by Juno Wells
He looked her in the eyes, and there was a little smile playing on his lips. “I'm Braxan. And I don't come from Belzon Base. Have you caught your breath? We can't wait here too much longer.”
Amelia felt the old defiance spark. “So you're not from Belzon Base. You know, that was the one thing I knew. But you speak English, and there are some parts of you that don't look human. So who are you exactly?”
He didn't smile. “I'm sure those things will become clear in time. Now we have to go.”
She had an impulse to place her hands on her hip. He was hot as hell, and he probably had saved her life both by breaking up the gang rape party and by taking her up here. “And if I don't come, you'll just lift me up again and carry me like before?”
He locked eyes with her for three heartbeats, and again she had to look down. His gaze was just too piercing.
“Not if you don't want to.”
Then he turned around without another word and walked down the other side of crater's rim.
11
- Braxan -
She didn't have a chance here alone. The Pirgks could be tenacious, and with his eyesight he could tell that there weren't just hundreds coming – there were thousands approaching across the plain like an army of ants, coming straight for them.
For her. They had no interest in him.
He had to suppress an impulse to stop and look at her again. But if he started that, he would have trouble taking his eyes off her. Flame, that shape, so feminine and so alluring.
When he had first spotted her on the battlefield, his view of her had been filtered through the dragon's mind. Now that he had seen her without the dragon in the way, his knees had almost buckled at her beauty. As a pure human, she didn't have the scales or the other marks of dragons or Ultracos. That meant that she couldn't defend herself easily against predators like the Pirgks.
He sighed as he walked down the slope towards the colorful forest below. She didn't seem to realize the danger she was in. Could she be so innocent that she didn't understand even that? When she had been kidnapped and manhandled by the Pirgks? Did she still not grasp the implications?
He hadn't taken much of an interest in the Pirgks. His Emperor had commanded him to assist them with their conquests, and in exchange they would pay gold and gemstones to the Emperor. And Braxan and his flight would get the traditional four eleventh's share. It hadn't concerned him at the time.
They had been allied with many alien species before. But none had been as unpleasant as the Pirgks. They didn't even seem alive, not really. More like a horrific genetic experiment gone badly wrong. There was something very wrong about them.
They were all so different from her. He'd had little trouble understanding her. In their dragon form, Ultracos could speak directly into the mind of others. At the same time, the other person's language would permeate the other way. So they learned languages fast, and he didn't have to think much about it.
He threw a glance over his shoulder, then smiled to himself in relief. She was following down the hill, walking carefully over pebbles and jagged rocks and trying to catch up with him. So she had some sense after all. She didn't seem to have much trouble walking down the slope.
He smiled again. Hover boots. She had a defiant streak, and it warmed his heart. It was dragon-like. As long as she didn't defy him too much, he could live with it. Because he was sure he had to protect her in the forest. He had no idea what to expect. But somehow he had gathered that the Pirgks avoided that jungle as much as they could. That was not a good sign.
12
- Amelia -
“Think we'll lose them down there?”
She caught up with his broad back. He walked easily down the outer edge of the crater, and the forest in red and green and yellow and even white got closer. Maybe that was where he came from. It was a strange forest, oblong and symmetrical in shape and clearly separated from the rocks and sand around it. From what little the satellites had been able to tell them about that forest, it was teeming with life like an Earth rain forest on steroids. And she knew that rain forests had some inhabitants that it was better to avoid.
“I think there's a good chance of that,” he said, not looking at her.
She gingerly lowered herself from a large rock to the gravel below. The air was already warmer than inside the crater. And much more humid. The edge of the forest was still a good hundred yards below them. “Fine. I just want to get back to my base. I guess I can walk around the outside of the crater and then climb back over the edge of it from another direction that they're not expecting. It's going to be a long walk. Is that jungle dense?”
“It appears somewhat dense,” he said.
“'Appears'? Have you never been there?”
“Never.”
She looked at his determined face. He didn't look worried. “So you're not from this planet?”
“I come from far away.”
Amelia cocked her head to one side. “Yeah, so, is that a 'no'? Because you know, I'm not from this planet either. And if none of us know what we might find in that jungle, then we should probably be careful.”
He turned his head and looked behind them, like he seemed to do every thirty seconds, then walked on. “There are dangers everywhere,” he agreed.
“Uh-huh.” I don't even know you that well.
The side of the crater was getting very steep, and she had to concentrate on keeping her balance. Going down the slope was less tiresome than going up it, but with all the rocks in the way, and loose, slippery gravel everywhere else, even her high-tech boots didn't give her the footholds she wanted.
There was a hoarse cry from behind them, and Braxan's head whipped around. “They see us.”
Amelia turned around to see the Pirgks he had to be referring to, but then she lost her foothold on the gravel and slid down the slope uncontrollably in an avalanche of gravel and sand.
She yelped, and she saw Braxan reach his hand out to grab her, but she was too far away and she continued sliding, faster and faster. She started clawing at the ground with her hands, trying to stop the wild ride, but the loose material had been barely stable in the first place, and everything she tried to use to hang on to came loose in her hand and was added to the avalanche.
And she saw that she was racing towards what had to be a long sheer drop, because she couldn't see what lay beyond it. She screamed in terror and threw herself backwards onto the ground with her butt first, in a desperate attempt to break the slide before she went over the edge.
There was suddenly a flapping sound in the air and a shadow fell on her, and then she had a vise around her waist and she was seeing the ground from above for a split second before she was back down and lying on a steady rock on her stomach.
Her mind was reeling and tried to make sense of all the sensory input, but it was just too much. She lay still and just breathed for a second. She was clearly safe again. That drop she had been sliding towards went all the way down to the forest. It would have been a fall of hundreds of feet.
She became aware that Braxan was coming around a huge rock and approaching her.
She got up into a sitting position. “What the hell was that?”
He pointed up the slope. “You slid on the ground over there. It's very loose.”
She got to her feet, very carefully. Her butt was sore, and the palms of her hands were bleeding. “No, I mean, how did I get here?”
He looked innocently out at the forest below. It stretched to the horizon. “A gust of wind helped you regain your balance, probably. I've noticed the air doing strange things here. Some kind of updraft is to be expected along such a steep hill. Air from the jungle mixes with cold desert air.”
She frowned. That was not what it had felt like. “The wind blew me here? You saw it?”
He turned and looked upwards again to where the Pirgks were coming. “We can't remain here. When we get down to the forest, we'll probably be safer.”
He jumped easily off the rock and c
ontinued down, as sure on his bare feet as if they had been coated with some kind of glue.
She got down from the rock herself and followed him. She would have to use the medpack on her palms, but he was right. They should at least get to safety from the danger they knew about.
She noticed that Braxan hung back and waited for her, then stayed closer and right ahead of her. She thought she could see why. If she slid again, he would be closer to her and could help.
Saved by a gust of wind? She hadn't felt any draft in the air at all. It could be true, though. This was an alien planet, and strange things could happen there. And it had all happened so fast that she couldn't begin to make a mental image of it. But one little flash of an image remained in her mind, crystal clear – she had definitely seen scales.
13
- Braxan -
The Change came by itself, so fast that it was a reflex. The dragon had seen its Mate in danger and had determined that she could be saved only by the dragon, not by the man. Which was probably true. It reacted much faster than any human could.
But that solution had probably not been the best. His chest ached more than ever, and he had definitely felt and heard something snap when he placed her on that rock. Something was badly broken in him, close to his left wing. If he Changed again, he would probably not be able to fly. It might damage the wing forever.
That wound she had given him ... it was still infested with something. And it weakened everything around it.
He had Changed back right away, hiding behind a large rock so that he could put on the remarkable pants before she realized. He didn't want her to know who he was. Not yet. Knowing that he was the enemy of their human settlement, that he had attacked it and burned some of its defenders, couldn't count in his favor.
And he wanted to be in her favor. She filled his mind more and more. He heard each of her breaths, each of her footfalls on the rocks and gravel. Something had awoken in him, an exhilaration of being so close to her. The dragon had heard her heartbeat, too – fast and scared.
He cursed his own carelessness. He had to stay much closer to her from now on, so that he could catch her if she fell and protect her from every danger.
He peered up at the edge of the crater. The Pirgks were not coming down too fast. They disliked being outside the crater, and going down towards the forest probably didn't tempt them.
But she did. She tempted them.
He felt a white-hot spark of rage in his mind at the idea that the Pirgks thought they would harm her in any way. She was his now. He would make sure they knew it.
Amelia. Such a wonderful, feminine name. She had shot him, but he didn't hold that against her. He was just thrilled that she hadn't cowered for him. And when they were in safety down in the forest, she could take away the spell she had cast on his wound and give his wing a chance to heal.
And then? He had no plans and he wasn't going to think about it.
The dragon was sure she was his Mate. The man still had to be convinced.
They had reached the edge of the forest, and tall, green and red trees towered over them. Shorter bushes in different colors filled the void between their trunks, and it looked like a dense wall of vegetation.
The air was warm and heavy with humidity. It smelled of earth and rotting fruit and burnt wood. Animal sounds could be heard, and the dragon picked up its ears. But Braxan wasn't too interested. The beings that he had to watch out for probably didn't make much sound. He had to be on his guard. Not for himself. Probably nothing in there could harm him. But he was sure that almost everything in there could harm her.
Amelia stopped beside him and looked up at the trees. “Well, at least we're down. And the Pirgks didn't get us. Yet. Do you know anything about jungles? This one looks pretty damn dense to me. I'm not sure we can even get in there.”
“It will be hard going. And yet-”
They both whipped around at the sound of an avalanche of rocks and gravel behind them. There was a huge cloud of dust coming down the side of the crater.
“They're taking a shortcut,” Braxan said and immediately got busy clearing a way for them into the forest with his bare hands. “I wondered when they'd think of that.”
He saw Pirgks come sliding and falling uncontrollably down the side of the crater, hundreds of them, and then they landed in a heap against the trees fifty feet away. The first ones had died on the way down, and were little more than loose, floppy sacks of flesh that no one would suspect had ever been living beings. But some of those that came later would survive and would have soft landings against their dead and wounded compatriots. It was a brutal thing to do, but it was effective.
He noticed Amelia draw away from them so that he was between them and her. It warmed his heart. She saw him as a protector.
“So I guess they've caught up with us,” she said, and her voice was small.
He had bent and snapped some yellowish bushes with nasty thorns that didn't bother his scales, and he held them open for her. “Not quite. I have a feeling they don't like the jungle. Let's find out.”
A relatively unhurt Pirgk rose from the heap of other monsters. It's crusty eyes swivelled slowly and then froze when they took in Amelia. The terrible alien took a trembling step towards her.
“Yeah, I think we better.” She bowed down and went under the branches he was holding up for her, and then Braxan followed, letting the vegetation snap back to its original state, creating a natural wall against the pursuers. The trees shook with heavy thuds as more and more Pirgks came down the side of the crater and hit the edge of the forest. But they would struggle with getting into it.
“I hope it gets less dense further in,” Amelia said as he held another few branches away so she could pass under them. “Because I can't imagine continuing like this for too long. And I'm not even the one clearing the way.”
“I hope so too,” Braxan said. “But we'll do what we have to.”
“All right. I suggest going counterclockwise around the crater until we're about halfway around, and then I'll see if the coast is clear to walk back up and home to the base. We'll be inside the jungle all the way. That sound like a plan?”
He nodded, then broke a branch off a tree and used it to prod an almost invisible green creature that had coiled up on the ground right in front of them. It reared up with its six heads and hissed at him from mouths that were nothing but fangs.
Amelia yelped at the sight and grabbed Braxan's arm, hiding behind him, but the creature crawled off hurriedly on hundreds of little feet and disappeared in among the trees
“The direction doesn't matter much to me,” Braxan said and brushed a camouflaged centipede with long spikes off a branch he intended to lift so that he and Amelia could pass. “All that matters right now is that we put some distance between ourselves and those Pirgks.”
Amelia squealed again as he casually reached out and grabbed an enormous, black flying insect out of the air from right above her head and threw it in between the trees. It hit the ground with a thud. He reached up casually and picked a pointy, ten-winged stinging insect out of the air and tossed it in between the trees.
“Now I'm thinking maybe I'd like to face the Pirgks instead of these things,” Amelia said behind him, her voice small and scared.
He turned and looked around quickly. What had she seen? “What things?”
She gestured to the insect that was now crawling away on the ground, its pride probably hurt worse than its hard body. “All these ... creepy-crawlies. It's like the Amazon in here.”
“Ah,” he said, continuing to clear a path for them and making a mental note to be more discreet in how he'd clear her path of creatures. “They're just curious. I think they're just checking to see if we're prey or predator.”
She drew closer to him, and he liked it. “And which one are we? For the record?”
He kicked at what looked like a crawling, red rock, and it responded by exploding into a ball of very sharp and very thin spikes. If he didn't ha
ve dragon scales under his skin, they would have pierced his foot in a hundred places. “We're only tourists for now. At some point we will probably have to become predators, though. Because excellent as these pants are, I don't think they contain a hidden stash of food.”
His dragon instincts easily detected all the various life forms around them, and he only poked or chased away those that were directly in their way. The dragon could have eaten any of them and used whatever nutrition they offered.
And, of course, in his dragon form he wouldn't need too eat any of these things, but could simply fly back to his ship, taking her with him.
But he couldn't Change. He was stuck in human form, and he would have to be much more picky about what he consumed. His human body was so woefully sensitive to everything. And she was pure human. She was probably even more sensitive.
They had come about a mile into the forest, and it had taken them at least a thirtieth of a day.
He held up another giant branch so she could duck under it, having first removed a nest of spider-like things from it. She walked with short, careful steps, and she kept stumbling on roots and vines and uneven ground. She was looking around all the time, cringing at the slightest little noise or movement among the trees and the undergrowth. Her face was pinched and her eyes large and anxious. Sweat was running down her face, which had taken on a grayish quality.
Braxan was not too familiar with pure humans, because his own human form was one that was used for relaxation and transit in spaceships, not for work or fighting. But if a pure human was similar to his own state when in his human form, her exhaustion was starting to overwhelm her.
He bent branches and snapped vines and chased away various animals and tried to make it as easy for her as possible to make her way further into the jungle. Then the forest suddenly became brighter, and he could see the orange sun over his head. In front of them lay a patch of dark soil, barren and flat and free of plants or trees or anything that was alive. It looked like exquisitely fine, densely packed sand. It would be easy to walk on it.
