Flint let out a curse as the ungrateful woman he was supposed to be rescuing slammed down a second time on the teleportation button and the ship rocked dangerously, a sure sign they were in unsafe territory. The proximity alarm began to blare and he had no more time to swear.
He had to act.
Liza gripped the back of the pilot’s chair as the ship jolted around them, rocking wildly as if it had been locked into orbit and was being sucked in.
He had a sinking feeling that was exactly what was happening.
Were they heading back to that volcano planet? He might have been a dragon, but lava could still burn him to a crisp. And the human with him would be even more vulnerable.
He pressed a few of the buttons, trying to get a report about where they might be going, but he must have pressed the wrong thing. He really needed to get a better understanding of these controls.
One thing he knew how to do was manually pilot in a crisis. He grabbed the controller and took over, flicking the viewport to see what was in front of him.
Something crashed behind him as Liza lost her grip on the chair. The gravity field wasn’t working. Or the planet had strong enough gravity that they were already feeling it. Concern jolted through him, but he couldn’t worry about her right now. Not when they were in the middle of plummeting down onto some unknown planet.
Would they even be able to breathe?
Some rescuer he was.
Behind him, Liza grunted in pain and his heart hurt for her, but he couldn’t spare a second to look back and see how she was doing. Not if he wanted them both to survive the landing.
With her not strapped in, it was more dangerous than ever. But if her reaction to arriving on his ship told him anything, it was that she had a strong survival instinct. Even if she seemed to think he was abducting her rather than rescuing her. If she knew it was good for her, she would hold on.
The ship rocked even more as they hit the atmosphere, his heat shields screaming a warning that they were close to being compromised.
He didn’t have another choice. They were in it now. And any atmosphere, at least, meant that they might have a chance of surviving. If they had air. If they had water.
They made it through the atmosphere and his limbs felt heavier as real gravity took over for the artificial kind. His ears popped again and he could feel the ship hurtling in free fall, rather than the gentle glide they needed to set down somewhere safe.
He grit his teeth and pulled on the controls with all his might, as if his own personal strength was what it took to get them to land safely. But he had dealt with dangerous landings before. He could deal with this.
The only mystery was where exactly they were. His coordinates were going haywire, probably something in the wiring broken. The life support scan, though, told him they had air and water. That was one bright spot in otherwise terrible news.
And the viewport told him they were in the middle of an ocean. Not great. He had floatation devices he could deploy to keep the ship from sinking, but that would make the repairs all the more difficult.
He scanned his readouts for any sign of land and let out a yelp of joy when he spotted a small island. Small didn’t do it justice. Tiny. Barely twice the size of the ship and battered by roiling waves on all sides.
It was little more than a rock in the middle of the sea. But that was all he needed. If they could figure out how to get his ship space worthy again it wouldn’t matter where they landed. As long as they could land.
It was a bumpy landing. Flint jolted in his seat and he heard Liza smack into something. He gave the final safety checks the most cursory look, concern for her finally overwhelming everything else.
He was out of his chair in a flash and crossed the room to kneel over her.
Her eyes were closed, hiding the gorgeous brown orbs he’d been staring at since the moment he saw her. Her brown hair was tangled around her face, and there was a small bruise starting to form on her temple. If the medbay had survived he could get her some healing gel and fix her up in no time.
With her eyes closed, she looked gentle. Not like the kind of woman who would come out of the teleportation chamber screaming. Screaming and raring for a fight. It was kind of hot. In a confusing sort of way. Flint always liked strong women who gave him a challenge. But that didn’t mean he wanted to abduct them.
He was really going to have to figure this out.
Liza’s eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him with a soft smile that made something in his heart clench.
Then she most likely remembered where she was, and the expression slid off her face, replaced with a glare. She pushed him away and scrambled back, but he didn’t miss the wince as she stood up.
He needed to get her medical attention. Just to make sure nothing was wrong.
“Whatever you want, I’m not giving it to you,” Liza spat as she scrambled to her feet. She held her hands up in front of her as if she might punch him again.
The way with adrenaline from landing the ship had overpowered the sting of his skin. Now his jaw was starting to throb and he was mildly impressed with how much power she put into it. He would need to tend to her knuckles as well.
He didn’t understand why he was so concerned for her. Sure, he was her rescuer. He had taken this job in the hopes something might blossom between them. They could go on an adventure together. One that was planned, not this surprise mystery destination. But he wanted to care for Liza so much that it was overpowering all the rest of his senses.
That didn’t make sense. Not unless she was his…
Now he was getting ahead of himself.
“My name is Flint,” he told her. Maybe an introduction would make things better. “I got your message.”
She scrunched up her face and glared even harder. “My message? What the hell are you talking about? Where are we? Are you a sex trafficker?”
He jolted as if shocked. “What?”
“I’m not doing freaky sex stuff,” Liza insisted.
“I never asked you to,” now Flint was the one on unsteady feet. What world had she come from that she thought her rescuer might… that was horrifying. He was no slaver. He only wanted to help.
Without warning, Liza lunged down the hall on the opposite side of the room. Flint chased after her, but she was fast. Whatever hurt she had endured, clearly it wasn’t stopping her. But there was no exit this way. Not unless she went all the way to the other end of the ship and opened up the cargo hold.
At least, there wasn’t supposed to be a door this way.
The giant tear in the hull on the side of the ship that exposed them to the salty sea air worked just as well. Liza shimmied through it.
With a curse, Flint followed after her.
“Just leave me alone!” Liza screamed at him. Her words were swallowed up by the wind and the waves around them.
And now Flint was getting a bit angry. She wasn’t even going to let him explain the situation? “You sent out a rescue beacon!” He could feel his own fire bubbling in his veins, the smoke that wafted off an angry dragon singeing his nose.
Liza glared and if she saw the smoke, she must not have realized what it was. “I didn’t do any such thing. I don’t need rescuing. I am a grown woman.” She crouched down and picked up a loose rock from the surface of the island.
Flint froze where he stood. He didn’t want to get pelted by the rock. No use making the situation any worse.
“I can explain… I think,” they just needed to have a conversation. Once they did that, this would all work out. It would figure out how to get off this weird little planet and clear up the situation.
Had he rescued the wrong woman?
He was definitely going to have to fill out a lot of paperwork from the IDA if that was the case.
But before Liza could respond or he could figure out how to start, a massive creature, something that looked like a shark crossed with a lizard jumped out of the water and swept up Liza in its claws.
Liza screamed as she was pulled under the water.