by Renee Rose
I catch my breath. “They’re really here.”
The relief I feel is almost unbearable. “We can get them.” My voice catches. I crouch down and reach out, touching the nearest one. With these, I can survive without the Kraa. “I can get them.” The petals are soft and springy, and my finger glides softly down the stem. “Look, Khrys. See how this one has a slight sheen on it?” I touch it lightly. “This is the one.” I point to the flower next to it. “This one is darker, just a bit. It doesn’t have the right pollen.”
He looks intently, bends down to examine it, too. “Got it.”
I smell the flower. “It’s like life incarnate.” I close my eyes for a second.
“Don’t let your guard down now,” Khrys warns. He’s back on his feet, and his stance is that of a warrior, peering around. “Work fast. I have a bad feeling about this place.”
“We’re alone, except for the antlex. Right?” It’s beautiful and empty, even with the darkening skies, just us and some far off animals and the rolling fields, miles of them, as far as the eye can see. There’s a closer herd of antlex, too. Their musky odor drifts over on the breeze, mixing with the fresh scent of the fields.
“Why do you have a bad feeling?” He is a warrior, after all. I should pay attention to his intuition. I stand up and check the area, but I don’t see or hear anything unusual.
“It seems too easy.” He lowers his voice. “I’m not used to simple situations. But the only thing around is the beasts.” He shakes his head. “Keep an eye out while you work.”
I slide the first canvas bag off my shoulder, pull on the gloves, and remove the shears. Holding them in my gloved hand, I bend down. “Get as many as you can,” I urge, but he’s already busy and has half a bag filled.
The stalks are thick and reedy, but the sharp blades cut them like water. The pale blue blossoms are heavy with thick yellow pollen. On the ripest plants, the heads hang low, weighed down by their golden treasure.
“So many,” I whisper, piling flower after flower into my bag. On a whim, I taste some pollen, wondering if extra doses can keep me headache-free longer. It’s got a neutral taste, but is oddly appealing, so I eat more. Then I stuff some flowers into the pocket of my jacket, just in case I need them later. I feel the urgent need to have them on my person at all times.
“On Zandia, we have ag experts who can figure out how to make these grow.” Khrys looks at me. “Humans, Kailani.” He’s digging up a few by the roots and placing them into storage bags with root support.
“Slaves?”
“Not slaves. Humans must have a Zandian sponsor—a master, if you will, and they must be contributing members of society, but they are free. I told you that.”
“Free but with masters.”
“Yes. Usually their mate.”
Mate. I dart a look at him, heat suddenly swirling between my legs.
Would he be my mate? My sponsor?
My...master? I hated the word before now, but remembering the way he corrected me on the ship, I might not find such a master so unappealing.
I sneak a glance at his impossibly large hands. The way his horns tilt and lean in my direction when he catches me looking. His nostrils flare like he catches my scent, and I flush, realizing, suddenly, what he must smell.
My arousal. I’m wet for him. What would it be like to breed with such a male? I’ve never thought of such a thing without shuddering, but now, I find myself suddenly quite interested.
I give my head a shake. Focus, Kailani. We have flowers to pick.
My hands blur as I gather as many flowers as I can, stuffing the bag until it’s overfull, and I have to push the flowers down to close the water-tight seam. Then I start on filling my next sack.
“I’m getting the dried seeds, too.” He snips some withered blooms and shakes them into another container.
The sky rumbles. A sudden mist descends, patchy fog, thicker in some areas, swirling like smoke. “Veck, this weather is odd. We need to go soon. Let’s finish.” Khrys’s voice is taut.
I glance upward. The clouds have darkened and seem lower. Is the air thicker?
“I think it’s going to storm right now,” I whisper. “The pressure is changing fast. I feel it in my body.” I touch my ears and my chest.
Khrys nods. He says something, but it’s drowned out by a louder crash from the sky, like boulders tumbling down a metal chute. The closest antlex tense up; one flicks its tail, and another goes silent, head to the side. Without warning, I feel the unease that Krys seemed to sense before, but I can’t tell why—
Suddenly Khrys’s horns shoot up. “Kailani!” His voice is sharp. “Get down. Now.”
He grabs me and tugs my arm hard, and I crash down beside him into the packed earth, crushing flowers beneath my body. Something whirs over my head, and the flower beside me is sliced clean from the stalk. By an arrow.
“We’re not alone. The locals have found us.”
My breath comes fast and my cheek presses into the dirt and rough detritus of old stems and leaves, dried out and scratchy. The scent of the crushed leaves and blossoms, green and woodsy, rises. “Where?”
“Straight out. And behind us. They’ve encircled us. Veck. They must have used the herds of antlex as a cover.”
“And now that they’re attacking, the animals are scared.” I put my hand out and touch the sack. “We have to get away.”
“Here.” Khrys grapples at his waist and slides something to me. “It’s a laser gun. I’ve set it to high stun. Use it when you have to.”
He doesn’t even hesitate. The fact that he trusts me with an actual weapon—something I could turn on him instead and kill him—fills me with such gratitude and emotion that I can’t focus on the danger for a second.
He has another one, and he adjusts something on the handle. “We’re going to fight our way out of this.”
I bite my lip, forgetting about my surge of feelings—all that exists now is our escape. “When?”
“Soon.” His voice is terse. “Wait for my command.”
I scan the area, but see nothing. “Where?” I can’t believe my enhanced eyes can’t find them. The mist plays tricks, showing me figures where there are none, hiding the real beings. “I don’t see.” My body begins to tremble with fear and frustration. “Why don’t I see them? With my eyes, I should.”
“They’re in camouflage.” He sounds disgusted with himself. “I should have seen it. Point it at a being’s chest and pull the trigger. Don’t flinch. The laser sight will show you when you’re locked on.”
“I still can’t—”
The grass around me erupts into motion. The closest patch of flowers rises and moves toward me, with arms and legs and a face. I scream. I can’t understand what’s happening, and before I realize that it’s a being in a cleverly created suit of foliage, an arrow flies at my face—
“Move!” Khrys grabs me and jerks. My arm explodes in pain from the tug but the arrow zings harmlessly past me, so close to my ear that I feel the barest brush of the feather tail. “Fire, Kailani. Now.”
I raise the weapon. I force myself to focus and get into the zone of attack that helped me so well back at the auction. When the world slows to a crawl, I know I’ve hit the sweet spot. A local being pops up out of the mist and raises a bow to his shoulder; my weapon is ready first, and I fire, dropping the being to the ground. Then I get another one.
Behind me, Khrys roars a fearsome cry and shoots fast, dropping at least five. “There are so many of them,” he calls out. “At least forty. Our only option is to scare them into retreat.”
So far, the locals haven’t faltered. A flock of arrows fly, singing in the air with high, wheedling screams. I duck and whirl, using my enhanced vision to predict where they’ll be when they hit me, and barely avoid the attack.
“Don’t even touch the arrow tip on the ground,” Khrys orders. “I don’t know how much toxin is fatal to us.”
He shoots off his laser guns. Ragged cries and screams a
rise from the locals as a body falls hard.
When Khrys fires again, the mood of the locals changes. They roar as one, the voices merging into a symphony of sound, swelling like the thunder in the sky. Then they run toward us, arrows coming like hail.
“Leave the sacks and run,” Khrys orders, grabbing my free hand.
My heart rips in half at his command, but I’m already running with him, as fast as we can, even harder than we did back at the auction—in the opposite direction of our craft.
Landscape skims by, the flower field recedes. We’re going so fast that the arrows stop; I can only assume that the locals are focused on running, not shooting at moving targets buried in mist. But their footsteps never waver, and they seem to be closing the gap. “They’re gaining on us,” I pant, and the panic spurs us both into a new burst of speed.
But as at the auction, I can only do this for so long. I start to feel desperation, when we see something new through the fog—craggy foothills dotted with twisted trees.
“Finally,” Khrys rasps, pulling me behind the closest trunk. We’re panting, and I can barely breathe. “When they get closer, we attack. Our weapons are deadlier. All we need is this cover, and we can drop them all.”
Dizzy with exhaustion, I drop to a crouch and grab my head, trying to control my air. “Understood.”
“They’re fanning out. But we’ve got the higher ground.” Khyrs’ voice is clear and precise. “On my command, you attack to your right. I go left.”
“Yes,” I gasp. I stand up and ready my weapon. In the near distance, figures waver and get into formation.
But suddenly, everything changes. With a particularly loud eruption, the clouds open up and dump freezing rain. The beings in front of us immediately break ranks and turn to each other, then—to my amazement and relief—turn around.
“The locals are turning back!” Khry’s voice lifts with exuberance. “They’re going the other way.”
Indeed, the entire group of them races in the direction we came. In the distance, a herd of antlex scream and rear up and gallop to the left, disappearing over a ridge.
“Khrys?” I blink against the rain, which has a biting urgency against my face. “Why would they all run away from a little rain?” I wipe my brow and shiver—the liquid is so cold it’s like ice. “Even the animals?”
“I don’t know.” His voice is tense. “Perhaps the rain is a sign of worse weather to come. I suggest we find shelter.”
As he speaks, the raindrops increase—now they are the size of eyeballs. The protective gear keeps me dry enough, but I feel the power of the water through the fabric, and the sheer amount of rain is blinding. “This way.” I point ahead. “Higher ground, and it’s rock. Maybe we can find a cave.”
We scramble up the hill for what seems like forever, as the visibility worsens. “Faster,” urges Khrys.
I’m still out of breath from our run, and my energy flags. It’s all I can do to drag myself up the next part of the slope by grabbing a thick root and pulling, inch by excruciating inch.
“You got it.” Khrys grabs my hand to help.
Then the hail starts. At first, the individual crystals are tiny and thin like paper. Within seconds, they’ve grown bigger than my pinkie nail, each icy shard has sharp claws.
A particularly hard hail punctures my jacket and the skin on my arm, freeing red blood that immediately turns pink with dilution and runs to the ground. “The gear is not holding up! We need safety!” I gasp.
“Veck, this storm will kill us,” mutters Khrys. “I’ve never seen hail like this.” He pulls me to his body and shields my head with his arms, scanning our surroundings. “Come on, I think I see a cave.” He keeps me sheltered under his arm and guides me further up the slope. He was right—after a harrowing few moments, we’re nestled into a cavity in the rocks. The cave goes deep into the cliff and has a thick overhang at the entrance.
“Back here, away from the wind.” He pulls me further back into the cave to the dry dust out of reach of the swirling nightmare outside.
“Whew.” I collapse to the ground, breathing hard. The cave smells like dirt but nothing else; thankfully, we’re the only beings using it for shelter.
“We’re safe from the ice balls.” Khrys points. They’re now the size of my fist with wicked spikes. They slam into the ground and shatter into ice fragments, sometimes piercing an inch or two deep into the soil before breaking apart.
“Stars, this storm is more powerful than most weapons.” Khrys turns to me. “Are you hurt? Take off the jacket, so I can see.” He helps me peel off the garment. “The tunic, too. You’re soaked.”
The circumstances prevent me from any shyness; all I want is to be safe. Still, being half naked in front of him sets erotic images free in my mind. My nipples peak in the cold air, and my cheeks flush.
Khrys takes my arm. Now that we’re out of the downpour, the blood is more evident. “We need to wrap this.”
“It’s just a scratch. I can’t even feel pain.” I look with curiosity at the wound, then at him. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” His voice is hoarse. I think he’s looking at my nipples, but then he turns away. “My skin is thicker than yours. The hail didn’t hurt me.” He removes his shoulder satchel. “I have a few emergency supplies.” He pulls out a cloth which he wraps around my cut. “There. That should close the wound.”
“Thank you.” I blink at the white wrap, trying to process what’s happening. How much has happened since the Kraa brought me to the auction.
The thunder roars and crackles, and the ground reverberates with the sound, the tremors going into my body and shaking my skull. “This storm is so violent.”
At the bottom of the hill, the dried grass turns to a churning river as water collects into a channel and hurtles past, tumbling boulders effortlessly. Hail shimmers like glass ornaments, bobbing by the thousands.
“That would kill us faster than the arrows.” I shudder from the sudden panic and the chill and the exhaustion. And the cold. I realize that the temperature has dropped.
“We’re high enough that we should stay above the water line. I hope,” he adds. He takes off his coat, reaches back into his pack and unwraps a silver heat blanket.
“Take off your clothes. All of them.” He looks at me through the dimness of the cave where the blanket catches what little light enters from the gloomy wilderness outside. “We need to let them dry. You humans are prone to hypothermia.”
“I…” It might be the shock of the situation, but I don’t move.
He drops the blanket and comes to my side. “Your breeches are soaked. They’ll prevent you from warming your core temperature.”
He grabs the sturdy material and tugs it down my wet hips. The fabric sticks, and when he inserts his strong hands between my thighs to coax the pants down, his knuckles brush up against my panties.
I suck in my breath. “Oh.”
He looks up at me, and his eyes flash. His horns stiffen. For a second, I think he’s going to touch me again, but he looks away and tugs my garment down, only stopping when they hit the top of my boots.
“The boots.” He laughs. “I forgot these.”
He swings me into his arms and suddenly deposits me on a flat boulder that’s at the height of his chest. “Sit here for a second, little warrior.”
He removes my boots and places them aside—and then the breeches are easy to slide off my ankles.
“Use this until I make a fire.” He wraps the silver thermoblanket around my shoulders and tucks it around my body. His hands linger just a moment as he arranges it, and he slides one hand softly over my thigh.
Already I feel better—he was right about the wet clothes making me colder. I clutch the blanket tightly to my chest with criss-crossed fists.
“I have a few nutrition tubes for you. Start with this and see if you want more.” He hands me one full of a gel that I suck down eagerly.
“You don’t need it?” I recall that I haven’t see
n him eat anything in the time we’ve been together.
“Zandians require the crystalline energy of our planet for survival. We eat only once every ten planet rotations.”
I shake my head at the second tube. “I’m good for now. Thank you.”
He touches my leg softly through the blanket, his fingers lingering. “Good.” His eyes meet mine, and he smiles.
A slow burn works its way from the point of contact, his fingers on my body, up to my core. He places his palm onto my leg, possessive.
“Khrys?” My voice comes out husky. I shift my thighs.
He steps back.
“I’ll lay your clothing out on these rocks at the back of the cave,” he says, taking an armful of sodden cloth into the darkness. “There are dry branches back here we can use for a fire. That will help.”
I’m glad to hear it, but my eyes adjust fast. When I see him start to strip, my heart pounds a little harder. This Zandian has a magnificent body, and I can’t deny the effect he has on me, even in these circumstances.
When he comes back with thick pieces of wood shedding bark and dust, he works fast: Using something from his shoulder bag, he has a fire going not too far from the front of the cave entrance.
“And now we’ll warm up.” He stands in front of me, all chiseled muscles lit up from the flickering of the fire. He lifts me from the rock and settles us down together a few feet from the flames.
“Come.” He pulls me into his lap and rearranges the blanket to cover us both like a tent. “We need to warm up.”
Outside our cave, the storm gathers force as we huddle together, our bodies warming little by little. The rain and hail together are a fearsome combination, but thank stars, they’re falling straight down.
“If wind blew that into our cave, I don’t know what would happen.” I nestle into Khrys’ arms, craving the comfort he brings.
A twig snaps and sends up a shower of sparks, and the warmth from the fire and his body soothe me.
“We got lucky.” He wraps his arms around me.
