Page 2 of Fifth (Intergalactic Warriors #5)

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.

Finally, the head man stepped forward, his teeth rotten, expression sly. “Not coin. You’ll have to prove yourself through challenges. Win her.”

The words landed heavy, more ritual than bargain, Hannah’s earlier accusations pressing in.

The slavers were making a game of her fate, testing him, daring him to refuse.

Their eyes glittered with cruel anticipation, rifles raised to see if he would erupt.

Instead, he remembered Fourth’s Bonding Chase, the way his brother had been forced to prove himself worthy of his human mate.

This was a twisted reflection of that sacred trial, and though debased by these men, he recognized the shape of it. Aproving. Atest. Away to keepher.

Locus inclined his head once in firm agreement, his voice steady as he answered, “I accept.”

The slavers froze, clearly unprepared for his ready submission. Afew barked out uneasy laughter, others shifted on their feet, and more than one spat into the dirt as though to cover his surprise.

“Three trials,” the head man said at last, savoring each syllable like meat he didn’t deserve.

“You and the girl will face them together. Survive them all, and she is yours.” The malicious tilt of his mouth warned Locus that the game was rigged—promises of safe passage written nowhere except in mockery—and still he inclined his head as if hearing liturgy.

“Very well. Then give me the rules.”

The head slaver’s face darkened. “Only one rule, alien. Survive. You and the girl make it through, and she’s yours.”

A murmur rippled through the camp, carrying the cry of wagers being placed, the whisper of blades readied. The command was brutal in its simplicity, yet familiar enough to stir his blood. Endure, survive, and keep the woman alive.

“Feed and cage them,” the man ordered.

They shoved them toward a crude holding enclosure at the edge of the preserve gates, their scorn snapping at Locus’s back like hounds eager for blood.

The cage crouched where the fence met stone, bars welded from scavenged pipe, floor fouled with old blood and the sour tang of fear.

Beyond it, agate of wire-mesh and jagged steel teeth waited, the preserve mouth yawning black.

Hannah finally tore herself from his side and pressed into the farthest corner. Her arms wrapped around herself, chin high, but her body shook faintly.

She was exhausted. Terrified. But her eyes never stopped moving—counting guards, mapping distances, and memorizing faces. Good. She was built for survival though she didn’t yet trust him to be part ofit.

Two guards appeared at the bars. One tossed a bundle inside, scraps of clothing and coarse fabric. “Strip ’em down,” the leader called. “No weapons, no tricks. Let’s see how your alien bride handles herself when she’s got nothing to hide behind.”

Hannah’s head snapped up, fury flooding her face. “You can’t be serious—”

A guard slammed his baton against the bars. “Do it. Or we’ll do it for you.”

Her pulse leapt, terror slicing through her defiance. Fifth moved between her and the guards, shoulders filling the space, his voice a low growl. “Leave her.”

They laughed. “No, freak. Both of you. Strip.”

The bundle contained little more than thin scraps—ahalter of fabric for her, along with a barely-there skirt, aloincloth for him.

Humiliation disguised as necessity. Fifth obeyed without hesitation, tearing his flexible armor from his body and letting it fall.

He replaced it with the simple loincloth while the guards hooted, pointing at his powerful frame, the shimmer of faint alien markings beneath his skin.

He ignored them, stepping closer to Hannah as if to shield her from theireyes.

She stood frozen, trembling, clutching her torn dress. Her lips parted, outrage and fear warring in her throat. “I’m not—”

Fifth reached, steady hands closing over hers.

His touch was hot, unyielding, but gentle.

“Do it,” he said quietly. “By my hand, not theirs.” He angled his body, blocking sightlines from the catwalk above, from the hole in the tarp to the left, from the bored guard who wouldn’t be bored if he saw herskin.

Her eyes snapped to his, fury burning. After a heartbeat she nodded.

Together they pulled the fabric away, replacing it with the halter and skirt that barely covered her backside.

She flinched when cold air struck the back of her knees.

He steadied her. Her skin was pale, luminous in the low light, goosebumps racing over her arms. Fifth’s throat tightened at the sight, his instincts growling, his body reacting with a hunger he couldn’t disguise.

“Breathe,” he told her, voice low. She matched him, breath to breath, until the shaking lost itsedge.

She turned from the guards quickly, pressing into the shadows of his chest. He let her, wrapping his arm around her to cover what he could, his own bare skin flush with heat against hers.

He caught a faint trace of something clean beneath the smoke, awhisper of her own scent that lingered despite the filth around them.

He smelled the day on her—sun in her hair, dust on her knees, the salt of fear and the iron ofwill.

Her breathing eased, still uneven but steadier now. Fifth kept his arm firm around her, holding her into his warmth until the tremors quieted.

“You protected me,” she whispered. Not thanks. Not surrender. Just realization.

“Affirmative.” His voice was final.

She tilted her head up, confusion burning through fear. “I didn’t ask you to.”

“It does not matter.” He cupped the curve of her hip, thumb finding the tremor there and pressing until it steadied. “You are mine to protect.”

Her breath caught again, and though she tried to look away, her body leaned subtly toward his, abetrayal of urges she hadn’t meant to give. Heat pressed into him. Want uncoiled, swift and sure. Restraint leashed it, barely.

The guards cackled, satisfied. “Perfect. Now you’re ready for the preserve.”

They walked away, leaving the two of them in silence.

Ashort while later, the guards returned and shoved a dented tray through the bars, holding coarse bread and a bowl of greasy stew.

The smell was sharp and unappealing, but it was food, and Hannah’s eyes flicked to it warily while Fifth noted the meager portion.

He pushed the tray toward her. “Eat,” he ordered. “You will need strength for tomorrow.”

She didn’t move. “What about you?”

“I do not need it.” Vettians burned clean. He could go days on stored reserves. He didn’t say how the scent of her, warm and fierce and frightened, filled him more than food would. “Eat.”

She hesitated, then obeyed, forcing each bite down. When she gagged at the grease, he tilted the bowl and kept it near so she didn’t have to reach. “Small bites,” he said. “Again.” She obeyed because her body wanted to live. He valued that more than any outward beauty.

He didn’t touch the food, choosing instead to watch her, his own hunger secondary to making sure she was fed. When she finished, he set the tray aside, his decision made. Her survival came first. If there was a second portion tomorrow, he would fight for it. If there wasn’t, he would stealit.

Outside, the slavers laughed and drank, their voices carrying into the night. Wagers clinked: coin, cartridges, rings pried from other people’s fingers. Afiddle scraped a crookedtune.

When Hannah finished eating, he set the tray aside and pulled her closer again. Outside, the men roared and the fiddle shrieked, but inside the cage he created a wall of heat and protection for her to rest against. “Now you will sleep,” he ordered softly. “Curl against me. Iwill keep watch.”

She tensed, pride holding her stiff. Then exhaustion broke through and she shifted into his side, her cheek resting just beneath his collarbone. He wrapped his arm around her, fitting her beneath it, his other hand braced on the bars behind to guard themboth.

“You think we’ll survive this?” she whispered into thedark.

“Affirmative,” he said with certainty he willed into truth. “I will see you through every trial.”

She shivered at the echo of laughter outside, the guards trading bets on how soon they would die.

Dawn, some said. An hour into the first trial, others sneered.

That she would strike him first, another guessed.

The sound carried into the cage like knives.

Hannah pressed closer, and Fifth drew her tighter.

“They are wrong,” he promised. “We will make them choke on their wagers.”

Her breath slowed against his chest, her body yielding to weariness despite the fear that still clung to her. He listened to the rhythm of her heartbeat until it steadied. Only then did he allow his own eyes to half-close, resting without ever loosening hishold.

Beyond the bars, the preserve gates loomed. At first light, they would open. The first trial would begin.

And when it did, he would still be holdingher.