Page 3 of The Lottery

He moves a few feet before I squeeze his arm and call out to stop him. “My plant. We can’t leave without it.”

He raises an eyebrow and curses in what sounds like Russian. That explains his accent.

“Please. It’s all I have left.”

He grumbles as he turns and carries me back a few feet, then with the grace and strength of a world-class athlete, he grabs my tree cutting with one hand while holding me with the other, drops it in my lap then carries me the rest of the way.

Pain is making me embarrassingly loopy and my head falls to his naked chest, my cheek pressing against his sculpted pecs.

We make slow progress. The bridge grinds and sways until I worry it’s going to drop us into the fire.

A sharp burst of fear cuts through my muddled mind at how easily we could both die right now. One wrong step. One snap of the bridge.

My nails dig into the man holding me as I squeeze tighter, but he doesn’t seem to notice--or to mind if he does.

My body stays rigidly pressed against him until we reach the door of the ship. The man doesn’t stop as the door closes behind him. As we reach safety, the endorphins keeping me conscious recede. I can barely keep my eyes open as an ache spreads through the base of my neck and up my skull.

Dizziness threatens to overwhelm me as my rescuer barks orders to someone.

I fight the urge to drift away into the darkness. His voice keeps me tethered to reality.

“Do not sleep. I will send for a doctor. Stay with me, Azalea.”

My name. How does he know my name? For a wild second I think this is the billionaire I’m partnered with. My algorithmic mate. My uterus certainly hopes so as it went into instant ovulation the moment he took his shirt off.

But no. I’ve seen pictures of the man I was chosen for. Robert Rackman. Respectably handsome in his own way, but nothing like this Greek god come to life.

I swallow my disappointment, though I can’t shake the feeling I’ve seen this guy somewhere.

Still, my head is pounding and I’m sure I hit it, so I can’t really trust my brain to do any heavy lifting right now.

Not like this guy who has carried me to a comfortable room and laid me on a bed.

My body aches.

My skin feels on fire.

But I can’t just lay here, helplessly. I slowly scoot myself into a sitting position, resting against the pillows and headboard so I don’t fall over. I study the room he’s taken me to.

It’s one of the living spaces in the ship. A smaller suite with a queen bed and a large desk featuring several screens. It’s modest and functional, which means he’s probably not even one of the billionaires. Maybe crew? Either way, I never had a chance with him at all. Our destinies have already been determined by a fancy algorithm.

He raises an eyebrow when he sees my dangly, awkward, dislocated arm. “What happened to your shoulder?”

“Popped out when I fell,” I say, trying to sound tough and matter-of-fact, and probably failing at both.

“Why did you not tell me? I could have made a tourniquet.”

“I was a little busy trying not to die.”

He’s still topless, staring at me with a judgmental—but also curious—look. After a moment, he speaks, but clearly not to me. “Metis, call Dr. McCoy.”

A monotone female voice replies from invisible speakers in the walls. “Dr. McCoy is on her way.”

He turns back and I flinch at the hard look he gives me. “You were late.”

I grit my teeth at being scolded like a child by this topless stranger. “I got here as fast as I could. Didn’t know the whole thing was set to self-destruct the minute I arrived.”

He runs a hand through his disheveled hair, leaving a small soot stain on his cheek. “It was not a self-destruct mechanism at work. The structural integrity was compromised when the metal started expanding—”