Page 8 of The Captain’s Bounty (The Collectors #2)

CHAPTER THREE

Lissa awoke to pounding in her head, a knife stab of pain in her empty stomach, and the grumbling of the alien being in her head.

Don’t kill him , it scoffed. I’m trying to save you, you idiot. Now look where we are .

She couldn’t see anything. Not even when she finally managed to peel her eyes open. It took rolling her head sideways before she felt the brush of cloth on her cheeks and knew she’d been blindfolded.

She groaned, wilting back into the softness of what felt like a mattress and blankets beneath her. “Can you see anything?”

Instead of the being in her head, a heavily accented male voice rumbled in answer, “I see fine. You, however, are blindfolded.”

She tensed, every muscle ready to run–

I don’t run.

She strained to hear where in the room the owner of that gruff voice was. “Who are you?”

“Bruwes, son of Mayzon, son of Ahbel, once prince in line to my father’s crown, now turned bounty hunter,” came the growling response. “And you are Lissa Blackwood of Earth, wanted criminal and my newest bounty. Now that we are all caught up on who we are–”

She tensed that much tighter. “Criminal?”

“With a hell of a price tag attached to you,” the unseen Bruwes confirmed, and tried again.

“As I was saying, now that we know who we are, let me tell you where we are. In space. Which means that if you attempt to re-enact your little stunt with the slavers, you’d better be prepared to go floating in the void with the rest of us.

And I warn you, if you’ve got any other mischief in mind, I’ve got a decent right hook and a crate-load of sedatives.

I get paid whether you’re conscious or not. ”

If she tensed any tighter, her muscles were going to snap her bones in half. “Slavers? Little Stunt?”

His heavily indrawn breath, turned into a barely smothered sigh. “The dossier said you were human, not mimic monkey. Why are you repeating everything I say?”

“Why aren’t you making sense?” she snapped back. “What slavers? What crime? What price tag? What are you talking about?!”

“If you think pleading innocence will help you, know there isn’t a person on this ship that I wouldn’t sell for six thousand chits. Including myself. I don’t care if you did it or not.”

“Did what ? What did I do?”

You mean, except find me ? the voice in her head dryly answered.

She panicked.

Finally.

“You mean apart from blowing the docking port all to pieces?” her captor asked. “I don’t know what Corporate wants you for, but I assume whatever you did was just as bad.”

Her stomach rumbled, the emptiness suddenly so painfully acute that she’d have doubled over if only she weren’t already lying on her face on the bed. Hands bound behind her back, she couldn’t even rub to help soothe the hurt. Pressing her forehead to the mattress, she stifled another groan.

“Hungry?” Bruwes asked, not taunting, but only asking.

Tell him yes. You must eat or you will die, and I will have to find someone else to inhabit.

Poor you , she thought bitterly.

Movement right close beside her caught her attention. She stiffened all over again.

“Sit up,” he told her.

With her arms behind her back, that was easier said than done, but like a caterpillar using her face for balance, she eventually managed it.

“Open your mouth.”

She instinctively flinched back, turning her face away from the cock she envisioned was right there at her lips. Open her mouth, indeed.

“Are you hungry or not?” the bounty hunter demanded.

“Take off my blindfold,” she ordered. “I can feed myself, but I’m not opening my mouth until I see what’s going in it.”

He snorted.

It was all she could do to control her shaking, and she didn’t need eyes to know she was failing at that. Breathing deeply, trying to calm herself, she softened her tone. “Please. I won’t do anything, I swear.”

I will.

No more killing , she insisted, unsure if the being could even hear her. But if her kidnapper knew what she–the being–had done on the docks, then maybe he knew what had happened at the digsite. Maybe that was why she had a bounty on her head. It’s your fault I’m in this mess.

The soft clink of a utensil being set down was followed by a heavy silence as he considered her.

“If you do not behave, there will be consequences,” he finally said.

“I’ll behave,” she reluctantly promised, the pinch in her stomach tightening. “I swear, I will.”

The being squatting inside her said nothing, but she could sense its growing irritation.

I mean it. No killing, she thought fiercely.

You command me nothing.

She frowned, and the next she knew her chin was captured in a rough, hard hand. Bruwes the bounty hunter jerked her head up, presumably to meet eyes she couldn’t yet see.

“I am serious,” he warned. “You will give me your obedience, woman, or I will take it by force. I know how human males correct their disobedient females, and in that our species are very closely aligned. You have been warned. Thank me for granting such kindness.”

Yanking her chin back out of his hand almost made her lose her balance. This was entirely the wrong situation to get mad in. Like it or not, her life was in this man’s hands. What purpose could it possibly serve to antagonize him?

And yet…

“Kindness?” she spat incredulously.

She immediately ducked backwards when thick fingers brushed her hair. He grabbed a fistful before she could escape, putting an end to her limited struggles before tugging the blindfold down, turning it into a dull-green rag necklace around her throat.

Her stomach rolled in a way that had nothing to do with the gnawing of her wildly growing hunger as she stared in shock at the muscular male seated before her, his knees almost touching her own.

She’d seen a lot of strange beings throughout her years of travel, moving from galaxy to galaxy, dig site to dig site, but the man before her now…

he wasn’t like any being she had met before.

He was humanoid, but that was as close as she came to identifying his race.

Tall and built like a professional wrestler, his black “hair” was thick as porcupine quills and tipped in white.

His grayish skin… she’d never seen skin like this before either.

Rough, broken... craggy, more like tree-bark than real skin.

His hands–as he picked up the bowl and spoon resting on the short table by the bed, pulling it into his lap–seemed far more adept at crushing than cradling. His fingers were twice as broad and thick as her own.

Helpless to stop herself, she raised her gaze to his black as black could be eyes, situated in a face every bit as rough and craggy as his hands.

“Who are you?” she asked, surprised.

The chiseled line of his jaw tightened once. “Bruwes,” he repeated, slower this time. “Son of Mayzon, son of Ahbel, prince to the inherited crown that now sits heavy upon my father’s brow…”

“No, no,” she interrupted. “I mean... what are you? I’ve never seen anyone like your kind before.”

“Until a year ago, my kind ,” he enunciated, “had never seen yours either.” Spooning soup from the bowl, he lifted both to her mouth. “Eat, before your stomach gnaws itself inside out.”

“You kidnapped me, so don’t even pretend like you care,” she snorted.

“I care very much. Your contract specifies alive.” He brought the spoon closer, right to her lips. “But it’s not personal. Here. Eat. Take a little comfort while you can.”

Locking her lips, she glared at the spoon. She seriously doubted she would find comfort in anything he gave her.

“You’re an archaeologist,” the big man drawled. “I assume that means you’ve got some brains, so think about this carefully. You’ve really only got two options here. You can eat with a modicum of dignity, or I can administer a nutritional enema.”

“I’d rather starve.”

“Too bad, because that’s not an option.”

He needs you alive , the being reminded. Eat, or your body will devour itself to feed my power.

Like I should want to do anything to make any of this easier for either of you.

She shifted her mutinous glare to the cream-gray soup he’d ladled up to feed her.

Poison wasn’t the only thing he could slip into her food.

What about paralyzers, coma-inducers… sedatives to make her pliant while he shuttled her from points A to B?

“It’s not poisoned, if that is your thinking.” As if to prove it, Bruwes ate what was on the spoon, chewing and swallowing, before dishing her up another bite. “Now, open your mouth, woman. I do not have patience for nonsense.”

Caught between two unwelcome captors and her own rising affront, she locked her jaw, pressing her lips tight. She was so hungry, the savory smell of the soup teased her nose with every breath. Her mouth watered, and yet, she couldn’t afford to trust that soup was the only thing in that bowl.

I’m done with you , the being said flatly.

“So be it,” Bruwes unknowingly agreed, as if they could hear each other and were in sound agreement.

The big male set the bowl aside, his massive hands coming to rest on his thighs. The steady black of his gaze bored into her.

“Now you have another choice. Do you want to apologize and eat your soup, or do you require correction?”

Insect. Egg. I will not be corrected by the likes of you. Enough. I have tried your way of dealing with him. Now for mine.

“Get fucked,” she told them both, just before the power of the being inside exploded through her head.

It moved through her, sliding into her flesh as if she were nothing more than a slightly too-small glove.

Its dark thoughts crawled through her mind, forcing her mouth to open and although it was her voice doing the speaking, it was definitely its words coming out of her mouth. “You deal with me now, lesser being–”

Its–her?—unspoken “feed me as you will” morphed into a startled squawk when Bruwes grabbed them both, hauling Lissa straight up off the bed and dumping her unceremoniously across his lap.