Chapter 17
Irena
I was so scared when they strapped me to the jumpseat inside that shuttle.
Scared because letting myself get caught was so counterintuitive to what I wanted, but also scared because Flack’s plan to escape had just hit a huge snag.
There was a horrible collar fastened around his neck now, and he acted defeated as Dimon ordered him to kneel on the floor of the shuttle.
A slave collar. There was no escaping that.
Only too well did I recall the one I’d been forced to wear when I’d first been woken from stasis inside that auction house on the Yengar space station.
It had felt like a fist around my neck, a constant, terrible reminder of how little control I had over my life.
The pain that thing inflicted was so unbearable that I’d have done anything to avoid feeling it again.
Then Isen had carved up my face, and the pain collar’s agony had paled in comparison.
What did this mean for us? Everything else was going as Flack had planned, but this surely threw a massive wrench into things.
Those collars were impossible to tamper with.
I’d been extremely lucky in that regard.
The auction house had demanded an extra fee from the pirates to keep the one around my neck, and they hadn’t bothered.
Not a strange choice, as there wasn’t really any place I could run, confined to a spaceship.
They didn’t need to worry about escape. Not like with Flack.
Flack was forced to kneel for the entire flight down to the planet we were in orbit around.
He kept checking on me, but only through his lashes, hiding that he was doing it.
His eyes were fierce when he glared at everyone else around us.
There were a lot of them; they’d turned out in full force to bring us to the planet.
They all looked worried too, and I had rarely seen the crew of the Vidu so on edge.
Did that mean they feared Flack, even shackled and collared?
Or was that unease about the looming threat of the crimelord they owed?
It wasn’t until we’d landed and Flack was being dragged out of the shuttle that I caught an expression on his face that set my nerves at ease: a wink.
He’d definitely winked at me from beneath a lock of silky white hair, hidden from view from everyone but me as they hauled him outside.
That wink could mean many things, but it made me feel like Flack was telling me all was well.
That the plan was still on. I really hoped so.
I was escorted off the shuttle by Sil, one of the few crew members I still knew by name.
He regularly got called out for being an idiot, and this time was no different.
“No, not there—put her over here,” Dimon warned, pointing to a spot at his side.
Being this close to the captain had rarely worked in my favor, so my heart rate spiked.
Like Flack, I was ordered to kneel, and I hurried to obey, my stolen pistol awkwardly pressing against my thighs where I’d bound it with scraps of cloth.
I knew Flack had told me to hide it on the ship, but I’d felt better knowing I could arm myself and fight back.
I never wanted to feel as helpless again as I had in the moments before Xathena had nearly struck me with her knife.
Dimon went into one of those far too long talks of his, rambling about what Flack needed to do and how this would save all of us.
I tried to use the moment to calm my nerves and study my surroundings.
It was the first time I’d set foot on an alien planet, and it wasn’t quite what I expected.
So far, all I’d seen was a space station run by lowlifes and a spaceship. This was very different.
We were in a forest, and daylight filtered through the trees.
Light that felt and looked much the same as that of the sun back on Earth.
My skin warmed beneath the rays, and a soft breeze blew across my bare legs and arms. The climate here was like a warm autumn day back home, not unpleasant but a little brisk given how thin my dress was.
I was suddenly cold, and I hadn’t been cold inside the sweltering, stuffy heat that filled the Vidu before.
I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be cold, and it made me worry over lots of new things.
How cold would it get out here at night?
The trees didn’t have branches, but rather massive leaves a bit like a palm tree.
They provided dense cover in the forest that prevented light from hitting the ground.
In this clearing, though, the sunlight was pleasant enough to keep me from freezing.
I shivered anyway, my skin breaking out in goosebumps.
In the distance, a mountain loomed tall, pointing at the sky in one jagged peak.
It was capped with snow, warning me that this planet definitely could get cold.
“You’re going to have to undo these shackles to let me steal the diamond, Dimon,” Flack taunted, drawing my attention back to the men in the clearing with me.
Flack knelt proudly, eyebrow raised and blue eyes twinkling with amusement.
Definitely trying to needle Dimon, and succeeding in getting under the captain’s skin.
“And you’re going to have to restore my ability to shift, too. ”
That made the whole clearing grow hushed, and the crew glanced uneasily around.
They really didn’t like that, but Dimon still seemed unruffled.
He held up the pain controller to the slave collar as a warning, a reminder.
“I’m in control, Flack. One false move and I take you down with this.
Don’t forget it.” Flack snarled, the response full of fury, but he didn’t lunge, didn’t fight.
After that, things moved shockingly fast. Shackles removed, some kind of injection given, and then we were ordered to get going.
A tight two-hour window was given for us to complete the task.
I wasn’t quite sure what was expected of me when Flack rose to his feet.
I’d been hauled along but otherwise ignored.
When Flack rose and began walking, I was certain I was supposed to simply follow.
I took one step, and the dirt, twigs, and oddly star-shaped nuts that littered the clearing crunched sharply beneath my bare feet.
This was going to be extremely unpleasant to walk on, but I’d take it if it meant getting out of here.
Of course, Flack wouldn’t let me take much more than two steps and, heedless of everyone watching, suddenly picked me up and threw me over his shoulder.
I feared my skirt would lift enough for the pistol to be seen, but he clamped his arms around my thighs to pin me against him.
Then he jogged away so quickly that nobody even had the chance.
That already felt like escape; each step he put between us and the pirates waiting in the clearing made the hope for freedom surge in my veins.
I could taste it then, the escape, the plan he supposedly had to get us out of here.
For the first time in forever, I was off the ship, and there was a whole world to disappear into.
“You okay, my sweet?” Flack asked, not even winded after carrying me at a fast pace through the woods for what had been over five minutes by now.
He must have waited to be absolutely certain we were out of hearing range before he spoke to me.
Now he halted and began lowering me in his arms until he held me in front of him, our eyes able to meet.
His were glowing with barely banked excitement, and I felt the steady thump of his heartbeat against my breasts.
“I think so,” I whispered. “What now? What are we going to do about that?” I raised a hand to indicate the collar sitting like an angry black mark around his neck. I couldn’t bring myself to name it; it was that distasteful. It made my stomach roil with painful memories.
He smirked like it was nothing. “Oh, that? Not a problem. Let me take care of it right now.” He put me on my feet very gently, his hands lingering on my waist until he was certain I was steady.
His fingers gave me a gentle squeeze around my waist as if to say, I love touching you, and I can’t get enough.
Then he stepped back and, with a flourish, bowed for me.
His grin was so wide I knew he had something good planned.
I think this might be the first time I’d seen him shift in daylight, or what passed for daylight beneath the shade of all these trees.
His body rippled, changed, and then shrank before my eyes.
Oh, I got it now. When he finished reshaping, he was the tiny little fox that had first slipped into my hideyhole on the ship.
Cute, but so small that the big slave collar hung around his neck all the way to the ground.
When I went to my knees in front of him, I could lift it straight off without any trouble at all.
He yipped cheerfully, wriggled his body, and wagged his plumed tail, and then he grew.
He kept growing until he was the massive fox that had barreled to the rescue when I’d been cornered by Xathena.
From tiny to massive, he now towered over me.
His snout was as long as my forearm, his fangs terrifying, but his big, mobile ears somehow still equally cute.
He plucked the collar from my fingers with that fanged maw, crunched down on it with a growl, then dropped it to the forest floor.
A moment later, he’d shifted back into human shape, still somehow dressed in black pants and boots.
I hadn’t paid the right amount of attention to him, I realized, to figure out how he did that particular trick.
Shouldn’t the clothing have fallen entirely off him when he got small, just like the collar had?
He’d definitely been fully naked last time...