Page 23 of Jarran

Another two appeared from the adjacent row. Jarran handed Evie the harvest tool and pulled her behind a raised planting bed. It was scant protection as blaster fire scorched the air above their heads. He fired twice, then crouched behind the planter. One shot connected. The other went wide.

This time, he fought with basic survival instincts. His hands shook. His brow was furrowed. He looked around with an expression of raw, terrified disbelief. This was just Jarran, trying to keep her and himself from being killed or captured. Evie knew he was no match for Durik’s crew.

More guards converged from multiple directions. Durik’s voice cut through the noise, shouting orders. Soon, they were surrounded. Six raiders closed in from three sides, weapons leveled. Jarran stood in front of Evie, the blaster raised, his breathing ragged. He turned in a slow circle, tracking targets, and she could see the dismay on his face. He was counting enemies, trying to identify any way to escape. Like her, he wasn’t seeing any way out, except with Durik and his guards.

“Put the weapon down.” The closest raider shifted his aim to Evie’s head. “Durik wants you both alive, but I suspect he’d settle for just you, if you want to make this harder than it needs to be.”

Jarran’s grip tightened on the blaster. His jaw worked. She could see his finger on the trigger, the tendons in his forearm standing taut.

“Jarran.” She put her hand on his back. “There are too many.”

He glanced at her. His dark green eyes were agonized. Then he lowered the blaster.

They took him down fast. Two raiders hit him from behind, driving him to his knees. A third wrenched the blaster from his hand. They secured his wrists behind him and she watched the fight drain out of him, replaced by a rigid, shaking fury.

Hands grabbed Evie’s arms and yanked them behind her back. She struggled, twisting against the grip, but the raider holding her was twice her weight and didn’t budge. Restraints clicked around her wrists.

Durik walked toward them. He stopped in front of Jarran, who was on his knees between two raiders, breathing hard. Durik crouched down and studied Jarran’s face. A slow, appraising look that made Evie want to scream.

“There he is,” Durik said quietly. “For a moment, I saw it. Pella Rin is still in there.”

Jarran’s head came up. “I don’t know who that is.”

“You do.” Durik straightened. He turned to his raiders. “Treat them gently. Both of them. The great Pella Rin is not our enemy. He’s our salvation.” He looked at Evie appraisingly. “And his doctor comes with us. She’ll be useful.”

They hauled Jarran to his feet. He struggled in their grip as his gaze found hers. Red emergency lights pulsed across his face. Blood from one of the downed raiders streaked across his knuckles. His expression was raw and desperate.

“Evie.” His voice was rough. “I will keep you safe. Whatever it takes.”

She believed him. That was the part that made her chest feel like it was cracking open. She believed him completely, and that terrified her because keeping her safe might require becoming the thing he feared most.

The raiders dragged them toward the blasted-open bay doors, with Evie being propelled close behind Jarran. She stumbled over debris. Her wrists ached in the restraints as she was guided through the smoking wreckage of the doorframe. She spared one last glance back at the planting beds where she’d sat with Jarran and begun to fall for the gentle male who had given her fruit and made her forget that he was her job, before she was propelled through the door and into the smoke-filled lift.

She didn’t know if the Baylan guards elsewhere on the ship had mounted a defense, or if the whole vessel had been taken. She didn’t know what Durik would do to Jarran and her now that he had them. But she knew one thing: some part of Pella Rin still lived in Jarran’s mind. She just had to hope that Jarran was strong enough to resist the monster who’d built empires, because unless she was mistaken, he would soon be fighting for his mind as much as his life.

TEN

Evie woke with a headache that felt like someone had driven a spike through the base of her skull.

She was lying on cold metal. Her cheek pressed against a floor that hummed with what reminded her of a spaceship’s power system, deep and constant. The air smelled recycled and tinged with ozone and machine oil. Her mouth tasted like copper. She kept her eyes closed for a few seconds and took stock, remembering her and Jarran’s terrifying abduction from Korath-7. But her hands and legs were free of restraints. Her neck burned like a hot coal had been pressed against it.

She opened her eyes, then wished she hadn’t. Bare metal grating covered three walls, with the fourth covered by an energy barrier that took the form of a sheet of pale blue light that buzzed at a frequency she could feel in her teeth. Beyond the barrier lay a large open space with some people in it. She couldn’t focus on it yet. The headache was making her vision swim.

She turned her gaze and saw Jarran pacing the small space like a caged jaguar. He prowled back and forth across the narrow cell, five steps one way, five steps back. His wrists were bound in front of him with mag-cuffs, thick metal bands locked together with a magnetic seal. There was a bruise darkening his jaw and a scrape across his cheekbone. His hair was disheveled, falling across his forehead. His brows were dark and low, and his lips were drawn thin.

“Jar-ran,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

An instant later, he’d dropped to his knees beside her and worried, dark green eyes peered into hers.

“Evie.” His bound hands reached for her to help her to a seated position. “Thank stars you’re awake. How do you feel?”

“Like I got hit by a truck.” She braced one hand against the floor and the other rubbed her forehead. The room tilted and then steadied. “What happened? Why was I unconscious?”

“You wouldn’t stop struggling. One of the guards put a small…” He frowned, searching for a word. “Thing to the side of your neck that shocked you. You dropped. They carried you when they brought us to this ship. I’ve been—” He stopped. Swallowed. “I was worried.”

She touched the side of her neck. The skin was tender, swollen. They must have used a stun wand on her. It delivered a targeted electromagnetic pulse to the cervical spine. These devices were designed for nonlethal incapacitation, but they were brutal and painful nonetheless.

“How long was I out?”