Collared By The Warrior

by Daniella Wright

  Lyra could understand that. She respected life. It was a creed that she had lived and breathed, what with being raised by her father, and him being the kind man that he was. When technology quite literally gave you the ability to span galaxies, you couldn’t approach your exploration with conquering everything in your path in mind.

  That being said, she was painfully curious. She wasn’t a scientist in practice – she didn’t like the stuffy conditions, really – but she desired exploration. There was only so much of that that would be done within Earth Two’s Compounds – the great expanses of colonized lands that were surrounded by reinforced holographic walls – and she had always wanted to see what was out there, what more there was that the world had to offer. She wasn’t afraid of what she would find; in all honesty, it made everything all the more interesting and thrilling not knowing what she would find out there.

  It was that thrill that kept her ducking around through the night. She was prone to late-night jogs, and it had been one of those jogs that led her to the breach in the wall she had discovered. As she came upon it again, she was excited to see that it was still there. The holographic walls weren’t conventional brick and mortar walls. They were completely invisible, aside from the steel pillars that rose about twenty feet into the air every fifty miles or so around the Compound. One wouldn’t be able to notice the wall itself, aside from these pillars, but when there was a hole in holographic code, rather than appearing as nonexistent, it was a vibrating shimmer. It was easy to overlook, but Lyra hadn’t.

  She was immensely happy for that fact.

  Flashlight in hand, she looked left, then right, and slipped through. The break in the holographic code was just large enough for a person to get through, and she wondered if it had been someone going in or coming out that had made it – perhaps it was an animal. That was curiosity that she didn’t have time to indulge, however. She was outside, now, and she breathed in.

  The holographic walls had an image projected onto them, which made everything past the wall look as though it were merely an open plain of grass. It was pleasing to look at, but what Lyra found on the other side was far more interesting. There were trees, huge, magnificent trees, farther than her eyes could take in. Even in the dimness of the evening, the moonlight illuminated the great collection of foliage in front of her, almost making the rich greens and browns glow beneath the shine in the sky.

  Lyra didn’t even need to make use of her flashlight, though she kept it in hand. She walked forward, stalking almost like a cat through the forest. There was the occasional croak and snap of an animal, but she wasn’t attacked, nor was she approached by anything. Her exploration was peaceful, encompassed by the sights and sounds of the unexplored nighttime, and the satiation of finally, finally, stepping out of the encased world that she lived in.

  She had every intention of wondering her way deep into the forest, letting her feet take her wherever they cared to let her go. The deeper she got, the darker it got, though. Her attention taken off her footing in order to pay attention to turning on her flashlight was the single second of lapse that was needed to lose her footing, and send her spiraling down the steep incline of a hill she hadn’t realized she was stop.

  Everything went black.

  II

  Lyra

  The first thing Lyra picked up was the scent of cooking meat. It was succulent, almost a little sweet, and it made her stomach rumble in want and her mouth water voraciously. The next thing she noticed, as she rolled over on – was that a bed? Cot, perhaps? – was the sound of voices speaking. She was able to pick up that there were two, distinctly male.

  Though she knew she should have been, she wasn’t afraid. Concerned, perhaps, but not afraid. She wasn’t dead and aside from the persistent throbbing pain in her ankle (that became a bit more prominent the more conscious that she became) she didn’t feel like she was harmed in any other way – and to be fair, the ankle was her fault. She remembered the tumble, the black out. Lyra tried to wiggle her foot a bit, and stopped as soon as the stab of pain shot through the joint.

  Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea…

  She sighed, though, and sat up after blinking a few times. Her surroundings where… Well.

  It was an intricate blend of technology and nature. The room she was in looked to be made of wood – but the grooves within the bark glowed in green light, looking like circuitry set into the bark. There was a window to one side, and Lyra could tell it was made out of the same sort of holographic program that the walls surrounding the Compound where; wind whipped through the trees on the other side, but none of that wind made its way inside.

  Other than that, the room itself was bare, aside from the cot that she was on. The door to the far side of the room was nothing more than an entryway – no actual door to speak of. It was through there that she heard the voices. It sounded as though they were speaking a different language, and it was at that she weighed her options.

  She could try to sneak out. That would have been the first choice – had her ankle not been shot to shit as it was. She tested trying to put weight on it as she listened to the men talking in the other room, and hissed as the pain shot worse through her foot.

  Okay. So, she wasn’t going to do that.

  She could easily just wait around until they came in to check on her, if that was something that they did. Or… she could bring them to her.

  “Hello?” she called out to them. “Anyone out there?”

  The talking stopped. She heard a low exchange of voices, before footfalls came. In the doorway of her room appeared two striking men, and she openly gaped for a moment.

  They both had to be about six feet tall, if not taller. They’d certainly dwarf her figure if they stood next to her (well, if she could stand) and had long, thick onyx-toned hair. Their skin, which was inked in intricate black tattoos, curling and winding over their supple flesh, was near the same shade of deep russet as her own – but it was their eyes that made them more other-worldly than anything. They were bright green, and set into feline-angled faces made them look distinctly panther-like in nature, and all the more alluring.

  An embarrassed flushed rose up on her skin, deepening her complexion as she realized she was staring so blatantly. The man on the left tilted his head at her, a thick brow raised in curiosity. He said something lowly to his companion, who nodded, and they both stepped forward. Instinctually, she sat up a little straighter, but neither made a move to hurt her in anyway – the man on the left reached out, and brushed some of her thick, auburn hair out of her face.

  “How do you feel?”

  The shock was evident on her face as she heard the words come from him.

  “You speak Galactic Common?” she asked him, surprised. His brows furrowed, before he chuckled.

  “Most people do. You – are from the Outsiders’ colony, yes?”

  She assumed that meant the Compound, and she nodded.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Did they abandon you?”

  “Abandon me? Oh… no. No I came out here exploring and I didn’t pay attention to where I was going and fell. I think I tripped down a hill.”

  He nodded.

  “We found you while hunting at the edge of the village. You were surrounded by a pack of Starkee… They would have eaten you.”

  Lyra had no idea what Starkee were, but she was under the impression that she should be thankful that she hadn’t been eaten by them, whatever they were. She nodded.

  “I suppose I owe you a thanks.”

  “It is unnecessary.” This time, the other man spoke, drawing her attention. “It is the way of the Ammarok.”

  Curiosity continued to burn at her. Starkee… Ammarok… Words that she was unfamiliar with in all ways, and wanted to know more of. Lyra had honestly not expected to come across people when she ventured out – she had thought that there weren’t any so close to the Compound – but here she was. She owed them her life.

  There was one thing that pressed at
her mind, though. Considering she hadn’t expected to find anyone, let alone be injured to the point of being unable to walk properly, she wondered how she was supposed to get back. The Compound had a strict rule against interacting with any of the native populations; it was part of the reason that the walls projected the images that they did. Out of sight, out of mind. People couldn’t be curious over what they couldn’t see to exist.

  She wondered if these people, these two Ammarok men and their village, were of the same mind. She shifted, biting her lip as she thought about it, not wanting to appear rude in asking, but also feeling the need to know.

  “I hate to ask,” she said. “But when will I be able to go back? To my home, I mean. I had only intended exploring, after all…”

  The two men exchanged a look.

  “Go back?” the one to the left said. “Why would you go back?”

  “You’re staying here, aren’t you?” the other asked.

  He sounded confused that she would even suggest such a thing, which only made her furrow her brows, her own confusion showing in abundance. She bit her lip.

  “No?” she questioned, slowly, thinking perhaps there was a misunderstanding of sorts.

  “Yes,” the one to the right corrected. “We found you. You’re ours.”

  Suddenly, the two men weren’t so alluring.

  III

  Lyra

  The pain in her ankle persisted, but she didn’t stop. She needed to get home, and there was only one way that she was going to be able to do so – escape.

  Le’on and Karron – the two Ammarok warriors who had briefly been her salvation – hadn’t harmed her. She could at the very least say that. They hadn’t laid a hand on her the four days that she had remained in their home. That being said, those four days had taught her enough information about their people to know that perhaps she had bitten off more than she could chew when it came to being curious about the Out Zones.

  We found you. You’re ours. That was quite literal to them, their people. The Ammarok weren’t male-dominated in the traditional sense. Most of their people tended to be male, and therefore most of their warriors, their leaders, were male. Their female population was drastically low, so much so that… well…

  She had learned they often shared their females, and if they found a woman, as they had found her, wondering about, that appealed to them, they would take her as their own. It was as common as eating, and it was accepted among them – by the men and women alike.

  Le’on and Karron were two of the Ammarok’s prized warriors, and had their pick of any females that they wanted among their kind or the neighboring groups of natives on Earth Two (which was called Ma’terra, to those who had lived there before the colonization of the Compounds.) They had been best friends since childhood, had shared their lives, battles, and women all their lives. It was their time to take a permanent mate however, but the only females available in their village were the elderly Mothers of All, as they were called, or young girls far too fresh in their youth to be bred off to warrior men.

  She supposed that she could be grateful that the Ammarok were not fond of rape and child marriage. That being said, both Le’on and Karron had made it clear they had no intention of returning her to the Compound. They had said there was something about her… something that they hadn’t seen in others that they had considered. She had no idea what that was supposed to be; it wasn’t like she was like them, but her curiosity had quite quickly drained the moment that they told her that they intended to keep her. As a mate.

  She wasn’t a brood mare, after all. She didn’t think so.

  Lyra had snuck out the first night that she thought her ankle was well enough to move out and about on her own. They had gone into the village for a communal celebration, leaving her behind as she wasn’t mobile. Well, she was mobile enough to escape, and she was going to damn well do it!

  The problem came when she got to the outskirts of the village, after having darted around in the shadows like she had when she’d slipped out of the wall around the Compound. She hadn’t realized quite how steep the hill she’d fallen down was – but it was damn steep. It wasn’t impossible to scale, no, but it was hard to do so with her ankle in the shape that it was. By the time she’d gotten to the top, she was sweaty, in more pain than she had been when she’d started, and breathing heavily.

  Still, she persisted.

  In the back of her mind, she kept thinking about Le’on and Karron. They had been kind to her – but how was she supposed to accept that she belonged to them? It wasn’t something that she had prepared for when she had gone exploring. She wished… maybe if they hadn’t come on with that in mind… it would have been nice to learn about the people beyond the Compound’s walls…

  As she neared those very walls, she heard a crick of twig behind her. She whirled around, wondering if one of them had followed her. She saw nothing, and breathed a sigh of relief before she turned back around. The good thing was, she had managed to navigate her way back to the broken part of the wall –

  Wait… except… No.

  In a small bit of a panic, she limped up and down the section of wall that she had come to, looking for the breach in the wall. She could find nothing, though, and while she could see inside the holographic separation between the Compound’s insides, and where she was outside, she knew no one walking by would be able to.

  That damn section had gone how long without being discovered? Fixed? It would figure the first and only time that she managed to get out, she would be locked out. There was no way to signal for help… no way to get someone to notice… The people in control on the inside ignored anything short of catastrophe going on outside their precious compound walls.

  She kicked one of the pillars in irritation, regretting it instantaneously when a worse, sharper pain tore up her leg. She turned around, pressing her back to the pillar before she slid down. They, on the inside, would never think to look outside for her. everyone knew that she went on runs at night; they would assume she had gotten lost, or taken, or something equally sinister had happened to her. No one would speak up to think that maybe they should look outside the Compound for her, why would they? No one had ever left – you couldn’t.

  The reality of her situation sinking further and further into her head, she put her face into her hands and attempted to stay the tears from falling. What had started as a desire to sate a curiosity had quickly turned into an abrupt, scary twist of fate. There was no way that she could go back, not at this stage in the game. But at this rate, she was more likely to die of starvation outside the Compound’s walls than she was having someone from the inside realize that there was someone outside, someone that wanted desperately to return to their home, their warm bed, all the things that were familiar to them despite the fact they’re brought this horrid situation on themselves.

  What was she going to do?

  *****

  Lyra ended up sleeping against the wall’s pillar, into the early dawn of the next morning. She was stiff, and hurt as all hell. She briefly wished that a – what was it that Le’on had called it? A Starkee? – had come and eaten her, but that would have done her no good. Her options had quickly run out, and she knew that there was only one solution that would bare much help for her; she had to return to the village, knowing that for better or worse, at the very least there were two people there who had been invested in her.

  She started her trek, limping slowly on the same path that she had taken the night before. When she got to the edge of the forest, and to the slope of the hill that led to the edge of the village, she sat down, choosing to scoot herself down the hill and cause the least amount of strife for herself. Her heart pounded in her chest as she did. Say she returned, and was punished for leaving? She knew what Le’on and Karron had told her of their people, but that didn’t make her an expert. For all she knew, they’d kill her for leaving them – but she knew there was no way in hell she would be able to survive on her own out there. Not by a long
shot.

  As the outskirts of the village became denser, and more of the intricate, wood-and-circuit homes came into view, she felt eyes on her. It made her feel self-conscious, as she was watched. It made her wonder what was going through the others’ minds. Did they see her as a dead woman walking? Were they going to approached her? Attack her? She had no idea. She had never felt so surrounded in her entire life, and she wasn’t sure she liked the feeling.

  “Lyra?”

  She started, and turned. There was Le’on – and he looked rather surprised to see her. All she could do, though, was stand there, and stare at him. Her blood felt chilled. This was it. There he was. She shouldn’t have come back – she was going to die, he and his warrior brood were going to kill her –

  Her thoughts raced like this, pounding through her head harder and harder as she watched him approach her, step by step, getting closer and closer to her. She remembered very suddenly, wild stories of alien races that would kill captors that ran away to regain their honor. That’s what was going to happen to her, she convinced herself. They were going to kill her because she besmirched their honor. Why the hell had she come back to them?!

  For the second time, as if a curtain had fallen, everything went black.

  IV

  Le’on

  He watched her as she slept, his head tilted as he took in the rise and fall of her chest.

  She was an interesting creature to him. She wasn’t like they were – she wasn’t Ammarok – but she looked like them. The deep russet skin and strong features – though her auburn hair and grey eyes were a captivating, uncommon anomaly. The striking thing about her, though, was the fact that she had a presence about her that was distinctly like them. He supposed that’s what had captivated him about her, and had known when Karron had shared similar intentions with him, that it meant something. When he had discovered that she’d disappeared on them, he thought that perhaps they had both been wrong – but then she had returned.