by Kate Rudolph
So she’d fashioned two packs and stuffed them full of food and sundries. As soon as they were done eating, she and Nyxant would be off, walking up the hills, hopefully to their rescue. The days were short here and they’d need to leave soon if they hoped to reach high ground by nightfall.
The sound of a zipper being pulled down drew her attention. She looked over to see Nyxant’s fingers pop out of his tent and prop open the thin, stiff material so that he could climb out.
He grabbed a cleaning towel from the supplies he’d gathered the night before and walked around to the broad side of his tent, where the brightest patch of rising sun gave him the best light.
Sarah had to bite her lip to keep her mouth from dropping open. He looked like he’d just rolled out of a plush bed after a night of wicked pleasure. His dark hair was tousled around his shoulders and face, but not tangled. There was a light sheen of sweat that seemed to make him glow.
How could a man look like that after the day and night they’d just had? Talk about unfair.
She turned back to heating the tea, afraid that she’d be caught staring. She poured hot water into two cups over the broken up leaves. The fragrant, earthy aroma wafted up into her nose and she took a deep breath, sucking it in.
Nyxant finished his washing and sat down on an overturned supply box beside her. She tried not to be disappointed when she saw that he’d put on a shirt. Silently, she handed him the tea and two nutrition bars. They had plenty of food and no reason to ration it just yet.
Nyxant placed the wrapped up nutrition bars in the sand beside him and cupped the tea mug in both of his hands. He stared down at it intently, taking deep breaths. His study was both sensual and contemplative.
"It's just tea,” Sarah said, feeling self-conscious. It wasn’t like she’d made anything special.
Nyxant looked up at her and then back down at the tea, eyes narrowed. He leaned forward, nose nearly touching the liquid, and took a deep breath. She could see the steam hitting his face and leaving a faint layer of dew.
He pulled back, sitting up straight, and reached into his pocket to retrieve a small metal rod no longer than his palm. He stuck it into the dark liquid and swirled it around a few times before pulling it out and casually examining the wet end.
After a moment, his face softened. He wiped the rod on his pants before sticking it back into his pocket. He raised the cup to his lips and drank deeply, ignoring that it was too hot to do any more than sip. “Thank you," he said when he put the cup down.
That had been a test for poison. She’d seen characters do things like that on media shows back home, but never in real life. What kind of person worried about a shipwrecked companion trying to poison them? Sure, she’d had concerns for her safety, but she was a woman alone and he was a gargantuan man.
He had nothing to fear from her. Was life on Oscavia so fraught? She wanted to ask him about his homeworld, but they didn’t have time. She could ask him once they were safe. If they ever made it back.
Sarah picked up the small device that she’d sat on top of the pack at her feet. "I found a transmitter, but the signal is crap down here. I think if we head to higher ground," she said, pointing to the peak visible through the forest, which was at least ten kilometers away, "We might be able to get a message out."
Nyxant put his tea down. "Is the line secure?"
"Of course not." It was a simple transmitter, there was no way to secure the signal. And why would they care about that?
"Hmm." He unwrapped one of his nutrition bars and took a bite, not saying anything else.
"Do you have a better idea?" Sarah wasn’t going to die on this forgotten rock. They only had a small timeframe to hope that Sky Chaser 4 was still within signal range.
Nyxant spoke slowly. "There is one spot on this entire planet that we can be traced to. I don’t see why we should abandon it in some vain hope that a radio will provide our salvation." He picked at his nutrition bar and stared out at the water rather than looking at her.
"So you just want to sit here and wait to be rescued?" He didn’t look like the type. No man who looked as much like a fighter as he did could stand to sit around for long. She wondered again if he’d injured himself in their landing. If he was cautious enough to test tea for poisons, maybe he wouldn’t trust a stranger knowing his injuries.
“I suppose I do.” Then he looked over, the expression on his face possibly meant to placate her. “As you suggested, we might have been victims of a system malfunction.”
He hadn’t changed his mind, she was sure of it. There was more to the story of how he’d gotten here. “Who put you in the life boat?” she asked.
That threw him. "Excuse me?"
She’d had a few hours to unwind and think about what had happened. And some things weren’t making sense. "I thought the alarm meant to go to the life boats, but clearly it didn't. You, though, were put into it by someone. They locked you in. Why?"
His face closed off, as expressionless as a mask. "That is none of your concern."
“I’m not an idiot, okay?” And she didn’t need to be coddled. All Sarah wanted to do was to get off this damned planet and back on her vacation. Though she doubted that she’d have a comfortable moment after being ejected in a possibly faulty escape vessel. Maybe it would be time to disembark for good at the next actual landing point.
But she wasn’t going to get caught up in whatever mess of a life Nyxant had. He could have his secrets and his personal drama. She didn’t want to deal with it.
“I did not mean to imply anything of the sort,” he said, almost sounding apologetic. There was a strange cadence to his voice, formal and stilted. The translators sometimes added a layer of awkwardness, but this was beyond that. He spoke far more carefully than a man in danger should.
But she wasn’t worrying about that now.
Sarah stood and wiped off some of the sand that had somehow gotten on her shirt. She slung one of the packs over her shoulders and secured the straps. “I’m not risking getting left here,” she told him. “If the ship leaves, it could be months—if we’re lucky—before another one wanders through this corner of space. I’m going to signal the ship.” And she’d do it alone if she had to.
Nyxant didn’t have a problem with that. He leaned back on the box, resting his arms behind him, and said, “Best of luck,” with a small smile and a nod of his head.
It wasn’t wise to go alone. She knew it. But the need to move seized her. If they stayed on the beach, they wouldn’t be found. She had no idea why he didn’t want to move. She didn’t buy his story about staying in the one place they could be tracked to. Maybe he was injured, but if he wouldn’t tell her, she couldn’t help him.
She was done debating.
Sarah tossed the second pack that she’d prepared toward Nyxant. It landed at his feet. “In case you decide to join me,” she explained.
Nyxant simply waved her on and said, “Good luck.”
She shook her head and muttered, “Whatever.”
Sarah climbed up the incline of the beach to the edge of the jungle. There was an opening between two trees, but the dense leaves brushed against her, leaving a sticky sap on her jumpsuit. She was thankful her arms were covered. The sap smelled sickly sweet, but there was an undertone of something vinegary and rotten. She breathed through her mouth to try and block out the scent.
There wasn’t a jungle this dense back on Earth. Not one that any human was allowed in, in any case. Greenery and Carbon Recovery Zones were strictly regulated for the health of the planet.
So to see the trees growing high overhead and blotting out the sun was something else. It was barely bright enough to see by the light that filtered through the leaves. Birds chirped and leaves rustled from a faint breeze that she could hear but not feel. Her head tilted up, trying to see through the canopy above her, but it was a solid ceiling of branches and leaves in brilliant hues.
She tripped over a thin vine snaking across the ground and stumbled. It was
warning enough that Sarah needed to stop gawking and pay attention to the space in front of her. After walking for several minutes, Sarah’s calves started to ache. She was headed uphill, even though the jungle looked flat for as far as she could see.
There wasn’t a path, but Sarah thought she was headed in the right direction. She paused to give her legs a little rest. Gravity weighed heavy on her. It just wasn’t the same in space, no matter what artificial gravity drives tried to reproduce. She spotted a nice, long, sap free stick and picked it up. It would work as a walking staff.
When she looked back toward the direction she’d been heading, her head spun. Was this the direction that she’d been heading? Every way she looked, the trees appeared the same. She could not tell north from south or east from west. And even if she’d been able to see the sun, she couldn’t guarantee the directions would be the same as they were on Earth.
She should have never gone alone.
Sarah pulled the transmitter out of her bag and flipped it on. For a moment, hope sprung up in her as it scanned for a signal. A blue line glided from one side of the small screen to the other, but after thirty seconds, it flashed three times and then went dark. No signal.
Damn it.
She needed to keep moving. Sarah took a deep breath, the humid air of the jungle filling her lungs. She let her eyes drift shut and tried to center herself as if one small moment of meditation would give her the sense of direction she needed.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Then her arms broke out in gooseflesh.
She was being watched.
It was impossible to know how she knew it, other than by some inborn instinct. She could feel a pair of eyes on her, tracking her every move. Sarah wanted to freeze and dive for cover. She didn’t know what danger Rex held, and she didn’t want to find out.
Instead, she kept moving. The feeling of being watched didn’t dissipate, but she kept her ears and eyes alert for any sign that she was being followed. After several minutes, there was nothing.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something behind her, but Sarah tried to keep it together. As far as she knew, she and Nyxant were the only people on this corner of the planet. Possibly the only people on the planet at all. The only person that could be watching her was him.
Had he followed her?
She almost called out for him, but the words died in her throat. Something wrapped itself around her leg and jerked, sending her flying off her feet and dragging her into the underbrush.
Sarah screamed.
Chapter Four
Dirt and fallen twigs scraped against her face as Sarah was pulled across the rock strewn ground. By some miracle she was able to keep hold of the stick she’d grabbed onto earlier. She tried to strike out and use it to wedge herself into place, but she couldn’t get purchase. The slimy thing wrapped around her foot yanked, and she flipped over and was pulled quickly along her back rather than on her stomach.
She beat at it, hitting her leg more than the ugly, slimy black arm wrapped around her. Suddenly, they stopped and Sarah lurched forward. She pulled herself back just in the nick of time. Another tentacle flew toward her, curling briefly around the thin trunk of a young tree before letting go, leaving a trail of dark slime in its wake.
Sarah tried to scurry back, but the tentacle might as well have been made of solid iron. She could barely move her leg from side to side, and she couldn’t inch backward or forward. She grasped her stick and tried to wedge it between the black, sucker coated skin and the red material of her jumpsuit. She sucked in a deep breath and gritted her teeth as the wood dug deep into her calf, bruising her.
Goddamn, it hurt.
But she kept going. She didn’t know why they’d stopped and she didn’t want to go any further. That was it. The second she got free she was going to run back to the beach and sit next to Nyxant until Sky Chaser 4 found them or they ran out of food. Either of those options was better than being eaten—hopefully only eaten—by an alien tentacle monster.
The stick slid under the tentacle and she let out a little gasp in success. It turned into a dejected yowl when the tentacle rippled and started to move up her calf, the pointed end leading the way in a very, very gross and suggestive march.
Nope. She’d cut her leg off before she let it get any further.
If only she had a knife.
Sarah tried to kick, and when that failed, she tried to use her heel to push the creeping tentacle down. It didn’t work, not exactly, but the arm did stop its crawl. It didn’t retreat, though. One of its suckers latched onto her shoe.
Why had she been so insistent on coming here alone? She should have talked this through with Nyxant. Maybe if she had waited five goddamn minutes, he would have come around. Or maybe he would have convinced her to stay.
Something glinted in the oozing black mass of tentacle as a wickedly sharp stinger slowly pulsed out of the shiny skin. It grew, centimeter by centimeter, until it was as long as Sarah’s hand and as thick as one of her fingers. Something bright green seeped from the end, and she knew that it couldn’t bury that thing in her. If it did, she was a goner.
But her eyes were transfixed. The tentacle reared back, though it was long enough that it could still wrap around her leg tightly. It didn’t strike quickly, almost like it could sense her fear and savored the taste.
She couldn’t watch. Even as she struggled, she got nowhere. Sarah slammed her eyes closed, as if not being able to see the attack would save her from it.
There was a loud thump beside her and the tentacle on her leg went slack.
Sarah opened her eyes and saw Nyxant crouching beside her, a wickedly long knife in his hand covered in green goo. Without waiting for his command, she pulled her leg, the tentacle a heavy dead weight around it. She reached forward, peeling it off until she was free. Nyxant crouched beside her, looking deep into the bushes where the creature had to be lurking.
“Can you run?” he asked, voice pitched low.
“Yes,” she answered, heart hammering in her chest.
Something rustled within the trees. Sarah scampered to her feet, hissing in pain when she put weight on her right leg, the one the tentacle had been wrapped around. Something felt wrong with it, but they had to move.
Nyxant threw his arm around her shoulders and they were off. She had no idea which direction they were going in, but she let Nyxant lead. He seemed to intuitively understand the lay of the land.
Every step was agony. Sarah had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. When that didn’t work, she tried to control her breathing through her mouth. She didn’t know if the monster had crushed something or if she was merely severely bruised, but she couldn’t go on for much longer.
The jungle was too dense to run fast for long. After a few minutes, Nyxant slowed to a light jog, dodging under low branches in a fluid motion and taking her with him, guiding her as if she were boneless.
She didn’t know how long they walked. The pain in her leg grew and grew until time lost meaning, and all Sarah could do was focus on the step in front of her. She was terrified that if they stopped, the thing that had grabbed her would take her again. She wanted to ask Nyxant how he’d found her and why he’d come, but opening her mouth at all would let the whimper she was holding back escape.
Nyxant’s arm was a constant presence, propping her up and keeping her grounded. If he hadn’t kept moving, she doubted she would have been able to. But he moved in silence and without complaint. She could do the same. She had to.
Finally, after what seemed like years, she heard the distant lapping of water against the shore. The beach. They were back to the ship. It took a few more minutes, but they made it through. The trees gave way to sand and sun.
Nyxant dropped his arm from around her shoulders. Sarah tipped forward, not even caring that she fell. She was safe.
When Nyxant fell right beside her, she knew something was terribly wrong.
Chapter Five
At fir
st Sarah thought Nyxant had fallen over from exhaustion. That would have been bad, but on a scale of one to ten, it only rated a two and a half. But when she rolled to her side to get a good look at him, she saw that his face had lost a lot of color, fading from a magnificent deep purple to lilac.
That looked more like a seven.
She crawled over to him, the action much less painful than walking, and tried checking for a pulse. Only as her fingers hovered over his neck did she realize that he might have a completely different circulatory system than she did.
The moment of hesitation cost her. Nyxant’s hand clamped around her wrist and his eyes popped open, a demon lurking behind his irises. He snarled and growled, but when his eyes met hers, the monster bled out of them and his grip relaxed, though he didn’t let her go.
“Men have died for less, cavria.” The words were a threat, but the way he said that last word sent a pleasurable shiver down her spine. She wondered what cavria meant. If her translator hadn’t interpreted it, it meant there wasn’t a simple definition in English.
"You kill people who are trying to make sure you're alive? You sure are a bag of fun." She pulled her hand back and he let her go. She might have been crouched over him, but there was a coiled power inside Nyxant that made her think that if he wanted her to stay still, he could make her. She spied darkly bruised skin under a tear in his shirt, but sensed that he would not like her to touch him. Not yet.
"Life is full of danger," was his response.
"No shit." Sarah rolled back over to sit beside him. She pushed up her pant leg all the way to her knee to see the damage that the tentacle had done to her. It wasn’t pretty. A dark mark snaked up, the skin bruised and even more purple than Nyxant’s. No wonder walking had been so tough. She looked from her ankle to the alien beside her. "Thank you for saving my life," she said, suddenly serious. Seeing the injury hit home just how much danger she’d been in.
