Page 150 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Hina

On trembling legs, I sank to the cave floor in front of the alien stranger who had just saved my freaking life.

I could still vividly see the moment I’d gone over the edge, my body half turned so I saw the purple and pink sky above my head.

I remembered the sudden form of this male leaping over the edge after me, his body a graceful T-pose as he plummeted faster than I did.

That moment had felt like an eternity, with my stomach up in my throat and a scream ripping from my vocal cords, before his powerful form caught up with me, yanking me into his body.

For a brief flicker of a second, I had felt safe, rescued.

Like this stranger was going to fix all my problems in a single, daring leap.

It was as if not just that strong arm was hugging me close to him, but so were the long, thick strands of his hair.

Sitting on the floor of the cave, struggling with the adrenaline crash and the reality of my situation, I didn’t know what to make of it all.

This alien was huge—seven feet tall, easily.

Even on his knees, he seemed enormous, his arms thickly corded with muscles and his chest carved into well-defined ridges and valleys.

Even in the low light at the bottom of this hole, I could see an intriguing, triangle-shaped texture to his skin, thicker on his upper chest and shoulders but more faded lower on his body.

With an ax dangling from a loop on his hip and the black leather kilt that covered him to halfway down his tree-trunk thighs, he looked dangerous, strong, savage, even.

So, it was incongruous that he was gently petting what appeared to be a cross between a kitten and a ferret.

Or maybe it was more like an otter? Its fluffy fur was dappled in all kinds of shades, from sable and brown to splotches of deep red and bright yellow.

I couldn’t forget how quickly this alien had dropped me to check on his pet when he realized it was with him in his bag.

Even with the language barrier, I’d recognized his shock and concern when that first purring sound had broken the silence.

It was hard to be scared of a guy who so obviously cared for his pet.

Right now, I could even admit to myself what an absolutely dumb idea it had been to blindly run away. If not for this alien male, I would be dead right now. Maybe I was too stupid to live; I sure seemed to make a mess of my life when left to my own devices.

A low whining sound, followed by a soft growl, sent my nerves firing with another surge of adrenaline.

It came from above, the dark head of the hound-like creature that had accompanied the alien appeared, poking over the edge of the hole.

Even from this distance, I could see the red glow of its eyes.

The alien male rose to his feet and began waving his hand in a stopping motion; he was yelling something too, in his strange, guttural language.

Not hard to guess that he was trying to stop it from jumping down after us, something that could only result in injury or death for the animal.

The dark head disappeared, and I drew in a relieved breath.

Good, it had backed off. One look at my alien rescuer told me he was extremely tense, though.

Even the small furry creature was sitting on his shoulder, snout pointed up in intense focus, its long, sleek tail sticking out straight behind it.

The beast leaped, blotting out a good portion of the light coming down the hole as its body started plummeting.

Then it twisted agilely, its long, sleek form turning perpendicular to the crumbling rock face we’d slid and climbed down.

His huge paws gripped the surface—grinding, scraping—but steadily slowed his descent.

The alien male was (presumably) cursing up a storm under his breath, then took hold of my shoulder and made me back up so neither of us would get caught in the rock spray.

It took only seconds for the animal to make its sliding, grinding way down that wall.

It landed in a crouch in front of us, covered in debris and dust, which it shook off with a perfunctory look down its blunt snout at his alien buddy.

I swear it was almost as if he were telling the male off for daring to tell him not to jump.

Only then did I realize that the alien still had a hand wrapped around my bicep, his fingers easily going all the way around it—warm and firm.

He looked away from his beast, yellow eyes dipping from my face down to his grip on my arm.

There was a warmth blooming in the pit of my stomach that I had no explanation for.

His eyes flicked up to mine again, a slow grin curling his lips, which was shockingly sexy.

This was the adrenaline speaking. I couldn’t be attracted to this alien.

His fingers slowly loosened from around my arm, sliding down to my wrist, where I felt the rough callouses on his fingers scrape against the sensitive skin before he let go entirely.

He stepped forward, running his hands over the spine and flanks of his huge hound, then went to his knees to carefully pick up each paw and inspect it.

I swear the animal’s red, glowing eyes rolled in their sockets, as if it were just tolerating this treatment—the way a sulky teenager might.

It was such an odd thing to witness that I had to clap my hand over my mouth to stifle a laugh.

The alien male was talking as he pointed at the animal’s paws and wagged a finger in front of its snout.

Probably telling it off for doing something so dangerous.

The little creature on the male’s shoulder jumped off, landing straight on the back of the hound, who immediately flattened to his belly on the floor.

The cat creature rubbed itself between his shoulder blades, crawling up to swat at the rounded ears, and the hound just took it.

He even looked half-besotted as it was happening, it was absolutely adorable.

I definitely did laugh out loud that time.

The alien male immediately looked over his shoulder at me, a smile playing around his mouth, revealing a row of sharp teeth that were definitely not human.

Now that I’d spent a bit of time around him and his menagerie of animals, I wasn’t so scared anymore.

I could recognize the amusement on that face, which, despite the fangs, was not nearly so inhuman as you’d expect.

With a chiseled jawline, straight nose, and cat-shaped eyes that were not too different from my own, there was even something familiar about him.

If I squinted a little in the dark, I could pretend that the white bone ridge that started at the top of his forehead like a widow’s peak was just a white mohawk rising from between the dark strands of hair.

When he took a step my way, I didn’t back up. I’d made a mistake doing that last time, and look how that ended for us. Now, we were all trapped in this damn cave. So, though he was still a little intimidating—and also kind of sexy—I waited for him to reach me.

He walked up to me until there was barely a foot separating us, and I had to tilt back my head far too much to be able to look into his bright yellow eyes.

He raised an arm and tapped at his chest, my eyes only too happy to follow that command and take in the thick pectoral muscles that tapered off into his wide shoulders and massive arms. “Fierce,” he growled at me, his finger dipping to tap at my sternum, the tap just hard enough to make me flinch back at the contact.

Woah, I bet he doesn’t know his own strength.

“Hina,” I offered in return as I patted my own chest, giving into temptation and stroking a finger across the skin between his pecs.

“Fierce,” I repeated his name, certain that was what he’d just given me.

His skin was warm and textured, like millions of tiny little bumps.

He shivered in response to the touch, a rumble—almost like a purr—rising up from his wide chest.

Startled by the unexpected sound, I flicked my eyes up to his face and noticed how his eyes had gone half-mast, his chin dipped so he could watch me.

I had a hunch he liked it when I touched him, but I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

That look on his face was far too potent.

I really didn’t know how I’d gone from terrified to extremely attracted in the span of twenty minutes with this male.

Dropping my eyes again and snatching my finger back, I spotted something strange strapped to his wrist. My mouth opened to ask a question he’d likely never understand, my eyes glued to the item he wore.

Before I could think twice about it, I grabbed his arm and pulled the wrist com up to my face, staring at it in shock.

“How? You’ve got a com? Please tell me you can call for help so we can get off this planet!

” I demanded, pointing at the com and then looking up at his face.

There was that smile again, and my insides twisted up like a pretzel in response.

I had the distinct feeling he’d understood me well enough when he flicked a finger against the small screen, allowing it to light up.

It wasn’t a device I was exactly familiar with, but it was recognizable enough.

Not so the strange letters that scrolled over the screen.

He growled some words, raising his wrist to bring the device closer to his mouth.

There was no response, but he did suddenly turn to glare at the hound behind him, spewing a few words in the direction of the huge animal.

It sniffed haughtily and sat up on its haunches, lifted a leg, and licked at its balls in what came across as a “fuck you.” That was crazy, though—no way were these two actually communicating on a level like that.

Anthropomorphizing animals was not my shtick.

Fierce tapped the com device on his wrist again, a look of frustration on his face, before he shrugged and glanced my way.

It was a little harder to tell with his skin color the same shades as the rock walls around us—dark browns and slate gray—but I had a feeling he was embarrassed.

Because he couldn’t get the com to work?

I doubted that was his fault. Even with that hole above our heads, we were mostly surrounded by layers and layers of rock; a signal was going to have a problem penetrating that.

He jabbed a little harder at the device, and I reached out and curled my fingers around his hand.

“It’s okay, Fierce, you tried. It’s probably all the rock interfering.

” I doubted he’d understand what I had just said, but I hoped my calm tone would let him know I didn’t blame him for it not working.

It was possible that, when we’d fallen and climbed down into this hole, the device had gotten a good knock too, maybe something was broken.

I tried hard to ignore my disappointment that rescue wasn’t coming easily.

Now I was still stranded on this planet.

At least stranded was better than dead, and now I wasn’t alone.

“Hina,” he said, his voice a low, husky drawl that turned my name almost into a growl, much like the rest of his language sounded.

He spoke a few more words that I obviously didn’t understand, then he sighed and tapped at his chest again.

“Fierce.” His hand moved down to his ax, which he tapped as well before pointing at me and saying my name.

The next word he growled was in his own language, and it sounded as fierce as his name did.

With his yellow eyes focused intensely on my face, it felt almost like he was pledging me something; he seemed so serious.

A tugging on my pants leg almost made me shriek, but a quick glance down told me it was just the tiny alien pet.

The cat/otter/ferret was sitting upright next to my foot, her adorable face with expressive emerald eyes blinking up at me.

I offered her a smile. I liked animals, though I’d never had any pets, as they had never been allowed on any of the research stations I’d worked at.

She blinked her pretty eyes at me, definitely a she, I’d decided.

Then she hooked her clawed front paws into my jeans and scampered up my leg, purring loudly as she leaped from my hip to my chest. I instinctively caught her and cuddled her slight body to me.

Over her purring form, I caught Fierce smiling widely at me.