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  Snatched by bounty hunters. Captured by aliens. Guarded by a warrior with a dangerous secret.

  It wasn’t bad enough that scientist Max Dryden was taken as a bounty by an all-female space bounty hunter crew. Nope, that was only the beginning. When the bounty hunters were marooned on a sand planet, she was captured by aliens and taken to their city. Now she’s got a personal bodyguard and captor watching her every move.

  One problem. He’s not one of the aliens who took her. He’s one of the sand barbarians sent by the bounty hunter women to break her out and bring her back. Since she’s determined to find a way off the planet and out of captivity, he’s a very big and very hot distraction she doesn’t need.

  His mission was to infiltrate the Crestek city, find the human female, and bring her back to his Dothvek village and the other women. Well, he found her all right. Now he’s serving as her personal guard, locked inside the luxurious suite in the enemy city, and trying to ignore the fact that the human scientist he was sent to rescue is a beautiful, intriguing female. Can he get them both out without being discovered? Or losing his heart?

  Captive-Barbarians of the Sand Planet #2

  Tana Stone

  Broadmoor Books

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  Preview of TORMENT: Barbarians of the Sand Planet #3

  Also by Tana Stone

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Kush held up a fist to tell the others to stop running, pausing near a boulder to catch his breath. Even though it was not as hot as running across the sands that comprised most of his planet, he found the higher elevation more tiring. He shifted the wide, leather strap across his bare chest, removing a water skin and handing it to one of the two human females who ran with them.

  He was impressed that the small creatures had kept up with them so well, especially the one with straight, dark hair that was pulled back, and eyes that slanted up slightly. Caro, he thought her name was. She was slender and not as muscular as her friend, but she hadn’t complained or asked them to slow once.

  She took the water from him with a grateful smile. “Thanks. I needed a break.”

  Kush instinctively touched a finger to the flat, curved device behind his ear, the one that translated their words for him. He’d been suspicious when the offworlders had given it to him, but he had to admit that it made communication much easier than trying to pantomime everything.

  “Are you kidding?” the other female asked, even though she rested her hands on her knees. “We can’t slow down now.”

  Her wild mane of dark curls spilled freely down her back, the needle-like sticks that had previously held it up clasped in her hands as weapons. She dragged a hand across her forehead, her brown skin glistening with sweat.

  “A short break won’t kill us, Tori,” her friend said. “Not all of us have the endurance of Zevrians.”

  “It helps that our home world is a toxic minefield.” Tori gave a mirthless laugh. “If you aren’t fast, you’re dead.”

  Kush eyed the bumps arching over Tori’s eyebrows and sweeping up and into her hairline. She was the only one of the females who had them, so he assumed the all-female crew who had crash-landed on his planet was made up of different species. One thing he knew for sure—they were not Dothvek like him.

  If they were Dothvek, they would have gold skin, ridges sweeping out from their spines, and pointed ears. They would also be taller and broader. These creatures—even the Zevrian—he could toss over his shoulder and barely notice the weight. To be fair, Dothvek females were not quite as muscular as the men, although there were now far fewer of them to compare to.

  Kush shifted from one foot to the other as Caro handed him back the water skin. Did these females know how desperately his people needed mates? He doubted it. Even though their captain had seemingly fallen for his cousin, K’alvek, he wasn’t sure if even she knew how valuable she and her crew were on his planet.

  He gave his head a small shake. Worrying about the fate of his people and their dwindling numbers was not his concern right now. Now, his mission was to lead the hunting party and track down the female crew member who’d been taken by the Dothvek’s enemy, the Cresteks. It was these Cresteks and their desire for progress, who’d created the virus responsible for wiping out most of their own females, and since their people descended from the same tribe, the Dothvek women had eventually been decimated as well.

  Not important now, Kush reminded himself. Focus on the mission.

  The small group of Dothvek warriors shifted restlessly after taking drinks and catching their breath. Kush leaned back as he poured a thin stream of the clear liquid into his mouth, closing his eyes as the faint sweetness of the water reminded him of the oasis where his tent sat at the edge of the wide, blue pool. If he closed his eyes, he could hear the tiny bells tied to the edges of the tents as the wind passed through, and the braying of the jebels as they waited to be ridden across the sands. The meat would be roasting over the fire, crackling on the spit as the fat fell into the hot coals below. He breathed in and imagined the rich scent. He could almost taste the savory meat with its crispy skin.

  Kush ignored the twinge of longing and the rumble of his stomach. He would be glad when he’d rescued the female and could return home. Even though he was widely known as the clan’s best tracker, he loved nothing more than the comfort of his tent and sitting around the fire with his cousin and best friend since birth. But K’alvek sent him to recover the human, which he’d pledged to do before returning home.

  “What happens if we don’t get to Max in time?” Caro asked, casting a worried look over her shoulder toward the stone city that rose up in the distance.

  “We will retrieve her,” he told her, hooking the water skin to his strap.

  “We’d better,” Tori said, cracking her knuckles. “She’s worth a lot.”

  “Tor.” Caro shot the woman a look.

  Tori let out a sigh. “Not as a bounty anymore. I mean as a crewmate. Dr. Max Dryden is smart. She’s the perfect addition to our group.”

  Caro grinned. “I’m glad you’ve come around. Plus, we kind of owe her for kidnapping her and getting her marooned on a desert planet.”

  “We didn’t kidnap her,” Tori said. “She was a legitimate bounty, and we are legitimate bounty hunters. Well, we were. I don’t know what we are now, since we don’t have a way off this ball of sand.”

  Kush remembered the horrified looks on the females’ faces when their ship had been blown up, but somehow it hadn’t crushed their spirits. The females were tougher than he’d originally thought.

  Caro frowned. “We’re still the bounty hunter babes, or bounty hunter bitches, if you prefer,” she said, when she saw Tori’s scowl at the name they’d been given by jealous rivals. “We’ll find a way out of this. We always do. But first we need to get Max back from those creepy aliens.”r />
  Tori scanned the group of Dothveks. “I’m glad we fell in with these guys. They’re definitely more my type than the ones in those hooded cloaks.”

  “Makes sense,” Caro said with a grin. “These guys do have a Conan vibe.”

  Tori’s forehead furrowed.

  “I guess you didn’t have Conan the Barbarian on the Zevrian home world.”

  “Earthlings,” Tori muttered, shaking her head.

  Kush could understand most of what they were saying, although he did not know this Conan they spoke of. He hoped he was a valiant warrior, like his people.

  He flinched as he thought of the Cresteks. Even though they shared many physical similarities—their people evolving from a single tribe over a thousand solar rotations ago— they were nothing alike. The others did not wear their hair long, nor did they have the tribal markings on their chests or arms. They wore cloaks, and it was said that their skin could not take the heat of the sun anymore.

  Kush gave a snort of derision. Typical.

  The Cresteks left the sands millennia ago to build a city, evolving into a society so different that they had lost the ability to communicate empathically. It was rumored they also lived for fewer rotations now, and not over a hundred like the Dothveks did. He feared them because they looked like his people, but did not live like them. They were a warning.

  Brushing the thoughts of the Cresteks from his mind, he picked up the folded blue cloak he’d dropped beside him. The one he’d taken from a fallen Crestek. He knew it might come in handy if he needed to use subterfuge, as well as speed and strength.

  Kush had no doubt of their success. Dothveks were fearsome warriors and skilled trackers, and he’d trained hard to be the best tracker of the tribe. It was why K’alvek asked him to lead the hunting party. He had never failed to prove himself to his cousin or his tribe, and he wouldn’t fail now.

  “Ready?” he asked the females.

  “Thought you’d never ask,” Tori answered, flashing her slightly pointed teeth as she grinned.

  They took off at a run, Kush casting a glance at the rocks that rose up behind him. He knew that the ocean of sand lay beyond the craggy range, and on the dunes was his home. Turning back around, he focused on the outlines of the Crestek city in the distance. The stone city jutted up into the air, fading sunlight hitting the tall spires and protruding towers, and his stomach clenched.

  He’d never been inside where the Cresteks dwelled. He’d only heard tales of their opulence and decadence. Now he was running toward it, the ground beneath his feet changing from hard rock to dusty soil.

  Kush sucked in lungfuls of air. It was cool, not hot and arid like the air he usually breathed, and he smelled the moisture in it. He already missed the heat on his skin and the warmth of two suns beating down. Looking up through the broken canopy of spindly trees, he saw his two suns—one orange and one a pale-yellow verging on white—sinking lower in the sky.

  Night is coming.

  He picked up the pace, ignoring the searing in his chest as he forced himself to run faster. He did not want to be near the enemy when darkness fell.

  Chapter Two

  Dr. Max Dryden stumbled alongside the cloaked alien, cursing to herself. How had all this happened?

  Only a few days ago, she’d been working peacefully on her crystalline energy project—a project that could result in cleaner and cheaper energy for the entire galaxy, thank you very much—when a bunch of bounty hunting women had kidnapped her. She’d barely been put on their ship when another bounty hunter, this one definitely not female and a lot less pleasant, boarded their ship and disabled it, marooning them on a desert planet.

  Luckily—or not, maybe—the women had hidden her identity and kept her from being taken by the rough and menacing bounty hunter, Mourad. That meant that she’d ended up stranded on a primitive planet with the very people who’d taken her captive in the first place, although she’d grown to like the crew of five women since then, and even tried to help them fix their damaged ship.

  “Because you’re an idiot,” she mumbled to herself, swallowing hard and wishing her throat didn’t feel like sandpaper.

  Of course, that wasn’t true. She was far from an idiot. Actually, she was considered a genius by everyone in her field, not that her colleagues had always understood her. Max had always refused to work for the big galactic conglomerates, rejecting the big payday for the freedom to do what she wanted. That meant that she spent a lot of time alone, scraping by on far-flung planets and doing her research solo, apart from her droid. Not that being alone bothered her. In fact, she preferred it.

  She’d always been considered an oddball growing up. Petite and slim, she’d favored wearing her dark hair short, and had never had any interest in dresses or makeup or anything meant to attract men. It wasn’t that she didn’t like them, but they all seemed to prefer women who flirted and simpered and pretended to be dumb. Her own mother probably would have preferred a daughter like that, someone more like her. But she got Max and had never really known what to do with a daughter more interested in equations than eyeshadow.

  It wasn’t like her mother was the only person in her life who hadn’t understood her. Most men thought her obsessions with books and experiments were odd. Not that she cared anymore.

  No, Max would take her lab over an arrogant, insecure man any day. And she had. For years. Which is why I was on the verge of one of the biggest scientific discoveries of the century, she thought to herself.

  Not that her brilliance was doing her any good now. For the first time in her life, she wished she were one of those leggy bimbos she usually rolled her eyes at. At least long legs would help her move faster. As it was, she was practically jogging to keep up with the big aliens who’d taken her from the bounty hunter ship.

  Who gets kidnapped multiple times within a couple of days? Just when she and the bounty hunter engineer, Holly, had been about to restore power to the ship’s comms systems, a bunch of big aliens in hooded cloaks had arrived with blasters drawn. If the fierce-looking security chief, Tori, had been with them they might have stood a chance but Holly was injured, and Max wasn’t great with weapons.

  She darted a glance to the hooded guy next to her—the one with a hand clamped around her arm. She’d be willing to try her hand with a weapon, if it meant getting away from these creeps. Especially since it was just her now.

  Holly had been taken when the pack of barbarians had attacked them earlier. Max didn’t know if the wild-looking aliens with long hair and bare chests were better or worse than the ones she was with now, but she thought she’d seen Tori fighting with them.

  Not that it mattered much at this point. She and the few aliens the barbarians hadn’t cut down with their curved blades were almost at the city. Tipping her head back, Max gazed at the high, stone walls that were coming into view. She might have to adjust her thoughts around the aliens who inhabited the sand planet.

  The polished stone glinted in the fading sunlight, the sawtooth pattern at the top of the walls alternating with decorative points. She could see towers and domed roofs peeking above the walls, some of them brightly painted. The walls stretched both far and wide, and she wondered about the size of the city within the walls—and why the Cresteks felt the need to build such impressive defenses. She remembered reading about ancient-Earth civilizations with castle walls like this, but she’d never imagined she’d lay eyes on one.

  The alien holding her jerked at her arm, and she jerked back. “I can’t go any faster.”

  He cut his eyes to her from under his hood and said something her universal translator decoded to mean that she needed to hurry.

  “Yeah, I get it,” she said. “But we’ve been walking for hours, and my legs are half the length of yours.”

  She knew they could only understand some of what she said—apparently, the universal translator devices they wore inside their ears were not as developed or as skilled as her implant—but it still felt good to talk back. Keeping qu
iet had never been one of her strengths. Maybe if it had, and she hadn’t shared her scientific findings with some colleagues, she wouldn’t have ended up with a bounty on her head.

  The alien mumbled something that she couldn’t make out, but she ignored it. He seemed about as thrilled with her as she was with him. She hoped that getting inside the city would mean this guy would finally let her go.

  Gulping, Max watched as the massive gates began to glide open. Instead of being made out of stone, the gates were crafted from a polished wood that shimmered gold, just like the sand that covered most of the planet, and just like the aliens’ skin. Moving silently, the huge doors opened, and she was prodded forward.

  Her heart pounded as she tried to peer past the gates and into the city. Where exactly were they taking her, and what was inside? Once she was behind the walls, she was pretty sure there was no getting out. Not that she had much choice. After being dragged across a desert, through a mountain pass, and across more barren land with barely any breaks or water, she was in no shape to make a run for it.

  The small group of aliens hurried forward, but before they could get through the gates, Max saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. One of the cloaked aliens dropped as if he were a puppet who’d had his strings cut.

  Max stopped moving, bracing as the same barbarians who had attacked earlier swarmed them. The alien holding her was killed with a single slash of a flashing, curved blade, and she staggered away from him, watching blood seep from his wound and soak the ground.

 
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