Of course, I wasn’t exactly emotionally stable right now. I was scared shitless and using every ounce of courage I possessed to do what I had to do. I needed to help my son. I needed to complete my assignment and get back to Earth. I’d worked two jobs and sacrificed a lot to get my degree in journalism. And this is what it got me? Broke. Desperate to help my son. Trapped inside a shipping crate on an alien world populated with savage warriors and killers?
Any dream was better than my reality. But Kiel, the Hunter, had left my heart aching, my pussy needy. He’d made me feel something besides fear, besides hopelessness. He’d made me feel protected, cherished. Loved. He was powerful, strong enough to lean on, to accept my need and not resent me for it. But Kiel didn’t exist. He was just a dream man and that hurt so much. Why was my mind so cruel?
I stared at the display screen on my standard issue Coalition Fleet battle armor. The conspirators on Earth had given me everything they said I would need. Even the bizarre technology that took bodily waste from me so that I would never have to visit the ladies’ room as long as I stayed within range of their transport technology stations. That had been one of the worst ‘exams’ of my life. Like the gynecologist but with space dildos putting alien gadgets inside my body. A cold, creepy shudder rushed through me as I remembered the cold, clinical look of the doctor as she’d shoved that stuff inside me as preparation for my trip.
And that was enough of thinking about that.
With a shuddering breath, I closed my eyes and tried to think about Kiel instead, tried to hold onto the pleasure still coursing through my body. My pussy was swollen and hot, the pulsing of my orgasm sending aftershocks through my system. My hand burned and I rubbed at it through the gloves I wore, wondering if the mark on my palm would truly be red, of if this was some strange, lingering delusion my mind was conjuring to torture me.
My dream man was gone. The nightmare about my son’s broken body was gone. And reality? Reality was staring at the inside walls of a Coalition Fleet shipping crate. No, it wasn’t pitch black. No, it wasn’t suffocating. I’d become used to the scent of dirt and trees from my corner where I had a comfortable chair, anchored in place. I had food and water, light.
It wasn’t ideal, but they’d given me a pill to help me sleep. I was calm—too calm—and I had a feeling that special pill worked a little too well. I’d always been sensitive to medications. They probably didn’t want me to freak out halfway through the journey, and I had to admit, neither did I.
If I thought about where I was going—what I had to do—for long enough, losing my freaking mind would be easy to do. I remained calm, slept, entertained myself with a tablet with movies. The perfect two-day “veg-fest” as long as I didn’t think about the fact that I was hurtling through deep space in a freighter at light speed.
Forty-eight hours I’d been locked inside this cube. Yes, I had a full suit of Coalition camouflage space armor and helmet. The squinty eyed-doctor in the Miami Processing center had promised me I could survive for two weeks on the air and energy processing units built into the suit. Much longer than the two or three day journey should require.
But I wasn’t sure I trusted that bitch. My head still hurt where she’d jabbed a needle into my skull to implant what they called a Neural Processing Unit, a gadget that was supposed to make it possible for me to understand every alien language I might encounter where I was going: The prison planet known only as The Colony.
The Colony was some kind of dirty little secret that no one was supposed to know about. Some of Earth’s troops were reported to be there, tossed away like garbage by our own government. A few months ago, Senator Brooks from Massachusetts had received word that his nephew, a Navy SEAL who had volunteered for the Coalition Fleet, had died on this far off world under mysterious circumstances. Captain Brooks apparently had a brother still out there somewhere, fighting.
The Senator loved his sister, and she loved her sons. The Brooks family was wealthy and powerful with a proud history of military service going all the way back to the Civil War. Mama Brooks had been furious when her sons volunteered for the Coalition Fleet. And now, with one still out there somewhere, and one dead under mysterious circumstances…well, she wanted answers.
And she was willing to pay to get them. Pay. Threaten. Cajole. Demand. She was willing to hurt my son to discover the truth about hers. I understood a mother’s love, the relentless ache of it. I’d agreed to take this assignment, not because I wanted to, but because refusing would cause Wyatt more pain. Success, however, would see his surgery paid for and performed by the very best doctors the Brooks family could afford.