Page 8

Roslyn

The Eritin night presses close as I make my way down the shadowed path toward the pool. Above, the reaching canopy almost completely blocks the light of the planet’s two moons, and I’m grateful for the protection it affords.

Just like I’m grateful for the absence of cameras.

Something about that—about the stillness of the forest devoid of the constant hum of the hovers—nags insistently at the back of my mind as unlikely, as suspicious, as strange.

But I’m not about to question it.

My plan hinges on getting outside the production zone, and I’m prepared to do that whether or not I’m pursued. Not having cameras on me makes it all that much easier, even if the pit of dread in the bottom of my gut grows heavier with each passing, silent second.

The light from the pool's blue-green bioluminescence shines through the underbrush ahead. I slow my step as I approach, stopping just at the edge of the shadows’ protection to scope the space out.

There’s no one here. No contestants, no producers, no guards.

It’s earlier than I would have preferred, just after midnight, but with no telling how long Zandrel will be away on assignment, I didn’t want to risk waiting any longer. It’s still far too early for all the night’s activity to be done. At any moment, some couple might decide this is a great place for a rendezvous, so I make a beeline for the fence.

Here it is, my one best chance.

I haven’t gotten the opportunity to test the fence’s strength. I haven’t been able to prove my theory that it’ll be strong enough to hold my weight, that I’ll be strong enough to get myself up and over, but there’s no more time to second guess.

There’s no time to do anything but adjust the straps of the pack I’m wearing. It’s small, because bringing full-on survival gear here might have raised some eyebrows, and stuffed to the gills with anything from my luggage and the bungalow that seemed like it might be even remotely helpful in keeping me alive in the Eritin wilderness. Once it’s secure, I take one last deep breath and reach for the fence.

It holds. Hand over hand, feet perched precariously in the metal links, I pull myself up one foot, then two, then three.

The fence is only about eight or nine feet high, and with each foot gained I get a little bolder, move a little faster.

Just a couple more feet and I’ll be up and over.

I’ll be on the other side, out of here, and I can make a mad dash for the open yard where the production team keeps its fleet of transport hovers. With any luck, I’ll be able to override the operating system on at least one and be on my way.

My mind tumbles over the rest of the plan while my hand finds purchase at the top of the fence. Triumph breaks over me, sharp and sweet and—

“Oh no you don’t.”

The low, rumbled words, spoken close enough to my back to rip a fractured scream of surprise from my throat, are the only warning I get.

The instant after they’re spoken, two impossibly strong arms close around me.

Fuck. Fuck .

This isn’t happening.

There’s no fucking way this is happening.

One arm banded around my abdomen, the other reaching up so he can clap a hand over my mouth, Zandrel pulls me off the fence and into an unbreakable hold.

Even though I try my damnedest to break it.

I thrash and kick and bite at the hands that bind me, losing a boot for my trouble. I rear my head back and slam it hard enough into his jaw to earn myself a satisfying grunt of pain, even while my teeth rattle in my jaw and agony blooms over the back of my skull.

“Roslyn,” Zandrel hisses. “Enough.”

It’s not enough. Not even close.

Driven by a fury and helplessness and desperation that spring up from the very bottom of my broken, reckless soul, I keep fighting, keep struggling. I don’t care how much I hurt myself or Zandrel in the process.

His chest is an unmovable wall behind me, his arms unrelenting iron bands. Even his damn fingers feel like steel pins as I gnash at him, the firm line of his jaw like hitting my head against the edge of a table. The pinpricks of his claws press into my cheek, a reminder he could tear me to pieces in half a heartbeat if he really wanted to.

He lets out a low, harsh curse, one that must be particularly colorful in his native language, because my translator chip can’t quite pick it up. The closest approximation is a condemnation for the Revexoran fates to damn me or him or this whole situation to hell, and I couldn’t agree more.

Damn this. Damn him. Damn each second that’s putting Savvie further and further from my grasp.

“Roslyn,” Zandrel commands again, harsher this time. “Cease your struggling. Unless you want me to call in the rest of the security team and have them cease it for you.”

It takes a couple of moments for his words to pierce the haze of my fruitless anger, but when they do, they strike a discordant note.

He hasn’t called any backup?

He could be lying. He probably is lying.

But then again… I’ve been his little pet project since the day I arrived here, haven’t I? And he seems arrogant enough to believe he can handle one helpless human on his own.

Which, I mean, he’s not wrong, but as long as it’s just him, my odds aren’t zero. As long as it’s just him, I might still have a chance.

My struggle slows, and Zandrel grunts something that might be approval.

“I’m going to let you down,” he says low into my ear. “But the second you try something, I’ll have you restrained again. And this time I won’t let go.”

I believe he means it.

I believe it so much that I nod awkwardly where he’s still got his hand over my mouth, restraining my head.

Still, when my feet hit the ground, I almost try it.

The frenzy hasn’t faded, and the wild, animal instinct to flee tightens all my muscles.

But there’s nowhere to run, nowhere I can go, no chance he wouldn’t catch me in just a couple of seconds like he’s promised.

So I’ll have to look for another opening. I’m shit at hand-to-hand combat, but the first opening, I’ll take it.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, voice rasping out hoarse from all the screaming I did behind the muzzle of his hand. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

It’s a stupid thing to say, but my mind’s not organized enough right now to be pithy, and Zandrel just gives me a long, patronizing look before he answers.

“The date ended early. Apparently the Aventri has also been carrying on with a Jurvian, which Ansalla didn’t appreciate in the slightest.”

Casual, he sounds so fucking casual right now.

My world is crumbling around me, Savvie slipping further and further away, and he’s still acting like all of this is a joke.

And to him, it probably is.

Wherever he came from, whatever kind of training he has, it probably puts this little security gig far enough beneath him to be laughable. Handling one relatively powerless human bound and determined to break out of a reality vidcomm production show probably does seem like a joke to him.

Mortifyingly, unforgivably , tears sting at the backs of my eyes. I blink them rapidly away. My half-formed plan to incapacitate him seems more and more futile with each passing moment as I take him in, study him, from his absurd height and bulk to the protective plated ridges covering his arms to the muscles beneath those plates.

Invulnerable. He’s completely, utterly invulnerable. My limited knowledge of physical combat notwithstanding, I can’t find a single place on him that looks weaker than the rest. Nowhere I could strike to give myself half a chance of escape.

I swear I can almost hear my last bit of fragile hope shatter, littering the jungle floor in a million irreparable pieces.

“Where did you think you were going?” Zandrel asks.

Instead of barbed and condescending, the question sounds almost curious. He tilts his head to one side and looks from me, to the fence, and back again, trying to piece together what exactly is happening here.

“Nowhere that concerns you.” The words come out clipped through my teeth, barely patched together around the lump that’s lodged itself in the back of my throat.

God, I’ll never forgive myself for this.

Not just for failing to get out of here and find Savvie, but for being so damn weak, for showing that weakness to the male in front of me.

“You can tell me.”

I can’t help it, I laugh. Short and bitter, I shake my head in disgust.

“Why the fuck would I do that?”

His brow creases, and he’s just opened his mouth to say something else when a new sound pierces the night.

“Who’s out there?”

The call of a deep, masculine voice echoes through the jungle. Zandrel and I both fall silent, and the voice is echoed by the stomping of heavy, booted footsteps.

More than one set of footsteps.

This is it.

This is the part where Zandrel tells the approaching crew exactly what he saw, exactly what I was doing. This is where I get carted off the show at best, or at worst, have to face some sort of charges for trying to trespass into the Eritin wilderness.

Wildly, I look back to the fence and the eight or nine feet between me and my one best chance.

I wouldn’t make it three steps before Zandrel caught me again, so for the sake of my pride, I don’t even try. All I do is look and look and feel my heart shatter in my chest, feel my sister slipping away, for good this time. There’s not going to be another chance, there’s nothing. Nothing I can do, no way I can—

“Kiss me.”

I whirl back around to face Zandrel, and he’s closer than he was even a few seconds ago. Towering over me in the darkness, with the light from the pool casting all the hard angles of his face in an eerie aquamarine glow, he stares down at me intently, like what he just said wasn’t certifiably batshit.

“Excuse me?”

“Kiss me,” Zandrel says again, more insistent this time.

He’s not just a pain in the ass. He’s insane.

“Listen, asshole, I’m not sure what exactly about this situation makes you think that—”

“What would you rather happen, Roslyn?” he says, leaning in even closer. Close enough to see the galaxies swirling in his eyes and for the deep rumble of his voice to break over my skin. “Would you rather me tell the producers and guards on their way here right now that you were trying to escape, or let them believe you’re having a moment of passion with a handsome member of the security team who you just couldn’t keep your hands off of?”

Make that arrogant and insane.

I’m just about to tell him as much when the full impact of his words hits me square in the chest, tightening my throat.

Is he trying to… help me?

Not likely, but as I meet his gaze, I find I can’t speak.

A fling with a guard would be better, wouldn’t it? Less likely to get my ass kicked off-planet and tossed in a cell somewhere for questioning if they find out I was about to go traipsing through Eritin’s very off-limits wilderness?

“Roslyn,” Zandrel says, low and urgent. “You’ve got about ten seconds to—”

“Fine,” I snap at him. “Fine. I’ll kiss you.”

Zandrel drops one hand to his opposite wrist, clicking some button on the heavy black cuff he always wears. As soon as he does, the faint whir of a hovercam joins the voices and footsteps, but I barely have time to register it before he buries that hand in my hair.

He pulls me close. Then stops.

Just a few inches between us, the broad bulk of him leaned down over me, lips hovering above mine like he’s waiting for me to make the final move.

Damn him.

My gaze flicks back and forth between the fathomless nebulae of his. I’m looking for…

Well, I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I sure as hell don’t find it.

All I find are uncertain galaxies, churning. Reckless depths taunting and warning and reminding me that just because he’s helping me doesn’t mean he’s safe , doesn’t mean any of this is going to get me closer to Savvie.

But letting the other guards catch me here won’t, either, so I slam my eyes shut, blocking out the silver swirl and endless dark before I press my lips to his.