Release (7 page)

From above them, there was a noise. Footfalls above their head on the upper level of the ship. And whistling. Risciter was whistling.

Keirth nudged her forward. “Keep going.”

Within a few more feet, Ariana realized they were near the loading ramp. There was an incline that led up to the upper levels of the ship—the bridge and living quarters. And the loading ramp was right next to it. She hit the button that lowered it, holding her breath in case Risciter heard.

But he didn’t appear, so she and Keirth ran down the ramp.

They were back out in the strange forest. Still on the planet Kush, then.

“He hasn’t moved the ship,” said Keirth. “Your ship is close.” Keirth backed into a tree, hooking his tied-up hands over a branch. “It’s just on the other side of this group of trees. It’s covered by some vines, so look for something that looks like a vine-covered rock, okay? Go inside and lock up.”

“What are you going to do?”

Keirth snapped his bonds and flexed his newly-freed hands. “I’m going back in after Risciter.”

Ariana shook her head. “No. You can’t. Let’s just go.”

Keirth clenched his teeth. “Go to the ship.”

“I don’t want to go to the ship. I’ll be trapped in there. I’ll have nowhere to run.”

“Then hide in the woods somewhere,” said Keirth. “Just get out of here!”

Okay. Okay, she’d hide in the woods. She took one last look at Keirth, and then took off into the woods, running as fast as she could.

It was dark. She could hardly see where she was going. This planet had one tiny moon high in the sky. It filtered down blue-green light over everything. Branches slapped into her face, tearing at her skin.

She was so confused. Why would Risciter drug her? Why would he tie her up?

Her breath came in gasps. She took daily exercise like everyone else in the nobility, but that mostly amounted to easy strolls in gardens. She wasn’t used to running like this.

Her feet pounded against the forest floor. Why had Keirth said Risciter wanted to kill her? Risciter wouldn’t do that. She didn’t think—

But she had no idea, really. Everything was so horrible. She couldn’t understand how the entire world had been turned inside out so quickly.

She ran, crashing through the foliage, tripping over roots, pushing thorny vines out of her face. She ran until her side ached and sweat was pouring out of her pounding forehead.

Then she slowed to a walk, sure she’d gotten far enough away. She tried to steady her breathing as she continued forward, glancing about at the woods around her. Shouldn’t she have  come out in the town again by now? But she didn’t know what direction she’d run in. Maybe she’d run in the opposite direction of the town.

And then, with a growing sense of horror, she saw Risciter’s ship between the trunks of the trees in front of her. The loading dock was down. It was haphazardly covered in branches and vines. But it was definitely his ship, just from the opposite angle she’d seen it when she’d started running.

She’d run in a circle.

She’d thought she was getting far, far away, but her traitorous legs had taken her right back where she’d started. Should she try to find her ship, as Keirth had told her to?

“Miss Gilit,” said a silky voice.

She turned. Coming at her through the woods was Risciter. He was smiling a horrible smile, and it twisted his boyish good looks into something monstrous. His blonde curls glinted in the scant blue-green light. He looked so unlike the man she’d been nearly engaged to that Ariana screamed.

Even though she’d barely had a chance to catch her breath, she started running again, away from Risciter, away from his ship. She crashed back into the undergrowth of the forest.

And she could hear Risciter behind her, his footsteps close.

She didn’t get far before Risciter tackled her.

They both fell onto the ground, branches from trees tearing into her skin as she fell, tangling in her hair.

Risciter was on top of her, his face at the back of her neck. He was laughing.

He sounded like an imp from hell.

“Let me go,” she sobbed, because tears were streaming down her face now. She forced an elbow back into Risciter’s rib cage as hard as she could.

He grunted and moved some of his weight off of her.

Ariana scrabbled forward on her hands and knees.

Risciter’s hand came down on her neck, pinning her to the ground. “Shh, Miss Gilit. Where do you think you’re going?”

Ariana whimpered. “What’s going on, Risciter? Why are you doing this?”

His grip on her neck softened into a caress. His hand traveled down to her shoulder, and he turned her over. Now she lay on her back, gazing up at Risciter, who straddled her. Risciter ran a finger over her jaw. “Well, we can’t get married now. Not if you told the authorities in Ossile about being captured. It ruins that whole plan.”

“But why tie me up? Why drug me? Why chase me?”

“Oh.” Risiciter made a sympathetic face. “Everyone always wants to know why, Ariana. I can call you that now, can’t I? You’d want your last moments to be intimate, wouldn’t you?”

Her heart stopped. Her last moments? He
was
going to kill her. She thrashed, clawing at him.

Risciter calmly grasped her wrists and pinned them above her head. “Shh. There’s no real point in struggling.” He leaned close to her. “I don’t know why, Ariana. But I have to do it. Usually I have to use prostitutes and beggars so that no one will notice they’re gone. I’ve always wanted a real woman. Someone like you. I wonder if it will be different.” And then his lips were covering hers and his tongue was sweeping into her mouth.

She bit down hard on it. He was insane, just like Keirth had said.

And another horrible thought occurred to her. Where was Keirth? Had Risciter gotten to him too?

Risciter drew back, snarling. “You bitch.” He slapped her.

Ariana sobbed again. She was shaking all over.

“If you hurt me,” Risciter was saying, his fingers trailing over her face, over the place he’d just struck her, “I will make it much worse for you, do you understand?” His hand moved lower, to the place where her jumpsuit was fastened.

Oh. Ariana thought she was going to be violently ill.

Risciter unclasped the jumpsuit fastener and the smartclasp parted in the middle, opening up all the way down her torso. He grinned. “I do like these jumpsuits. Easy in. Easy out.”

The night air felt cold against her bare skin. Dread and fear knotted themselves inside Ariana. Her worst nightmares weren’t nearly as awful as this. He was Risciter. She’d loved him once. And now...

Risciter’s hand crept underneath the fabric of her jumpsuit, his hand closing over her breast.

No.

And then another feeling burst through Ariana’s body. Pure rage. She was the daughter of a duke. No man had the right to do this to her. And if Risciter was going to kill her anyway, she didn’t see what she had to lose.

With a shriek of anger, she tore one of her arms out of Risciter’s grasp. He’d been so interested in touching her, he seemed to have forgotten he was holding her arms over her head and had loosened his hold. Making a fist, she slammed it into Risciter’s crotch as hard as she could.

His expression froze in a grimace.

She punched him between his legs again.

Risciter’s grip loosened on her other arm. He howled.

Ariana rolled back over onto her stomach. She slithered out from under Risciter and staggered to her feet.

Risciter’s arm shot out and grabbed her wrist. “I’ll make you pay for that.”

Ariana reached for the first thing she could find with her free hand. Her fingers closed over a thick branch. She heaved it around, expecting to need to wrench it free from a tree. But it was a fallen tree branch. She swung it in a wide arc, and it crunched into Risciter’s forehead.

Risciter’s grip on her arm loosened. He looked dazed.

Screaming, Ariana raised the branch—really a log—over her head and brought it down on Risciter’s head again and again. When she pulled it back, it was bloody. And Risciter’s body was crumpled on the ground. He wasn’t moving.

She’d killed him.

Ariana dropped the branch and ran back in the direction of the ship.

* * *

Keirth was furiously trying to find Risciter when he saw Ariana. He’d nearly had Risciter when he’d gone back into the ship, but Risciter had gotten away from him, run off into the woods, and Keirth had been searching for him ever since. He was frustrated, because his revenge scheme had, yet again, gone wrong.

Then he saw Ariana. Her jumpsuit gaped open, her hair was messy and full of twigs. Her face was red from crying. She half-stumbled, half-ran out of the woods.

What had happened to her?

He rushed to her, his first instinct to gather her in his arms, she looked so pitiful, but when he got to her, he suddenly realized it wasn’t really appropriate for him to touch the daughter of a duke, especially when her clothes weren’t exactly fastened and he could see—

He yanked the jumpsuit together instead, fastening the smartclasp so that it closed over her skin, leaving behind a seamless swath of fabric. “Sweetheart? Are you...?”

She gave him a dazed look. “I killed him.”

What? No. She couldn’t have killed Risciter. Keirth was supposed to kill Risciter. He’d been planning to kill Risciter for seven years.

Keirth checked himself. It wasn’t revenge he should be thinking about right now. It was this woman. Something had happened to her, and Risciter had done it. “What happened? What did he do to you?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing really. He tried to... but I hit him. I hit him with a big, big stick.” She sucked in a breath. “He started...” She touched her forehead. “Blood. He’s dead.”

“Show me,” said Keirth. “Show me where Risciter is.”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to look at it again. We should go.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll find him.” He pointed into the woods. “This way?”

“Don’t leave me alone!” she said, terror making her voice shrill.

“Then come with me,” he said. He tried to keep his voice calm, reassuring. “Show me where you left him.”

She shuddered again, sniffled, but turned and walked back into the woods. He followed her. They walked for some time, no sound except an occasional hitching breath from Ariana and the crunch of their feet on the forest undergrowth.

Finally, she stopped. “I thought he was here.”

“Well, he’s not here now,” said Keirth. There was nothing there but trees.

“But my stick. The thing I hit him with. It isn’t here either. So maybe...”

“You hit him over the head, and he started bleeding,” said Keirth, “but maybe you just knocked him out. Maybe he got up.”

She shook her head. “I killed him.”

“Maybe you didn’t.” And as sick as it might be, Keirth was excited to think Risciter was still alive, that he could still take his revenge.

Ariana was hugging herself. “I thought it was here, but everything looks the same.”

She was in a great deal of shock. It was cruel keeping her out here, trying to make her look for a body. Keirth saw that. He had to get her home. He had to get her to people who could take care of her. “Let’s go back to the ship.”

“Can we leave?” she asked.

He nodded. “Let’s go.”

“Good,” she said.

* * *

They were in hyperspace, and the girl was sleeping. She’d fallen asleep almost immediately once they’d gotten on board. Keirth stood in the doorway to her darkened bedroom, feeling guilty for getting her involved in all of this. He hadn’t had much choice, of course, but she wasn’t part of his revenge scheme, and if she’d never come along, nothing like this would have ever happened to her.

No woman deserved to be terrorized by Risciter. And apparently, he did it as a matter of course. As some kind of macabre hobby. The girl would never be the same, Keirth knew. She looked peaceful now, but these horrors were inside her brain now. She’d never quite be able to be free of them.

And she wasn’t built for this. She was rich and pampered. She’d probably never had to deal with anything so terrifying in her sheltered life. It made Keirth sick. Sad.

He’d programmed the ship to take them to her homeworld of Wendo. He thought that the authorities were probably watching for his ship, prepared to arrest him for capturing the daughter of a duke, and because he wanted to save his own skin, he couldn’t land in any of the proper docks. He knew about some docks on the planet that wouldn’t ask questions, however, places where he’d be able to set the ship down in relative safety. He could get the girl back to her family, and then he’d be back on his own.

Risciter had taken his blaster, so he needed another of those. And he’d want another ship. The underground would have to help him out with both of those things. Once he’d procured supplies, he’d head back to Kush. If Risciter’s ship was gone when he arrived, he’d know that Risciter was alive. If not, he’d try to find Risciter’s body, make sure he knew the truth himself. If Risciter was alive, Keirth would hunt him down again, and he’d make sure he got it right this time.

Either way, he needed to make sure the girl was okay before he did anything else. Leaving her on a colony planet someplace wasn’t an option anymore. After what Keirth had exposed her to, he owed her more than that.

He closed the door to her bedroom, leaving her to her rest and went to the kitchen to rehydrate some kind of food.

He was sitting down a meal of noodles and some kind of powdered, spicy sauce that had turned out to be quite nice, when Ariana appeared in the doorway. She wasn’t wearing the jumpsuit anymore. He guessed that since it was her ship, she had her clothes on board. She’d changed into an outfit that wasn’t nearly as form fitting. Instead, she was clothed in something that obscured her shape and covered her from neck to wrist.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“You should rest,” he said.

“I’m not tired.”

He gestured at the noodles. “Hungry?”

She nodded.

Keirth dipped some into a bowl for her.

She sat down opposite him at the kitchen table and took a bite. After chewing and swallowing, she said, “Where are we?”