Page 88 of Galaxy Games Four-Book Box Set (Galaxy Games)

88

You Want Me to Bite What?

S adie

Anubis stands, pulls out my chair, and lifts me into his arms. He stalks to Kartom, obviously the highest-ranking person in the area, and tries to talk. When he realizes his sounds are still unintelligible, he points to my midriff.

I didn’t look too closely earlier after the Pterodactyl attack, but I saw enough to know there were dozens of puncture wounds from that fucker’s teeth. I’m surprised to see how fast they’re healing.

“You want me to administer first aid?” the assistant asks. His terrified gaze darts to the holographic screen where Zedd is babbling on about a new product that washes dishes without effort. “She’ll fire me for that,” he says, shaking his head, “perhaps worse.”

Anubis leans down, puts his face inches from the assistant’s face, and growls. His sheer bulk, those long fangs, and the otherworldly red eyes would put fear into the heartiest soul.

“I wish I could help you,” the male says, “but she would kill me.”

If the stakes weren’t so deadly, it would be funny. This male is more afraid of the beautiful Jahzara Zedd speaking via holovid from a million miles away than the giant, furred Anubis standing inches from him.

I put my palm on Anubis’s chest and tell him, “It’s okay. It’s not his fault. Besides, if we die tomorrow we won’t have to worry about infection, and if we live, I’ll get the medical treatment I need.”

Anubis leans even closer to Kartom, snarls showing plenty of fang, then strides to our assigned tent.

It’s spacious, as tents go. Maybe ten by twelve. Center stage is a blow-up mattress that the network has arranged for us to have sex on tonight. I assume Zedd was referring to aphrodisiacs when she said they’d added a “little something extra,” with that lascivious sneer.

Not that I’d mind having sex with Anubis again, it’s just that I’m so tired I could sleep for days. There’s a portable shower in the corner of the tent. Perhaps viewers complained about having to watch porn performed with dirty bodies. They certainly didn’t truck in water for our benefit.

After making sure the network provided us with new clothes to wear tomorrow, I tear my filthy ones off and set them outside the tent. They reek. I’m not sure whether it’s from Pterodactyl saliva or my dip in the marsh. Either way, I’m so thrilled to have them out of here I’m barely irritated that the whole galaxy is watching me walk naked to the shower.

Of course, the shower has see-through walls. The network is nothing if not thorough. Although it’s barely big enough for one, perhaps in a misguided effort to shield me from prying eyes, Anubis manages to join me.

He pumps lather from the dispenser and washes me. Leaning against his plush, furred body, I close my eyes and allow myself to relax for the first time in days.

The stimulants Zedd promised haven’t kicked in yet, because I’m half asleep. “I know you’re right here,” I tell Anubis, “but I miss you. I miss talking to you.”

He leans down and chuffs in my ear. Although I don’t know what he means, I’ll assume he agrees with me.

I lean back against him and let him wash me. I should probably be thinking of this as foreplay, since I’m assuming the aphrodisiac is going to start working any minute, but I’m just sleepy and tired enough to enjoy Anubis’s non-sexual touch. His hands, so big and potentially deadly, are soft and affectionate as he lathers, then rinses me.

He told me he loved me. Is that possible? Can people fall in love so quickly? The answer is yes. I’m certain of it because I love him, too.

He washes himself, then lifts me in his arms, carries me out of the shower, and dries me with care.

Bending to kneel at my feet, he licks my wounds again. Although they’re healing at an amazing rate, I noticed a few that should have received medical attention. Maybe Anubis’s magic saliva will heal them by morning when we’ll face some new level of hell at the network’s hands.

My mind is working differently in this dreamy state. It’s stuck on one question as I ask myself over and over—why did Anubis shift into his super soldier form?

That he did it to protect me from the bear is the obvious answer, but he didn’t shift earlier when he needed to protect me from other things. There has to be another explanation.

Suddenly, I’m wide awake and full of energy. Perhaps it’s Zedd’s stimulants, but maybe it’s because I’m a woman on a mission.

Instead of standing in front of him, I walk behind him. When he moves to rise, I say, “Wait. Stay right there.”

I inspect his back where I thought I saw something glow right before he morphed last night. He’d tried to touch it, to swat it away. He’s so hairy, I can’t see anything, so I rake my fingers through his fur. The pads of my fingers follow a grid as I search for something.

At first, I’m not sure I feel anything, then I find it. It’s the size of a TicTac inserted under the skin.

“Feel that?” I ask.

It’s between his shoulder blades. He has to contort his body, but he reaches it, explores it, then nods.

“I want to cut it out. If the Feds, your owners, stuck it in you. It should be out. Maybe it’s just GPS, just a tracker, but I know what I saw. It glowed red under your skin right before you went into super soldier mode.”

I step in front of him again, feeling the first wave of sexual desire hit me like a steamroller. Not that I know anything about aphrodisiacs, but I have a feeling we don’t have a lot of time before I lose all higher-level thought.

“Can I cut it out?” I ask.

He nods, his canine face serious.

It’s only now that I realize my spear was lost in the Pterodactyl attack and his was confiscated the moment he touched the flagpole.

I hurry to the foot of the bed where the staff have placed new packs and clean clothes. After opening the pack, I dump the contents onto the bed and find only bottled water and nutrition bars. No matches, no blankets, and no knife.

Although it’s a fool’s errand, I paw through his pack, but its contents are the same as mine.

“No knife,” I tell him woefully. The more I think about it, I know whatever the little bead is under his skin is related to his bestial form and behavior. It needs to come out. But how?

He snaps his teeth at me. It makes a terrifying, feral sound. When I don’t show any signs of comprehension, he snaps again and again then mimes biting his forearm.

He wants me to bite the thing out of him?