by R. E. Butler
Pilar watched the beast as it paced under the tree. She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting on the branch, but it felt like hours. Her legs and arms were numb and she wasn’t sure she would be able to climb down on her own, even if the creature left.
She’d hoped that it would get bored and wander off so she could climb down and go home, but it seemed intent on getting to her. She had a feeling she’d crossed into its home and it was just defending it.
“I don’t blame you for being angry with me,” she said, looking down at the beast. “But I’d like to leave. I promise I won’t come here anymore.”
It stared up at her, stopping in its pacing. Dark eyes peered at her through the shaggy fur, and in spite of originally thinking it was a hideous beast in need of destruction, she decided it wasn’t all that bad looking.
“Oh stars, I’ve gone delusional,” she said. Leaning back against the trunk, she closed her eyes and relaxed her grip on the branch above her, flexing her fingers and trying not to tear up at the tingling pain that shot up her arms.
She felt something tug on her heart, and she lifted her head and looked across the river. At first she wasn’t sure why she’d felt the need to look to the trees on the other side, but then she saw a flash of something pale. Her heart leaped into her throat as she realized that Villi had come for her!
“Careful,” she called. “He won’t leave me alone.”
Villi leaned around a tree, waved at her, and then pressed his finger to his lips to silence her. She realized that he didn’t want her to draw attention to him, so she nodded.
Relief filled her. Her soul mate had come for her. Tears stung her eyes and she blinked them away, not wanting to lose focus.
She watched as he stepped silently to the side of the tree with an arrow ready in a bow. For a brief moment, she almost told him to stop, to not kill the creature because, although she was terrified, she wasn’t hurt. Then she noticed there was something on the end of the arrow, and it didn’t appear to be a pointed tip.
He lifted the bow and she held her breath, hopeful that whatever he was planning would work. He pulled the line taut and she could see his whole body tensing as he prepared to let loose. When he released the arrow, it flew so fast that she couldn’t track the motion with her eyes, until the twinkling tip hit the trunk of the tree just above where the beast was pacing. The tip exploded, a yellow cloud of fine dust bursting from the glass container as the shaft splintered. The beast reared up with a surprised grunt as the dust descended swiftly and coated its head. It sniffed and snarled, pawing at its face and shaking its head before it wobbled to one side and then the other, and fell over with a thud. She watched its big chest to see that it was still breathing, and then she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
Villi crossed the river with Dex, who she hadn’t noticed behind him. While Dex checked on the beast, Villi stopped underneath the tree and looked up at her.
She opened her mouth to say she was sorry that she’d left home without telling anyone, but all that came out was a sob that she couldn’t control. He dropped the bow and the satchel of arrows and leaped up, grabbing the branches she’d been too short to reach and hauling himself up next to her. He rested a foot on the branch that had been her seat for however long she’d been trapped, steadying himself by holding onto a branch above his head.
“Are you injured, saera?”
She brushed at the tears that wet her cheeks and shook her head.
“Can you stand?”
There was a part of her that just wanted him to pick her up, carry her home, and promise that he’d never let anything bad happen to her again. She was grateful he’d come to her rescue, but she could at least stand on her own.
Gritting her teeth against the tingling ache in her limbs, she curled her hand around the branch above her and stood slowly, bracing herself against the trunk. Her legs shook as she moved and her eyes watered, but she didn’t stop until she was standing tall.
She knew that the look of pride on Villi’s face matched her own. “Now that I’m standing,” she said, giving him a small smile, “how do you suggest we get down?”
He stepped close to her and put his free hand on her waist. “Carefully.”
She chuckled. “My handsome rescuer.”
“You got yourself out of danger by climbing the tree, saera, I just brought along a little help.” He kissed her cheek and then said, “I’m going to climb down and help you from the ground.”
He took several steps away from her, crouched on the branch he stood on, and then swung his legs over, steadying himself with his hands. He dropped to the ground and straightened.
It seemed like such a far drop, but she knew that Villi would help her.
“Move like I did, but I’ll catch you.”
“We need to get moving. He’s starting to wake,” Dex said.
Knowing that time was running out, Pilar inhaled deeply and let it out, shaking away the nerves that threatened. She moved slowly into a crouch, letting go of the branch above her at the very last moment. She wobbled slightly before she could wrap her hands around the branch in front of her feet, and a squeak of alarm slipped from between clenched teeth. Below her, Villi waited, ready to catch her.
Dropping one foot from the branch, she let her leg stretch below her and then slowly moved the other, the branch hard against her leg as she eased down until she was leaning against the branch with her stomach, her hands gripping it tightly. Her arms trembled as she struggled to keep from letting go of the branch entirely when she felt a tap on her feet.
“I’ve got you, Pilar,” Villi said. “You can trust me.”
“I know.” She closed her eyes and pushed her stomach away from the branch, trying to control her descent by clutching the branch. Her fingers held for only a brief moment and she lost hold of it, but Villi’s strong arms caught her. She wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He kissed her. “You don’t have to thank me for helping you. I’m only glad that we arrived in time.”
The beast’s paws were flexing, the claws shining in the sunlight, but he was still unconscious. “We need to move,” Dex said. “He won’t be under much longer.”
“He’s okay, though?” she asked as Villi began to walk away from the creature. Dex grabbed his bow and satchel and fell into step next to them.
“The powder made him sleep, but because he’s very large, it won’t last long,” Villi said. “I suspect when he awakens, he’ll be very angry.”
Villi and Dex strode into the river, but instead of crossing to the other side, they continued to walk downstream. “Where are we going?”
“We don’t want him to follow our scent into the woods to the city, so we’ll travel down the river and away from his hunting ground until it’s safe to cross,” Dex said.
“I can walk.”
“I want to carry you for a little while longer, saera. Holding onto you is calming my temper and preventing me from going back and killing the karihre.”
“He came after me because it’s his home?”
He nodded. “He’s called this area his home for many years. There was a small herd of them at one time, but they moved on. He remained. Our people decided not to drive him out and stopped coming here.”
He was quiet for a long moment and she studied him. His jaw was tight and his gaze was fixed straight ahead. “I didn’t mean to make you worry.”
He glanced down at her. “I’m not upset with you. It was my fault for not telling you that you shouldn’t come here. It never occurred to me that you might go off on your own looking for herbs for your cooking.”
“I should have looked for you first.” She rested her head on his shoulder and sighed deeply. “I’m just not used to this life yet. I used to be able to get in my hover-machen and go to a shop for whatever I needed, any time day or night. If I’d thought for a moment that it would be dangerous, I wouldn’t have gone. I could
have died because I was trying to be of value to the city.”
“What do you mean?” Dex asked.
“I want to make Villi proud,” she answered.
“I am proud of you,” he said.
She wrapped a lock of his dark hair around her finger and rubbed the soft strands with her thumb. “I know. I don’t think I can explain it right.”
Villi stopped walking and put her down gently. The river was cool, and the water soaked her moccasins, but she didn’t care. “You don’t think I would leave you for any reason, do you?”
Dex kept walking until he was out of earshot, and then he stopped with his back to them and waited.
She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment before answering. “I know in my heart that you won’t, but my head is a little late to the party. All I’ve ever known are males who base a female’s value on her ability to breed. You say it doesn’t matter to you that I can’t have children, but part of me – however small that part is – wants to be the best mate to you so that you never leave me.”
“I never, ever will,” he said. “You are well and truly stuck with me, Pilar.”
“Yeah?”
He chuckled. “Without a doubt. Your value to me isn’t in your ability to do anything – it’s because you’re mine. You’re beautiful and sweet, and you make me happy with just a smile. The best part of my day is waking up with you in my arms and oh, how you sound when you fall apart.”
He growled softly and every female instinct inside her took notice. “It’s the best part of my day, too.”
He exhaled. “Did you even get any yap leaves?”
She touched the pouch that was strapped to her chest. “It’s half full. I wish the plant grew somewhere else besides that beast’s home.”
“We can ask my mother if there’s another herb that’s similar to it. She used to cook with it often, but once the karihre started attacking the harvesters, we were forced to stop. What you were using must have been the last of what had been harvested.”
“Are there other places I should stay away from?”
He lifted both her hands and kissed her knuckles. “When we get back to the city, I’ll draw a map for you and take you on a real tour. I’ll show you our territory markers so you know where to stay to be safe. But in the future, I would love to escort you anywhere and everywhere.”
“Even if you’re busy?” She arched a brow at him.
“I’m never too busy for you.”
They clasped hands and began to walk, catching up to Dex.
“I wasn’t listening,” he said, “but a map of our territory is a great idea.”
She laughed. “I thought you weren’t listening?”
“I wasn’t intentionally listening. But it did get me to thinking that I haven’t talked to Bella about where she can go or where she should stay away from. I would expect she’d stay in the main part of our city, but it would be foolish of us all not to explore the territory and make sure everyone knows how to be safe.”
“So something good came out of my mistake,” Pilar said.
“And thankfully, you weren’t hurt,” Villi said. “I would never forgive myself if you were hurt because I hadn’t prepared you fully.”
“You don’t think I’m a stupid female?” she asked.
“Never. You didn’t intentionally run into danger.”
“I think I’ve had enough danger to last a lifetime.”
“Good.”
They moved onto the riverbank and she turned to look at where they’d come from. She couldn’t tell where they’d been since it all looked the same to her, but she also didn’t see or hear the karihre, so she suspected they were quite a ways down the river. “I like that your people chose to let him live in his home instead of killing or driving him away.”
“If he’d harmed you, I wouldn’t have been so kind,” Villi said.
“Would you teach me to use the bow?” she asked.
“I’d be honored.”
They began to walk into the forest, their shoes squishing from the river. She was a cook and she’d almost died trying to get an ingredient for a recipe. But she’d learned something about herself – she hadn’t given up. Yes, she’d been scared, but it hadn’t driven her to do anything foolish like trying to make a run for it. She could have brought the beast right to the city, and it could have done untold damage. For a city female who didn’t know much about the harshness of nature, she’d survived and was on her way home. And she’d have an amazing story to tell during evening meal.
Later, she’d thank her soul mate properly for coming to her rescue.
Chapter 9
Pilar tested the fourn, pressing the breast with a wooden cooking utensil and finding it still slightly undercooked. Making a note in the blank journal she and Villi had made, she sat back on the padded mat outside of their tent and returned her attention to sorting the root vegetables she’d gathered from the community garden.
A full lunar cycle had passed since she’d come to the city, and she already felt very much at home. Although Villi was busy patrolling the city and mountainside, and hunting, he ensured they always ate meals together and went to the lake to eat often. The Earth females said it was called “date night,” which was a foreign term to Pilar, but it seemed to mean that mated couples would go out of their way to do something special at certain times in a moon cycle. The lake was fast becoming one of her favorite places, especially at the time of day when the sun was setting and the moons were rising. It was magical.
She was still learning how to cook with fire, but she was a quick study and the other females were happy to share their knowledge. She’d burned a lot of meat and vegetables in the beginning until she’d learned how to use the different temperatures in the fire, from the barest edge of the flames to the deep red coals.
“It smells heavenly,” Ashleigh said as she stopped in front of the fire, rubbing her swollen belly. The female was pregnant with her and Eden’s first young.
“Are you hungry? I’d be happy to make you something.”
“I’m always hungry. But I didn’t come here to mooch,” she said as she sat down on another padded mat.
“Mooch?” Pilar asked. The Earth females were forever using words that didn’t translate properly into Norlanian. When they were abducted, the females had translators implanted that allowed them to both speak Norlanian and hear in their native tongue.
“It means to always be begging for food. I had a dog named Mooch when I was a kid. He liked to beg at the table for scraps.”
“A dog is like a hupi, right?” Pilar asked, thinking about Boreo, the hupi that belonged to Paoli and Kate. The huge animal had bright green fur and a penchant for stealing unattended vegetables.
“Right. How’s the cooking going?”
“I’m trying your suggestion for marninating the bird overnight.”
“Marinating,” Ashleigh corrected. “I can’t believe you don’t have a word for that in your language.”
The previous night, Pilar had pressed the truos fruit to collect the tangy juice, which she’d mixed with the nectar from the lilo flower. She’d soaked a prepared fourn in a bowl with the fruit and nectar mixture while she slept and then slow-roasted it. As it roasted, not only had it smelled delicious, but the black skin had also turned an interesting orange shade.
“No, I never did anything like this, but when I was in culinary school, I had an instructor who liked to use a syringe to inject different flavors into meat before cooking. It’s far easier to just soak the meat, though.”
“And good tasting, too.”
“I hope so.”
Ashleigh chuckled. “You’re an amazing cook. Your dishes at the weekly meals are becoming the favorites. Do you know what I think?”
She looked at the Earth female. “What?”
“I think that we all found our way here to the city for a reason. If Sloan hadn’t told me to wait to get the prenatal vaccination, my child might have some of the same issues that other
Norlanians have. I mean, no one really knows what will happen when the mixed children reach maturity. The vaccinations could have messed with their ability to reproduce as well, which would mean a lot of females were abducted for no good reason.”
Pilar had spent time talking to Sloan about her thoughts on what the government had done to their people through the soul-walks, serums, and vaccinations. It was hard for her to imagine the government being so callous, knowing that the vaccinations had caused the sterility, then continuing to given them to all pregnant females. On the other side of the mountain, Norlanian females were reduced to what their bodies could do, something they had no control over. Because she was sterile, she’d been seen as a poor choice for a mate.
But on this side – the forbidden side – she learned that there were males who valued females, whether or not they were capable of bearing offspring.
“I think you’re right,” Pilar said. “How we all came here is such a strange tale. Without Eden going on the soul-walk for you, I don’t think I would have ever met Villi.”
“Right. Maybe Sloan and Warrick would have mated eventually, but who knows what would have happened with Kate and Paoli, or Dex and Bella. We kind of kicked off the whole thing, I think.”
“Have you chosen a name for your young?”
She looked thoughtful. “Eden said it was entirely up to me, so I said that I wanted to name our child after my favorite aunt or uncle. During school breaks, I would go stay on their farm. My aunt taught me to sew, and my uncle taught me how to drive. He gave me his truck when I got my license.”
“They sound like wonderful family members.”
“And friends, too. Aunt Tina died when I was fifteen, and Uncle Joe died when I was twenty. Naming our child after one of them is a way for me to honor their memories.”
“I like the names you picked. It’s even sweeter knowing they are names that are special to you.”
Pilar lifted a metal grate that Villi had fashioned for her and set it over an area of hot coals next to the spit with the fourn. For their morning meal, she’d cooked biscuits on the grate, finding they tasted wonderful with a little char from the fire. She still had dough in a bowl next to the fire, which she kneaded a few times and then pulled apart, flattening each section slightly and setting it on the grate.
