Dark Paradise Read online

  The hours she’d spent inside the caverns had seemed fewer than they actually were. She’d gone in at early night, but now it was morning, and the sun was a striking, bright light of heat in the dewy day.

  Time was different inside Manitua caves.

  But her thoughts were distracted by the lovers. She slipped behind a tree and spied, unashamed and quite interested. Blinking in the harsh light, she waited for her eyes to adjust.

  Then she narrowed her eyes. The lovers were two men, and they seemed caught in a half-turned on, half-enraged moment and paid little attention to their surroundings.

  That was just stupid. No one could afford to let his or her guard down on Ripindal. She bit her lip and smiled.

  Their bags were lumpy and large, as thick and bulging as the muscles on the two men. They’d had a productive time inside Manitua caves, and if she was lucky, she could slip off with at least one of those bags without either of the hapless men any the wiser.

  But her gaze was drawn from the bags and back to the men when one of them cried out in pain, and she slid carefully to her knees to watch.

  The clearing outside the exit door was small, surrounded by trees and bushes and exotic plants that she would have no more trusted near her tender private parts than she would have trusted her bag to a stranger.

  The men seemed to have no such compunctions, however, and threw themselves into their lovemaking with an abandon she’d long since forgotten existed. Maybe they, being men and not alone, were simply aware they were more than capable of taking on whatever threat happened to show itself.

  The larger of the two men grasped the other man by the back of his neck and shoved him against a rough tree, and again the smaller man cried out.

  The big man had dark hair that ran in a straight fall down his broad back, and something about him made her clench her legs in desire. Maybe it was his forcefulness, the way he tossed the other man about with an alpha’s disregard for any but himself.

  When he stripped off his shirt and showed his tanned, smooth body with its bunching back muscles and tree-trunk-size arms, her mouth watered and thoughts of robbing them became less of a priority.

  He called to something primal and dark inside her when he reached around and jerked his lover’s pants over his hips, his manner almost angry. Once again he shoved the smaller man into the tree when he had the nerve to move, bringing forth another cry of pain.

  Bully. Assholes like that pissed her off. But she clenched her legs together and swallowed hard as liquid heat bathed her pussy. Pressure almost too extreme to ignore made her want to reach between her own legs to relieve it.

  The big man unfastened his pants and turned toward her just enough so that she could see his cock spring free—angry and red and so very hard. Huge. She barely had time to smother a gasp. She couldn’t remember wanting to do anything as much as she wanted to run to him, shove him to the ground, and ride him until she fainted.

  Get a grip, Cin.

  “Mock,” the smaller man cried.

  She stiffened at his voice, then realized he was calling out the big man’s name. Not mock, but Mach.

  Mach bent his knees slightly and forced himself into his lover, and Cin cringed at the pain that must have caused. But the smaller man’s voice, though it held pain, also held a deep, uncontrolled pleasure.

  He was exactly where he wanted to be.

  Mach pulled the other man away from the tree and forced him to his knees, following him down in a smooth, practiced gesture.

  “You want this, Elder?” Mach’s voice was low and guttural, his words clipped and awkward, as though he hadn’t quite grasped the English language.

  Mach wasn’t human, not fully. She could see that in his profile and his hulking, enormous body. She didn’t know what he was mixed with, but either his mama or his daddy hadn’t been human.

  She shivered.

  Elder. Mach and Elder. Strange names for a couple of sexy strangers, but ones she was sure she’d heard sometime before. She didn’t care to think about it right now, though, as all her concentration and will was needed not to throw herself to the ground and masturbate as she watched Mach fuck Elder.

  Her fingertips ached, and she realized she was holding on to the rough bark of the tree with a death grip. Her breath came fast and hard, but she didn’t worry about the men hearing her.

  Mach’s hips pumped as he shoved his cock into Elder, and she couldn’t take her stare off them.

  Then something made her look at Elder’s face. He was on his knees with his upper body on the ground, his face turned toward her.

  And as she peeked around the tree like a sex-starved voyeur, Elder’s gaze met hers.

  She couldn’t pull back, couldn’t tear her guilty stare away, couldn’t get up and run. Frozen, she knelt there and watched him come as he held her captive with his dazed eyes. He cried out his orgasm to her as the big man fucked him so hard he would have rammed his head into the tree had Mach not secured him.

  Elder’s climax held a little more edge because she watched; she saw it in his eyes. She also knew that when his orgasm eased and his body was once more his own, he’d be coming after her. Those two would rip her apart and steal her goods, then forget she’d ever existed. It was the way of life.

  Even so, her pussy throbbed, and she could not look away. The thrill of her predicament and the awfulness of the risk, combined with two mostly naked male bodies slamming against each other stamped her will into the ground and held her helpless and trapped.

  Mach groaned and drew her gaze. He threw his head back and gave two more slow, heavy thrusts into Elder, then collapsed half atop the other man.

  “Mach,” Elder murmured. “We have company.”

  Mach was halfway to her before she even realized he’d moved.

  And by then it was too late.

  By then it was much too late.

  Chapter Two

  “Cin Trinity,” she said, but didn’t offer him a handshake. Her hands were busy holding Saint and Satan.

  Mach looked down his nose at her, his narrowed gaze full of enough dark fire to burn the skin right off her face. His features were not exactly humanistic, but his alien looks were attractive, very handsome. His eyes were longer than normal, his nose a little thicker than a human’s, his lips full but with a twist to them that somehow made them look completely masculine. His face was a contrast of soft and hard, craggy slashes and olive skin, dark brows and thick, short eyelashes.

  His eyes were black and brown, shot with vivid threads of green that would have mesmerized her, had she allowed herself to stare into them. He was…fascinating.

  His entire body vibrated with a low, almost inaudible rumbling growl that made her wonder, once again, what he was. “Why are you spying?”

  She shrugged, her confidence restored as the knives moved restlessly in her tight grip. “I was enjoying the show. There isn’t a lot of good porn on Ripindal.”

  Elder walked up behind Mach, buttoning his pants, a grin on his face. She could see beneath the facade of that grin, however, and didn’t believe for a second he was any less dangerous than Mach. “Brave girl,” he murmured, his gaze on her knives. “But I see you have reason to be. Nice knives.”

  She inclined her head. “Thanks.”

  “How’d you get them?”

  She saw no reason to lie. “A guy traded them to me for a shrube. He needed one more to make his ten.”

  “Glen Turtle,” Mach said.

  “He’s in paradise now,” Cin said, amazed they hadn’t tried to kill her but were instead carrying on a conversation. “Well, I’ll be on my way. Nice meeting you gentlemen.”

  Elder eyed her bag. “I’m surprised Turtle held on to those shrube. You’re headed to the trading post?”

  “Yup.”

  “We’ll tag along.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t want the company. Thanks just the same.”

  “Listen, honey,” Elder said, “you’ll be lucky to reach the post
alive with that bounty, knives or not. We’re going to trade as well. No reason we shouldn’t travel together. Obviously you don’t belong to a group.”

  “There’s a reason for that,” she replied, a slow anger beginning to cover the cautious fear. “I don’t like groups. I don’t like company, period. So you and your colossal friend will do me the immense favor of fucking off.”

  Elder laughed. “No, Cin Trinity. We don’t do favors. We’ll stick with you.”

  Damn them. They thought to catch her off guard, steal her bag and knives, and leave her raped and battered body alongside an overgrown path somewhere between the caves and the trading post. But there was nothing she could do about it. Not yet, anyway.

  “Suit yourselves, then. But fair warning. You get too close and I’ll release my knives. I swear it.”

  Elder held up his hands, palms forward, his eyes wide and innocent. “We believe you, sweetheart.”

  Mach merely glowered.

  None of them moved. She rolled her eyes, sighing. “Look, I’m not giving you my back. If you insist on going with me, then we’ll walk side by side.”

  “Fair enough,” Elder agreed.

  First chance she got, she’d lose the bastards. Good thing she’d eaten a poe, otherwise they’d get her in her sleep. But they’d be the ones sleeping tonight, and that’s when she’d slip away.

  They began their journey from the hill side by side, and by the time they’d reached the bottom, Cin had managed to widen the distance between them. Not by much, though. They edged ever closer, eyes straight ahead, pretending to ignore her.

  “Tell your story.”

  She started at the suddenness of Mach’s gruff voice and tightened her grip on her restless knives. She would have to holster them soon, or they’d rip themselves loose from her hands and dive for the first warm body they saw.

  She shrugged. “I got none.”

  “Everybody has a story, sweetheart,” Elder said, his voice softer but no less commanding.

  She glanced at the two of them, their strong legs carrying them with long but casual strides that were checked, she could tell, in order to keep with her slower pace. Even as she watched them, they ended up somehow one on each side of her, and she wasn’t fooled for a single moment by their attempts to pretend they didn’t even notice.

  “My story isn’t interesting,” she said and had to force her jaw to relax. Bastards.

  “How long have you been here?”

  Again she glanced at Elder. She couldn’t tell yet who the leader of the two was but assumed Mach filled that position. Not only because of his hugeness, but because when she’d watched them making love, Mach was commanding the hell out of Elder. “Almost two years.”

  “Two years without a group or even a companion? How have you survived?” Then Elder’s gaze lit on her knives. “The knives can only do so much.”

  Mach just seemed to listen, to watch. He didn’t talk much. And that was the kind of company she preferred. She glared at Elder as one of her hands seized up in a painful spasm. “Why don’t you stop talking?”

  “Put the fucking knives away before they get free and cut your throat. We’re not going to hurt you.” Elder seemed to have lost his patience.

  Mach snorted, his contempt obvious. “She fears us.”

  She turned her glare to Mach, but replied to Elder. “They wouldn’t hurt their mistress. You’d be the one in trouble. Which makes me wonder why you insist on taking such a risk going with me. I don’t have anything special. Killing me won’t get you anywhere. So why the fuck won’t you just leave me alone?”

  Now it was Elder’s turn to shrug. “Because we don’t want to.” But he shot a quick, almost furtive glance across to Mach.

  “I saw that,” she said. She stopped walking, knives held at the ready. “I want to know what you’re planning. Now.”

  They stopped with her. Mach raised an eyebrow, and for a brief second, her mind flashed to an image of his naked ass as he thrust into Elder.

  She shook her head to dislodge the memory. “Well?”

  Elder spread his arms, a sheepish smile spreading across his handsome face. “You caught us, honey. We’re planning on waiting until you fall asleep before raping and killing you, stealing your bag and your knives, and then going on our happy way to the trading post.”

  Again, Mach snorted. Maybe it was his way of laughing.

  She narrowed her eyes, glancing back and forth between the two of them. “I can believe that.”

  Mach put his hands on his hips and stared down at her, his dark eyes impatient. “Knives won’t stop me.”

  Staring up at him, glimpsing the dark animal lurking in the savage depths of his eyes, she knew he told the truth. If he wanted her, or her goods, he’d take them.

  “We’re protecting you, honey.”

  She sneered. “Why would you want to protect me?”

  Elder stuck out his bottom lip, then tilted his head. His hair, shorter and lighter than Mach’s, barely brushed his wide shoulders. “It’s not just you, sweetheart. Mach has a soft spot for the innocent and unprotected. We both took a vow long ago to offer our protection where it was needed.” He spread his hands, and the expression on his face was dead serious. “It’s what keeps us alive. We give back.”

  She rolled her eyes. She’d wandered on to a couple of superstitious fruitcakes. “I don’t need or want your protection. I want to be left alone.”

  Elder nodded. “Okay. We won’t force ourselves on you.”

  “Zippers tonight,” Mach warned.

  She shuddered. “I’ve faced them before.” Her hands shook, and she could hold Saint and Satan no longer. Carefully she holstered them. “I’ll be fine. I always have been.”

  Mach’s cold gaze lit on her face, then traveled to her arms. “Liar.”

  She rubbed her cramped hands, glad to be rid of the knives, caring nothing, or so she told herself, for the fact that Mach was eyeing the thin scars that crisscrossed her arms and dissected her left cheek. “I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

  Elder walked to her, grasped her chin and stared into her eyes for an interminable moment. “Maybe.”

  She jerked out of his hard grip. “Get away from me.”

  Mach had already started walking away. “Elder.” His voice was soft, yet very, very commanding, and Elder snapped his gaze from her face to Mach’s back. “Leave her.”

  Elder didn’t hesitate. With something close to shock, she watched them both walk away without a single glance back, their long strides taking them out of her sight within minutes.

  She rubbed her arms. “Damn it.” But despite the doubt and regret clamoring in her gut, she refused to call them back. She didn’t need their company. Even if they were telling the truth about their attempts to offer protection, she couldn’t trust them. She’d become exhausted from the stress of traveling with people she couldn’t trust.

  Trying with little success to put the mysterious duo from her mind, she hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and headed for the trading post. With any luck, she’d reach it in a couple of days.

  If she survived the night, of course. If she survived the zippers.

  Ripindal was full of monsters.

  She made good time. Her dinner of poe kept her going, and she made only short, infrequent stops during the night to drink, check her feet, and take care of business.

  The night sky began to lighten before the trouble came. She’d almost convinced herself the zippers wouldn’t find her, when they did.

  Chapter Three

  They slipped out of the strange reddish mist, and without a thought, she dropped to the ground. She was pretty sure she’d spotted them first. If she lay like a slug upon the ground without so much as twitching, they might miss her.

  Her heart beat like the wings of a trapped hummingbird as she lodged herself between a rock and a broken tress stump, her breath held and stomach muscles clenched. Sweat ran down her face in itchy rivulets, but she dared not move to wipe it away.
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  Dread and numbing terror climbed from her stomach to her brain, and for one horrifying minute, she had to fight not to shut down and pass out. She couldn’t fight if she fainted.

  She sank her teeth into her bottom lip, enough to cause a sharp pain but not enough to draw blood. The bastards would smell her out if she bled.

  Her entire body trembled when she tried to force herself to draw in a slow, deep breath. The air wanted to burst from her mouth in loud desperation. Silently she gagged on her fear and waited. There was nothing else she could do.

  She caught movement from her peripheral vision. The morning began to arrive too quickly, pushing back the black shadows and creating hiding places that were much less dense than she wished for.

  Moving only her eyes, she watched the zippers slide through the semidarkness toward her. They were hideous.

  Shaped like their namesake, they were as long and willowy as a small tree. They had no arms, but then, they didn’t need them.

  Their colors were varied, but the majority of the zippers were a dirty gray with splotches of red that reminded one of old blood. Their faces were just a continuation of the long bodies, with no definition to speak of. They had small black eyes like beads and round mouths overcrowded with dozens of tiny, sharp protuberances that served as teeth.

  When they came upon food—any being containing blood and bone—their fronts “unzipped” and sucked part of the prey in. The victim would be held fast as the zippers tore into flesh with no regard for the pain they caused.

  Cin had seen the zippers feed twice and had almost been their dinner once. It wasn’t something she was likely to forget.

  It was those tiny teeth that had given her the scars she carried. Well, most of them. She’d managed to escape, thanks in part to Saint and Satan, and in part to a hapless three-legged dog that wasn’t quick enough to get away.

  The zippers fought over the dog, and she’d gotten away with her life.

  Barely. Luck had saved her that night, but she had a feeling she was on her own this time.