Penny screamed and whirled around to see the biggest NeverBreeder she’d ever seen standing in the now-open shower stall, glaring at her.
Eighty-Five
“Is that you, sweetheart?” V called when he heard the footsteps behind him. “I’ve got us on autopilot now, headed back to Hell’s Gate. My own ship is docked on the far end, so—”
“You will turn the ship around and go back to Yown Alpha at once,” an unfamiliar voice said behind him.
“What in the Seven Hells?” V spun around to see a NeverBreeder which was larger than most standing behind him. Worse, the bastard had one arm around Penelope’s waist and was holding a long, wickedly sharp knife at her throat.
“You heard me, breeder,” the orange humanoid said. He was taller than Penny, which gave him the advantage over her. As if the knife wasn’t advantage enough, V thought grimly.
“Let her go,” he growled, feeling the Rage rise in him again.
“No,” the NeverBreeder guard said coolly. “I will hold her hostage while you turn the ship around and set a course for Yown Alpha.”
“Never,” Penelope’s voice was low and trembling but her brown eyes were fierce. “V’rex will never do what you say!”
“He’d better…” The NeverBreeder guard slid the tip of the knife slowly up and down the side of her neck. “This blade has been dipped in the sap of the Toxic-shock vine. If I draw even a single drop of blood from your lovely flesh, you’ll be poisoned instantly, breeder. And I assure you it will not be a pleasant death.”
“You’re bluffing,” V growled though he was desperately afraid the NeverBreeder wasn’t. He was barely holding back the Rage which threatened to overcome him—it wanted to fall like a red curtain over his vision when he saw his female being threatened. But he had to think now, had to act rationally if he wanted to get Penelope out of this alive…
“I assure you, breeder, that I never bluff,” the NeverBreeder said sharply. “Now set the course and then the two of you will be locked safely in the hold while I pilot us back to the Compound. Once we are there, the Glorious Leader will know how to deal with both of you.”
“No!” Penelope’s voice rose to a sudden shout. “We’re never going back there—never!”
She twisted in the NeverBreeder’s arms suddenly and jammed her elbow into his midsection.
The guard made a sound like “Whoof!” and doubled over as her blow knocked the breath out of him. Before he could get it back again, V sprang at him, grabbing the long silver knife from his hand and punching the NeverBreeder square in the face. Then he pulled out his blaster and shot, vaporizing the bastard’s head.
The headless body fell backwards, the legs in their silver jumpsuit still twitching.
“Oh my God!” Penelope’s voice was low and shaky. “Oh my God, oh my God!”
“It’s all right, sweetheart!” V re-holstered his blaster in the belt holster he’d taken from one of the dead NeverBreeders in the jungle and went to her. “Everything is okay,” he told her, wanting to reassure her.
“I…I’m not sure that it is.” Penelope shook her head. “I…I feel so dizzy, V’rex.”
“It’s just shock. Here, let’s get you sitting down.” V started to reach for her and then realized he was still holding the NeverBreeder’s knife in his other hand. He started to toss it aside and then he took a closer look at it.
Running down the wickedly sharp blade was a single drop of crimson blood.
Eighty-Six
“Fuck!” V’rex was looking with horror at the NeverBreeder’s knife. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Penny asked faintly. She was getting that breathless feeling again—the same one she’d had when they first entered the Deadly Jungle, before everything had gone gray and far away. “Why…why can’t I breathe?” she asked, her voice coming out as a gasp.
V’rex dropped the knife and lifted her chin to examine the side of her neck.
“The fucker wasn’t lying, I guess.” He sounded grim. He touched her neck carefully and his fingertips came away bloody. “He barely scratched you but the blade must have been poisoned, like he said.”
“Oh, no!” Penny exclaimed, but her voice came out in a breathless gasp. “Does that mean you’ll have to…to…sting me?”
“Afraid so, sweetheart.” He looked like a man who was about to make himself do something he really, really didn’t want to do. “Still, we’re out of the jungle now,” he muttered, sounding like he was talking to himself. “Maybe that will help.”
“Help what?” Penny tried to ask, but her throat had closed almost completely by now. She tried to suck in a breath but it was like breathing through a straw. Frantically, she clawed at her throat.
Can’t breathe—can’t breathe!
“Hang on, sweetheart—I’m hoping this won’t hurt you this time,” V’rex murmured.
And then he was pulling her into his arms and Penny felt the blunt, fiery probe of his stinger skewering the tender side of her neck.
At once, she was on fire! The pain she’d experience the past two times he’d stung her was nothing to this. This was a burning everywhere—her nerves, her flesh, even her very bones were being incinerated in the most horrific agony imaginable!
This is Hell—I’m in Hell, Penny thought. Her throat opened up at last and she sucked in a double lungful of air and expelled it in a shriek of pure torture. She couldn’t even form the words to ask the big Hybrid to stop stinging her. All she could do was writhe and shriek while she burned and burned and burned…
And then everything went dark as her body and brain overloaded from the pain and she fell down the blessed well of unconsciousness.
Eighty-Seven
V despised himself. As he held Penelope’s limp body in his arms, shame and self-hatred rose in him so strongly it made him physically ill. He had felt
