Mark.
Her heart thumped wildly in her chest as she willed her uncooperative limbs to move. She’d wanted this moment for so long . . . the chance to wrap her arms around Mark and tell him that she loved him. That she loved him, and that she was pissed with him for dying.
Marcie’s eyes snapped open again and she groaned, lolling her head to the side to avoid the lips from pressing against hers again. She sputtered and coughed as water flowed from her lungs to the muddy surface marred with pebbles under her cheek. Her lungs burned, and adrenaline coursed through her body as she tried to take a normal breath.
Mark is dead, her mind screamed. He’s dead, and you’re dead.
But she wasn’t dead, was she? Her searing lungs and freezing limbs were a testament to that fact. Death couldn’t suck this badly.
Heaving great gulping breaths against the damp rocks, Marcie puked.
Someone was at her side then, rolling her more firmly to her side and pulling wisps of hair from her face. Memories came flooding back to her mind.
The Balerion Sector. Tyler’s face in Captain Giles’s office as the captain labeled her expendable. Then, memories of rattling to her death in the excursion pod. Seeing the bright green lands of the habitable planet. Elation quickly chased on its heels by terror as she dropped like a ball of lead into the waters below. And then . . . nothing.
Marcie’s entire body began to shake. Partly a naturally biological response to being soaked through in the cold night air. Mostly, though, she shook from fear.
Tyler had said there were no signs of life on this planet, hostile or otherwise. Marcie gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering. Her lips still felt warm from the stranger’s touch.
She shifted, stones digging into her side. Slowly, she peered over her shoulder, and her heart leapt into her throat.
Sitting back on his heels, his expression one of relief tinged with curiosity, was a man.
A double moon had risen in the sky, bathing the man’s features with a silver light. His hair was dark, as were his clothes. But the skin that stretched over the sharp, chiseled planes of his face . . . it was a pale and muted green.
The man met her gaze for a moment before furrowing his brows and frowning. He narrowed his eyes at her. And then a large smile spread over his face.
He opened his mouth and began to speak, but Marcie could not understand the words.
The man looked from his body to hers and back again, and then nodded his head once. He held his hands forward, and a bright blue light began to shimmer from his fingertips.
Marcie sat up, scrambling backwards, slipping on the stones, the pebbles cutting into her palms. She started screaming, and then suddenly the frown was back on the man's face. He took a step towards her, holding those blue-tipped fingers out in her direction. In the silvery darkness, something snaked around his arm, slithering over his wrist and then darting forward.
Marcie’s screams intensified, and then her mouth was full of tiny tendrils of plant life. They grew and crowded her mouth, muffling the screams. Her entire body shook, and she thrashed, trying to fight her way away from the man.
When she lifted her hands and put them on the vines twisting and spreading in her mouth, they began to branch out, the tendrils slipping past her lips and slithering around her skull. Binding her hands to her head.
The man looked back at her and said something more that she still couldn't understand.
Marcie focused her gaze and saw that he had other vines going from his other arm, dashing out into the night. She didn't know what was happening or what was going on. All she knew was that she could not move, and this creature—this alien—held her captive. That was her only certainty.
He looked down at her as the vine snapped back into his body, and he held out before her a brown leather pouch. With a look of apology, he knelt down beside her and rummaged in the bag. The vines from his other arm still crowded her mouth, making her gag.
Tears were slipping past the lids of her eyes, and she pleaded with those same eyes to him, hoping that he would let her go.
His hand stretched forth from the bag, revealing the shimmering, shining pointedness of something that looked eerily similar to a gun.
Marcie's eyes widened, and she shook her head violently from side to side.
This isn't how I want to die. This isn't how I want to die.
He approached her, the gun glittering, and she began to sob, choking on the tendrils spreading down her throat.
Shifting the vines that bound her, the man pressed the gun against Marcie’s neck and pulled the trigger.
8
Briar
Confident that the Universal Translator Chip had implanted correctly, Briar returned the implantation gun into his pouch and began to slowly remove his vines from the woman's mouth.
He’d long ago made it a custom to carry the implantation gun with him, just in case there was an intruder. Chances were great that whoever managed to find their way onto his planet would not speak the language of the Verdant Lands. And it was his duty to communicate with trespassers and turn them over to the Elders, transferring all the knowledge that he had gained along the way to the rulers of their settlement. A task that was difficult to accomplish if one didn't understand the language of the foreigner.
“What in the absolute fuck was that about?” the woman demanded as soon as his vines cleared her mouth. Her eyes blazed at him.
Briar’s browse shut up, and he gave the woman a scathing look. “Do all females talk so harshly where you're from?”
The woman's eyes went wide, and she crept back further, slipping on the pebbles. Her back firmly pressed against the tree trunk that had been their salvation from the aquatic beasts. “I . . . I can understand what you're saying.”
Though the words had come out as a statement, Briar could hear the question in them. He lifted the pouch and secured it around his waist, tapping it lightly. “Universal Translator Chip,” he said by way of explanation.
The furrow in the woman's brow deepened, and she gave him a quizzical look.
He returned to look right back. “Your people do not have the capability of transferring your language to those who do not speak it?”
The woman shook her head slowly as though trying to comprehend what Briar was saying. He crouched down, putting himself at eye level with her.
“How have you mastered spaceflight,” he said, gesturing up to the star-filled heaven above, “if you cannot even know that you would be able to communicate with whomever you would encounter?”
A shock rippled through the woman's body, and she swallowed. “You're the first.”
Briar frowned. “The first what?”
“The first, um, person that any of us have ever encountered who wasn’t like . . .our kind,” she said, choosing her words carefully. Her dark hair was rapidly drying into tight spirals that framed her face like a soft, fuzzy halo in the light of the moons overhead.
A hearty laugh escaped Briar’s lips before he could rein it back in. “Well, I know that you've never met one of my kind before,” he said dryly. “Because I have no awareness of your kind, and that's my job, you see. Being aware of creatures who come to the Verdant Lands.”
The woman wrapped her arms tightly around her chest. Her eyes narrowed shrewdly at their surroundings. “Is that what you call your planet? The Verdant Lands?
Briar’s chest tightened. He’d given away too much already. There was something about the vulnerable way the woman presented herself to him now, or maybe it was the way that he'd saved her from the lake beasts . . . Whatever caused it, he felt connected to her in some way.
He shook his head gravely, trying to clear it. So many emotions were running through his body . . . at what he'd seen, the creature that had looked eerily like Moss. At the instinctual protectiveness he felt towards the woman . . .
Clenching his fists, Briar met the woman’s eyes. He couldn't succumb to his emotions now. He had a job to do, and he would do it.
Grabbing the woman roughly by the arm, he lifted her to her feet. She stumbled against him, her breaths coming hard against his chest. Though she struggled, he kept his grip firm.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked as he began to lead her away from the lake, up the incline back to the settlement.
“I'm taking you to the Elders,” he said not wanting to give away more information. If the woman had never seen anyone not of her kind—which he still didn't know quite what to make of that statement—there was no chance that Briar would be the one to give her information about his kind. The Verda. She knew more than enough already, as far as he was concerned.
“I . . . I don't want to go to see your fucking Elders. I have . . .” She began to thrash her hands, reaching behind her and pressing between the blades of her shoulders. Her face fell at once. “I had a mission.” She gave Briar a scathing look. “Where is my pack?”
He tilted his chin toward the lake. “Already resting at the muddy bottom, I expect.”
“You threw out my pack?” she accused tartly through gritted teeth.
He froze then, turning back to glare at her, their noses almost touching in the dark.
“I saved your life, yes,” he said, his tone cold and hard. He was a good natured man normally, but nothing about this situation was normal. “I have no interest in listening to you grumble and complain about your discarded garment and whatever was in that pack. We have a long journey ahead of us, and it would be in your best interest to be silent.”
She glared at him defiantly but pursed her lips shut.
At least she can follow orders, he thought bitterly as he guided her through the thick foliage, careful to mind his step and illuminate a path for her so she could navigate as well.
A long time passed before the woman spoke again.
“I had a mission,” she said her voice wavering. “I had a job. Something important.”
Briar grunted, parting a dense patch of philafar vines for them to pass, the jagged black thorns slicing into his palm. “And what was your mission?” he asked, lifting his palm to his mouth to lick the wounds clean. “What were you supposed to do here on my planet?”
“Collect data,” she said, using her free hand to wipe at the snot dripping from her nose. “To see if your air was breathable. Your water drinkable. Your soil fertile. To see if there was any radiation coming from your core.”
“Well,” Briar said slowly. “It would seem to me that you have experienced two of these questions and found the answer satisfactory.”
“In what way?” she asked, glaring at him.
He gave her a soft smile.
“If I'm not mistaken, you do seem to be breathing perfectly fine. And,” he said pointedly, “you took in quite a good amount of the lake’s water and cast it back up again. I would argue that constitutes ingesting to some degree. In fact, I'm pretty confident that you did ingest quite a lot of water when you were under the surface for so long. And you're still living. Still grumbling.” He shrugged, and faced forward again, guiding through the dark forest. “I would call that test a success. Your kind can breathe and drink here. Furthermore, “he said, gesturing around to allow his bioluminescent to shine on the short, bushy plants and the thick lianas growing up the sturdy blue and brown trunks of the trees around them. “Unless you have vision problems, I'm pretty sure you can see that our soil grows plant life perfectly fine.”
The woman said nothing in return, simply shambling on behind him, subtly pulling her arm away from his grasp. Or attempting to, at least.
Briar smirked and continued walking through the darkness.
“The fourth test . . . this nuclear test,” he said, trying the word out and finding it awkward to say. “I’m not confident what all that entails or what significance the results might have for you and your people. Unfortunately, you will not be able to complete that test.”
“Actually,” the woman said faintly, “if you would let me get back to my pod—”
“You're what?” Briar asked, giving her a look over his shoulder.
“My pod? The thing that I landed . . . well . . .”
“Crashed here in?” he suggested.
“Technically, I didn’t crash. I ejected myself over the lake before that could happen.”
Briar grunted. “I am acutely aware of your descent into those particular waters.”
The woman cleared her throat. “If you would just let me get back to my excursion pod, I could run the last test and call for . . .”
Her voice fell away, and the silence stretch between them. The only sounds to be heard were those of sticks breaking underfoot, the rustle of leaves as they traveled through the foliage, and the soft trilling sounds of a grakin’s hunting call. The simple night noises were making Briar’s skin prickle, and his skull pounded at the words the woman had left unsaid.
“For who?” Briar asked, stopping on the path. He tightened his hold on her upper arm, his eyes searching her blank face. “How many of you are there?”
The woman didn't meet his gaze.
Briar gave her a gentle jostle. “How many of your kind are there?”
“Over one hundred,” she said, glaring at him defiantly. “One hundred humans from Earth.”
She said the name of her planet like a challenge, as though it was supposed to mean anything to Briar. But it didn't.
“Are they all equally as useless as you?” he asked savagely. “Can I and my kind expect them to simply tumble onto the surface of our planet and get gobbled up by the first creature that manages to slither or walk by?” He barked a laugh, not waiting for an answer. “Do your Elders think that you are all so expendable?’
He saw the hurt in her eyes instantly and felt sorrow at having wounded her. But the words were out, and he couldn't take them back.
“No,” she said, staring down at the ground. She wiggled her bare toe into the soil for a moment and then pulled it back, rubbing it against the top of her other foot. When she spoke again, her words came softer. Lifeless. “They are much better trained than I am. They were meant for this . . .” She glanced around for a moment, her eyes glistening. “For going to new worlds. For finding new, habitable planets. I'm just a—”
“Habitable planets?” Briar interjected sharply. “This planet is not habitable to your people.”
She looked taken aback. “I only meant planets that would be able to sustain life for our kind.”
Briar turn his back to her then, yanking her along as he traveled through the night. His speed increased.
He had to get back to the settlement and present this woman to the Elders before he managed to screw things up irreparably. But he couldn't keep the words back. He couldn't keep from saying them.
“Your kind will not be welcome here. We have no interest in letting some foreigners come and take our planet over.” His chest was heaving, partly from the exertion of navigating the terrain but mostly from the effort of keeping back the sharper words he longed to say. He took a shuddering breath. “It almost happened once before, and we will not let it happen again. Nowhere close. Not a chance.”
The woman took in a ragged breath.
Briar looked over his shoulder to see what she was doing. Her mouth was open as though she meant to speak, but she snapped it shut. She nibbled on her lip and glared at him. And then, as suddenly as it appeared, all of the defiance in her body melted away like dew in the morning sun.
“It's not like it will matter anyway.” The woman sniffed her delicate brown nose as though she were about to cry. “Unless I contact the captain of our ship in . . .” She looked down at her wrist.
A small device blinked there, and Briar narrowed his eyes at it. He’d not noticed the device before, not with all of that business with the aquatic beasts and trying to force life back into the woman's limp body and then fighting her as she screamed on the bank of the lake. But now he noticed it, sharply and clearly. Strange symbols blinked on it, and he wondered what the purpose of the mechani
sm was.
“I have exactly twenty-nine hours and thirty-seven minutes to send a communication back to the captain with my field test results,” she said, giving him a glare. “If I don't do that . . . “
“Then what?” Briar asked, stopping on the path again. If they kept up all of this starting and stopping and talking, it would take them until dawn to reach the settlement.
“They'll leave,” she said, not meeting his gaze.
His chest began to burn, and he rubbed his fist against it. Why was he feeling rage for this woman? He didn't know anything about her. In fact, the limited time they'd spent together had not been pleasant in the slightest. And yet, just the thought of her people leaving her—abandoning her on the surface of a foreign world about which they knew absolutely nothing—made his blood boil and his mind rage.
“They would leave you?” he asked seeking further clarification. Perhaps he was confused by her meaning. There's only so much the Universal Translator Chip could do, after all. It could translate words, yes, but small piece of nanotech couldn't convey nuances and pure meaning. When confusing communication occurred, there was a breakdown in translation, more often than not.
The woman’s nostrils flared, and she all but bared her teeth at Briar like a wild animal.
“Abandoned me. Leave me to die, or maybe even think I was dead already.”
“Return to Earth with all of their equipment and all of their people?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice shuddering. “Leave me. Exactly what I said.”
Briar gave her a short nod. “My intention was not to offend you . . .” He paused. “What is the name that your people call you?”
“What?” the woman asked, blinking at him. She'd been staring at the ground again as if her mind were somewhere far away.
“The name by which your people call you?” repeated Briar, softer. Kinder. “What is it?”
“Marcie,” she said, her brown eyes flicking back up to meet his. And then, as if on second thought, she added, “Garcia. Marcie Garcia.”
Blooming Desire Page 4
