Chapter 9
Nine
When Autumn’s eyes shot open, her hands were bound behind her back and a bit was shoved between her molars. She struggled to stand, her legs falling limp beneath her weight.
She pulled her arms apart with all her might, but she couldn’t escape her bindings. Instead, an electric shock rattled through her body. In response, a muffled scream escaped her mouth. She was a prisoner.
A Zexian soldier kicked her between the shoulder blades. “Oh good, you’re awake. On your feet, captive empress.” He chuckled and his powder-white wings twitched against his muscular back. He spoke Ivarkian so she could understand his taunts.
She fell onto her face, cheek burning against the ice. Snowflakes fluttered from the sky coating her body, sticking to the ends of her frozen lashes. White mountains glistened in the distance partially concealed by shadows.
“I said on your feet.”
When she didn’t rise a second soldier approached her and slung her over his shoulder. Pale wings shivered in her face in the dead of night. She kicked and screamed, greeted by another unwelcome electric shock when she tried to separate her hands.
Terrible idea . She almost blacked out again. Crap.
The soldier’s tiny mouth curved. His empty obsidian eyes smiled with delight.
“The more you struggle, the more it will hurt. Those bindings are designed to internalize your energy.”
As she twisted, her bones burned like they were cast into an open fire. Her body fell limp over his shoulder like putty.
“Wow, what a stupid human. You’ll never learn. I mean, we heard humans were dumb, but this is ridiculous.” He pinched his long fingers against her cheek and her eyes bulged with fear and rage.
“What do you say we have a little fun with her?” another soldier suggested. “Empress Valdez was never specific about the condition we had to bring her back in, if we found her.”
“Good idea,” a second set of fingers ran through her matted glittered hair. “It’s been a while since I’ve sampled something sweet, and I haven’t eaten in days since the hunt began.” He licked his colorless lips.
She frantically searched the rugged snowy terrain, but Armienti was nowhere to be found. What a jerk.
Autumn was dragged kicking and struggling through a dark damp cave. She tried her best to escape Valdez’s rough-handed soldiers but to no avail.
She was stupid enough to get captured and Armienti had abandoned her like a total coward.
They dumped her onto the hard stone ground. Pebbles and snow shifted beneath her weight. Her tailbone sang in agony. She could barely decipher her attackers in the darkness, but their rough clawed hands slid against her body regardless.
She shot to her feet, followed by an electric shock that coursed through her veins. Holy crap. She was surprised her skin didn’t melt off her bones. She couldn’t take any more of this torment.
Her molars ground together. The pain was indescribable.
One soldier removed her gag, and she sank her teeth into his lengthy finger. Her mouth filled with the taste of metallic blood. Black droplets rolled down her chin.
“You bit me! Why, you little—” He backhanded her against a stone wall. She slid to the ground, her vision erupting in swirls and stars. Her ears rang from the blunt force of impact.
The soldier nursed his blood-soaked finger. “If you’re not sorry now , you will be.”
He gestured to his other two counterparts. “Go build a fire, my appetite is growing fierce.” They took cloth from their uniforms and zapped it with tiny metallic guns they pulled from their standard issue boots. Orange flames crackled and smoked.
He held her on the ground and her restraints sent another round of electricity coursing through her body. She screamed as his teeth elongated in his mouth, growing sharp like sabers. Drool pooled on her neck in a warm wet puddle. The points of his teeth dripped with sticky green venom. She gagged.
He was going to devour her alive.
A throat cleared and all eyes in the cave drew toward the entrance. A dark silhouette stood with his arms folded.
“This is how you choose to conduct yourselves, like a bunch of greedy pigs? Three men against one girl. And you call yourselves men? You make me sick.”
Armienti’s crimson cape swayed in the blistering wind. His golden hair glittered in the frozen firelight.
A wily look crossed his sapphire eyes. In a flash, he grabbed two of the soldiers by the backs of their hairless heads and slammed their faces together until all that was left of them was bone and mush. Their winged bodies fell lifelessly to the ground.
The third soldier stumbled to his feet and sprinted toward the exit. Armienti intercepted him and kicked his head so hard, his neck snapped in half. The crack of his bones echoed through the cave.
The soldier’s limp body fell to the ground and convulsed. He ran a black-gloved hand through his golden hair, tousling the strands.
His murderous instincts were cruel and precise, but necessary in this situation, she hated to admit. She chewed her bottom lip, taking in the situation.
He spit on the floor. “Tough guys. Look at you now.”
Her entire body trembled with relief. She wouldn’t be someone’s dinner. “Thank you,” she breathed.
That was a close call.
The early morning sun sparkled along the snowy horizon in the distance. With Autumn’s thoughts finally leveling out, she realized they were right back where they began. Bones from the small animal they consumed a few days ago were scattered along the bottom of the stone walls and lodged between the crevices.
Her heart sank. She hated feeling this helpless. There was no worse feeling in the world.
Armienti fell to his knees and placed a black-gloved hand on her shoulder, squeezing it. “Are you okay?” His mouth quaked.
She nodded mechanically. “Yeah, I think so.” But in reality, she was petrified.
With great ease, he snapped her restraints between his fingers. She peeled them off, letting them fall to the ground as she massaged her bruised wrists.
“Next time you need to listen to me and follow directions. Deep space is a dangerous place, especially for a young woman like yourself.”
She knew he secretly wanted to say human, but for whatever reason he refrained. For a moment, he reminded her of Dante with his lecture.
She scrunched her nose, regarding him. He remained pompous and self-satisfied. One of his golden brows quirked.
“Wait a second. Did you let me get captured on purpose to teach me some kind of lesson?”
A sly smile crept across his lips. Anger coursed through her body, and she took her teal go-go boot and kicked him in the shin as hard as she could. He hopped up and down and winced.
She was tempted to kick him one other place as well. She knew she’d get her point across somehow.
“I can’t believe you put me through this,” tears welled in her eyes and poured down her cheeks. “Because of you I was almost eaten by those disgusting monsters. And it’s all your fault we’re in this mess to begin with.”
“I wasn’t going to let you get eaten,” he rolled his eyes. “But I had to prove a point. If we’re going to survive this ordeal, we must stick together. No more me against you. We must operate as a unit.”
“I can’t trust you,” she folded her arms, snot rolling through her nostrils. “Not after what you did to me.” And Dante—she missed him so much her chest burned.
“Right now, you don’t have a choice. We need each other to survive. If we go our separate ways, we’re dead.”
When Armienti went to open his mouth again to speak, the floor rumbled, the intensity casting them both to the ground. The force was almost as strong as when Dante’s ship crash landed on Earth, and she encountered him at Farrah Falls for the first time. And more forceful than Valdez’s night death march.
She ran to the entrance and cupped a hand over her mouth, biting back a scream. Valdez’s conical ship soared into the sky through clouds and swirling gusts of snow. Oh no. They were stranded.
Stranded ; her mind ran away with itself. There was no means of escape, no chance of seizing Valdez’s ship and overtaking her.
“Shit,” Armienti muttered.
Shit didn’t even begin to cover it. They were marooned on this miserable planet. Eternal winter was their prison. They had no food, no water, no warmth, no tampons.
How could they possibly get through this?
Maybe it would’ve been better to be Valdez’s next meal. At least then their demise would’ve been quick. They were going to freeze and starve to death.
Autumn dropped to her knees and sobbed her heart out. “Wha—what are we supposed to do now?” she stuttered between broken breaths.
She was so close to going home, so close to living the happily ever she deserved, so close to seeing her dad and her beloved husband again. Now she would never find happiness, and it was all Armienti’s fault.
“I don’t know,” he placed a hand on her shoulder, and she shrugged it off. Her forehead pulsated, and her fists trembled, ready for impact.
It was official. They were trapped on the ice planet from hell. Her life had been ruined once again.