He crouched next to her and sniffed, detecting the delightful bouquet of rotting vegetation that drifted up near the ground. Rachel went to one knee next to him and did her own sniffing. She tilted her head, then sniffed again, before looking up at him. “I don’t smell anything.”
“It’s faint. You have to know what to look for.”
She studied him. “You were also born on Harp. I know several geneticists who’d give their firstborn child to take a look at your DNA.”
He gave her the kind of cold glare that would have sent most norms running in the other direction. “No one’s going to be studying my DNA.”
“I didn’t say they were going to,” she responded absently, her attention moving to the terrain ahead of them.
She’d barely noticed the glare. Which only made him want her more. He was a cat, and she intrigued him.
“I said they’d like to. I have no intention of helping the people behind this commit whatever crimes they had planned.” She pointed slightly to the left of their position. “That way?”
Aidan was impressed. “That way,” he confirmed. “The footing will get steadily worse as we descend. At some point, vines will become a serious problem. They start climbing mid-slope, but anything deeper than that and they’re all over the ground. Keep your knife handy.”
“Always,” she said and started forward.
Chapter Nine
Ciudad Vaquero, capital city of Harp, aka “the city”
Amanda leaned against the huge tree, one palm flat against the coarse surface, fingers digging deep into the thick ridges that marked the many centuries the grandfather had stood watch over Harp. No one knew for sure how old the forests of the Green were—thousands of years, rather than hundreds. But those trees, the oldest of the old, remained hidden in the depths of the Green, standing vigil over a planet that had changed and grown around them.
The real question was when the forest had become… Sentient was too strong a word, but it was something close. The Green was absolutely aware and very active in defense of the planet and every creature that dwelled within its shadows, including a nearly endless variety of vicious and unpredictable killers. Shifters sat at the top of those killers now, but they’d only been around for the last five hundred or so years, and it was partly the Green’s sentience that had driven the colonists’ scientists to such desperation that they’d created shifters.
Leaving one hand on the tree’s rough bark, she rubbed her belly with the other, feeling her babies reach out to match her touch. “That’s right, you little hooligans,” she told them. “You’re clever, but we’re ready for you. Your daddy’s a badass, never forget it.”
The Green hummed its delight beneath her fingers, making her laugh out loud. Ever since she’d gotten pregnant, the trees had sent her nothing but joy every time she touched them. It didn’t matter what else was going on in the Green, what alarms Rhodry or the others might be responding to. The Green was thrilled with her coming babies, and it let her know.
She’d wondered, at first, if other women on Harp experienced the same thing, but then it had hit her. She was the first, the very first, woman in Harp’s history capable of hearing the trees’ song, at least as far as anyone knew. She suspected her unexpected ability had to do with her father, whom she’d never met but who—she’d recently learned—had been an earth witch on his home planet. Apparently, he’d been able to make things grow—sort of a green thumb times a thousand.
Amanda would have liked to discuss all of this with her mother, who was Chief Medical Officer onboard one of Earth Fleet’s largest armadas, but the unique nature of the Green, and the very existence of shifters, was a secret that Harp had no intention of sharing with anyone. Especially not the fleet.
She stroked her belly again, letting the ancient tree’s life force calm her little wild ones, connecting them to the vast Green that would be their home. “Don’t you worry, babies,” she murmured. “You’re safe as safe can be, even when your daddy’s not here. Because your momma’s a badass, too.”
Though, that didn’t mean that all three of them didn’t miss Rhodry when he was gone. His seniority in the Guild, coupled with his informal advisory role with Ardrigh Cristobal, had kept him away from home too often lately. Few people knew it yet, but as soon as their little shifters were born, she and Rhodry would be moving permanently back to the mountains of Clanhome where their children could grow up surrounded by cousins, just as Rhodry had. Family was everything to the clan. Besides, there were plenty of other powerful shifters who could manage the Guild and advise Cristobal. It was time for them to step up.
In fact, once Rhodry returned from checking in with Aidan, they’d be making a long-planned visit to Clanhome to finalize plans for the move. They’d be traveling by hovercraft—which she’d been forced to acknowledge was necessary, given the distance and her temporarily diminished physical abilities, which privately drove her a little crazy. And she still didn’t know any details about the latest crisis. She had her connection to the trees and so knew that Aidan was all right, and Rhodry was on his way home. But she wouldn’t know what the threat had been until he returned.
The trees’ song changed abruptly, turning all sunny and happy. Amanda smiled. She didn’t have to wonder who was coming. She looked up with a bright smile for Cullen.
“Come to fetch us home, Cullen?”
He grinned. They both knew he’d been lurking close by the whole time. He hated it when she wandered off alone. He trusted her abilities and especially trusted the Green’s protection of her, but he was never far away, either. He stayed out of sight and pretended she didn’t know, but she always did. “Your mother sent a message,” he said, as if that were the reason he’d found her.
“What’d she say?” she asked.
“Well, I don’t know, do I, lass? I’m not in the habit of reading other people’s mail.”
She laughed and hooked her hand through his arm as they walked back to the Guild Hall and the house nearby that she and Rhodry had built. “Any word from Rhodry?” she asked. She’d discovered that the shifter network was sometimes more finely tuned than hers. Maybe it was years of practice, or maybe just because the cousins had all grown up together, their minds connected virtually from birth.
“He’s close.”
“Hear that, babies?” she said, resting a hand on the swell of her belly.
“You think they can hear you?” he asked curiously.
“Of course. Just like they hear the Green’s song, and Rhodry, too.”
He thought about it while they climbed the stairs of the house. “You don’t let Rhodry sing to them, do you? He has a terrible voice.”
She laughed. “That’s what he says. He leaves the singing to me.” She picked up the envelope with her mother’s message as she passed the small table just inside the main room, then she sank onto the couch. Shoving a pillow behind her back, she slipped a finger under the sealed envelope flap and said, “Let’s see what Grandma has to say.”
“Elise says she’s much too young to be called that.” Cullen’s somewhat scolding tone didn’t surprise Amanda.
Men had always liked her mother. Elise was beautiful and charming, and delicate enough that men instantly wanted to protect her. But Cullen mostly liked her because she always fed him when she came to visit. He was a big guy and, according to Rhodry, young enough that he was still growing. He wouldn’t get any taller, but apparently his muscles still had some bulking up to do. She couldn’t imagine how big he’d be when he finished, but it didn’t matter because he’d still be Cullen—dangerous as hell and viciously devoted to Rhodry and her. And now, to their children.
Amanda read the short message and didn’t know whether she wanted to wince or smile. Maybe a little of both. “She’s coming to visit.”
Cullen brightened predictably, but he didn’t have to deal with the implications of her visit. Amanda was always happy to see her mother, but this time… Elise was about to become a grandmother to two l
ittle shifters, and there was no way in hell Amanda would be able to keep the secret of shifters’ existence from her any longer. She’d have to be told, but she’d also have to be sworn to secrecy. No one else could know. Not fleet, not Elise’s vice-admiral boyfriend, no one.
Amanda sighed, but a moment later, the trees’ song changed in a way that was just for her. She started to get up, but Cullen beat her to it, opening the balcony door just as Rhodry came into view, going from the trees to the balcony and into the room in two graceful leaps. He shifted almost immediately, grabbing the drawstring pants Cullen tossed at him, pulling them on with a grin as he walked over to the couch.
“Acushla.”
Amanda’s heart swelled at the familiar endearment, and she fought back tears—stupid pregnancy hormones—as she grinned back up at him. God, she loved this man. And her babies did, too. Whether they were responding to her feelings or to the sound of their father’s voice, she didn’t know, but they were wide awake and knocking on her belly as if to get his attention.
He sat next to her and smoothed one big hand over their rowdy twins while pulling her into a kiss with the other. “I missed you,” he murmured against her lips. “Are you all right?”
“We’re fine. How’s Aidan?”
“Falling in love.”
“Again?” she asked skeptically, while from across the room Cullen made a dismissive noise.
Rhodry laughed, and the babies bounced happily at the sound. She groaned and muttered, “Stop it, you two.”
He smiled, feeling the twins’ movement beneath his hand. “I think Aidan might be serious this time.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Cullen muttered.
Amanda was inclined to go along with him. She didn’t know Aidan as well as either one of the two men, but in the time she had known him, he’d always had at least two women vying for his affection, and frequently more than that. The idea that he’d finally met someone he was serious about? That barely computed.
Rhodry kissed the side of her forehead, his expression abruptly serious. “Unfortunately, we have much bigger problems than Aidan’s love life. An Earther ship snuck onto the planet somehow—”
Cullen cursed as Amanda said, “That shouldn’t be possible.”
“No, it shouldn’t, but it happened, and it gets worse. They landed far enough away from both the city and Clanhome that no one would notice, took out machine guns, and shot up the Green. They waited until Aidan showed up to fight them off, then they captured and caged him.”
Cullen growled his curse this time, the sound of an enraged beast.
Rhodry nodded in his direction. “We think that was their goal. They wanted a cat, and they wanted him alive.”
“I’m assuming you didn’t leave any of them alive, since the Green’s calmed down. Mostly, anyway. How’d you get Aidan out?” Amanda asked. She felt nothing for whoever had been on that ship. They’d broken the fleet’s embargo and Harp law in pursuit of profit, and they’d paid the price. There was only one reason to capture a great hunting beast like the ones which shifters resembled in their cat forms, and that was to sell them to a zoo or someone’s private collection for display and breeding. The only other reason would be if they’d somehow discovered the truth about the existence of shifters. But if anyone at fleet had learned about that, they wouldn’t be sending a single privateer to sneak onto the planet. They’d be invading.
“You’d be right about the crew’s fate,” Rhodry agreed. “But Aidan had already escaped. Thanks to the new love of his life.”
“The woman was that far out? Is she with a logging family? You know how much they hate shifters.”
“Even better. She was a scientist onboard the ship. She’s from Earth.”
…
The Swamp
Rachel had experienced some unpleasant ecosystems in her explorations, but nothing compared to Harp’s swamp. The damn thing shouldn’t even exist for all the reasons she’d told Aidan, but she was beginning to realize that when it came to Harp, few of the established scientific rules seemed to matter. His explanation for the swamp’s existence made a kind of sense, but only on Harp. And regardless of whether it should be there or not, it most definitely was. They’d gone steadily downslope for about fifteen yards, and she could smell the rot that Aidan had picked up from the top. She still couldn’t figure out how he’d done that. There’d been a slight breeze blowing toward the hidden rift that should have made it impossible. But, apparently, not for Aidan. She’d been joking about the DNA sharing, but she really did believe he displayed some serious genetic mutations that had probably made it possible for his ancestors to survive. He was fascinating, and not only because of his DNA.
He was, unfortunately, just her type—physically big guys who were not only super smart, but also tough and strong enough to match, or exceed, her skills when it came to survival trekking. Brains were a must, but so was a love for exploration. From the little she’d seen, she already knew that Harp was unique enough for a lifetime of new challenges and discoveries. She just had to keep her heart out of the mix. Because as much as she was attracted to Aidan, there was another way he was her type. That easy charm seemed to go hand in hand with the kind of men she found attractive, but it was like a fatal flaw. She’d been all but engaged to such a man once. A beautiful man, a wonderful lover. He’d been smart and full of adventure, an expedition guide like herself. She’d been madly in love, convinced she’d found the perfect man to share her life with. Until she’d discovered he had a lover on every planet he visited who believed the same. It had been a hard lesson, but she’d learned it. Men like that—handsome, charming to everyone they met—should never be trusted with a woman’s heart. They loved the chase too much to ever settle for just one.
And why was she wasting brainpower thinking about broken hearts? If she didn’t focus on the ground underfoot, she was going to end up with a broken ankle, which would be far more painful and possibly fatal. And then, she’d have to deal with Aidan’s irritation at having to slow down because of it. As it was, the skin on her arms remained red and irritated, like a bad sunburn, from exposure to the pongo’s blood. She didn’t need to add any more injuries to the mix. On Wolfrum’s advice—perhaps the one honest thing he’d told her—she’d taken a prophylactic round of broad-spectrum antibiotics and had another full round in her pack. But a truly serious injury could leave her vulnerable enough that infection could take hold. A hot, wet place like this was undoubtedly teeming with bacteria. Who knew if Earth meds could deal with it? Far better to avoid breaking her ankle in the first place.
“Not much farther now,” Aidan murmured. They’d both begun speaking softly since beginning their descent. There was something about this place that made one want to keep a low profile—a sense of opportunistic predators lurking, waiting for prey unwary enough to draw attention.
“I’m guessing there’ll be no camp?” she asked. More likely they’d simply hunker down and wait out the night. A fire was unlikely, she thought. It would draw too much attention. Same would go for the smell of any hot food. She thought about how long he’d said it would take to cross to the other side. It was going to be a dreary few days…or maybe weeks.
Aidan touched her shoulder, indicating she should pause. She stopped in place, waiting. In the short distance they’d come, she’d already learned several hazards of the swamp, including a muddy mound of what he’d told her were tiny, biting insects that found the smallest gaps in your clothing and were nearly impossible to get rid of once they’d burrowed their way in.
She followed his gaze as he looked around in the dying light. It was already so dark where they were that she was maneuvering mostly by feel. She longed for her little flashlight but knew it would only attract insects of almost every variety. She wanted to ask what he was looking for but waited to see, instead. His gaze settled on a sturdy-looking tree about twenty feet to their right. She’d noticed, before it became too dark to see, that the farther they descended, t
he more slender the trees became. Looking up, she saw the crisscrossed branches she’d come to expect of the Green, but she could tell that these would never support her weight. Maybe if she’d been four-legged, as Aidan had noted, so that she could distribute her weight differently, they might have held. But not in her bipedal human form.
“You sure you can climb?” he whispered.
She wanted to grab him by the shirt and snarl at him. Yes, she sure as hell could fucking climb. But they were both under stress, so she sucked in a breath and simply nodded. “I can climb.”
She could barely see his face, but his eyes had taken on that same glow, so she saw it when he winked at her. He’d been teasing her. There they were, heading for this swamp he’d given her such dire warnings about, and he was still laying on the charm. She didn’t know if that made her like him more or less.
Oh, what the fuck. She was an idiot because it definitely made her like him more.
Taking her hand and holding it close, he guided her over to the tree he’d selected and indicated she should climb.
She gave him a skeptical look. “And you’ll be right behind me.”
“Right on your very fine ass,” he assured her, laughing when she punched his gut. A gut which was hard as a fucking rock. “Climb,” he said seriously.
So, she climbed. And apparently impressed her Harp companion.
“Where’d you learn to climb like that?” he asked, settling down next to her on a broad branch. She couldn’t help noticing that he’d positioned himself between her and anything that might come at them from the front. With the trunk at her back and a second broad branch overhead, they were as protected as they could be.
“My father was Research Director at the Redwoods Sanctuary in old California when I was growing up. My brother and I spent most of our childhood climbing trees as big or bigger than these.”
“I’ve seen pictures of those in the old archives. Do they still exist on Earth?”
Shifter Planet: The Return Page 14
