The Krinar Captive Read online

  The Krinar Captive

  Anna Zaires

  ♠ Mozaika Publications ♠

  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

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Close Liaisons

  Excerpt from Twist Me

  Excerpt from Capture Me

  About the Author

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  * * *

  Copyright © 2016 Anna Zaires and Dima Zales

  www.annazaires.com

  * * *

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  Except for use in a review, no part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

  * * *

  Published by Mozaika Publications, an imprint of Mozaika LLC.

  www.mozaikallc.com

  * * *

  Cover by Okay Creations

  www.okaycreations.com

  * * *

  e-ISBN: 978-1-63142-189-1

  ISBN: 978-1-63142-190-7

  Chapter One

  I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. Please, please, please, I don’t want to die.

  The words kept repeating in her mind, a hopeless prayer that would never be heard. Her fingers slipped another inch on the rough wooden board, her nails breaking as she tried to maintain her grip.

  Emily Ross was hanging by her fingernails—literally—off a broken old bridge. Hundreds of feet below, water rushed over the rocks, the mountain stream full from recent rains.

  Those rains were partially responsible for her current predicament. If the wood on the bridge had been dry, she might not have slipped, twisting her foot in the process. And she certainly wouldn’t have fallen onto the rail that had broken under her weight.

  It was only a last-minute desperate grab that had prevented Emily from plummeting to her death below. As she was falling, her right hand had caught a small protrusion on the side of the bridge, leaving her dangling in the air hundreds of feet above the hard rocks.

  I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. Please, please, please, I don’t want to die.

  It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. This was her vacation, her regain-sanity time. How could she die now? She hadn’t even begun living yet.

  Images of the last two years slid through Emily’s brain, like the PowerPoint presentations she’d spent so many hours making. Every late night, every weekend spent in the office—it had all been for nothing. She’d lost her job during the layoffs, and now she was about to lose her life.

  No, no!

  Emily’s legs flailed, her nails digging deeper into the wood. Her other arm reached up, stretching toward the bridge. This wouldn’t happen to her. She wouldn’t let it. She had worked too hard to let a stupid jungle bridge defeat her.

  Blood ran down her arm as the rough wood tore the skin off her fingers, but she ignored the pain. Her only hope of survival lay in trying to grab onto the side of the bridge with her other hand, so she could pull herself up. There was no one around to rescue her, no one to save her if she didn’t save herself.

  The possibility that she might die alone in the rainforest had not occurred to Emily when she’d embarked on this trip. She was used to hiking, used to camping. And even after the hell of the past two years, she was still in good shape, strong and fit from running and playing sports all through high school and college. Costa Rica was considered a safe destination, with a low crime rate and tourist-friendly population. It was inexpensive too—an important factor for her rapidly dwindling savings account.

  She’d booked this trip before. Before the market had fallen again, before another round of layoffs that had cost thousands of Wall Street workers their jobs. Before Emily went to work on Monday, bleary-eyed from working all weekend, only to leave the office the same day with all her possessions in a small cardboard box.

  Before her four-year relationship had fallen apart.

  Her first vacation in two years, and she was going to die.

  No, don’t think that way. It won’t happen.

  But Emily knew she was lying to herself. She could feel her fingers slipping farther, her right arm and shoulder burning from the strain of supporting the weight of her entire body. Her left hand was inches away from reaching the side of the bridge, but those inches could’ve easily been miles. She couldn’t get a strong enough grip to lift herself up with one arm.

  Do it, Emily! Don’t think, just do it!

  Gathering all her strength, she swung her legs in the air, using the momentum to bring her body higher for a fraction of a second. Her left hand grabbed onto the protruding board, clutched at it… and the fragile piece of wood snapped, startling her into a terrified scream.

  Emily’s last thought before her body hit the rocks was the hope that her death would be instant.

  * * *

  The smell of jungle vegetation, rich and pungent, teased Zaron’s nostrils. He inhaled deeply, letting the humid air fill his lungs. It was clean here, in this tiny corner of Earth, almost as unpolluted as on his home planet.

  He needed this now. Needed the fresh air, the isolation. For the past six months, he’d tried to run from his thoughts, to exist only in the moment, but he’d failed. Even blood and sex were not enough for him anymore. He could distract himself while fucking, but the pain always came back afterwards, as strong as ever.

  Finally, it had gotten to be too much. The dirt, the crowds, the stink of humanity. When he wasn’t lost in a fog of ecstasy, he was disgusted, his senses overwhelmed from spending so much time in human cities. It was better here, where he could breathe without inhaling poison, where he could smell life instead of chemicals. In a few years, everything would be different, and he might try living in a human city again, but not yet.

  Not until they were fully settled here.

  That was Zaron’s job: to oversee the settlements. He had been doing research on Earth fauna and flora for decades, and when the Council requested his assistance with the upcoming colonization, he hadn’t hesitated. Anything was better than being home, where memories of Larita’s presence were everywhere.

  There were no memories here. For all of its similarities to Krina, this planet was strange and exotic. Seven billion Homo sapiens on Earth—an unthinkable number—and they were multiplying at a dizzying pace. With their short lifespans and the resulting lack of long-term thinking, they were consuming their planet’s resources with utter disregard for the future. In some ways, they remi
nded him of Schistocerca gregaria—a species of locusts he’d studied several years ago.

  Of course, humans were more intelligent than insects. A few individuals, like Einstein, were even Krinar-like in some aspects of their thinking. It wasn’t particularly surprising to Zaron; he had always thought this might be the intent of the Elders’ grand experiment.

  Walking through the Costa Rican forest, he found himself thinking about the task at hand. This part of the planet was promising; it was easy to picture edible plants from Krina thriving here. He had done extensive tests on the soil, and he had some ideas on how to make it even more hospitable to Krinar flora.

  All around him, the forest was lush and green, filled with the fragrance of blooming heliconias and the sounds of rustling leaves and native birds. In the distance, he could hear the cry of an Alouatta palliata, a howler monkey native to Costa Rica, and something else.

  Frowning, Zaron listened closer, but the sound didn’t repeat.

  Curious, he headed in that direction, his hunting instincts on alert. For a second, the sound had reminded him of a woman’s scream.

  Moving through the thick jungle vegetation with ease, Zaron put on a burst of speed, leaping over a small creek and the bushes that stood in his way. Out here, away from human eyes, he could move like a Krinar without worrying about exposure. Within a couple of minutes, he was close enough to pick up the scent. Sharp and coppery, it made his mouth water and his cock stir.

  It was blood.

  Human blood.

  Reaching his destination, Zaron stopped, staring at the sight in front of him.

  In front of him was a river, a mountain stream swollen from recent rains. And on the large black rocks in the middle, beneath an old wooden bridge spanning the gorge, was a body.

  A broken, twisted body of a human girl.

  Chapter Two

  Swearing under his breath, Zaron jumped into the river. Had he been human, the powerful current would’ve instantly carried him away. As it was, he had to use all of his strength to swim across the foaming water. Several times his kicking legs struck underwater rocks, but he ignored the pain. Bruises were nothing to those of his kind; by the time he reached the boulders ahead, the injuries would already be healed.

  Finally, he was there, clambering up onto the slippery rocks and crouching beside the girl lying there. She was alive; he could hear her weak, erratic heartbeat and the gurgling sounds of her breathing.

  She was alive, but judging by her injuries, she wouldn’t be much longer.

  Her lower body was twisted at a strange angle, and her slender limbs were broken in several places, with bone fragments protruding from torn, pale flesh. Half of her face was covered with blood, the dark red liquid oozing sullenly from a deep gash in the side of her skull. Her short-sleeved shirt hid most of the damage to her torso, but Zaron suspected she was hemorrhaging internally, her ribcage likely shattered by her fall.

  His stomach tightening with a mixture of pity and strange despair, Zaron stared at the broken human. She was young and, from what he could see, quite pretty. Long pale blond hair, clear skin, a slim, shapely build… If she hadn’t been on the verge of death, he might’ve been attracted to her.

  But she was as good as dead. At best, she had a few more minutes to live. With such extensive injuries, it was surprising that her heart was beating at all. Humans were fragile creatures, easily hurt and slow to heal. He doubted human doctors would be able to fix her, even if they managed to get here in time. Krinar medicine could save her, of course, but Zaron didn’t have anything on him, and the girl was unlikely to survive the trip to his house.

  Lifting his hand, he lightly touched the uninjured side of her face, running his fingers along her jawline. Her skin was soft and smooth, like that of a baby. A sharp pang of regret pierced his chest; under different circumstances, he would’ve very much enjoyed her.

  Suddenly, a small broken sound escaped her throat, startling Zaron. And then, much to his shock, her eyes opened.

  Framed by thick brown lashes, they were a bright blue-green and strikingly beautiful.

  For a moment, she seemed disoriented, those sea-colored eyes clouded with pain, but then her gaze sharpened, focusing on his face.

  She knew she was about to die. Zaron could see it on her face. She knew, and she was fighting it with every cell of her being.

  Her mouth moved, her lips opening in a wordless plea, and he knew what he had to do.

  Reaching for the girl, Zaron gently picked her up, cradling her against his chest.

  It was almost certain she would not survive the trip, but he couldn’t let her go like this.

  Nobody who clung to life so fiercely should have to die without a fight.

  * * *

  The trip seemed to take forever, though Zaron ran as fast as he could, taking care not to jostle the girl too much. The hardest part had been the river; battling the current with one hand while holding the girl above the water with another had been challenging even for him.

  She was unconscious again. He could hear the harsh rattling in her lungs, and he knew she wouldn’t last much longer. Her face was deathly pale, her skin cold and clammy from the river.

  Finally, they were there.

  Carrying her into his dwelling, Zaron carefully laid her on his bed. A sharp voice command and one of the walls opened, allowing jansha—a small, tubular healing device—to float toward him. Grabbing it from mid-air, Zaron placed it on the bed before starting to undress the girl. She wasn’t wearing much—just a T-shirt and cut-off jeans—and he made short work of her clothing, his chest tightening at the sight of protruding bones and torn flesh.

  Picking up the device, he ran it over her nude body, letting it diagnose her injuries. As he had suspected, they were extensive. Aside from damage to her internal organs, she had a spinal cord injury. Even if she had managed to survive, she would’ve been paralyzed from the waist down.

  There were other injuries as well. Broken bones, a gash on her skull, scrapes and bruises—those all seemed to be from her accident. However, there were signs of an earlier trauma as well. At some point, she’d broken her wrist, and there was scar tissue on her leg from some other mishap. She’d also been subjected to primitive human dental care, with some of her teeth hollowed out and patched up with non-organic filling.

  Zaron hesitated only for a moment before enabling jansha’s complete healing mode. If he had more time and her injuries weren’t so severe, he could’ve calibrated the device to focus on specific wounds. But as it was, a full-body procedure was her best chance at survival.

  The device vibrated for a second, releasing the healing nanocytes, and Zaron watched as the girl’s damaged flesh began to knit together, each of her cells regenerating from within.

  Chapter Three

  Slowly waking up, Emily became aware of the fact that she felt good.

  Really, truly good.

  She was neither hot nor cold, and the blanket covering her was of just the right weight and thickness. The mattress underneath her was incredibly comfortable as well; it was as though she was sleeping on something custom-made for her body. She was also surprisingly relaxed. The ever-present tension in the back of her neck was absent for the first time in months.

  A smile of contentment curved her lips, and Emily snuggled deeper under the covers. This had to be the best night of sleep she’d had in ages. She could hardly believe it had occurred at a cheap little inn in a remote area of Costa Rica.

  It had to be the fresh air and exercise, she decided, still reluctant to open her eyes. All that hiking must’ve worn her out. Hiking… Something buzzed at the back of her brain, something disturbing—

  The fall off the bridge! Gasping, Emily jackknifed into a sitting position, her eyes flying open.

  She wasn’t at the inn.

  She also wasn’t dead.

  For a second, those two facts seemed irreconcilable. If she had dreamed the entire horrible event, shouldn’t she have woken up at the last pl
ace she remembered going to sleep? And if it hadn’t been a dream, where was she? Why wasn’t she dead, or at least badly injured?

  Her heart racing, Emily took in her surroundings, clutching the blanket protectively to her chest. She could feel the soft material brushing against her body—her naked body—and the realization that she wasn’t wearing any clothes increased her panic a thousandfold.

  Where the hell was she?

  It wasn’t a hospital, she was sure of that.

  She was sitting on a large round bed that had the weirdest mattress texture she’d ever come across. Neither traditional spring nor memory foam, it seemed to be shaping itself to her body. The impression was so strong she could practically feel the thing moving underneath her.

  Other than the bed, the room was completely empty. Emily couldn’t even discern the source of light that bathed everything in a soft glow. The walls, floor, and ceiling were cream-colored, as were the sheets on the strange bed.

  There were also no windows or doors.

  What the fuck?

  Feeling like she was hyperventilating, Emily tried to take deep, calming breaths. There had to be an explanation for this—a rational explanation. She just had to figure out what it was.

  Moving cautiously, she scooted to the edge of the bed and swung her feet down to the floor. The fact that she could move so easily, with no pain or soreness, was disconcerting. If she hadn’t imagined falling off that bridge, shouldn’t she have at least a couple of broken bones? The alternative—that it had all been a vivid dream—didn’t make much sense in light of her current location.

  Standing up, Emily pulled the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around herself, trying not to give in to the panic that fluttered at the edge of her mind, when part of the wall in front of her dissolved.