by Pam Godwin
“And more stubborn than me.” A smile teased through his brogue.
“Count on it.”
I could command the aphids to run away, but how long before they returned? And if there was a nymph out there, would she run away with them?
I let Jesse and Roark sidle in front of me as I spoke into the dark. “Shea, you’ll stay here with Darwin, right? And watch over the nymph?”
We could’ve used her skill with the bow, but it wasn’t worth the risk. She survived a bite from a nymph, but we still didn’t know if she was immune to an aphid’s bite.
“Be careful.”
Her voice followed us into the temperate darkness. With two quivers on my back, I carried about forty arrows. Would I use them all? I’d have to remember to collect them as I went.
The property stretched several acres, dotted with thick groves of trees at every turn. Jesse led, his bow up and ready, and his shirtless muscles flexing in the moonlight.
Each time he glanced back at me, I pointed in the direction of the vibrations. My arteries felt near to bursting with adrenaline, my skin chilling in the cool breeze.
Roark stayed on my heels, his finger hooking in the belt loop on the back of my shorts whenever I ran too far ahead. I didn’t fight him. Poor guy needed some semblance of control.
A few minutes later, Jesse held up a fist and gestured at the low-lying brush on the left. Roark ushered me into the bushes and squatted behind me, pulling me down to crouch between his thighs.
Jesse sat on his heels beside us, his hand hot and heavy on my knee. “I thought I saw movement in there.” He nodded at the small clump of trees thirty yards to the right.
I traced the dozens of threads squirming inside me, each trajectory leading to the left. “They’re still gathered at ten o’clock.” I reached out my senses, scanning the circumference of my telepathic limits. “No stragglers. But I still sense some winking out.”
Roark grazed a thumb over my elbow. “Are they stepping out of your reach?”
“No. They’re too close.” And too quiet. My heart pounded, and my palms grew clammy. “Only twenty or so yards away. We should’ve heard their growls or their movement through the brush by now.”
“They’re stealthier.” Jesse’s profile cut a severe outline in the moonlight. “Especially if they’re being hunted.”
I followed his gaze to the clump of trees on the right. Men. It had to be. Men with quiet weapons.
The vibrations on the left shifted, the aphids moving with inhuman speed toward those trees. In the next heartbeat, their glowing neon bodies flickered into view, scattering over the open landscape.
I held my breath as the silhouette of a man stepped from the shadowed area Jesse had been watching. He stopped within eyeshot of the aphids, then another man joined him, and another, until five men stood beneath the moonlight, holding crossbows, huge hunting knives, and axes.
For a desperate moment, I thought Michio might’ve been with them. That he’d built an army of men and had come here to find me. I mentally reached out, searching for his warm presence. But I couldn’t feel him amid the riot of sensations.
Roark’s arm hooked around my waist, and Jesse moved to crouch with his back against my chest, effectively pinning me. Or shielding me.
With one hand on my bow, I gripped the other against Jesse’s waist as the aphids charged toward the men. I couldn’t hear the bugs, but I sensed them moving in a line, slinking through the overgrown brush, their hearts drumming, drumming, drumming for blood.
I wanted to warn those men, but Roark’s hand slammed over my mouth. Didn’t matter. When the first bulbous form blurred into view, the arrows flew and the men bolted. Not away. No, those crazy fuckers ran toward the horde.
Without the report of gunfire, I could hear every grunt, footstep, and whooshing arrow.
Jesse and Roark tensed against me, the sweat on their skin seeping into my shirt. They wanted to help them, but not with me here, their precious liability.
The connective strands in my stomach pulsed wildly. Some cut off, dying, dead, but not enough. There were too many. The bugs were too fast. I needed to command them.
I reached for the hem of my shirt and stopped. Feral quakes raged inside me, but stabbing through the network of noise was something steadier, saner, colder.
Not something. Somethings.
“Nymphs,” I whispered.
Jesse turned his neck, giving me his strained profile. “Where?”
I lifted the bottom of my shirt to my neck and hugged his naked back. “Smack in the middle of that battle.”
Would the aphids attack or protect the nymphs? Could the nymphs command the aphids?
Pulling in a deep breath, I projected the visceral order to the aphids. Go.
Roark pressed his chest against my back and rested his whiskered cheek along mine. I soaked in his masculine energy with each inhale and repeated the command with each release of my lungs. Go. Go. Go.
The aphid links bristled in response, then one by one, they began to retreat.
But so did the icy beacons of the nymphs. If I was identifying the varying sensations correctly, holy fucking shit, there were at least ten of them.
“The nymphs are leaving.” I struggled to breathe in my excitement. “Ten fucking nymphs, you guys.”
“Bloody hell.” Roark’s whisper shuddered around me. “Den’ lose them, love.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to separate them from the aphids as I broadcasted my command. “I don’t know how to isolate them. They’re following my order. All of them are retreating.”
Jesse pivoted on his heels to face me. “Let’s go collect the nymphs.” He gripped my neck. “But don’t—”
“Don’t fall off a cliff? Don’t get pregnant? Don’t die? Got it.” I tugged my shirt back in place.
I got a flash of teeth right before he slammed a hard kiss against my lips. As far as kisses went, it was glorious in its absence of elegance. He broke away, jumping to his feet and pulling me with him.
The house stood somewhere behind us and out of sight as we ran forward, away from Shea, away from the nymph in her care, our feet flying with the wild hope of saving more.
If we cured them all, Jesse and Roark would have thirteen women to protect. How would we travel? How would we train and feed them all?
I was getting ahead of myself, but I couldn’t help it. My body buzzed with energy, fueled by the aphids’ thundering hunger, the nymphs’ whispers, and my own anxiety.
Ahead of me, Jesse and Roark sprinted side by side, the sheer size of their upper bodies blocking my view. By the time we reached the melee, I’d clamped down my jaw so tightly my molars ached.
We skirted around the outermost boundary of a field. Keeping to the shadows and out of view, I fell in line beside Roark and stared down the shaft of my anchored arrow.
The full moon illuminated the expanse of golden grass, trammeled and crushed beneath a brutal battle.
Men flung knives, fired arrows, and swung axes at the aphids. Not five men. Ten? Twenty? Where had they come from? Had they led the aphids here? Were they herding the nymphs?
They zipped in and out of the nearby grove, making it impossible to count their numbers. There were twice as many aphids blurring around the men, swiping claws, and stabbing with mouthparts.
At the center of it all, stood two, four, six…holy shit, I was right. Ten nymphs. The chaotic brawl clashed around them, but they didn’t engage, didn’t flinch when aphids bumped up against them.
This went against any assumption that aphids attacked nymphs. Why would they? They couldn’t bite one another and survive. But the aphids didn’t go out of their way to protect them either. Some just plowed right over the nymphs to chase the men.
The men were definitely the reason the aphids were here.
A bald man trained a crossbow on an aphid that was barreling down on another man. He reached for the trigger, but a nymph stood in his line of fire. I sucked in a breath, preparing
to scream.
He moved around her and fired, missing her and hitting the aphid between the eyes. I released a huge fucking sigh.
Neither the aphids nor the men noticed our arrival. But the nymphs did. The only thing they moved was their heads, turning in my direction and fixing ten pairs of milky eyes on me.
The clawing pain in my stomach returned with a vengeance. I bit down on my tongue to hold back a cry, my fingers struggling to keep the nocked arrow in place.
Roark rested his hand on my back, stroking a calming path up and down my spine. “Okay?”
I gave a jerky nod, my body shaking in agony.
The nymphs turned as one, eerily synchronized, and started walking. All paths led to me as their gaits quickened, walking, then running, then heaven help me, charging.
“Run,” I said to Jesse and Roark. Then louder, “Run now!”
“Shut up.” Roark raised his sword.
“You gonna take off their heads? If they bite you—”
“Not leaving ye, love.”
I looked at Jesse. His jaw tightened beside his nocked arrow as he shook his head.
Pain in the fucking asses. I lowered the bow and took off, making a beeline toward the approaching nymphs.
An aphid skittered close to a dark-skinned nymph. She hissed at it, hunching her knobby shoulders and throwing talon-tipped hands over her head to ward it off.
My heart leapt to my throat. If the nymph bit the aphid or got bitten, they would both die.
The aphid leapt away, its sights on a man with shaggy hair and a scary-looking blade.
Jesse’s arrows fired into the fray as I ran. I knew the guys would follow me, but I ran faster than them. If I could beat them there…fuck, I didn’t know. As usual, I didn’t have a goddamned plan.
Those final ten yards to impact lasted an eternity. I’d never seen so many arrows and blood flying through the air. There were so many men…strangers. Why were they here? What if they killed the nymphs before I reached them?
But they weren’t targeting them. In fact, they took cautious steps to avoid hitting them. From what I could tell, they weren’t shoot-em-up, rebel-flag-waving, living-the-apocalyptic-dream roughnecks. These guys were sophisticated. They knew how to fight, predicted each other’s movements, and flowed together like a highly-skilled army.
They would either join us. Or kill us.
As those last ten yards shortened to one, I found myself in the middle of the field, on the edge of the battlefield, surrounded by ten white-eyed nymphs. Roark’s chest pressed against my back. Jesse’s arm hooked across my stomach. Their weapons moved in my periphery, but the nymphs weren’t interested in them.
Ten pupil-less, slack-jawed expressions locked on me. I felt their purpose in the pit of my marrow. They’d come for me.
Taking in their assortment of dresses and adornments in their hair, my first assumption was that they hadn’t been traveling with the naked nymph back at the house. My next thought wandered to the multiple scratches I’d heard on the windows and door. Had they walked around the cabin on their way here?
But every conscious thought flickered out as a burst of agony wrung my insides, the pain so harrowing I wanted to vomit. Make it stop.
Instinctively, I dropped the bow and raised my arms in supplication, palms up and eyes closed.
The closest nymph wrapped jagged-sharp fingernails around my wrist. My eyes shot open, and my insides splintered into a thousand shards of agony. Its telepathic pain pushed those shards deeper, harder, slicing the air from my windpipe.
Roark pressed against my back, his breathing ragged. “This is your most idiotic idea yet.” There were a lot of i’s in that sentence, and the worry in his accent made them all sound like oi.
Jesse clenched his fingers against my hip, his arm barred across my belly. “Just keep your eyes open, Roark.”
Their anxiety was making me anxious, but I expected the same treatment from the nymphs that Shea had received. Just a quick bite on my arm. Not on Jesse’s or Roark’s.
The nymph watched me with overlarge eggshell eyes, its cheeks sunken beneath protruding cheekbones. Its complexion took on a grayish hue in the moonlight, but I knew it would look just as bruised in the glare of the sun.
Talons dragged over the delicate skin on my wrist, and the jaw stretched open.
It wasn’t until that insanely vulnerable moment that I realized I’d run out of the house without my arm sheathes. In two years, I’d never mindlessly shown up to a battle without my blades, carbine, and USP handgun.
But I had the bow. Which currently lay somewhere at my feet. Lot of good that did me with so many aphids engaged in battle just yards away.
The nymph’s weapon stretched toward me from the back of its throat in an intimidating display of squirming, tubelike mouthparts. One thrust of the vicious-looking spear at the center of those tentacles, and it would carve a huge ass hole in my chest. I’d never witnessed a nymph feeding, but I’d heard all about their gruesome attacks in the early days following the plague.
The tentacles curled around my arm, and I held my breath. Then, with the striking speed of a snake, it tapped the tip of the spear against my wrist. I hissed in surprise. It was just a pinch, hardly painful, as if the nymph knew how to be gentle with its prey. Then its body promptly dropped to the ground.
One after another, the vacant-eyed creatures stepped forward and poked their spears into the veins in my arms. Each pricked a new hole, sipping the smallest drop of blood. It was so orderly and civilized. Like the puff and pass of a joint. Or a wet kiss from grandma. So very fucking…friendly.
The tiny stabs felt like a flu shot, there and gone in the span of a heartbeat. Even better, with every poke, the harrowing pain inside me lessened.
Jesse and Roark didn’t move from their protective stances against me, but each time a new nymph moved in, their bodies turned to steel. When a speared mouth darted out, they flinched.
The nymphs went out of their way to avoid contact with Jesse and Roark, like they knew if they bit a man, they would die.
Five of the ten nymphs lay comatose at my feet. The rest bumped into one another and stepped on the fallen to get to me. I shifted my huddle with Jesse and Roark backward, leaving a trail of bodies as the remaining nymphs followed.
The fighting had moved closer, the men now distracted as their eyes followed the nymphs, widening as each one fell to the ground. Some of the men stumbled. Others completely stopped fighting to watch us in horror. The distraction was going to get them killed.
I might’ve sucked at strategic planning, but I could multi-task. “Roark, rip my shirt.”
Pressed against my back with the quivers of arrows pushed to the side, he angled the sword between us and sliced. The cool breeze lasted a second before the hot skin of his chest slid against my spine. “Talk to me, love.”
He wasn’t asking why I wanted the shirt ripped. That, he could figure out. He wanted to know how I was doing.
“The bites are painless, and each one is making it a whole lot easier to breathe again.”
Jesse hadn’t moved his chest from my side, hadn’t unlocked his rigid arm from around my waist, his posture on high-alert as he vigilantly watched the encroaching battle. “Make them lie down.”
I glanced at the sharp lines etching his profile. “The aphids?”
“Yeah.”
I didn’t question him. It was brilliant, really. As the last five nymphs fell around my feet, I exhaled a command that forced thirty-three aphids to lay like cockroaches, on their backs, with double-jointed legs pointing to the heavens.
The men on the field faltered and tripped at the bizarre sight, shouting at one another in confusion. But it didn’t take long before the arrows and blades flew.
The final aphid vibration snapped from my insides within thirty-seconds of me giving the order. And I hadn’t fired a single arrow.
Scattered around my feet lay ten sleeping nymphs. Ten cured women. My stomach relaxed, my lungs expa
nded, and my heart soared, every inch of me free of pain. And happy. So damned happy I couldn’t keep the smile off my face.
Until I met the angry black eyes of the bald man racing across the field. He sprinted toward us, crossbow aimed, those deep dark eyes pinned on me.
Jesse jumped in front of me, arrow anchored. “Stay back.”
I dropped my head against his shoulder blade as footsteps circled around us. The man was still approaching, and so were his friends.
“I said stay back!” Jesse tensed, his breathing picking up.
I peered around his torso and locked eyes with the bald man. In that shared look, the pull of his eyebrows asked, What are you?
He looked down, scanning the nymphs as anguish creased his rugged features. “What have you done?”
Jesse and Roark crowded in front of me, always blocking my damned view.
I spoke at their backs. “I cured them.”
“Cured?” The man’s gravelly voice boomed.
I poked my head around Roark’s arm. The crowd of men circled behind the bald man with arrows and knives raised, all eyes on their leader, as if waiting for his command. Were some of these men related to the nymphs? Such as husbands, brothers, fathers? Probably not fathers. There wasn’t a gray hair or wrinkled face in the group.
The bald man held a nymph to his chest. “Liliana?” He patted her cheek. “Wake up.”
I was experiencing a nasty case of déjà vu, only this time it was with an army of men instead of Amos and his concealed gun.
He glanced up and found my eyes. “She’s breathing. Why isn’t she waking up?”
I pushed on Roark’s back until he shifted an inch to the side. I spoke carefully and clearly. “She’ll sleep through the transformation. They all will.”
“Call off your men.” Jesse aimed his bow at the armed gathering of blood-drenched faces. “Do it now!”
The bald man glanced over his shoulder and returned to the nymph. “Stand down.”
It was a trivial request with twenty-some-odd soldiers against the three of us. We didn’t stand a chance if it came down to a fight.
I wedged my body between Jesse and Roark. “What’s your name?”
