Ashes in the Sky

by Jennifer M. Eaton

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “The last few times it did that it charged me.”

  “Maybe he smells your fear.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  Yes, you are.

  I smirked, following Edgar around the base of five humongous trees that had grown together into a solid wall. As I turned the corner, the sun shone down on a reflective surface, blinding me. I shielded my brow and moved further toward the trees to get the glare out of my eyes.

  David gasped as he joined me. A ball of liquid metal looming far over our heads swirled, casting streaks of color into the trees. Edgar worked busily on the ground, herding a few baseball-sized orbs toward the mass until they absorbed into the larger body.

  “I don’t believe it,” David said.

  He walked toward the sphere, giving Edgar a generous leeway, and ran his fingers through the liquid metal. His features darkened.

  “These particles are too warm.” He turned to me. “We have to get this material back to the core.”

  26

  The giant orb inched forward, breaking into three pieces to get through the trees. Edgar cooed into the air. Like mice drawn to the Pied Piper, blobs of metal in various sizes of spheres and ovals tumbled toward the mass and absorbed into the larger body.

  “Good boy.” I patted Edgar’s head.

  David walked beside us with his arms folded.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  He picked up an egg-shaped rock. As he handed it to me, the stone disintegrated. “That was part of the ship. There’s an awful lot of material that has already died from exposure.”

  I scanned the scattered rocks littering the grass. Not good.

  “I know this mound seems like a lot, but I’m not sure we have enough to make the ship run.”

  Edgar herded the orb through the brush, coaxing more particles into the larger mass. The blob seemed to swirl faster, reflect brighter with each addition to its gelatinous form. The pearlescent monolith crept through the green forest in a slow, steady roll: a vision both eerie and beautiful.

  Maybe David was right. Maybe we couldn’t save enough of the ship to make a difference. But we had to try. We couldn’t just sit there and let all of those scattered particles die.

  As we turned to our right, the glow brightened, and we stepped into the blackened, circular indentation I had fallen into earlier. It looked like someone had scooped out part of the planet with a giant ice cream spoon, leaving a scattering of burned and toppled trees littering the edges of the formation.

  When I was hanging on for dear life, I didn’t digest how large the crater was.

  My mouth fell open. “Did your ship leave this big a hole when you crashed on earth?”

  “No. On Earth I wasn’t carrying an explosive payload.”

  “The powder?”

  He nodded. “This is only a fraction of what it would have done if the ship’s reactor didn’t blow. It was hot enough to obliterate the powder before the secondary reaction ignited.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because the planet is still here.”

  Ho-lee-crap. I eased my arms under his shoulders, pulling him closer. “You crashed the ship on purpose.”

  He ran his fingers through my hair. “Once the reactor ruptured, I shot off in the other escape pod. I got lucky.”

  The crater took up acres. He wasn’t just lucky. He was damn lucky.

  His gaze remained fixed on the immense hollow below us. “I had to make sure the powder imploded. It was the only way.” He pointed out over the desolation. “What’s left of our ship is over here.”

  We trudged through the ashes, making our way to a glowing, pulsing spiral hidden just inside the tree line: a miniature version of the staircase the grassen had attacked us on in the center of the ambassador’s ship. Small pools of liquid ebony dotted the terrain. The shinier droplets rolled toward the larger mass of their own accord. Edgar busied himself gathering the weaker spherical entities and bringing them back to the fold.

  As we neared the spiral, the molten mass picked up speed, ramming into the glowing staircase, covering the nerve center in opalescence.

  “Wow,” I said, stepping closer. The material swelled and contracted, almost as if breathing.

  David reached for the swirling metal. “It’s acclimating.”

  “That’s good, right?”

  “Yes, that’s very good.” He sank his fingertips into the hull. “There’s enough material to create an oxygen barrier, but not a propulsion system.”

  The grassen clicked his mandibles and scampered into the brush.

  I propped my hands on my hips. “Edgar says he’s on it.”

  “That’s not what he said.”

  “How do you know?”

  David pulled me closer. “You are a very interesting person, you know that?”

  I sank into his embrace. For a blissful five seconds, I let the weight of an unknown planet slide from my shoulders. “Are we ever getting out of here?”

  “Is this one of those times you want me to lie to you?”

  “No. I need to know the truth.”

  He sighed. “I wish I had an answer. We’d need twenty-five percent more material to risk the journey. Double that to take the trip safely.”

  “So it is up to Edgar, then.”

  “Pretty much.” He rubbed his face. “I don’t want to get your hopes up, Jess. That’s a lot of metal to round up, and so much of the ship is unsalvageable.”

  I stepped back, crossing my arms. “Where is all this doubt coming from? Aren’t you the guy who is trying to give CPR to a dead planet?”

  “Yes, but I’m also the guy who screws up everything he touches. I need to be a realist sometimes.”

  I slipped my hands into his. “You touched me, and I’m not screwed up.”

  “You’re not? Look around you. You’re marooned on a noxious, green jungle because of me. There’s a good possibility we’re never getting off this planet.”

  Swallowing, I tried to will away the pain simmering in my throat. Being stuck permanently had never crossed my mind. Even when I was alone, my air bag had a timer ticking down to my death. Forever had never been an option. Since I’d found David, I’d taken for granted I’d see home again.

  The green mist hanging in the trees around the crater suddenly stifled me. “I have to get home. Dad is expecting me for tacos.”

  David’s eyes widened. He looked away, and the pain in my throat sank into my stomach and flipped over. Dad wasn’t waiting with tacos. He wasn’t even home. Chances were he wasn’t even alive. We’d left him with a fuming mad, homicidal Erescopian ambassador … a man angry with David and angry with me. I’d sealed Dad’s fate the moment I found out about the powder.

  My hands formed fists. Not getting home was not an option. Dad needed me, and I wasn’t giving up on him. “We need to—”

  The leaves on the bushes turned upward. The greenery changed to the same deep, burgundy glow as it had before the werewolf-dogs attacked me.

  “David?”

  “I see it.”

  He moved behind me, circling my body with his right arm. The silence of the alien woods pressed in. Anything could be out there. Anything.

  David’s grip on me tightened as a growl erupted from our left. He spun me from harm as a snarling, bluish, wolf-dog nearly twice David’s height leaped toward us. I screamed as David splayed his other arm to defend us, but an ear-shattering chitter overshadowed the snarl as a black blur throttled toward the beast, smacking its hide before it could bite David.

  I gasped as the animals struggled, and three huge fangs extended from the smaller animal’s hidden mouth. “Edgar!”

  A sheen of silvery-black shot out of the grassen’s front legs as he bit down on the werewolf-dog. The animal twitched as the liquid coated the beast’s grimy fur, encompassing the entire creature. Edgar backed off until the animal hidden within the cocoo
n-like coating stopped moving.

  I shuddered. Edgar had easily taken down an animal ten times his size. I’d been afraid of him at first, but I’d taken solace in being bigger than him, figuring I could use my height against the smaller creature. I’d been wrong. Edgar could have killed either David or me at any time, and there wasn’t a darn thing we could have done to stop him.

  Stretching each of his legs once, Edgar shook out his thin coat and darted back into the trees.

  David took a deep breath behind me, and I released the breath I’d been holding.

  The glaze around the were-dog dulled as if hardening. “Is it dead?” I asked. “Did he kill it?”

  David knelt down and tapped on the dog’s new outer shell. The gray, rock-like material clanged like steel. “No. It’s suspended animation. Like a coma. It can live for years like that.”

  I hugged my shoulders. “Why?”

  “Food. The grassen can break off small pieces at a time and leave the host alive indefinitely. I’ve read about this. They have been known to keep the rodent population at bay in ships using these shells. I’ve just never seen it happen.”

  So the animal was in there, alive, in the dark. Could it see? Did it know that it had been caught? Was it freaking out, but unable to move? “That’s really disturbing.”

  David shivered. “Tell me about it. I’m the one that grassen doesn’t like.”

  Clenching his fists, David stood.

  I eased up beside him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Night is coming.”

  The sun hung close to the canopy, but it was far from dark. “What do you mean?”

  The shadows arched around us, and the sparkles of light poking through the trees abated. With a flash of light, the sun dropped below the horizon as if yanked from the sky.

  “What happened?” I asked, reaching into the darkness.

  David grabbed for me. My arm trembled in his grip. “We need to go. Now.”

  27

  David dragged me through the darkness. Our feet thudded on the flattened trail cut by Edgar’s giant metal ball. I cringed as leaves struck my face, waiting to run into a tree. But just like in the woods on Earth, David navigated the trunks with ease.

  I shivered as the cold bit at my cheeks. I couldn’t imagine what the plummeting temperature was doing to David and his thermo-nuclear temperature disorder.

  He stopped suddenly, fumbled with something near his feet, and pushed me down. I crawled through a hole and into the shelter he’d built out of the warm, insulating tree limbs. A slight glow from the leaves illuminated the small space as he slid in beside me and pulled the limbs down to encase us in their warmth. His teeth chattered.

  I pulled him closer. “Come here. Let me warm you up.”

  “Th-thanks.”

  He shivered in my arms.

  “What happened? The sun didn’t go down that fast the other nights.”

  “I d-don’t know anything about this planet. I hav-v-v-ve no idea.”

  I rubbed his arms, hoping to make some heat. I guess it wasn’t fair to count on him to know everything. Heck, if we were in Russia, I wouldn’t be able to explain much about the temperature or terrain to him, and that’s on my own planet. How could I expect him to know anything about a strange world just because he was from outer space?

  His quaking subsided, and a snicker escaped his lips.

  “What’s so funny?”

  He rubbed his cheek against my forehead. “I’m in this great, confined space, with a warm girl in my arms.” He shrugged. “I know we’re in trouble, but I’m happy.”

  I relaxed my head on his shoulder. “You are going to spoil me, talking like that.”

  “You deserve to be spoiled.”

  My cheeks heated, but I was pretty sure it had nothing to do with the warm branches. “I was lost when you were gone.”

  “I know.”

  I startled. “You know?”

  His smile warmed me. “I mean that I missed you, too. I never stopped thinking about you.”

  Tiny girly bells went off in my ears. I had a love-hate relationship with those bells. I rested my head on his chest and listened to him breathe. Such a simple thing, but I relaxed. A sense of safety and contentment eased the stress from my muscles.

  David stroked the back of my neck. Each touch of his warm fingers sent a trickle of vitality through my skin. The energy built and abated, as if he played music inside me.

  “How do you do that?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Make me feel the way you do.”

  He adjusted his weight. “It’s not something I’m doing consciously. Is it bad?”

  I bit back my laugh. “No it’s great. I love it.”

  My cheeks tingled with the memory of his embrace that morning. Every cell in my body had come alive, celebrated, and screamed in joy.

  I slipped my hands beside his cheeks. “When you held me like this today, it was more than something you did by accident.”

  “Yes, that was different. You said you liked it.”

  Well, that was the understatement of the century. “You made me feel more incredible than I’d ever felt before.”

  “I’m glad I could make you happy.”

  But the sadness in his face had stolen my joy. Something was wrong. Something he wasn’t telling me. “You looked disappointed afterward. Was I supposed to, I don’t know, do something back?”

  He hunched his shoulders. “It’s not right to expect a return gesture.”

  “Why not?”

  “I gave myself to you. You have the choice to take, or give in return.”

  I reigned in my need to slap him. “I wanted to give in return. I just didn’t know how to.” I leaned away from him. “I want to make you feel the way I do when you hold me. How do I do that?”

  His eyes widened. He looked away. His face flushed. How could someone so strong also be so meek?

  I turned his chin toward me. “Tell me how to make you happy.”

  One side of his lips turned up in a grin. “Keep breathing.”

  “Other than breathing.” I rubbed my cheek against his. He shivered. “How do I make you feel good inside.”

  I ran my fingers across his midriff. His muscles flexed and hardened beneath my palms. A twang jittered through me, knowing my touch had caused that reaction in him. I wanted more than that, though.

  I tugged at the edge of his shirt. “Take this off.”

  “Why?”

  I rubbed my forehead, concealing my smirk. “Because I asked you to.”

  The cutest perplexed look flashed in his eyes before he pulled the fabric over his head and dropped the shirt beside him. He kept his gaze lowered and ran his fingers down his chest. “This skin pleases you.”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  Closing my eyes, I ran my hands across his pectorals, envisioning the cool lilac shades I’d seen on his ship. How badly had I wanted to run my hands along his sculpted muscles then, but I couldn’t. I’d have frozen him, and he’d have burned me. We weren’t compatible. He needed this fabricated human suit just to touch me, but this façade wasn’t him. Not really. What I wanted was underneath.

  I trailed my tongue along his collarbone. “How thick is your human covering?”

  He gasped; a sweet, endearing sound that egged me on. “Not thick, it’s only a few layers.”

  I trailed kisses up his neck. “So you can feel this, just like it was your own skin?”

  “Pretty much.”

  He pulled us into a sitting position. My head grazed the ceiling. David had to bend down to fit in the confined space. “I like it when you close your eyes and move your hands over my skin.”

  “I’m thinking about what you really look like.”

  “I know.”

  Of course, he knew. Stinking, stupid telepathic …

  My breath hitched as he slid his hands under my shirt, stroking his fingertips along my s
pine. I quaked, arching and pressing against him. Soaking in the moment, my head lolled back, and when I up-righted our noses brushed. His gaze trailed to my lips.

  Every hair on my body raised. My muscles tensed. His hands were firm and controlling, but soft and sensual at the same time. I wanted them to move, stroke, and worship me with every touch. But his grip only tightened on my shoulders.

  He shook slightly before steadying himself. I shifted my weight as an ache seeped into the growing warmth between my legs. Blood coursed through my veins, heightening my senses, opening me to the flood of desire surging through him. His hands moved lower. His fingertips teasing the lines of my hips before gripping. Holding. Owning. The strength of his hands on my sides drove me witless. Crazy. Out of my mind. I was about to explode. If he didn’t do something, I was going to—

  “I like the kissing thing,” he whispered.

  I licked my lips, trembling as his lips parted.

  “I like the kissing thing, too.” My voice squeaked. I gulped and eased closer. His breath tickled my already sensitive lips. My own breaths came in short gasps. “What are you waiting for?”

  The color in his eyes deepened, swirled. “Vozunt mea est.” His grip on me tightened. “Mea est!” His intensity raged through every muscle, every cell. Did he even know he wasn’t speaking English?

  Half of me couldn’t stand the power in his gaze, while the other half relished the energy, absorbed it. “You can’t even imagine how much I missed you,” I whispered.

  I gasped as his eyes flashed black before their turquoise hue returned. He kissed my neck, trailing his scorching tongue along the same path I’d teased him with earlier. Energy blasted through his hands into me. I cried out as his lips covered mine, taking as much as he gave.

  David grunted as his fingers tangled in my shirt. His chest glistened. I wanted to run my palms across his abs. I wanted to cover myself with everything that was him.

  Bending to the side, I pulled my shirt over my head and tossed it beside his. My chest heaved within my bra. I’d never taken my top off for a guy. A flash of shame and weakness flooded me, until David’s gaze slid over my form, taking me in, consuming me. I’d never been so sure in all my life of how much I wanted something. I needed him. I needed him more than I needed air.