Alien Hostage (15 page)

Her feet suddenly splashed in ankle-deep wetness. The Nobek paused long enough to whisper to her.

“We’ll run in this stream. It won’t completely throw them off your scent, but we can at least slow them down a little. Maybe long enough to hide you. Come on.”

He hurried down the silvery ribbon of reflected light from Kalquor that shone down from the sky. Tasha struggled to keep up, trying to hurry but not splash so loudly as to alert their pursuers. She heaved for breath as she went, cursing her love for food and booze and hatred for exercise. It didn’t help her flagging energy that she’d had little to eat since being kidnapped.

She pushed on nonetheless. She had no choice but to force herself after the helpful stranger.

What felt like hours later, they waded out of the calf-deep stream. The shadow man paused to listen as they stood on the banks. Tasha’s ears strained too. She heard no sign of pursuit, but the man shook his head.

“We didn’t slow them up enough by far. Come on. My home is just over that rise.”

Her heart drumming to know Ket was still on her heels, Tasha followed the man away from the stream, racing through the trees again.

Chapter 10

Wekniz rushed the woman and child into the house. He knew he had no more than seconds to get them hidden somewhere. There was one secret safe room in the home, but it was crammed full of valuable belongings. There wasn’t enough time to put the princess and her cousin in there and not leave a mess for Ket and his band of soldiers to find. They’d figure out pretty quick where the pair were hiding.

As he ran down the home’s main hall, Wekniz heard the sound of a shower running. An insane idea hit, but it was all he had. “In here,” he shouted to the winded woman staggering behind him as he veered into the clan’s sleeping room.

He hurried to the adjoining lavatory, where the running shower had filled the room with steam. The low lighting gave it a dreamlike quality, but Wekniz was in the middle of a nightmare right now. Without warning, he flung the stall door open. Nur looked over his shoulder at him, not immediately realizing they had company.

“Hey. What – wait – shit!”

The Imdiko spluttered and grabbed a washcloth to cover his nakedness as Wekniz shoved the wide-eyed Noelle inside. Then the Nobek grabbed the woman and pushed her into the stall too. She and Nur both yelled their surprise. The woman grabbed the princess and covered her eyes even though Nur did a good job of hiding his attributes.

Wekniz shouted to be heard over them. “Ket and his men are coming! They’re looking for the princess, so keep quiet!”

He slammed the door on the astonished trio. Damn it, it wasn’t going to be enough, not with the females’ scents hanging in the air.

Wekniz looked around and spied a spritzer of Nur’s cologne. He grabbed it and started spraying wildly.

The shower door opened and Nur’s head popped out. He stared at Wekniz as the Nobek bombarded the room with fragrance.

“Hey! That’s my most expensive—”

“Stay in there!” Wekniz yelled. He palmed Nur’s face and shoved him back into the stall, slamming the door shut behind him.

Wekniz ran out of the bathroom, spraying a thick mist of cologne as he went. He ran back through the corridor, showering the areas the princess and her companion had been in with the musky aroma. As he reached the front door, thuds began to shake it. The visitor announce went off.

“Fuck,” he wheezed and gave the area another few squirts. Wekniz tossed the bottle behind a nearby potted plant.

Readying to answer the demanding summons, the Nobek took a deep breath to calm his wildly beating heart. The cloying fragrance filled his mouth and nose at once, making him cough violently. The door continued to shudder under the fists banging against it. Pretty soon they’d give up and blaster their way through.

“Just a fucking minute, you asshole!” he screamed between choking fits. Amazingly, the thundering booms stopped.

Wekniz clapped a hand over his nose and mouth and got his breathing under control. He thought a room full of smoke must be easier to inhale than Nur’s favorite cologne. Once he’d managed to catch his breath, he ordered the door open.

Ket loomed in the doorway with at least a dozen uniformed Nobeks at his back. Wekniz drew in fresh air, the relief of doing so momentarily overriding the danger he was in. Then he looked over his visitors and his protective instincts rose. He glowered at the hardcase group before him.

“What the fuck do you want, Ket? Your brother isn’t here.”

Wekniz was pretty sure Falinset must have gone on one of his beach walks. If he’d been home, he’d have been in the middle of the bedlam.

Ket gave Wekniz an unimpressed look, not concerned with the man’s obvious displeasure.  “Hello, Wekniz. I caught your scent in the woods on our way over.”

“Good for you. I like to hunt at night on
my
property. Got a problem with it?”

“Funny, since I smelled your stench on Dramok Maf’s land too. As for any problem I might have with your trespassing, it depends on what you may have caught.”

“Not a damned thing.” Wekniz looked over the deadly faces ranged behind Ket. “Speaking of trespassing, what’s with the big crowd you’ve brought to my doorstep? What are combat troops doing in this area?”

“We’re looking for someone. But you know that, don’t you? The trail we followed says you weren’t alone.”

Wekniz played dumb, though he and Ket both knew he was lying through his teeth. “I was by myself. As I told you, Falinset is out. He wasn’t with me on my hunt either, so you are obviously mistaken.”

Ket grinned, a thoroughly unpleasant sight. But then anything to do with Ket’s face was an unpleasant sight to Wekniz. “If you’ve brought nothing home of interest, then you shouldn’t mind if we have a look around.”

Wekniz folded his arms over his chest. “As a matter of fact, I do mind.”

Ket’s grin turned into a sneer. He looked back at his men. They all raised blasters and aimed them at Wekniz.

Ket said to Wekniz, “Let’s try this again. Do you mind if we have a look around?”

All Wekniz had on hand was a knife on his belt and one in his boot. He didn’t own any firepower. He had no choice but to hope for the best, or he’d be nothing but specks of blood on the floor and walls in a few seconds. With a look of pure hatred, he stepped aside.

He warned, “Break one thing, and you’ll pay for it twice over.”

Ket and the men came in. Their nearly identical expressions of predators on the hunt changed as they walked into the fog of Nur’s cologne. Within a moment, the whole bunch was hacking on the strong fumes.

Ket blinked watering eyes as he rounded on Wekniz. “By the ancestors! What is all this stink?”

Wekniz shrugged, taking a little satisfaction in their misery. “Nur is showering. That’s where you’ll find me if you want to make more insane accusations.”

He stomped through the coughing group, heading for the bathroom. Ket’s angry voice followed him. “You stay right here. I don’t want you warning your Imdiko or anyone else we’re here.”

Wekniz whirled around to show his fangs. “If you think I’m letting any of your goons mess with Nur, you are going to hurt badly for it. I don’t care how many of you there are. I will tear you apart.”

Without waiting for a reaction, Wekniz turned his back and stormed to the lavatory. Ket didn’t say anything else to try to call him back. Even that brainless piece of shit knew better than to challenge Wekniz when it came to his clanmates.

Wekniz got to the steam-filled room. Nur made a lot of noise in the stall. He sang as he splashed enthusiastically, his voice so off-tune that the Nobek winced at the assault on his ears.

Knowing Ket would be listening, Wekniz called, “Nur, don’t come out. We have company.”

Nur stopped singing to yell back, “Really? Since when do we get visitors?”

“It’s Ket and other uninvited guests.”

“Now isn’t that great? I just disinfected the house from the last time that idiot stunk it up.”

Ket entered in time to hear Nur’s derisive comment. He snarled at the closed stall door, “I’m not the one bathing in perfume, precious.”

Nur’s sotto voice rang out, echoing off the tiled surfaces of the room. “Oh Ket! What a nice surprise.”

Wekniz smirked even though Ket glared right at him. Nur’s sarcasm was thick enough to cut with a knife. He sounded as unconcerned as anyone could, as if he didn’t have two other people sharing his shower with him.

If the woman and girl will stay quiet, we might get away with this
, Wekniz thought.

Ket showed no sign of leaving the room, however. As sounds of the other Nobeks’ searching the house reached them, he stood in the middle of the room, scowling in the direction of the stall as Nur started singing again. With each passing second of the Imdiko proving he couldn’t carry a tune, Ket looked stormier.

After a couple of minutes, two of Ket’s soldiers entered. One frowned at the noise coming from the stall as he reported. “We found no sign of them, Nobek Ket. And we can’t smell anything for that awful cologne.”

Ket snarled at Wekniz. Wekniz gave him a crude gesture in return.

Nur chose that moment to shut off the shower. He poked his head out, his long black hair dripping on the floor. He gazed in chagrined surprise at the number of men – half of them strangers, one he hated – in the bathroom with him.

Irritation came over his handsome features. “Mother of All, it’s ugly times one hundred. Get the fuck out of my bathing facility, assholes.”

Ket started towards him. Wekniz took a step towards the other Nobek, growling a warning. Ket snorted dismissively at him but halted.

He asked Nur, “You wouldn’t be hiding anything in there with you, would you Nur?”

The Imdiko smirked. “Only what you might dream of but can never have.”

Ket shot a look at the two Nobeks standing in the doorway. Before Wekniz could react the pair sprang on him, knocking him to the floor and holding him down. He shrieked in rage as he fought them, but he could not get free.

Ket strode to the stall and jerked the stall door open, revealing Nur in all his nude glory. Wekniz howled in fury and fear for Nur as he waited for the females hidden inside to be discovered and taken away.

The stall behind Nur was empty. Princess Noelle and her cousin were not in it.

As Wekniz gaped in surprise, Nur roared in outrage at Ket. He grabbed containers of hair and skin products off the shelves inside the stall, flinging them with all his might at the Nobek. His might was pretty impressive as the force of his throws made Ket yelp.

The air was filled with heavy containers. As a men’s grooming technician who insisted on trying out all the latest cleansers, creams, and gels, Nur had a lot of ammunition to draw from. Ket dodged from side to side to avoid the endless barrage flying at him. Welts soon covered his bare arms.

After several seconds of this, he’d had enough. Ket rushed out of the lavatory, yelling at the soldiers holding Wekniz prisoner.

“Get back outside! They must have continued on instead of coming in here. Maybe they’re hiding somewhere on the property. Fan out and find them!”

The two Nobeks pinning Wekniz obeyed, but not before shoving Wekniz’s face to the damp floor tiles, giving his forehead a nasty thump against the hard surface. Then they followed their cursing leader out and down the hall. His shouted orders floated down the corridor, telling them to get their asses outside and search under every fucking stone no matter how small it was.

Nur’s hands closed on Wekniz’s upper arms, pulling him up. “My Nobek, are you all right? Did they hurt you?” he asked breathlessly.

Wekniz got to all fours and held up his hand to silence his clanmate. They crouched frozen on the floor, listening until the door to the outside hissed open and closed.

Wekniz shot to his feet and hurried out. A quick check of the home verified that their unwanted visitors had indeed vacated. Once he was assured Ket and his men were gone, the Nobek returned to the lavatory.

Nur was wrapping a towel around his waist as Wekniz entered. The Nobek said, “They’re gone. Where—?”

Nur grinned. He looked toward the mirrored area where he usually sat to groom himself. “You may come out now, my princess.”

The skirting of a small draped table where Nur kept more of his vast supply of skin and hair products twitched. Wekniz’s jaw dropped open. Surely the space beneath the table was too small to have hidden both females. Yet the princess and her lovely cousin emerged from behind the skirt, hair and clothing still dripping from their sudden shower with Nur. They seemed none the worse for wear despite the soaking.

With the immediate danger over, Wekniz laughed. He slapped his grinning Imdiko’s back, impressed with his ingenuity.

“Brilliant,” he congratulated. “Ket was so focused on who might be in the shower, he never thought to look anywhere else.”

Nur huffed with pretended insult. He flexed an impressive bicep. “Well, who would look for someone else when they can see me naked and wet?”

Wekniz shook his head and chuckled. “I swear I have the best Imdiko in the Empire.”

He looked at their impromptu guests again. The child was as cute as a button and exotic to boot with her silvery-steel hair. Yet it was the woman his gaze lingered on. The Earther was pretty as she could be even with her dirty clothes and uncombed hair, he noted. Her eyes were a stunning blue-green fringed with long lashes. And her figure … all lush curves that made him wonder how it would feel to…