tugging back on the nav wheel, struggling to keep the stinger's nose up. “How's that engine coming?”

A chemical tang filled the small space as Gia sprayed emergency dampening foam on the flaming engine. Tossing a glance over his shoulder he saw her swipe the foam aside and reach for the engine. “Come on, baby, don't quit on me now.”

Those bloody frozen peaks waited as they hurtled ever closer. Clouds shrouded the sharp precipices, blocking his view from the world below. The engine sputtered to life—not the reassuring roar he was hoping for, but better to have thrusters than nothing at all. Taking a chance, he steered the stinger to a lower altitude. “Let's see what's under your fluffy skirt.”

Clouds parted, and Zan kept a tight grip, in case a smaller monolith appeared. Some crumb of luck must still have been with him because between the peaks there was a long, narrow, frost-covered meadow a skilled pilot could set down in.

Zan hated to admit it, but his skill with a ship that couldn't think for itself might not be enough to see them through. Survival instinct warred with his need to control the situation, but in the end, his desire to live won. Through gritted teeth he ordered, “Gia, take the controls.”

She didn't wait for him to vacate the pilot's chair. She plopped herself in his lap. “Finally you say something sensible. Let's hope it isn't too late.”

He grinned because she couldn't see his face. Her fire and determination to not just survive but come out on top in the face of insane odds was familiar. Adrenaline combined with her soft, feminine form pressed against him made his cock throb. “Try to set down in that meadow.”

She pulled back on the throttle hard, but the planet's gravity wouldn't be denied. “What meadow?”

“Starboard side, between the peaks.” Though her back blocked his view, he recalled the exact look of their saving grace.

Gia leaned forward, her heart-shaped ass in his face. “That's an arctic lake. The stabilizers will burn through the ice and we'll crash through in minutes.”

Fuck. “What other options do we have?”

“None.” She took a deep breath and calmly went through the landing procedures. “I'm going to stagger the stabilizers as long as possible to buy us a little more time. If the ice is good and thick, it might be enough.”

Their choices were down to crash landing the stinger or drowning in a frozen lake. Somehow he'd expected the end to be a little more glorious. “What can I do?”

“Grab two of the survival kits from the hatch beneath my storage locker and then come right back. When they fire I want you ready to pull the eject lever beneath the seat.”

Zan slithered out from under her, located the packs, and strapped one around her torso. A wall of white bore down on them, the storm's intensity increasing this close to the planet's surface. How the hell could she see anything?

Heart pounding in his chest, he slid back under her and reached to locate the lever. “Okay to go.”

Gia didn't respond, her back rigid and tense, her attention fixated on her stinger. The woman knew how to handle her ship. Even without the stabilizers the descent was calm, almost peaceful.

Until the engine wheezed its last. The silence in the small ship was deafening. He could smell her fear, or maybe it was his own. The descent was too steep, and without the engines the stabilizers wouldn't fire at all. They wouldn't burn through the ice; they were going to crash through it.

They both cursed at the same time, not strong and full of fight, but quiet, defeated. His arm wrapped around her waist. “Pull the nose up as best you can and we'll eject.”

“It might not be enough.”

“It is what it is.” Securing the harness around them both, Zan waited for her signal. Gravity had snared them and Gia fought it as best she could, angling the ship at a smoother angle. He waited, holding her, perversely glad that if he was going to die, he wasn't doing it alone.

“Now!” Gia shouted, throwing her arms over her head.

Zan yanked the lever. The hull seemed to fall apart around them as they hurtled into the storm. Up they went as the ship continued plunging to the world. They lost sight of it, but the sound of impact carried up to where they hovered.

And then gravity, that jealous mistress, clasped them in her hand once more.

“What's wrong?” Gia shouted to be heard above the howling wind. “Why isn't the rocket reserve coming up?”

“It must have flash frozen!” Zan called out.

Icy pellets smacked into them; it seemed to be snowing from the ground up. Just when he was sure they really were going to die this time, the chair jerked.

“What the hell?”

They both looked up to see a huge fabric canopy in bright orange catching the wind above them, slowing their descent.

He looked from the billowing fabric to Gia's face. “What is that?”

She smiled into his eyes. “My ace in the hole—an old-fashioned parachute.”

He grinned back. “You could have told me about it.”

She shrugged and snuggled closer to him, probably attempting to conserve body heat against the bitter cold, not show affection. “There wasn't time.”

She was right. The entire crash landing had taken no more than ten minutes. Zan felt as though he'd aged another century.

With nothing else to do, they drifted down. Occasionally a gust of wind would blow them up and well off course, but the parachute held strong. When the chair finally landed, it was at the base of a mountain. The arctic lake was nowhere in sight.

“We need to find shelter, fast,” Zan said as Gia unfastened the harness. “Without the proper equipment, we won't last long in this.”

Gia opened her pack and started rooting through it. She offered him a small vial of purple gel. “Here, drink this.”

He eyeballed it warily. “What the hell is it?”

“Nutrition supplement. It also has a temporary warming agent. Like meals ready to eat.”

Zan glanced from her to the vial and back again. Her mouth fell open. “You don't trust me!”

“I don't trust anybody.” It was the truth, but for the first time he felt a twinge of remorse over that fact.

The gears were churning in her mind. He could see it in her jerky movements as she pulled a blanket from her pack, along with an extra pair of socks, which she pulled on her hands to act as gloves. “We don't have time for this. Drink it or don't, but I'm planning to live for a little while longer yet and I'm not going to stand around here arguing with your dumb ass.”

Zan stared down at the vial. The cold was starting to burn where it touched his bare skin. Hell with it, he'd already made one leap of faith today, why not another?

Gia didn't comment as he drank the foul concoction. She was too busy going through his pack, digging out a blanket and socks for him. “Try to keep your skin covered as much as possible. I don't have anything to treat frostbite.” She downed her own vial of purple gunk, packed up the parachute, and set off.

“How do you know which way to go?” Zan shouted as he followed her.

She glanced over at him. “I don't. But we have to go somewhere, right?”

Zan shook his head but followed her just the same.

The unrelenting cold chased them along the base of the mountain. Zan shivered, grateful for the blanket, for the fact that she had told him about the survival packs and that he'd had enough time to retrieve them. She really wasn't all bad. He kept wondering, if he'd been the one kidnapped would he have saved his captor or left her for dead.

Of course their continued survival might depend on sharing body heat with each other once they found shelter.

If
they found shelter. Big if.

“We are in the Hosta System. Well beyond the explored territories,” Gia called out.

Zan stopped.

“I keep wondering how it could be possible. Hosta is thousands of light years from the empath's home world. One second we were there and the next . . . Zan?” Gia noticed he wasn't beside her anymore and rushed back to him.

Zan stared down into her face, the pretty pilot who had saved his life, who knew his secrets. He wasn't the sort of man to live with regrets, but if he could go back a few hours and tell himself to leave her the hell alone, he'd do it.

“Hey, what's wrong?” Swaddled in her blanket with her flight goggles over her pretty green eyes she looked young, innocent. A victim he'd brought to be slaughtered.

Swallowing past the lump in his throat he pushed the truth past chapped lips. “We're going to die.”

 

Gia shivered from more than the cold as she stared at Zan's glazed-over expression. What had come over him? And more importantly, how could she snap him out of it before they both froze to death?

She scanned the area, noticed an overhang where the snow was accumulating. The jutting side of the mountain would block the wind. “Come on, big guy, over here.”

Zan didn't fight her, didn't even seem to notice her as she tugged him toward the nook. The flimsy shelter wasn't much, but maybe if she hung the parachute from the ledge it would give them another layer of protection from the driving storm.

“Zan, can you boost me up so I can secure the parachute around us?”

No answer. She sighed, leaning back against the mountain, and fell on her ass as what she thought was a wall of snow and granite gave way.

Her stunt had hauled Zan out of whatever trance he'd been in, and he was immediately at her side, laser pistol in hand. “What happened?”

“You checked out on me,” she accused him. Now was not the time for either of them to take a mental health break, no matter how badly needed.

Those dark eyebrows scrunched down as he stared at her. “What?”

“You said we were going to die and then acted like a fracking statue, doing your damndest to make sure it happened!” She wished she could mask the edge of terror in her voice because it betrayed exactly how scared she'd been when she thought his mind had snapped.

She waited for an accusing sneer, that expression of distain he had down to a practiced art. Instead he offered his hand—the one not holding the laser pistol—and waited for her to take it.

It wasn't an apology, but it was probably as close as he was going to come to one. She let him haul her up, then immediately pushed away, determined to keep her distance, because nothing good came from their close contact.

Well, something good. Something verrrry good.
The inner voice purred, reminding her of the heat she felt when their bodies were joined together in carnal embrace. His hard cock rubbing her in all the right places, the taste of him in her mouth, the seductive glint in his golden eyes as he thrust into her.

She shivered, need still buried deep inside her, forced into the background by circumstances. Survival came first.

Glancing around, she marveled at the cave, the mouth of which was once again filling with snow. “Let's hang the parachute in front of it to keep the cave as dry as possible.”

Gripping the other end, Zan secured the bright orange fabric at on corner, tying a knot around a stalagmite to keep it in place. Copying his example, Gia did the same.

“That's twice now that measly bit of cloth is going to save our lives,” Zan murmured.

“I'm so glad I bucked conventional wisdom. I always insisted my ejector seat be equipped with a parachute. My flight school instructor said I was foolish worrying about a parachute, what with all the technology a stinger offered its pilot.” She didn't want to think about her stinger, the fact that it was gone, broken apart at the bottom of some arctic lake on an alien world.

“We owe our lives to your so-called stupidity, then,” Zan said.

She smiled up at him, the first real smile she'd managed in what seemed to be ages. His gaze dropped to her lips, and she licked them. The sensation of cracks and dead skin was highly unpleasant, and she shucked off her pack. “I think I have some ChapStick in here somewhere.”

Zan hovered over her a minute. “I'm going to see how far back this cave goes.”

His footsteps receded, and Gia let out the nervous breath she'd been holding. God have mercy, Zan messed with her brain along with her body to an alarming degree. If she could still worry about what her lips would feel like sliding along his after all they'd been through in such a short time—an abduction, a crash landing, and then trekking across the frozen wasteland—then she had it bad for him. Too bad.

Gia fought to remember her number one rule. Don't become attached to the person you're fucking. Sex created intimacy, and so did sharing experiences or pieces of yourself, like she had about the parachute. Lovers and friends must stay in their own separate categories. Otherwise attachment was inevitable, and she'd give too much power over to another human being. Ceding control and pretty much asking to be emotionally eviscerated in the process.

Bad news, all the way around.

So she had to either stop sharing sex with Zan or stop sharing secrets. Knowing herself and the effect celibacy had on her on the empath world, Gia made up her mind that she wouldn't engage Zan in any more conversations. Though curiosity was gnawing at her to ask him what his statue act had been about, she wouldn't give in to it. The only thing they needed to communicate about was how to survive and what would happen after they did.

“Come see what I've found.” Zan had returned. “Bring your pack.”

Though she wanted nothing more than to sleep for a few hours, Gia nodded. Arguing with him only got her blood pumping, and she was too tired for sex. “I hope it's water. We don't have any in the packs, and I feel as though I'm going to crumble into a pillar of salt.” Although that wasn't too much of an issue. If they could find something to collect the snow in, let it melt, she could add a water-purification tablet that she had in her pack and they would be good to go.