Zara (10 page)

She pulled her shirt over her head
, tossing it to the seat next to them.  She wasn’t wearing a bra.  Trig buried his face between her mounds.  It made her feel, powerful and feminine at the same time.

“
God, you’re perfect.” He nibbled on her nipples while helping her slide the jeans down her hips and off her legs.  She did wear a pair of panties, which he removed swiftly.  His fingers skimmed her long silky smooth legs. He wanted her more than any woman he'd ever met.  It scared him a little, the need he felt for her.

The driver of the shuttle could
n't see them because they had a privacy gate up that kept them separate.  Trig reached forward to lock the sliding door to keep the driver from opening it. 

He got his shirt off but wasn
’t able to get his pants all the way off due to his boots stopping them.  They were both in too much of a hurry to worry with the boots. Trig never wore underwear so he cock was still and full, swinging at full attention.  He didn’t care.  He had to have her.

He helped lift her back on top of his lap
.  Her knees on either side of him.  He pulled her down on him.  He moved his cock so the tip just breached the entrance of her pussy lips.  The wet proof of her arousal dripped and coated his shaft.  He couldn’t wait any longer for her.

“
Now, Zara!”

Zara pushed downward hard
, taking him to the root of her.  They both groaned from the exquisite feel of them connecting.  She lifted up then came back down hard.  Over and over.  Nothing felt as good as Trig inside of her.  He made her forget everything else.

Trig watched as her perfect breasts bounced with her quick and hard rhythm
.  Oh yeah, she was amazing.  Then she squeezed her thighs a little more and he thought he was going to lose it right there.  “Fuck me!”

She
growled something that sounded like ‘mine’ and moved harder and faster.  He could swear she was using some of her Sorian speed to pound on his cock and he loved it.  He loved everything about her.

Trig captured her nipple again and bit down gently
.  It was enough that it sent fireworks off inside of Zara.  She threw her head back and screamed her release.  She continued to pump on him.  Her inner walls squeezing him until Trig’s semen shot out of him coating the inside of her.  He pulled her against him and held on to her as they both came back to the ground.  He held her and knew then he didn't ever want to let her go. 
What the hell?

Trig didn
’t say anything to her about what they had done.  She didn’t say anything either.  They both dressed and sat silently beside each other as they waited for the shuttle to reach its destination.

This was getting complicated
.  He had accepted this job for his friend, Rachel.  But that was only part of it.  He wanted to be near Zara.  It wasn’t just about getting into her pants.  Because he had already done that, so it wasn’t what was driving him.  He, somewhere along the way, started to care for the prickly woman. 

This couldn
’t lead to anywhere.  He knew that.  She was a GCFA fighter and fought on a circuit every year.  He was an agent for the IDJ.  They expected him back in a few weeks.  He had dedicated his life to the IDJ.  Without it, what did he have?  What would he do?

He had to push these thoughts away
.  He had a job to do and he intended to do it.  He would help Zara find her daughter and then, he would say his goodbyes and be on his way.  However, just the thought of never seeing her again made a sharp pain strike inside his chest.  Yeah, this was definitely getting complicated.

*****

The shuttle dropped them off on the other side of the spaceport where most of the smaller ships docked.  They would be boarding a ship that seated twenty-five people.  This was a less than a day trip so no one would get rooms to rest.  The region they were headed to would only take them about four hours. 

Zara sat beside him on the ship
.  Her head bobbed as she struggled to stay awake.  Was the ship even moving?  She tried to look around.  There wasn’t a lot of passengers on board.  She couldn’t remember the last time she had a full night’s sleep.  She felt exhausted.

“
Get some rest.  I’ll wake you when we get there,” Trig advised her.

Zara nodded her head
.  She leaned to the side and closed her eyes.  Fifteen minutes later, she was out.  Her head leaned at an awkward angle.

Trig turned her toward him and placed her head on his shoulders
.  She was such a contrast.  She was strong and tough on the outside.  But on the inside, she was more sensitive than people would believe.  He caressed her cheek and enjoyed the rare moment of being with her during a vulnerable time for her.  She definitely wouldn't appreciate him thinking of her as vulnerable.  She would probably kick his ass if he mentioned it.

Trig leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on
her forehead.  He then wrapped his arm around her shoulders pulling her closer against him.  His breath caught for a moment because he thought he had woken her up, but she was snuggling against him.  He sighed a big relief that he had not disturbed her. 
Damn, he was getting soft. 
Next thing he’d be picking out wallpaper or something.  When this mission was over, he would have to sign up for the most dangerous mission the IDJ had to get himself back into his usual lady’s man, cool and reserved persona.  But he wasn’t feeling it. 
What the hell is happening to him?

*****

Zara looked around feeling very disoriented.  It took a moment before she recognized the place.  It was the breeding facility where she had been kept for years.  She was being half dragged and half carried through the corridors.  She looked up and saw faces she hadn’t seen or thought about in years.  They were other halfsies, some full species that were also being held against their will. 

“
Come on you little twit.  You have to learn your lesson,” one of the guards who were pulling her along had ordered. 

She recognized
the voice.  It was Donald.  Donald the Dickhead was what she and the other girl prisoners called him.  He was the one guard that abused the girls the most.  He was a sick and sadistic bastard.  He would often come into her cell at night and rape her.  No one stopped him.  Either they didn’t know he did this on a regular basis, or they just didn’t care.

The scientists would order the guards
not to contaminate their experiments.  They wanted purer test results.  However, a lot of them turned a blind eye to what was actually going on there.  Out of all the guards and scientists there, Donald was the one she hated the most.

She struggled against them
.  Zara didn’t understand why she couldn’t break their hold on her.  She was stronger than them.  She made sure she trained harder than anyone else so she would never be this weak and defenseless again.  But her mind willed her to kick out but her body was too sluggish to follow her commands.  Where were they taking her?

As soon as she saw the red door
, she screamed and kicked.  No!  Not the red door.  Behind that door was where they took specimens they deemed unviable.  They went in but never came back out…alive.  Oh God, they were going to kill her.  She had to find Angel.  She had to escape.  She had to kill Donald.

“
You are useless to us now.  Not even worth a good fuck anymore.  Say goodbye, scum.”

“
No!  No!”

*****

“Zara!” Trig’s voice penetrated the fog of her nightmare.  She woke up and climbed up into the seat.  She looked for exits for an escape.

“
Easy, honey.  You had a nightmare.” Trig squatted down in front of her with his hands up in the air to show he had no intention of harming her.

“
Trig?”

“
Yeah.  It’s me.  We’ve arrived at the docking station.”

She looked around embarrassed that she had made a fool of herself in front of people
.  She lowered her legs back down to the floor.  She didn’t see anyone else though.

“
Don’t worry.  We docked about five minutes ago.  I let everyone else depart first so I could make a call.  No one saw you but me.”

She nodded as she stood and straightened her clothes
.  She had to readjust her ponytail because it had come loose.  “Who did you call?”

“
I wanted to make sure there was a shuttle waiting for us to take us to our hotel.”

She looked at him then
.  “Why don’t we go directly to the breeding facility?”

“
I thought you might need more time to relax.”

“
I can relax later.  What I need right now is to get this over with,” she snapped at him.

“
Okay then.” He followed her off the ship.  He pointed to the shuttle waiting on them.  She climbed inside and sat as far from him as she could get.  This shuttle ride was not going to turn out anything like their previous one.  He sighed.

The driver opened the opening separating them
.  “To the hotel?”

“
No, go to this address please.” Trig handed him a piece of paper with an address written on it.  The driver nodded his head and closed the sliding panel between them.

They rode in silence fo
r a few minutes.  Trig didn’t like how things were turning out.  Zara quiet was not a good thing.  He would rather have her angry and yelling at him than to have her sit there as if she was…alone and self-contained.

“
Do you want to tell me about it?”

“
About what?” She didn’t bother to look at him.

“
The bad dream you had.”

She closed her eyes
.  “There’s no need to tell you about it, you can guess at what it was about.”

“
The breeding facility?”

She nodded her head
, keeping her eyes closed.  The images kept running over and over in her head.  The nightmare had seemed so real.  She could still smell the cleaning solutions the housekeeping people used and the sweat from the guards as they dragged her around.

“
Zara, sometimes talking about the traumatic experience helps.”

She turned to glare at him
.  “What do you know about traumatic experience?”

“
Nothing.  Sorry.  You don’t have to talk at all.”

She felt horrible immediately
.  Trig had been nothing but helpful to her.  He took time off from his IDJ position to come out and help her.  He hasn’t even asked about getting paid for any of this. 

“
Sorry.  It’s not a comfortable conversation for me when it comes to the breeding facility.  It has left scars that will never go away.”

He wanted to tell her that he unde
rstood, but he couldn’t because he had nothing to go by.  It was foreign to him.  He grew up in a loving family.  He visited his family for the holidays.  He talked to his grandmother on a regular basis. 

So nothing he had experienced in his personal life
could come close to what Zara had experienced.  The only reference he had was helping the victims he dealt with for his job.  He said nothing but waited for her to let him know what she wanted to do.

His silence encouraged Zara to continue talking
.  “The breeding scientists were very intent on getting viable breeders in their experiments.  If someone was deemed unviable, they were taken to the room with the red door.”

“
The halfsies were tortured there?” Trig asked with concern.  He wondered if she had been taken there too.

“
No.  They were destroyed there, like animals being euthanized.”

“
Good God.”

“
You don’t have to do this.  Let me go in and you can take the shuttle to the hotel I booked for us and wait for me,” Trig told her as they stood outside the gated gray building.  The gate doors no longer worked and one side hung down unhinged.

“
I have to do this.” Zara gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering.  Her body was beginning to go into shock.  She had to fight to keep herself in control.  “Why exactly are we here?”

“
The information I got from Tod’s foster mother stated that Tod had referred to meeting other children that came from this region.  It made me suspicious.  While we had our fight, I had the local IDJ begin another thorough inspection of the facility.  This time, they used a thermo imaging scan over the entire place.  They contacted me and said they found something that had been missed.”

They entered the main doors and a few other IDJ agents were there to greet them
.  Zara stopped as soon as she stepped through the threshold.  The smells were faded but she could still detect them because the nightmare was so fresh.  She felt sick to her stomach.

“
Zara?  You okay?” Trig touched her elbow as he stepped closer to her. 

She nodded her head and made her feet move forward
.  He remained at her side.  She honestly didn’t know if she could have done this without Trig here with her.  He was her rock.

“
This way, Special Agent Roberts,” one of the IDJ agents called out, leading down a darkened hallway.  Temporary lighting had to be set up because the power had been cut off right before the IDJ had raided the places years ago.  The building was left to waste and no one bothered to attempt to restore it or the power.

Trig felt like someone punched him in the gut when he saw where they were headed
.  At the end of the hallway was a rusted looking door, but the paint could still be seen.  It was a red door.  Zara froze beside him.

“
Oh God.” Zara fought from hyperventilating.  The nightmare came back to her full force, as if she was living it right then and there.  Except, when the guards reached for her, they morphed into Trig.

“
Easy, baby.  It’s just a door now.  No one is going to hurt you.” Trig never wanted to see the look of terror on Zara’s beautiful face again.  As if she had suddenly become the young girl that was brutalized once again.  He wanted to punch something or someone, but he made himself focus on Zara and what she needed from him.  He hated this feeling of helplessness.

“
Do you want me to take you back outside?  I can check the room out myself.  You don’t have to go any further.”

Should she just leave
?  Every instinct she had screamed to run and never come back.  However, there was nothing here to hurt her anymore, none of the security guards or the scientists were there.  Either they had been incarcerated or they escaped the IDJ without a trace.  What good could come from going through that door?  Nothing really, except…to prove to herself these assholes had no power over her, they didn't break her.

Zara grabbed Trig
’s hand, surprising him, and motioned for him to continue through the door.  “A little…too tight, honey,” Trig whispered with a chuckle.

Zara looked down at his hand almost turning a shade white from her clutching him so hard
.  She lessened her hold immediately but didn't completely let go.  “Sorry.”

“
It’s okay.  Just thinking I might need that hand later for more pleasant uses.” He winked at her making her laugh.  Some of her tension left her body.

She loved that about him
.  He made her laugh and could change the mood in a room with a smile or a wink.  But he could also be serious when he focused on his job.  He cared about the people he was helping.  It was a genuine concern and it didn’t end when the case was over.  He would still go and spend time with Taurus and Maya and their adoptive kids.  Rachel would tell her all the time about Trig donating his pay for charities and participating in events to help orphaned children or victims of harsh crimes.  He was generous and kind.  She loved that about him too.  Zara was afraid to delve any deeper, afraid of how many more things she would find that she loved about the male.

“
What did you find?” Trig asked the lead officer.

“
During the raid eight years ago, the IDJ didn't have the thermo technology to sweep the entire building.  In doing so this time, we found several pockets that were not listed on the building plans by the architect.”

“
Hidden rooms?” Trig asked with a raised eyebrow.

“
Yes, and hidden passageways as well.” The officer pointed to a panel in the wall.  He then walked up and pushed on it.  The door opened up to reveal a small room with multiple computer panels and monitors aligning the walls.  “We believe this was their security room where they monitored everything that went on in the facility.”

Trig walked over to the computer panels and fr
owned.  “These look damaged.”

“
At the time of the raid, one of the security guards tried to destroy the computer panels.”

“
So we can’t get anything from them?” Trig asked with frustration.

“
Actually, we were able to retrieve a few files that were not marked as sensitive.”

“
What kind of files?” Trig asked as he glanced over at Zara who remained at the entrance to the control room looking ready to bolt at any moment.

“
We were able to hack into some old e-mail accounts.  Quite a few of them had email receipts for paycheck deposits, their banking information.  The company was a dummy company that was set up so we wouldn't be able to get much as far as the company is concerned, but the individuals had their personal identifications listed with addresses, contacts, and their tax registration numbers.”

“
These individual employees, were they guards, scientists, housekeeping?”

“
A few scientists and almost all the guards.”

Trig turned to Zara who was slowly making her way over to him
.  “Do you have a name we can try to search for to test this out?”

“
Donald.  He was a guard here,” she replied immediately.

“
Do you have a last name?” the IDJ officer asked as he began typing on his computer.

“
Donald the Dickhead was what we called him.  The scientists and guards never used their last names.  They didn’t want us to know it.  But I think he was the only Donald that worked here.”

“
Got him!” the IDJ agent called out.  Trig and Zara rushed to stand over the officer’s shoulder to look at the monitor.

“
Donald J. Stein.  He wasn't on the list of arrested individuals the day of the raid.  According to his date of birth record, he was forty-two years old when he worked here.  On his paycheck deposit information it says his last known place of residence was in this region over on the canal side.”

“
Check it in our database to see if he is still currently there.  Also, check for all of the deposit information and cross check it.  If they were not arrested, they need to be located.  I want to see a copy of that list as well.  Send it to my e-mail.”

“
Yes, sir.  We also found a few tapes that had recorded the day of the raid that had not been damaged.”

“
Copy those and send them to my e-mail as well.  You can find me at the East Village Hotel and Spa.”

“
Could you see if there are any records about the prisoners?  Specifically a full Beastial named Tiger?” Zara asked.

“
I will do my best but most of the records and files regarding the prisoners have been wiped out.”

“
Send me what you can find,” Trig told him.  He hated that Zara wanted to locate Tiger, the father.  But it was possible the man knew about the baby and may have taken her.  He was the one that originally suggested finding the man.  They had to look in every corner.

The officer nodded hi
s head and concentrated on getting the information from the damaged computer panel.  Trig turned to Zara, “Let’s get you out of here.”

“
Yes,” she full heartedly agreed.

They walked back out of the building
.  Zara sucked in the fresh air, willing it to replace the smells she had to bear while inside.  She shivered.  It didn’t matter how long it had been, she would never want to go in there unless she had to.  She wished the city would order it to be demolished completely.

A shuttle pulled up and Trig helped
her climb inside.  He gave the driver instructions to take them to the hotel.  He didn’t want to say anything because it looked like she was in deep thought.  She finally broke the silence.

“
Thanks, Trig.”

“
Don’t thank me yet.  We haven’t found her.”

She
reached over and squeezed his hand.  “It’s more information than I have been able to find in eight years of searching on my own.  Thank you.”

He felt tongue
-tied.  She was the only woman that did that to him.  She threw him off his game.  What the hell had he gotten himself into?

*****

Zara had packed a small bag with enough clothes for a couple of days.  She took a shower first and changed into a pair of yoga pants and a muscle shirt, her signature sleepwear.  Trig ordered them a meal to be brought up to their adjoining suites.

She almost lost her breath when she crossed over to his suite
.  Trig wore only his jeans, which rode low on his hips.  He had taken his shirt off.  He had a sprinkle of dark hair that traveled from his navel down and disappeared into the waist of his pants.  Just the thought of exploring the path had her pussy dripping wet. 
Shit! 
She was in trouble with this male for sure.

“
Have you heard anything yet?” she asked, sitting down at the table that now had food on it.  She tried to act as if she was affected by his sexy appearance.  It was hard.  She picked up a piece of meat and put it in her mouth.  She looked up at Trig who had remained unusually quiet.  His eyes were focused on her chest.  She wasn’t wearing a bra again.  She cleared her throat to get his attention.  “Uh huh.  Trig, did you hear back from the other IDJ officer yet?”

Trig blinked and looked up into Zara
’s gorgeous baby blues.  He was caught staring at her amazing breasts.  Damn the woman, she wasn’t wearing a bra again. 
How I am supposed to focus on a conversation when she does things like this?
She had to know the effect she had on him.  “Not about the video feed yet.  But I did get the address for the ex-guard.”

“
When do we go?”

“
Not tonight.  We are both exhausted.  We just came straight from a fight, to a ship flight to here.  We will leave in the morning to investigate the ex-guard’s address.  Don’t get your hopes up too much okay.  Maybe you should stay here or return to the GCFA ship.”

She gave him a frustrated
look.  “I feel like I am getting closer than I ever have been before.  I can’t step aside now.”

“
You will listen to me and follow my directions?” When she hesitated, he became more forceful.  “Zara, I am the IDJ agent in charge of this case.  I have regulations I have to adhere to whether I am wearing the badge or not.  I need to know you will listen to me and follow what I say.”

“
Fine.”

“
Good.”

They stared at each other a few minutes
.  Zara liked the way he looked at her.  His eyes traveled down her body.  They centered in on her breasts, causing her nipples to strain against her shirt. 

Trig surprised her when he knocked the table out of the way
.  He grabbed her arms, lifted her up to her feet, and claimed her in a brutal kiss.  Stars seemed to explode from behind Zara’s closed eyes at the contact of their tongues. 
Fuck yeah!

They reached or each other
’s remaining clothes almost tearing them off.  Trig needed to get her naked and he needed to be inside her.  As soon as her breasts were freed from her shirt his hands cupped them, massaging them.  Her mounds were so  warm and soft.  He loved that about her.  Tough persona, but behind that facade she was very feminine and very responsive.

Skin on skin caused sparks to spread throughout Zara
’s entire body.  She wrapped herself around him desperate to be as close as possible.  She wanted no barrier, nothing to keep them apart. 

Trig tried to walk them back to his bed
, but he missed and they both tumbled to the floor.  They laughed at having sprawled onto the floor unceremoniously.  Then they stopped laughing and were once more mouth to mouth, skin to skin. 

Trig lowered his hand to test her readiness with his thick fingers
.  Her juices coated his digits.  He inserted one and then two fingers, pumping in and out.  He ached to be deep within.  He took her lips again as he anchored himself between her thighs.  His manhood poised at her entrance.  They both groaned as he pressed himself into her fully.