by Mary Auclair
No. It can’t be.
But as the slim figure got closer, that face took form. The face that had haunted her nightmares, chilled her to the bone even in the heat of summer.
“Knut.” Her voice was a whisper in the wind, but his thin lips stretched in a satisfied grin. His aristocratic brows lifted in delight as he knelt in front of her.
“You.” Knut tilted his head, his silky black long hair falling in a lush cascade behind his pointed ears. A slow, impossibly wide grin lifted the corners of his lips, exposing tiny, pointed teeth. “I remember you. You’re the spunky one, the one who defied me.”
Hazel’s entire body trembled as the Ilarian guards approached, their yellow skin glistening under a layer of sweat, their faces all identical, as devoid of expression as they were of emotion. Each was aiming an ionic gun directly at Khal, their eyes hard and merciless. Their features were flat, almost non-existent in that yellow skin of theirs, giving them a permanent neutral expression.
She hated the Ilarians as much as she pitied them.
There was no point in appealing to their sympathy, no point in even talking to them. The Ilarians were clones, fabricated in a laboratory, motherless and fatherless. They had been made without free will, created to obey orders from their maker. No conscience, no soul to prevent them from committing the most horrific actions, they had been the backbone of Knut’s operations on Aveyn for as long as the humans could remember.
Hazel backed closer to Khal. His face was drawn tight, those impossibly sharp features set in lines of pure wrath. His entire body vibrated with the need for violence, to unleash the savagery that had made his kind the ultimate warriors.
“It was you.” Khal spoke low, his voice like a growl. “You shot the Myrador down.”
Knut watched Khal, sighed deeply, then shook his head. “Eoks are so very tedious, so dim.” There was boredom in Knut’s voice. “So predictable.”
“How did you manage to make a ship without identifiers?” Khal asked, his tone one of pure hatred. “It’s impossible.”
“Impossible,” Knut mused, his head tilting to Hazel again, his eyes twinkling with delight as they trailed down her body. “Your kind will never learn. You live on honor and strength. On loyalty.” He chuckled at the last word. “Wealth is the only true power. There is nothing that can’t be bought. The only trick is to figure out at what price, and to be able to pay it.”
The ugliness of Knut’s mind shone through for a few brief seconds as he stared at Khal. Then he lost interest and stared beyond them at the carnivorous forest.
“But you and your kind have cost me enough. I had hoped you’d be killed in the crash, but now, I get to enjoy watching you suffer.”
Knut’s promise hung in the air. His polished, well-groomed face stayed perfectly still as he watched Khal’s reaction, the perversion visible just beneath the faint veil of civilization. Knut was rotten, twisted and evil beyond repair.
“How did you find us?” Khal asked, his eyes darting to the Ilarian guards, clearly assessing his chances of success should he attack. Hazel watched, paralyzed with fear as Khal stepped in front of her and an Ilarian guard lifted his ionic gun higher, his finger on the trigger. They would shoot at the slightest doubt.
Knut stared at Khal, his grin wide and creepy. He was clearly amused by the situation. “What would one do without friends?” He chuckled at his own words, then snapped his long, elegant fingers of pearlescent white skin. The Ilarian guards moved to make way for a tall and broad figure with blue skin and deathly pale, soulless blue eyes, which settled on Khal and Hazel.
“Gerkin.” Khal spat the name. “You honor-less bastard. You put a tracer on our ship when we refueled. That’s how Knut found us.”
“Surprised, Commander Khal?” Gerkin chuckled dryly. “You were so focused on your mating, you didn’t even check.”
“You betrayed your people, the entire Ring, for what? To be that Avonie’s little errand boy?”
“I’ll show you just what an errand boy can do.” Gerkin lifted his hand and rubbed his wrist. It took a few moments for Hazel to realize the hand was not his own, but a mechanical prosthesis wrapped in a black glove. “If fact, I think I’ll kill you with my new hand. Don’t you like it?”
“It’s an improvement,” Khal answered, completely unafraid. “Maybe you’ll have better judgment on who you fight for, or who you’ll fight against next time.”
“Maybe it is an improvement. Maybe I’ll use my new hand to choke the life out of you, or maybe I’ll just use it on your pretty little bloodmate here.”
There was resentment and hatred in Gerkin’s voice, enough to chill Hazel to the core. Gerkin was never going to stop seeking vengeance. Only death would stop him.
“If you touch Hazel, I will make sure you die slowly and painfully.”
Khal’s promise hung in the air, his face a death mask. Gerkin had the good sense to look slightly unnerved, but he soon got over it as two more Eoks appeared, hard faced and their expressions closed off, dragging two figures behind them. Unlike Gerkin, they didn’t make eye contact with Khal, staring at the ground instead. They were not as callous as their commander. Hazel watched them, wondering just how bad they felt about betraying their nation. The muffled sound of a female’s cries of pain reached the group.
Then the Eoks dropped the two figures on the ground and Hazel immediately recognized her friends.
“Celaith! Zaxis!”
Celaith lifted eyes full of fear to Hazel, but didn’t speak. Her skin was almost completely white, streaked with faint purple lines. She was so weak, Hazel knew she didn’t have long if she didn’t receive proper medical care.
“I must admit, your resilience impresses me.” Knut spoke again, this time from the side. Hazel turned her head to see that he was talking to her and not to Khal. “You have been through more than any other human female, and still you didn’t break.” Those thin lips smacked together in a semblance of annoyance, but his purple eyes gleamed with amusement, his pupils shrinking and dilating as he spoke of the past. “You only broke when I took your sister away. She was such a delicate little thing, much more suited to that idiot than you. You would have been wasted on him.”
His purple eyes assessed her with an owner’s gaze, and the primal fear she’d always had of him returned—like it was just yesterday that she was eighteen and frightened, about to be sold. Fighting for her freedom with all the resolve she had.
“It was a long time ago. I’m not a little girl anymore. I’m not scared of you.”
It was a lie, but Hazel managed to spit the words out anyway. Knut’s pupils flashed thin and angry as Khal took a protective stance in front of her. But it was useless; there were just too many of them, too many weapons.
There was no way out.
Knut turned to the Ilarian guard closest to him. “Toss the Eok back into the Medina Forest.”
“And the human female, sir?” The Ilarian’s tone was detached, unaffected.
“It would be a waste to destroy a female with such spirit, and I didn’t get to where I am by being wasteful.” Knut turned his gaze back to Hazel, full of the promise of a retribution so horrible, she couldn’t even think about it. “The human comes unharmed. Bring the Duke’s son and the Arvak as well. She’s a rare commodity. I’ll find a buyer for her, one who likes his kittens with some claws. The Duke will pay me a nice ransom for his son as well.”
Gerkin’s eyes settled on Hazel and an evil grin stretched his mouth. His two Eok guards, still looking down, motioned for Zaxis to move. He obeyed, but not before spewing a slew of insults and threats, Celaith cradled against him, sending Hazel one last desperate look.
She was losing them. She had lost them already.
And she was going to lose Khal as well.
The Ilarian guards moved, closing in on Khal in a semi-circular formation, ionic guns raised, emotionless eyes full of calculation. They were either going to shoot him where he stood or force him to go back to that horrible place
where trees shot up from the ground to melt the flesh from your bones.
A hand shot to her arm from behind, and Hazel spun around to see an Ilarian guard, looking down at her with his dead eyes. She hadn’t even heard him inch closer.
“Unhand her!” Khal shouted, his talons fully extended into deadly weapons, his eyes glittering bright blue with fury. His snarl inflated and Hazel knew violence was about to come. An Eok warrior might be fast and strong, but he couldn’t outrun an ionic detonation.
A black void opened between Hazel’s ribs at the thought of losing Khal, an endless pit made of all that her life had been before, all her life would be without him. She simply couldn’t lose him.
Recklessness had destroyed her life. Now, recklessness was going to save it.
Khal was still snarling, the sound feral and terrible as the Ilarian guards closed on him. All eyes were on the Eok, the most formidable warrior around, the biggest threat.
No one paid attention to Hazel. She had a second, maybe less, to make her move.
Her elbow connected with the Ilarian guard’s stomach with the strength of her despair. The soft tissue gave way as the Ilarian guard bent forward, his breath coming out in a tiny, choked-up puff. She lost no time. Her hand closed around his ionic gun and she pulled. The weapon came loose in her hands, but the fingers around her arm didn’t let go.
She twisted in the guard’s hold, pressing the barrel right against his ribs.
Then her fingers found the trigger and she pulled. The power of the ionic detonation sent her to the ground, her teeth snapping together hard. Pain shot through her mouth as the coppery taste of blood spread over her tongue.
The Ilarian guard stared at her, his eyes full of shock as he looked back down at his chest, where a gaping wound oozed blood freely, staining the pristine white uniform. Then the guard dropped and strong, big arms wrapped around Hazel’s entire body, wrenching the ionic gun from her hand. Khal’s smell—male, incredibly good—filled her nostrils and she buried her face in his shoulder.
Then all hell broke loose.
Orders rang out above her head, mingling with horrific, pain-filled screams and the iodine stench of more ionic detonations. Something hot seared the side of her leg, and something else just above her ear, but she didn’t care. All she cared about were those strong muscles, that beating heart that could ward off the world’s evil, make everything worth it. Make life worth living.
She was aware that Khal was running, his strong legs taking them far, far away. Further away from the voices, further away from the ionic detonations… until there was no more. No more ionic detonations, no more voices, only Khal and silence.
The silence of death, and a stench to match.
Hazel finally opened her eyes as Khal stopped running, then immediately wished she hadn’t. They were back in the forest.
And then she knew they had all found a fate worse than death.
Chapter 19
Hazel
Time felt suspended in an anxious wait as Khal and Hazel turned around. They were standing on an outcrop of large, flat rocks covering a good two dozen square feet, like an island in the endless sea of green. No matter where she looked, Hazel couldn’t see an exit.
“We’ll never get out of here.” Her voice sounded weak and reedy in the still air, the breeze not reaching this deep in the forest.
Khal didn’t answer her, his gaze widening with alarm as he looked at her. “You’ve been hit.”
Hazel frowned, then looked down at herself as a searing pain spread through her thigh, as well as above her ear. Her hand went to her head and she hissed in pain as she touched raw, bloody flesh. She watched as Khal bent to take a closer look at her thigh, a deep frown of concern on his face.
“It’s nothing,” she protested, but her heart was already beating crazily, fear coursing through her at the speed of her blood loss. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.” Khal’s voice was full of dread as he turned to cast a wide glance around. “I don’t know much about the Medina Forest, but if what I suspect is true, then your injuries are bad news. Very bad news.”
“Just tell me.”
Khal seemed to hesitate, but only for a second. “We’re on Muhar, home of the Muharee people. Not much is known of them or their customs, except that they worship the Medina,” Khal began as his talons extended and he carefully sliced the top of her pants to reveal the three-inch wide, gaping wound in her left thigh. “The Medina is their sacred forest, their Goddess. It’s a predator, too, but I don’t think it can see us.”
“It attacked us only after I touched that trunk.”
They locked gazes for a long time, their unsaid words weighing heavy above their heads.
“It hunts by sound and smell.” Khal nodded. “It makes sense. The faster we ran, the better it knew our position, the more aggressive it was.”
“We need to mask our scent and get out of here without making a noise.”
Khal looked at her for a long time, then at her wound, then again at the one on her head. He shook his head, his blue gaze searching, frustrated.
“You’re bleeding. It will smell you for sure.”
He was right, of course.
“We can’t stay here.” Hazel shook her head stubbornly. “We got this far, we can make it out. There has to be an exit.”
Khal suddenly snapped his head to the side, his entire body becoming very still and tense. Something long and slender was moving under the dark, almost black dirt. As it moved, the rotten smell of the forest became stronger and stronger, overpowering.
It was the stench of death.
Rotting flesh, acid and some metallic undertone mixed into a smell that threatened to make Hazel bend over and retch. She could barely control herself as a white root poked out of the ground a dozen feet away from the edge of the rock island.
“Don’t talk,” Khal whispered against her, pulling her close. “And whatever you do, don’t move.”
She nodded silently as the root lifted higher, turning blindly in the windless air. Its surface was pure white, glistening under a fine cover of mucus, more like a tentacle than a root. Hazel shivered, remembering the burning pain of the root’s touch. It lifted even higher in the air, following a logic of its own making, inclining its pointy head here and there.
Like it was searching, or maybe smelling something.
With a gasp of horror, Hazel’s eyes went to the rock, where a thin rivulet of blood had already spread, almost touching the dirt. She pointed to it with a trembling finger and Khal’s eyes followed her gesture, growing wider, more alarmed.
It was too late. The blood dripped down onto the dirt. As soon as it did, the root darted for it, but stopped when it found nothing else. Then more movement agitated the dirt and roots lifted up into the air, glistening white and wet, dripping with mucus, until the outcrop of rocks was completely surrounded.
Khal’s hold around Hazel became tighter, the feeling of his heart beating faster against his ribs as Hazel pressed herself into him.
Soon, a hundred roots were standing up from the dirt like blind snakes, rocking back and forth. Waiting for their prey to make its first mistake. The chirping came back, rising from the forest all around, at first low, then louder, more shrill.
We’re going to die.
Hazel shut her eyes, her hands digging into Khal’s leather vest.
Then the chirping turned into a screech and an acrid, burning smell invaded her nostrils. Hazel opened her eyes to see five tall figures wrapped in bright green hooded cloaks the exact color of the trunks, covering them from head to toe, their faces hidden. They walked through the roots, the tips of their boots showing as they did so, their shoes as green as their hoods. The figure in the center was a bit taller than the others, walking just a pace in front.
The leader.
The screech inflated as the hooded figures approached, making their way to the rock outcrop until they stood just at the base. As they got nearer, the details of their
clothing became more apparent. The fabric they’d wrapped themselves in wasn’t just green, it was shimmering and supple, molding to their bodies in a seamless, fluid motion. From this distance, Hazel could see fine veins running over the skin, vibrant and lifelike. Like it wasn’t fabric at all, but a second skin, hiding their true skin in a perfect costume.
Camouflage. Those cloaks were camouflage in which to walk amongst the trees of the Medina Forest.
The forest around them was alive with a sound Hazel could only describe as pure outrage. As she stared with a morbid fascination, she saw that the sound came from the stalks themselves, their trunks vibrating like the strings of a musical instrument.
It would be a wonder, truly amazing, if it wasn’t for the fact that those trees wanted to eat them alive.
“You must come now.” A voice came from under the green hood of the figure in the middle. As the figure spoke, a root shot out from the ground, its white tip pointed in the direction of the sound. It stayed there for a few long seconds, waiting, before retreating with a furious hiss. “The Medina will not heed our commands for long. Even now, she plans her revenge on us for depriving her of her sustenance. If you do not follow us, she will take your bodies into her belly and eat your souls along with them.”
The words were strange, but the creature, whoever he was, was offering them a helping hand. Hazel moved but Khal stopped her, his hand like iron on her wrist.
“How do we know you will not harm us?”
His voice was full of suspicion and it made Hazel turn a frown back to the hooded creature. There was something familiar about it, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was.
“Our offer will not last. The Medina is our mother, but she is also our doom. She will not be patient.”
“We should go with them,” Hazel said, getting to her feet with a sharp intake of air. Pain shot through her wounds and tiny black dots scattered across her vision. She was still bleeding thanks to the ionic detonation’s cruel design, and would until her flesh was properly stitched.
