Zak stared at Remi with raised brows. "What mission?"
Remi grinned, the bright overhead lights in Alpha 7's hangar glinting off his deep red hair. "A rescue mission." He turned to a wet, enraged Seth. "You in or not, Kitty-cat?"
"I will never become involved in one of your harebrained schemes," Seth spat shaking from fury.
Zak would have been pissed too if Remi had sobered him up by power-forcing him to vomit and then dropping a half ton ball of icy water on him. Just remembering Seth's body jerking in shock made Zak cringe.
"Rem," Zak sighed, "be a little more specific on the details of this rescue mission, bro."
Remi rolled his big green eyes with a long-suffering sigh. "Does no one on this space station trust me?"
"Not if one is sane, Red."
Zak turned to see Annie strolling up to where they stood.
Zak slipped an arm around her shoulders when she stepped up next to him. Her gaze swept over Seth and Zak tried not to snicker when she growled a bit, her gaze narrowing on Remi.
Remi scowled. "He was drunk. I was only helping sober him up for the mission."
Annie gasped and gave Seth a disapproving look. Before she could launch into chastising Seth about his behavior, Zak asked once more, "Remi, would you tell us who needs rescuing."
Remi's green-gold gaze blazed into Zak's. "Your witch."
***
Alluna knew she shouldn't cry, but the face of the beautiful golden angel haunted her dreams day and night. Mother had warned her he wasn't an angel, but a devil that had come to snatch her away.
"An evil snake lies between his thighs, ready to strike at you, bring you pain and make you bleed," she'd warned.
Still, every time Alluna closed her eyes, she remembered with despairing clarity how blue his eyes were, so deep and brilliant. His hair was spun gold, falling in thick waves down his back... and his body...
Alluna shivered.
He had looked at her mesmerized, with utter adoration shining from his eyes. His memory brought about an awful ache between her thighs, made her breasts feel heavy and tender, and she did not know how to make the hurt go away.
Throwing open the shutters to her tower room, she allowed the rain to drench her face. The front of her white cotton slip became soaked, but she didn't care. The rain poured over her, making a puddle at her bare feet. She ran her fingers through her tresses, eyes closed, as she tilted her face up to the heavens.
"There she is!"
Alluna gasped and stared down at the base of her tower. A multitude of villagers surrounded the base, their faces scowling up at her. One of them tossed a four-pronged hook with an attached rope to her sill and began climbing.
Alluna shrank back as she heard them scream "kill the witch! Kill her!"
Whimpering, she ran deeper into her room, but there was nowhere to hide. Cowering on the bed, Alluna watched a big, burly man step over the sill into her room. Another followed close behind. They were huge and had hair covering the bottom half of their scowling faces.
"Please," she sobbed, "Don't hurt me. I've done nothing wrong."
The first man gripped her by her hair, making her scream. He yanked her out of the bed and pulled her to the window again. "See that, witch?"
Lightning slashed across the sky and the heavens poured more water down in torrents. The land around her tower was flooded.
"We're sick of your calamities," the second man hissed. Alluna shrieked in surprise when he gripped her breast painfully. "Aye, as fresh and alluring as your body is, you've ruined our crops. We'll be damn near starving this season. I say we rape her first before offering up her body to the fire god."
Rape? Alluna wondered if that were some horrid torture.
"Nay," the first man growled. "We can't offer the fire god a less than perfect sacrifice. We sacrifice this witch untouched."
They gripped her between them and tossed her out the window.
Alluna flailed before landing in a tarp they held at the bottom. Although it softened the lethal fall, she still felt her head spin and her body ache from the impact.
The villagers tied her hands behind her back, gagged her mouth, and pushed and shoved her to walk on shaky legs.
Where was mother? Why was she not intervening?
Alluna slipped and fell in the mud numerous times, her once white cotton slip was a muddied, torn mess. The villagers hit her along the way, some of the children even threw rocks at her. When one struck her temple, making her fall dazed to the ground, they dragged her the rest of the way.
They climbed the Misty Mountains it seemed like forever. Rocks and twigs tore at her flesh until her entire body was nothing but a mass of fiery pain.
At last, they stopped. They forced her to stand again, cutting the ropes from her hands and pulled her to a steaming pit. Alluna looked down the black hole. Billowy steam rose from its depths. Rough hands pushed her headlong into the abyss. Her body descended, limbs too weary to flail, turning, turning, the hole to the surface becoming smaller and smaller, the darkness deeper and deeper.
When she hit the bottom, the pain was only brief. She couldn't breathe, but it didn't matter. As blood bubbled from her lips, she saw the pinhole to the surface brighten. The sun had come out again.
***
Landing undetected on Arboria's surface had been simple enough thanks to Seth's ability to cloak their presence from the planet's weaker Master Guardians. Zak hadn't been thrilled to land in the midst of a major storm ripping across the star-shaped continent Seth assured the tower was located—the tower where his nameless beauty was prisoner.
Remi had heard through various
connections
, how one of Arboria's Master Guardians was becoming unstable, and his constant meddling in planet politics was making the people regress to their warlike ways. There was also talk of a girl with Master Guardian-like abilities that lived on the planet wreaking havoc with the weather. The citizens were plotting to kill her and the Master Guardians were not going to get involved.
Rain drenched Zak's body as he followed Seth and Anniel through the dense woods. The minute they found the tower it had stopped raining, but the tower was empty.
Zak sensed the residue of tension lingering in the room. The floor before the window was drenched, the water reaching almost to the bed at the far side of the tower room. There was over a foot of water covering the ground around the tower and it was deeper in other areas of the field surrounding the ruins. Annie would not be able to pick up a scent.
Seth had closed his eyes after picking up a tattered old pillow and tried to find the girl's life force.
They'd followed him back out the window and now trudged through the mud and water logged plants up a steep hill.
Halfway up the hill Remi called out. Zak turned to find the red-haired weredragon on his hands and knees sniffing the ground.
