Chapter 23 Holly
HOLLY
As the black emptiness of transport faded, I staggered, struggling to stay on my feet. The ground tilted and wobbled, and I almost face planted.
No, a root tripped me. Green grass tickled my bare feet. The spiked ceiba trunk loomed just a couple of feet away. That would have been extremely unpleasant to crash into before I caught my bearings.
Snyder had dumped me back in the training chamber made to resemble a Guatemalan jungle.
Helpless rage crawled through my veins. Minutes ago, I’d evidently been on death’s door.
Now he’d dropped me back in here to meet a UGRR.
From his file, that designation was Ultra Green Raptor Rex.
Sounded cool. Sort of? But I hadn’t agreed to consider another dynos so quickly.
I’d rather have the two dyni I already knew, thank you very much.
Luteinizing hormone detected. What did that mean? As pleased as Synder was, it had to be bad. If it had to do with hormones…
I was probably ovulating.
Panic screeched through me. :Mrions, can you hear me? Whatever happens, I do not want to get pregnant right now. Do you understand?:
:We hear you, Holly. Understood. We can destroy the ovum before it has the chance to be fertilized, or if it is fertilized, we can prevent implantation.:
Relieved I had options, I felt a little steadier. :Let’s see what happens. We may not need either option.:
I started to sit down on the same humped root I’d used as a bench before, but something whiffed against my neck. A faint puff of air. I might have imagined it, except I caught the hint of the same terrifying smell of predator in the cell. :Syko?:
:Run.: He purred deep, so low it was barely audible. :Act afraid.:
Oh god. Run? From what? :Are you free?:
No answer. Frustrated, I sat down on the stump despite his warning. Orders. Whatever. I didn’t see a reason to run. At least not yet. I slipped my fingers beneath the bracelet, testing to see if I could get it over my thumb, but no luck. “Snyder, I want this thing off me.”
No response. Which only ratcheted my irritation another notch.
“I know you can hear me. You agreed to remove the bracelet after I met Rekt. Now you’re dumping me in here with another dynos.
What’s his name? Why a raptor? What’s going on?
I’m going to keep asking annoying questions and refuse to participate in your sick experiments if you don’t answer me. ”
“Now, now, Miss Price, I thought testiness in human females was caused by premenstrual syndrome not ovulation. Kroktl was so successful at becoming a father, I thought it best to start with a specimen as close as possible to his Tri-R designation. Meet Chonk, our latest Raptor Rex iteration.”
I looked around, interested despite my irritation, but I didn’t see or hear anything. “Kroktl’s red eyes allow him to see with X-ray vision. I remember hearing about the yellows with laser eyes. What does ultra green do?”
All the hair on my body stood up. My hair tickled my face, blowing in an invisible breeze.
Then all the air disappeared. Pressure surrounded me, squeezing like a giant fist, even though nothing was there.
The giant tree trunk cracked. Shattered.
Sending wood projectiles exploding like vicious little daggers.
The root heaved me up into the air as the tree collapsed, leaving a deep hole of mangled roots, rocks and dirt.
The fist released me, and I fell into the hole, rolling down toward the bottom. Broken roots stabbed me, snarling in my hair. My skin stung all over.
“Cease and desist, UGRR!” Snyder bellowed over the speaker. “Medics, report to the training chamber. Yes, you too. UGRR, stand down. I say again, stand down!”
A different male voice echoed over the speakers. “Acknowledged, UGRR standing down.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Snyder retorted.
I would have laughed if I could catch my breath. Dr. Snyder never cursed. My ribs creaked, sore from where a root jabbed me. I tasted dirt and blood. My ears were clogged, making everything sound like I was underwater, though I could still hear.
“She asked for a demonstration of ultra green. I complied.”
“Let me remind you there’s a reason you were pulled from squad duty, UGRR. Ultra green was unreliable and caused too much collateral damage.”
“My databanks don’t include any past missions, whether official or training. There were no contingent orders given to me expressly limiting this exercise to avoid using ultra green. In fact, my orders were—”
“I know what your orders are,” Snyder broke in.
Interesting. I don’t think he wanted me to hear exactly what he told the UGRR to do. Despite the guy blasting me into this hole, I kinda liked his snarky attitude. He wasn’t afraid to talk back to the agent who could simply put him back to sleep and dump him at Nyan Station for termination.
Rekt scrambled over the edge of the hole without hesitation. “Holly! Can you hear me?”
A hand clamped over my mouth. Rough arms grabbed me, hefting me up effortlessly.
A hard shoulder jammed into my stomach, knocking my breath out of my lungs.
Then he was running so fast the ground was a blur.
I didn’t think dynos had the same powers in their humanoid shapes, but this guy had no problem running with lightning speed.
Leaves rustled in the wind of his passing, but he moved lightly across the ground, weaving around bushes and trees. Leaping over thicker roots.
He paused, pulling me down in front of him.
His chest moved deeply against me, but he wasn’t winded despite running with me tossed over his shoulder.
His profile was like Kroktl’s with the same wide, thick shoulders and hairless head.
His skin was a soft mottled green, almost like he was wearing camouflage.
Crouched in a thicket, he scanned the area and then dropped his gaze to my face.
He grinned widely when he caught me staring. Stunning electric green eyes glittered like emeralds. “I’m Chonk.”
“Um, hi. I’m Holly.”
“I know.” His voice lowered, rumbling with amusement. “You reek of Syko and Rekt. Will I be next?”
My cheeks burned and I dragged my gaze away. “I don’t even know you.”
“Fair enough.” He dropped to the ground, shoving me down on my belly beneath him. “Shhh,” he breathed out against my ear. “He sent me.”
Not Snyder. Syko. “How?”
Chonk shushed me again. Then I heard crunching. Footsteps. Branches shoved aside, whipping back into place. The crack of leaves or twigs underfoot.
“Holly!” Rekt called. “She needs medical care!”
Did I? Compared to how I felt before—
Gulp. Heat seared my face again. You mean before Rekt came on my thigh and rubbed it into my skin?
Chonk scooped me up, gripping me tightly against his chest as he ran, slithering through the brush without making a sound.
Then he dropped to the ground, pressing me beneath him while he listened and watched.
Repeat. How big was this training chamber anyway?
Surely we’d covered miles of ground, but nothing looked familiar. Maybe it kept changing.
Though I really needed to have a talk with whoever designed this “Guatemalan jungle.” Bright red coffee berries dotted the ground beneath my nose.
Coffee grew on the high-altitude volcanic slopes, not in the lower jungle forests.
Actually, that pine tree he dodged behind looked more like a Scots pine than the Caribbean pine typically seen in Guatemala.
As a botanist, it pissed me off even more to see such lazy research by the all-powerful Draco Sirius Command.
Or was that purely Snyder’s failing? He wouldn’t care about getting the jungle details right. Which meant he probably didn’t care about other things that DSC had down pat.
Like security protocols. Which was probably how Syko had found a way to talk to Chonk before he was even sent in here to meet me.
Which means Syko has to be on the ship’s network in some capacity.
And he’s deliberately not looping me in.
Chonk scooped me up again, sprinting even faster than before. A heavier crash through the underbrush had me looking around, trying to see, but he was too wide. He kept me pinned against his chest, probably shielding me, but I couldn’t see jack shit.
Which only made my frustration exponentially worse.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew why Syko hadn’t pulled me back into our private grid or included me in whatever network shenanigans he was pulling.
He couldn’t risk Snyder finding out. I was way more heavily monitored.
Since Syko was in the prison cell, Snyder would assume him completely helpless and locked away.
The mrions I’d contaminated him with said otherwise. They’d been the opening he needed. And even though I’d been the one to give him that escape hatch, he locked me out and kept me in the dark about his plans.
I got it. I was the security risk. But it still hurt.
Especially given the bullshit I had to deal with from Snyder. The pregnancy risk. Forcing me to meet more dyni. Keeping me from my chosen mates.
Chonk whipped around in a new direction so fast my head snapped to the side. Then my back pressed against stone as he tucked me into a narrow depression in what seemed to be a cliff wall. Vines and roots hung down around us like living curtains, shielding us from prying eyes.
Speaking of eyes, emeralds flashed closer, flaring with starbursts. He leaned in, sandwiching me between the rock wall and his somehow even harder body. He tucked himself around me, covering me. His face hot against my throat. Heat shimmered off him, making sweat bead between my breasts.
He didn’t touch me in a sexual way. But I could feel a kernel of something stirring inside me.
Interest. Like a puppy hearing a noise or smelling something interesting, lifting its head.
His scent surrounded me like a heavy, sensual blanket.
Green like his eyes, though I’d never thought of color having a scent before.
Somehow fresh, lush, like green growing things that reveled in the humid heat of the jungle.
Though tinged with something deadly. Like a brilliantly colored frog or butterfly proclaiming it was filled with poison.
The longer he pressed against me, the heavier he felt. Muscle. Scent. And the spark of interest grew like a tiny fire consuming kindling. Then greedily looking for more.
I tried to ignore it. Pluto. Neptune. Uranus. Saturn. Damn it. What’s the next planet? I should have made it easier on myself and started with plant classification. Kingdom. Phylum. Class. Order. Family. Genus. Species…
His nose nuzzled up beneath my hair. He inhaled deeply.
My back muscles loosened. Or tensed. Not sure. Tipping my hips ever so slightly up, against him, a silent biological invitation. A sound came out of my mouth that I’d never heard before.
I sounded like a sex kitten. On steroids.
His head snapped back so he could look into my eyes. The starbursts spiraled now, a tidal pool sucking me under.
He jerked away from me like I burned him. “Fuuuuck.”
Then he whirled away and disappeared into the jungle.