Page 1

CHAPTER ONE

Maria’s legs were burning as if she’d just run a marathon at a full sprint.

Though the distance was less, it wasn’t too much of an exaggeration.

Adding in the wilderness terrain, with multiple hills and even small mountain climbs, along with water crossings and all manner of hellish obstructions to navigate around, her entire body was a mass of sore muscles and bruised flesh.

But she wasn’t about to stop. She was free.

Free and following a man she didn’t know at all.

But in this world where her life had been turned upside down, he was the best option of essentially no good choices.

It was follow a stranger or become a slave.

The decision had been easy, given those parameters, but their escape from the vast alien city had been anything but.

Zepharos, the man called himself. A tall, pale-green-skinned specimen of impressive masculinity that she would have appreciated much more under better circumstances.

As it was, he had unexpectedly come to her where she was being held in an underground complex, the lone prisoner in a room of empty cells.

Maria had been locked away on the first day of the Husken Games.

She and the male partner she’d been chained to had failed to meet the cutoff for the exhausting obstacle course that kicked off the games.

And as a replacement participant purchased from captive stock, she was now to be locked away until the end of the games, at which point she would become an indentured servant for the elites.

Or a slave, as she preferred to call it.

No amount of wordplay would change what it really meant.

As it was so early in the games, she was the first of the replacement competitors to fail and subsequently be locked up, and as such, security was somewhat lax.

No one visited her except to bring her food.

That is until the handsome pale-green man with dazzling amber eyes crept into the holding area and approached her cage.

“Hey,” he said quietly as he eyed the human woman miserably curled up in her cage. “ Hey .”

“Go away,” Maria groaned from her bunk, not even rolling over to see who had spoken.

Her reaction was that of a defeated woman. Someone who had faced already untold horrors on her way to this latest indignity, and she was sick of it.

He looked around cautiously, as if confirming there were no cameras watching, then he walked right up to her cell door.

“Look, I’m here to get you out of there.”

“Sure, buddy. Go on, pull the other one.”

“Ah, the leg joke. Yes, I’ve heard it. But, as your kind say, ‘I shit you not.’ I’m here to rescue you, but you’ll have to come with me right now. This is the best chance we’ve got.”

Maria actually reacted to that exchange. This was different from what she’d dealt with in the months since the ship that had abducted her from Earth had left her stranded on this alien planet. She rolled over and sat up, eyeing the pale-green-skinned man with a cautious look .

“What do you mean, my kind ?”

“You are from a place called Earth. Taken by Raxxians and held as livestock aboard their transport ship before it crashed on this world. That would have been quite some time ago, of course, and it does make me wonder what sort of adventure landed you so far from that site.”

Maria’s eyes widened. That she was a human from Earth was common knowledge now, but she hadn’t spoken about her time with her disgusting Raxxian abductors. Yet, somehow, this man knew things. And he said he was there to help. And maybe he really was, but she still had doubts.

“You’re a stranger. Why should I trust you?” she finally asked, rising to her feet but not approaching the bars.

“Because I know others from your world. Earth women who arrived here much as you did, though they are quite free, unlike you. A problem I would rectify at once, if you will accept my assistance.”

He stopped, standing silently as he waited for her reply.

No matter his sense of urgency, this was not the time to press.

Maria would have to make the decision in her own time and of her own accord and there was simply no other way about it, though he did test his lock bypassing skills on the cell adjacent to hers, the door clicking and swinging open silently as he keyed in the command.

“Well, nice to see that works,” he commented to himself.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Just an observation,” he replied, then said nothing more.

Maria was a little discombobulated by his unexpected silence. “That’s it?”

“That’s what?”

“You’re not going to try to talk me into coming with you?”

“I see no point in it. And I do understand your hesitance. You do not know me, true, and you have clearly been through a lot. It is no easy decision to make, and ultimately it is precisely that. Your decision. Either you wish to take your chances with me and flee this place, knowing we will be pursued without a doubt. Or you remain here to serve out your best years as a glorified house slave. But while I will not pressure you, I would remind you that time is limited. If you are to join me, we will need to leave sooner than later. The festivities outside will provide a nice distraction, but it will only last for so long.”

Maria paced back and forth, eyeing the unsettlingly calm man standing outside her cell.

He was proposing flight, becoming a fugitive, and yet he was unworried about the ramifications.

It was odd. Odd, but for some strange reason, she felt she could trust him.

Something in his bright amber eyes that showed a depth of character hidden beneath his casually smiling facade.

“Okay,” she finally said. “But they’ll notice I’m gone.”

“Already on it,” he replied, keying open her cell, then opening a storage cabinet and removing another few blankets and a pillow.

He stepped into her cell and quickly began tucking them under her blanket into the rough shape of a sleeping person.

It wasn’t perfect by a long shot, but unless they came in to check on her it could very well do the trick.

She looked at him with a very incredulous shake of her head. “You think that’ll actually work?”

“Not for long, no. But we’ll be far from here by the time they notice you haven’t moved or eaten anything. I’d estimate we have until mid-morning, if not afternoon, before they come after us. But we’ll have to run, and hard at that. Are you up to it?”

“Wait, you don’t have a ship?”

He chuckled. “The one time I might regret my people’s avoidance of technology. But even if that wasn’t the case, any craft leaving between now and then will become part of a tracking protocol. One that actually helps us.”

“How is being on foot going to help us?”

“Because what I have planned is something they would absolutely not expect. And while they are chasing down every last ship that you might have absconded on, we will be putting a lot of distance between ourselves and this place. They rely on technology so much that the very idea of escaping on foot won’t cross their minds for days, if not longer.

And by then, if we are lucky, we’ll be able to safely secure a ride from a location far from here.

One that will not fall under their scrutiny as a result.

But, as I said, first we will have to run. ”

“Oh, I can run. But what about Ziana?”

“Ah, the other human.”

“My friend ,” she clarified.

Ziana was taken into these alien games just as she was, but she hadn’t been disqualified yet. Only Maria had been so unlucky. So far, at least.

He seemed to sense the urgency of her tone and understood, but circumstances were not on their side. Not for that.

“She is unreachable for now,” he said, shaking his head apologetically. “And even if we could get to her, removing the cuffs binding her and her partner is beyond my skills.”

“But we can’t just leave her here.”

“I’ve seen her teammate compete before, and believe me when I say he is quite formidable. Your friend is in the best hands she could hope for. We can work on getting her freedom later. But none of that will matter if you do not first make your escape. Are you ready to do this?”

Maria rolled her shoulders and took a deep breath, steeling herself for the exertion she was about to begin. “Ready as I’ll ever be. ”

“Good,” he said, offering her his hand. “Then come with me.”

He led her to the next room. It was some sort of locker room or storage area; she couldn’t quite tell.

All that mattered was there were some alien clothes she slid over her competitors’ athletic wear.

Staff attire, from what she’d seen of the city.

There was a small tin of some sort of alien makeup or sunblock or something.

She didn’t really know what, but he told her he would need to spread it on her face to disguise her human coloring, at least a little.

“Here, I’ll do it,” he said, opening the tin. “We don’t have a mirror, and we don’t have time.”

“How do I look?” she asked when he’d finished.

He paused a moment, sizing her up. “That’ll do.”

“That’ll do? You really have no idea how to talk to a woman, do you?”

“Oh, I do,” he replied with a flash of something that was either amusement or mischief in his eyes, “but this is certainly not the time or place. And I am working hard on changing my ways. But that’s irrelevant. We must go. Now .”

He led the way through the corridors, Maria following close.

The staff roaming the halls as they moved toward the surface made it clear this was some sort of kitchen facility, the cells being neatly tucked away beneath them.

And that meant they had a sizable group into which they could blend as they made their way out of the complex.

“Where do you think you’re going?” a gruff woman in a guard’s uniform barked at them as they passed.

Zepharos flashed a bright smile, putting himself between the guard and Maria so naturally even she almost didn’t realize what he was doing. He was making sure she wouldn’t fall under greater scrutiny, and damn if he wasn’t doing a good job of it.

“We’re heading back to service the tables in the Vorxian section. You know how that lot can get pretty rowdy, and they’ve made quite a mess already. And the night is still young, am I right?”

“You’re supposed to always serve on the way out,” the woman growled. “You know the job.”

“Of course, you are absolutely right. But we weren’t leaving just yet.

There was a spill outside and, lucky us, we got tasked with cleaning it up,” he said with an exaggerated sigh.

“I know what you’re thinking. Why don’t the cleaners handle it?

And you’re right! I said the same thing.

I mean, we handle food! We shouldn’t be doing that sort of thing.

But it’s in the footpath and everyone’s tracking through it on the way out, and with the party getting underway, well, you know how busy the staff gets. ”

He paused, his grin widening as he leaned in a little closer to the woman while also blocking Maria even more from the woman’s view.

“Hey. You know what? I was just thinking. My shift ends in a little while, and it is the first day of the games, and that means a celebration, even for us. What do you say we get a drink after you clock out? Just you and me. I know a quiet spot where we could get to know each other better. I’d love to hear all about your?—”

“Just get moving, and clean up that mess,” the woman blurted, doing her best to hide her discomfort with his unexpected advance while acting in the most official way she knew how, which was to order him to do something. Something he very much wanted her to command of him.

“Right, the cleanup. But after? You and me, we could?—”

“Just go!”

Zepharos turned, his hand on Maria’s back subtly urging her to walk ahead of him, once again his body blocking her from view. “Okay, okay,” he called back over his shoulder. “But think about it. I’ll come find you later. ”

They were outside before the woman could respond. He quickly changed course, veering into a dense crowd. They vanished among the revelers in an instant.

“This way. I don’t think she’ll come out to see if we’re cleaning up a spill that didn’t happen, but we don’t want to take any chances.”

Maria stuck close to him as he moved, weaving through the crowd like a fish swimming upstream.

“That was impressive.”

“What? You mean that little chat? Oh, that was nothing.”

“You managed to get us out of there without raising an alarm, and you did it all with some impressively creepy charm.”

“ Creepy ? Really?”

“That was the point, right?”

“I was going for overbearing. But that doesn’t matter. All that does is that we get clear of the city proper. I stashed some very basic supplies in the woods. But first we need to get to them.”

“We’re not taking a road?”

“Not for long,” he said, nodding and waving a faux-drunken greeting to some revelers as they walked.

“First, we swap out our attire for something different, then we simply exit the city as though we are somewhat inebriated revelers out for a stroll. No one will give us a second glance. We should be in the woods and out of sight in no time.”

“And then?”

“And then we run.”