Dani, Planet Everis, Exact location unknown
There he was. After hours of hiking since I woke up, my body aching with need from the steamy bout of dream sharing, I finally found him. Followed my innate sense as a Hunter descendant, the heart-sense of a Marked Mate searching for the other half of her soul. My heart was frantically beating out of my chest at the sight of him. I saw the rusty chain affixed to the wall, curling across the floor and beneath him. Light-years from Earth, this was the perfect male for me. Warden Egara and the testing knew it. I knew it. I was sweating from my trek, but I shivered in the cave.
This hellhole. He’d been left to suffer. Die.
No one would have found him. Ever. Only me, only his Marked Mate because of our connection. The mark on my palm flared with heat and I hissed at the feel of it. A moan came from his injured form, knowing he felt the same sensation. My presence.
I closed the distance between us and pulled the huge drop bolt from the rusted metal cage door holding him. I threw the long chunk of heavy metal as far as I could and pulled the door open, dropping to my knees before him. My ankle screamed a protest, but I ignored it completely. I’d survive, but Gage? I wasn’t sure the extent of his injuries.
He sat on the hard ground, his back to the bare stone behind him. Chains hung from well over his head, outside the cage, out of reach, the dark metal links attached to manacles on his wrists. He was asleep, or unconscious. I wasn’t sure which, his body limp and his arms loose, manacles in his lap. His face, god, his beautiful face was bruised, his lip swollen, blood soaking his hair to run down his temple. I reached out, cupped his shoulder. He was cold, his bare chest covered in blood and burns, his skin like ice. They’d left his pants on, but his feet were bare as well and freezing. A thick jacket was on the ground just out of his reach. It was the same style the Hunters wore at the Touchstone, although filthy.
“Gage.” When he didn’t respond, I shook him. “Gage!”
I knew he was alive, knew because of the mark, his response to our marks being in such close proximity.
“Dani?”
“I’m here. Come on, wake up.”
I felt him stiffen, perhaps finally realizing he wasn’t dreaming, that I really was before him, urging him to move.
“Dani?” he asked again, this time his eyes cleared, widened. He groaned through gritted teeth. His dark pants were torn everywhere, dried blood clearly caked into the fabric in multiple places. I took a better look at his torso, the power and muscle covered in cuts, burns and blood. He looked like he’d been through hell, but I had no idea if everything was superficial, or if he was bleeding on the inside, too. Broken ribs? Bleeding kidneys? He was a mess, and seeing him injured made every cell in my body scream in denial.
He was mine. This could not be allowed. “You’re a mess.”
“Why are you here?” he countered, drawing his knees up toward his chest. We stared at each other, our gazes roaming. He was big. So very big, even sitting with his knees tucked up. His dark hair was long enough that it curled slightly over his ears, was thick, and I wanted to bury my fingers in it, learn the texture of him. A beard had begun to grow on his square jaw. Even in the dim light that came from the cave entrance, I could see the color of it was a touch redder than the nearly black hair on the top of his head. His lip was not only swollen, it was cut and bleeding. His face was thinner than in my dreams, as if he hadn’t eaten enough for a few days, but his eyes pierced me, held me in place. A predator’s eyes. Focused completely on me, taking in every detail, missing nothing. His gaze lingered on my ankle, on the tilt of my hips as I kept weight off it. It was like he could read my mind, knew my body already, was attuned to me.
His eyes were almost black, piercing in their intensity. I recognized him, not just from the dreams we shared, but in my heart, in my very DNA.
He was studying me just as closely and lifted his hand to reach out to me, but he let it drop.
“Are you real?” His voice was rough, dry. “Or am I dreaming?”
I tugged off my backpack, pulled out a canteen, removed the lid and handed it to him. “Real. Drink.”
He took it, swallowing the water greedily. How long had he been in this cave? Had he not had any food or water in days? As he drank, I glanced about. He’d been left in an abandoned cave, large enough for four or five men to walk side-by-side. I could easily stand at the entrance. If I put my arms up, I wouldn’t be able to touch the roof. The floor was stone, dirt and dead leaves covering the cold gray rock like a rotting carpet. We were about fifteen feet from the entrance, the daylight muted by the thick stone walls. I could hear water dripping in the distance, a gentle plop, plop. The chains holding him were large, heavy, but old and rusted, stained by the patina of age. The metal loops and bolts in the walls had been in place for a long time, as if Gage wasn’t the first to be brought here. To be tortured and neglected until dead.
A cage in the middle of nowhere? For what? “What kind of monster keeps a place like this?” I wondered aloud.
“My great-grandfather,” was his answer and it brought my gaze back to him at once. He smiled, but there was no humor in it. “This is my cave, Dani. Ironic, is it not?”
“Not.” I grabbed the discarded jacket and wrapped it around his feet. “Definitely not. We have to get you out of here.”
He used the back of his hand to wipe his mouth. “I will ask again, what are you doing here?”
I frowned. “Saving you.”
He shook his head slowly. “You shouldn’t have. Too risky.”
“You were going to die.”
He met my gaze. The vein his temple throbbed. “I know.”
“Then—”
He lifted his hand, but it dropped back to his lap, as if he were too weak. I reached in my pack again, found some kind of protein bar in the military rations I’d taken from the storage room at the Touchstone and handed it over. “Eat slowly.”
Breaking off a piece, he put it in his mouth, chewed. I watched the simple action, the play of his throat as he swallowed. Reaching out, I took his free hand, turned it over.
There.
The mark.
I placed my palm in his, mark to mark for the first time.
I gasped at the feel of it, the all-consuming burn throughout my body. Heat and need flared to life, but now wasn’t the time. But I also felt complete. As if a part of me had been missing…forever. I had no idea how I’d gotten through life, going through the motions. Perhaps it was that I hadn’t known I wasn’t whole.
But now…now there was no going back. Gage was mine and he could yell at me until he ran out of steam and I wouldn’t care.
“Someone wants me dead.” He shoved another piece of the bar in his mouth, chewed. “I won’t have them after you.”
“I can take care of myself. And as for you dying? Not happening.”
