Ascendant Saga Collection: Sci-Fi Fantasy Techno Thriller by Brandon Ellis (easy to read books for adults list txt) 📕

her his blood to save her life, and it connected them somehow. And he needed to know the how and the why. But it was bigger than that. They were both necessary. For what, he had no clue.

And at this moment, she needed him.

2 Starship Atlantis - M-Quadrant, Solar System

Captain Rivkah Ravenwood woke to a dimly-lit room, blinking lights around her. She was on a table. She breathed heavily, her arms and legs strapped tightly, her head restrained by a heavy band around her forehead. The back of her head throbbed. The gray ceiling gave nothing away.

Was she back in Underfoot Black? Wherever she was being held, didn’t sound or smell or feel like the Global Security Administration’s idiotic subterranean hideout. She’d only spent maybe a week and a half in the bowels of GSA’s underground base of operations, but she’d gotten used to the echoing footfall of guards and medics; as well as the damp odor of sweating walls and hothouse vegetables. No, she was no longer in Underfoot Black. But then where had they taken her?

The last thing she remembered was climbing out of the cabin window in West Glacier, Montana, while Kaden Jaxx was fast asleep at his desk. They had escaped Underfoot Black, and stolen Special Agent Nick Cole’s Oospor Class 9 dropship. Only after Cole had tried to take her life. Small, but important detail. She was a marked woman. There were people after her. People who meant business.

She'd had to leave the cabin and Jaxx. He could take care of himself. Well, he could if he remembered who the hell he was. If he kept up his doofy, “I am just an archaeologist” act, he was dead meat. But, that was his problem, not hers. A helicopter had come in for a landing and she was pretty sure it was coming to take her. She ran, hid behind a tree, and then blackness. She had no idea how long she’d been out. She lifted her hand, to investigate the back of her head, but the band that wrapped around the head of the table, and around her waist and chest, made it impossible. But not around her legs. Why? That was dumb. Whoever restrained her were amateurs.

She took a deep breath. And thought. The throbbing was probably caused by a smack to the back of her skull. Then she remembered his face. Right before she blacked out. Slade’s ugly mug.

There was no way of escaping Slade. If he wanted you, he had you, whether you hid or not. But she had to escape now.

Her belly welled with fire. Anger shot through her veins and into her muscles. She cringed and lifted her head, stretching the straps that held her down. She might not have been good at hiding, but she was good at breaking out.

It was pointless to lock her up.

She strained against the strap. Her lips curled and her nose twisted. Neck shaking, veins bulging, the straps held and she let up with a grunt. “Slade? Let me free.”

No answer.

“Slade, I know you hear me. Let me go.”

Silence.

Perhaps she was alone? The quiet in the room could be a clue, but quiet also meant tight lips, hands behind their backs, only talk when called upon by a superior. She couldn’t make out anything but the ceiling, and someone could be behind her, to the left, to the right.

But no one came to her side to stop her from attempting to break the straps. Her hands not bound, yet with the restraints tight as a guitar string, she wiggled her hips and strained with all her might to lean to the side. One hip a few millimeters higher than the other. She clenched her teeth and her hip strained against the pressure. It was enough space to slip her arm up and out of the strap. Ditto with the other side.

She let out all air to deflate her lungs, hence slightly shrinking her chest cavity. She grabbed the sides of the table, wiggled her chest and head. Thank God for sweat, or sliding through the forehead strap would have been a nightmare. Maybe impossible.

She turned her head to the side and wiggled toward the foot of the table, her knees up, and strangely, the soles of her boots on the edge. She didn’t bother wondering what she wore when she woke up, but a jumpsuit and boots were fine with her.

She used her feet and legs to help pull her out from underneath the chest strap, which lay loose above her head on the table, the waist strap now just below her breasts. Easy. She wiggled toward the head of the table, moving the other direction. At her waist, she sat up, changing the direction of her body and although tight, she slipped through her waist, then her legs and feet.

Out, she stretched her arms and legs like a cat after a nap. Then a sensation ran through her like adrenaline pumping from every nerve and synapse in her body. She felt more alive than she should, especially after a conk to the back of the head. She vibrated, not intensely, but enough to recognize. “Dammit, Jaxx.”

It meant one thing. Jaxx was near. If it weren’t for his blood, she’d be a normal human. Her pineal gland would resemble the size of just about every human on Earth. And whatever powers this gland released in her never would have been. Why it enlarged when near Jaxx remained a mystery. Before she left the Secret Space Program due to near fatal injuries, burned to a crisp, face deformed, her skin like rough sand paper, she enjoyed her regular, albeit, adventurous existence. A pilot, a captain, she’d battled extraterrestrials on worlds too top secret for even the President’s eyes. She docked with Star Carriers only the one percent were privy too. But after she crashed, after her skin went through fiery hell, Slade fixed her with advanced tech years later, and for his gain.