Page 2

CHAPTER TWO

They ran hard, and they ran far. Zepharos would stop for water and basic food, but only for a moment before they would start up again.

He was like a machine. An incredibly fit one at that.

And he pushed the pace more than Maria had ever thought she could endure.

Even her recent training in preparation for the alien games she’d been unwillingly thrust into hadn’t prepared her for this.

Everything hurt, and it didn’t look like that was going to change anytime soon.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Oh, how the hell did I get into this mess? she quietly lamented.

The answer was obvious. Maria had gotten into it when she’d been abducted from Earth by a carnivorous alien race.

Raxxians, they were called—towering, green-scaled brutes that had taken her, and not for anything so cliché as anal probes.

They weren’t interested in experiments. No, the Raxxians had a different purpose for their collection practices.

Those they took were to be food.

It had shocked the hell out of Maria when the aliens in her holding compartment explained it all to her.

That in itself was shocking, but it seemed the little translation rune tattooed behind her ear was made of some sort of living pigment.

She didn’t really care what it was so long as it actually allowed her to communicate with the others.

She’d received the marking from a particularly large and gruff alien man named Heydar.

He was a prisoner as well, but this skill made him of particular use to the Raxxians.

So it was that he’d been aboard their ship far longer than any would have thought possible.

He should have been eaten by now, but that wasn’t meant to be.

Neither was that the case for Maria, apparently.

She’d only been aboard the ship a short while when it came under attack, breaking apart and plummeting into the atmosphere of the nearest planet.

It was a failsafe and reclamation design the Raxxian transport had in place.

Rather than lose the whole ship, it would separate into individual holding compartments, which would then be retrieved by the nearest Raxxian recovery team.

In this case, however, a planet pulled them in, and the survivors were scattered across a wide swath of the alien landscape, the auto-landing features saving many, but not all. Maria had been one of the fortunate ones. That is until she was discovered and captured by a different sort.

Slave traders.

She was tossed into a filthy and slow-moving transport where she spent weeks upon weeks wondering what might happen next. She wasn’t going to be food, so that was a win, but beyond that, anything could have happened. Anything, including another human being hauled aboard, though barely alive.

Maria had managed to convince their captors to give her some medical supplies, nearly losing her voice from the continued shouting.

She had to wonder if they’d given them to her out of kindness or just to get the human woman to shut the hell up.

She didn’t care either way. The other woman needed help, and that was all there was to it.

With great care and patience, the injured human slowly began to recover, regaining her strength and finally her senses a short while later.

The two women became fast friends as the transport lumbered across the landscape over what felt like months, sharing stories and bonding as only survivors of this sort of shared trauma could.

Ziana was her name, and she too was snatched by the Raxxians only to survive the destruction of their ship, though only just. And then, just when they thought things were at least looking up, they arrived at a vast arena, the first time they’d been outside in longer than they could recall for certain.

These were the Husken Games, and it seemed some of the competitors preparing for the challenge were in need of replacement partners. And as luck would have it, both women caught the eye of Chancellor Vinchi, the leading elite overseeing the games.

Both were found to be in violation of the most serious of laws.

Something called the Dotharian Conglomerate oversaw this and countless other worlds, and it was mandated that all must possess the Dotharian runes.

That explained why everyone had similar markings on their bodies.

Rune tattoos on key muscle groups with delicate lines connecting them.

There were technique variations by race, but the basic designs were the same, and, per the law, everyone had them.

Everyone but the two humans.

The chancellor said they could be put to death for such a grievous violation.

It didn’t matter that they were abducted from a non-Dotharian realm.

All that did was account for their lack of the runes.

But he generously offered the services of his Skrizzit, the person who was skilled in the application of the runes and the use of the living pigment that would form a symbiotic bond with its recipient.

Stranger than all that, there was one rune in particular that was some kind of big deal.

The Infala, they called it. A very ornate rune on one’s chest that, apparently, would bond you to your mate for life.

That is, if you ever happened to find its match.

That was something of a rarity, even among these people, and for that reason, Infala bonding was a very celebrated event.

But that wasn’t why she and Ziana had received theirs. They simply had to be marked to be able to compete in the games, shackled to their partners as they faced myriad challenges, both physical and mental.

Maria was fortunate. Her partner was a man called Borkus, a decent fellow who did his best to help train her in preparation for the games.

Ultimately, however, they were simply not up to the task.

Borkus was disqualified and ejected from the games.

Maria, on the other hand, well, that was how she found herself in her current situation, running for her life with a man she knew nothing about.

But given the choice between a long life of servitude or taking a chance in the wild with a strange, sexy, pale-green skinned man, well, there was no choice.

And so they ran.

It was what they would do for however long it was until darkness finally swallowed the day and night spread its inky wings across the world. Only then would they stop.

But that was still a long way off, and that meant more running.

Maria ran and ran until her mind wandered, her legs moving of their own accord, her eyes tracking and following Zepharos on autopilot.

Not a runner’s high, per se, but she had definitely fallen into the zone.

Or some zone, anyway, and it wasn’t until she finally stopped that she’d truly feel the pains of the day’s efforts.

And oh, what pains they would be.