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  “Sorry, sweetheart—you don’t get that luxury,” Grav growled. “Not when Teeny’s life is in danger.”

  “What are you—” Haenah began but Grav was already in motion.

  He stepped forward and I saw the long, thin porcupine quill appear in his hand. Before Haenah could protest, he had jabbed her unprotected arm with the end of it.

  “Ow! You fucking Majoran bastard!” She kicked out in retaliation, aiming for his crotch. Grav turned to the side just in time but her booted foot still caught him in the right hip.

  I felt a sharp pain in my own right hip for some reason and then I saw his image flicker…and then fail. Haenah’s eyes grew wide as she saw him revealed in full Braxian mode—blue skin, white-on-black eyes, and twisting black ram’s horns.

  “Holy Goddess!” she gasped, staring at him. “You’re…you’re…”

  “That’s right, sweetheart—I’m not a Majoran bastard—I’m a fuckin’ Braxian one.” Grav leaned in close, getting his face right up to hers. I knew he wouldn’t hurt her but Haenah didn’t know that. I saw her dark purple eyes get wider and wider and her green face grew pale.

  “You…you’re the Protector—Teeny’s Protector. She was always talking about you!”

  “That’s right. And the Princepae broke my contract with her and hired you instead. And what did you do? You sold her out!” Grav’s voice was a low growl but the intensity of his words made them sound like a shout. “Well now you’re gonna tell me everything—who took her, where they took her, and why.”

  “It was Arn who took her—he was hired by Yo’lox—Teeny’s grandfather’s main political rival.” Haenah’s eyes went even wider. “Oh my Goddess—why did I say that? What did you do to me?”

  “Just made sure you can’t lie, that’s all.” I smiled at her sweetly. “Now where did they take Teeny?”

  “I’ll never tell you that. I’ll…I’ll…”

  Her lips worked and it was obvious she was trying not to say any more. But the green porcupine truth-spine that Shekk had sold Grav clearly worked better than the faulty image generator. Before she could stop herself, words came tumbling out of Haenah’s mouth.

  “The Lavara system—on Chndra. It’s a moon orbiting Hallux Two,” she babbled. “Right in the middle of the Spider’s Web.”

  “The Spider’s Web?” Grav frowned. “Nobody gets in and out of that fucking place alive.”

  “Arn does. He and his crew have an understanding with the Widow. They let her have first pick of everything they get on their pirating runs.” The words were flowing from her mouth like water. “Arn says it’s a good deal—not even the Imperial Guards mess with the Widow.”

  “Well, somebody’s gonna fuckin’ well mess with her now,” Grav growled. “And you’re gonna have to kiss your pirate goodbye, sweetheart. If he so much as touched a hair on Teeny’s head—”

  “He didn’t—he wouldn’t!” Haenah protested.

  I waited anxiously but didn’t feel the tingle at the base of my spine. Thank goodness—she seemed to be telling the truth about that at least.

  “So he was just gonna trade her to the Widow—was that the plan?” Grav demanded.

  “No—the Widow didn’t have anything to do with it,” Haenah said. “Arn was just supposed to keep her on Chndra. He wanted to ransom her back to her grandfather eventually but…”

  “But what?” Grav growled.

  Haenah slapped a hand over her mouth and shook her head, her eyes wide.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” Grav growled. Leaning forward, he pried the hand off her mouth. “Talk, damn you!”

  “Some of the others—the mercs especially hired by Yo’lox—wanted to give her the curse.”

  “The curse? What curse?” Grav leaned in even closer and it occurred to me that as scary as he was when his Braxian nature was showing through, he scarcely needed the truth-spine.

  “The Biting Curse. They wanted to turn Teeny into a Biter. That way she could never rule Thonolax when she gets older.”

  “What?” This time Grav’s voice was a muted roar. His eyes blazed and he looked like he wanted to wring Haenah’s skinny green neck—although to his credit, he still didn’t lay a hand on her.

  “Don’t look at me—it wasn’t my plan!” she babbled.

  “No, your plan was to stand aside and let an innocent little female be captured and infected.” Grav looked angrier now than I had ever seen him. And suddenly, I could feel his rage pulsing through me—a red haze that clouded my vision and made my hands clench into fists. The desire to kill—to rip and claw and bite until my victim was nothing but bleeding, quivering chunks—filled me.

  I shook my head, trying to clear it. Why was I feeling this? Was it an effect of the truth-drink?

  Before I could answer my own question, the cell door suddenly banged open and the man-hating warden came striding in.

  “What’s going on in here?” she demanded. “I heard…” The words died on her lips when she saw Grav in his true form. “Oh…oh my Goddess,” she whispered. “You…you’re a…”

  “He was Teeny’s Protector,” I said quickly, hoping to defuse the situation. “Before she came here to attend school. The Princepae hired him to find Teeny. That’s the only reason we’re here—we just want to find a lost little girl.”

  My words might as well have been the buzzing of a fly for all the warden noticed them.

  “A male,” she said hoarsely. “A Braxian male! You desecrate the Temple by your very presence!”

  “Yeah? Well you’re not exactly a fuckin’ ray of sunshine yourself, sweetheart,” Grav growled.

  “Warden,” I began, prepared to try again.

  “Forget it, darlin’. She’s not gonna listen,” Grav muttered.

  Unfortunately, he was right. The warden-priestess seemed to have finally gotten over her shock. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs, and let out a bugling shout I was sure could be heard all over the Temple.

  “A male! There is a Braxian male defiling the Temple!”

  “Run!” Grav grabbed my hand in his and yanked me forward.

  “No!” The warden blocked our way, leveling her sparking spear at his broad chest. “No, you’re not leaving until you face the justice of the Goddess, blasphemer!”

  “Sorry but I don’t feel like takin’ a bath in acid today. It’s fuckin’ bad for the skin.” Grav knocked the spear aside with one muscular forearm. It skated along his skin and I felt a burning line of fire running up my own arm, though the spear had gone nowhere near me. Then he pushed the warden to one side and went barreling down the long stone corridor, dragging me behind him.

  “Grav—” I gasped but he only shook his head.

  “Save your breath. Run!”

  We ran out of the prison wing and out into the larger part of the temple with its tall marble pillars and frescoed ceilings. I’d had time to admire them on the way in—now they were just a panicked blur.

  I have to admit—I’m not much of a runner. The breath was tearing in my throat in no time and my lungs felt like they were on fire. But I had to keep going—the warden and a cadre of priestesses that had come to her call were close behind us, waving their sparking electrified spears and shouting. I could just imagine what it would feel like to be stuck with one of those—probably like being stabbed by a butcher knife and hit by a taser at the same time.

  As Grav would say, no fuckin’ thank you.

  “The doors! Don’t let them get out the doors!” I heard the warden howling behind us. Up ahead, the tall, curved double doors of the temple rose with graceful foreboding. I knew if they slammed shut with us inside, we were never getting out.

  Not alive anyway.

  “Faster,” Grav roared and I realized with some amazement that he wasn’t even breathing hard. He could be going much faster without me. If he’d leave me behind, he could be out the doors in no time—surely he knew that.

  But he didn’t let go of my hand—e
ven when the guards at the doors heard the warden’s cries and started to swing them shut. He just kept running and dragging me behind him.

  I had a terrible realization—we weren’t going to make it. The corridor was too long and though I was trying, I couldn’t keep up this pace. The guards already had the door halfway shut, pushing them forward so that the pinkish strip of sunlight from outside was getting narrower and narrower.

  And then I tripped.

  I don’t know what on—maybe just my own clumsy feet. I’ve never exactly been ballerina-graceful. In fact, I flunked out of tap-dance in third grade. So I guess maybe it was inevitable. But for whatever reason, I went down hard, skinning both knees on the pinkish-gray marble flagstones.

  Grav turned, his white-on-black eyes narrowed in concentration.

  “Grav,” I gasped, fighting for breath to speak. “You go—they won’t kill me. They’ll just keep me in prison.”

  “Go and leave you here? Fuck that!” he growled.

  Reaching down, he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder like a bag of flour.

  “Oof!” I gasped as what little breath I had left was forced out of my lungs on impact with his broad shoulder.

  Before I could regain my breath, we were moving again. Grav was barreling down the hallway with me jouncing on his shoulder with my ass in the air and my hair hanging in my face.

  “Stop him! Stop him!” I heard the warden crying. I lifted my head as best I could, trying to see what was going on. Through the curtain of my hair I saw the sparking tips of spears just a few feet from my face. Fear filled my throat like choking bile and I had to bite back a hoarse scream. Close—they were so close.

  And then there was a massive thump and a cracking sound like wood splintering. There was a burst of pain and my right shoulder went completely numb. I felt Grav’s left arm tighten over my thighs and then we were outside the temple at last and running for the tall, steep steps leading down to the rocky beach and the lake of acid.

  “After him! Don’t let him make the lake!” I heard the warden shout.

  I dared to look up again and saw she was right on our heels—or rather, Grav’s heels. How was he going to make it down that massive flight of steps without her catching us?

  I got my answer when I felt his big body tense and we were suddenly airborne.

  “Grav!” His name rose like a scream in my throat as his leap carried us from the topmost step all the way down to the bottom of the staircase—which was thirty-three stairs long. I knew because I had counted on the way up, when we were first entering the temple.

  I was sure he would fall and drop me—or maybe land wrong and break both his legs. But he took the impact easily, his big feet making small craters in the ground where he landed.

  As scared as I was, I couldn’t help being amazed. It was like something out of a super hero movie! I don’t think up until then I had really appreciated his strength. His size, yes—he was seven feet tall and built like a concrete bunker. But the fact that he was able to make such a leap while carrying me was amazing.

  I didn’t have long to be amazed, though. Grav was already slinging me into the glass-bottomed boat and shoving off from the shore as the warden and her priestess-guards were still scrambling down the steps.

  “Pull your head and arms inside your robes, darlin’,” he directed me as he grabbed the oars. “I have to row fast—can’t be as careful as I was on the way here.”

  I did as he said, mindful of the pink acidic drops splashing from the oars as he pulled away from the rocky shore with long, smooth strokes. A few of them struck the backs of his hands and his broad forearms and I felt them like tiny, stinging drops of pure fire on my own hands and arms as well.

  I bit my lip to muffle a gasp of pain. The sensation was so real I examined the backs of my hands but there was nothing there—it was only Grav who had been marked by the acid. He was ignoring it though, rowing with grim determination for the distant opposite shore of the lake.

  On the temple shore, I saw the warden and the other guards pull up short. They shouted curses at us and waved their sparking spears impotently, stabbing at the sky in rage and frustration.

  “Good thing they don’t have blasters or any kind of long-range weapons,” Grav remarked grimly, still rowing. “That warden would like nothin’ better than to nail my blue hide to her wall—or maybe just feed me to the lake.”

  “Will we make it back to the ship?” I asked anxiously. “I mean, will the warden call ahead and tell the guard by the parking area we’re coming?”

  Grav snorted. “Not fuckin’ likely. Technology is forbidden in their temple. ‘Course, they might decide to take after us but I didn’t see any other boats nearby. My guess is that they keep ‘em stored around the other side of the temple island. It’ll take them a little while to go get one and in the mean time, we’ll be at the opposite beach before we know it.”

  “Okay. That’s a relief.” I sighed and relaxed as the shouting priestesses got smaller and smaller.

  “We’ll be okay.” Grav looked at me. “How are your knees? That was a hard fall you took—I felt it.”

  “I felt your injuries too,” I said. “The burns from the acid…” I nodded to the backs of his hands and arms which were speckled with little pink freckles where the acid had eaten its way into his skin. “The place where the warden’s spear got you…even the kick you took from Haenah after you jabbed her with the truth-spine. Why is that?”

  “Must be that damn truth-drink the Reverend Mother made us drink,” he growled, still rowing, his broad back and shoulders flexing with the motion. “I wouldn’t worry—the effects’ll probably wear off soon.”

  “Probably,” I echoed but I wasn’t so sure. And I noticed neither one of us dared to talk about the other possible effects of the truth-drink—which Haenah had also called “Liquid of Desire.”

  It’s probably nothing—just her talking trash to try and freak us out, I told myself uneasily. So stop worrying—it’s no big deal.

  Except I was already beginning to feel a throbbing tenderness between my thighs and my nipples felt tight and achy beneath the coarse gray robe I wore.

  “How did you make that jump?” I asked Grav, to distract myself as the boat finally came even with the black glass dock.

  “What jump?” He sounded distracted as he pulled us up to the dock and lashed the boat securely in place.

  “What jump?” I looked at him exasperated. “The jump you made from the top of the temple steps all the way down to the bottom while you were carrying my big butt over your shoulder. That jump.”

  “Don’t talk that way about yourself, darlin’.” He frowned at me as he helped me carefully out of the boat. “Your curves are gorgeous and you’re not too big.”

  “There are plenty of people back on Earth that would disagree with you,” I remarked as we made our way back to the jungle path.

  “Yeah. Sarden told me Zoe said the same thing.” He frowned. “Said she kept thinking she was too curvy, which is fuckin’ ridiculous. There’s no such thing.”

  “Well…thank you,” I said, brushing aside some vegetation as we followed the path. “It’s nice you feel that way but you still didn’t tell me how you made the jump. I mean, it was amazing.”

  “It was nothing.” He grinned at me. “Gravity here isn’t nearly as high as on my home planet. See, Brax is a heavy G world—gives us more strength and stamina when we visit a planet that’s light G.”

  “Oh, I see. So…you couldn’t have made that jump on a heavy G, uh, gravity world?” I asked, curious.

  “Sure I could’ve.” He shrugged. “Just would have been harder. But I’ve found you can do all kinds of things that are hard when you’ve got the right motivation. In this case, I didn’t want to be turned into a shish-ka-bob or take an acid bath.”

  “You almost had both happen to you, though,” I pointed out. “That was a close call which…” I cleared my throat. “Which w
ouldn’t have been nearly as close if you’d just left me there.”

  Grav had been ahead of me on the narrow path but now he turned back, his face hard as granite.

  “Leave a female in my care to be captured and possibly tortured? Fuck no, darlin’! I’d never do that!”

  “You could’ve though,” I argued. “My life wasn’t in danger—yours was. There was no need for you to put my discomfort above your life. It wasn’t like you’d given me the oath you told me about.”

  “No.” His face went suddenly still. “No, I didn’t. I let you walk into a dangerous situation at my side without even swearing to protect you. What the fuck is wrong with me?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said quickly, because he looked extremely troubled by it. “What matters is, you kept me safe and got us out of the situation, too.”

  “I—” But just then we reached the end of the jungle path and came face-to-face with the parking area guard-priestess.

  “You…” Her face drained of all blood and she took a step back, the crackling tip of her spear sagging as she looked at Grav.

  “Keep back,” Grav growled as we came out of the jungle. “I don’t hurt females but I’ll fuckin’ feed you that spear if you try to keep us from leaving.”

  The priestess opened and closed her mouth several more times, clearly so freaked out she didn’t know what to say. Luckily she was so shocked she just stood there, allowing us time to get away. And then we were finally at the little shuttle which I knew would take us back to Grav’s space-hopper.

  Back home, whispered a little voice in my head. But that was stupid—Earth was home. Not some spaceship circling a planet I’d never heard of a week ago.

  Back home, the voice insisted, no matter what I tried to tell myself.

  I crawled into the passenger side seat which was much too big for me and began working the buckles with hands that trembled for some reason.

  Fine—we were going back to the ship and everything was going to be fine.

  So why did my nipples feel so sensitive and my sex feel so hot and throbbing? The many pains I’d felt from Grav’s injuries had faded but though I had been able to put them off through distraction during our talk in the forest and the confrontation with the parking priestess, these other feelings still remained.