Grace Goodwin - The Virgins - Complete Boxed Set

Normally, I would have bristled at the idea. But with Cassie beside me, for the first time, the only thing I wanted was for this mission to be over so I could take her home.

I activated the communication so whoever was trying to reach the ship would hear me. “Maddox here. Go ahead.”

“Ahh, Maddox. It has been a long time. Missed me so much you had to follow me to Earth?”

I stiffened as Neron’s cold, empty speech filled the small room. He spoke in perfect English and Cassie squeezed my hand. She stepped closer but didn’t make a sound.

“Wish I could say the same, Neron. Why don’t you meet me somewhere and turn yourself in? Make things easier for both of us.”

“Turn myself in?” His laughter echoed off the hard walls. “I think you’ve spent enough time fucking your little human mate on your ship. However, since you’ve asked so nicely, I will meet you somewhere.”

The communication screen lit up and displayed a map of the land. Land I was unfamiliar with. Cassie stepped closer, studying the layout and landmarks as if she recognized the land.

“Time to come out and play,” Neron said. In the background, a woman’s sobbing came through loud and clear and suddenly I felt as if I had a lead weight in my stomach. We’d played this game before.

My blood turned to cold sludge at the thought. I was not concerned that he knew where I was. Perhaps he’d killed the men at the boarding house intentionally, driving me to the ship. He knew I would return here to protect Cassie. Now, he was driving me off the ship to try to save another human woman, a woman I feared would be long dead before I reached him. He’d been toying with me all along, perhaps even toying with me since the minute he escaped.

Damn him. He might be one step ahead of me, but it did not mean he would succeed. Wouldn’t die by my hands.

“What do you want, Neron? You know I have to bring you in. The Sevens want you back inside Incar’s mines, paying for your crimes.”

“And what do you want, Maddox?”

I knew I shouldn’t say it even before the words left my mouth. “I want your head.”

“Yes, that’s right. I’m not going back to Incar. Earth suits me. Perhaps I will just stay here and… enjoy the locals.”

The faint sound of someone walking on gravel came through the panel, followed by a woman’s bloodcurdling scream.

I wanted to set a course for Everis with my mate and leave Neron far behind. I’d believed that Earth was too primitive for him to enjoy for long, but perhaps I had been wrong in that assessment. He coveted power, domination and the thrill of the kill. His advanced abilities made him better, faster, smarter than the humans. He’d be a king here. None would be able to stand against him and he was reveling in it. Taunting me with it.

I felt Cassie’s tight grip, but I refused to look at her. I needed to focus on Neron and she would be a distraction. He was hurting a woman. The pain made unmistakable by her screams.

“Did you hear her sweet song, Maddox?”

Sweet song. Fuck, Neron was truly insane. I had to rescue the Earth woman. I could not leave her to the man’s evil ways, for he would kill her just as he’d done Maddie. He knew I could not walk away, knew I had a conscience. A soul. Gritting my teeth, I answered him. “Yes.”

“There’s a strange human dwelling made of tree logs at the coordinates I sent. You have two hours before I strip her flesh from her bones and leave her for you. And you know me, Maddox, I love to hear them scream.”

Cassie

The only thing I’d found appealing—besides the bathing room—on Maddox’s ship was that the central hallway was long and perfect for pacing. When Neron had ended his communication, Maddox was furious. I didn’t know all of the history between the two men, but Neron was taunting him, pushing him to a mental anguish that hurt more than a physical wound, and the ReGen wand wasn’t going to help him. Not with this.

I’d lost my mother, the only one who’d loved me, then gone to live in a home that had comfortable surroundings, food and company, but not love. I ached often for what could have been if my mother had lived. Charles had died, but while saddened that he’d become sick and struck down early in his life, I had also felt some relief at his passing. I hadn’t loved him, hadn’t desired him as I should. I’d wondered why, often lying awake and wondering if I was just frigid or broken, incapable of love.

But now I knew I’d just needed to wait. Wait for Maddox to come for me. The connection we shared was greater than anything I’d ever felt and I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want to be without Maddox. That was the reason I was fretting now.

He’d gone off to confront Neron, an alien criminal who hated Maddox so much that he wanted my mate dead. Dead! And I just let Maddox leave the ship, stayed here like a good little girl and sent my man off to face danger alone.

Maddox had insisted, but I didn’t like it. I admired his determination to save the woman who’d been captured by Neron. It was this… goodness within him that had me loving him so much, trusting him with everything. I couldn’t deny him this part of himself and so I’d let him go. Reluctantly, and with a very frustrating kiss.

He’d assured me I was safe on the ship, the walls impenetrable. Only his other hunters, the others from Everis who’d come to track and capture the rest of the escaped convicts, could gain entry. I was reassured by that, but as I’d looked out the front windows, there was my world. My horse grazing, the bees buzzing around the blooming wildflowers—it all seemed innocuous and safe. The familiar grassland. The rugged mountains. The pale blue sky and the birds that soared.

Safe, whole, and an illusion. Danger lurked.

The landscape was so familiar to me and yet no longer completely mine. I belonged to Maddox now. Gladly. Yes, it was petrifying even to imagine leaving Earth. It was petrifying to imagine this spaceship lifting off the ground and flying like the eagle. I did not understand how such a thing was possible, but I no longer doubted. I did not understand the miracle of the ReGen wand either, but that did not mean it didn’t work, didn’t exist and I wondered what other miracles I might discover on Maddox’s world.

But we weren’t going anywhere until Maddox had rid the world of Neron and saved that poor woman’s life. I did not feel guilty that I was eager for Neron’s demise. I just had to wait, and so I studied the map that had come up on the wall as if by magic. It was difficult to focus when everything around me was so new, but I knew how to read a map. Just because this was on some kind of smooth surface instead of on paper would not deter me.

Everything on this spaceship was odd. Voices came out of the wall. The water flowed hot and cold right from the faucet, with no pump anywhere to be seen. Their maps appeared not on paper but behind glass.

It took me time to get my bearings on the map, following the lines of the mountains until I discovered north, then the dry riverbed. The mark where Neron was to be was a distance from the ship, but it wasn’t that I feared Maddox would not arrive in time. I feared that Maddox was walking into a trap, that he’d die.

The location was a narrow ravine, a gully that had high rock walls on either side. I’d been there once or twice with Charles when we would go out exploring. There was only one way for Maddox to enter that ravine, from the south, and he’d either have to turn around or continue north for nearly five miles before there was a place that would allow him to ride his horse out of the canyon. There was no cover. No trees. No protection. It had to be a trap. While I didn’t doubt that Neron had used a woman as a lure, he had planned much more trouble than harming his hostage. He wanted to harm Maddox as well.