by Hope Hart
I shrug my good shoulder. “Do you have any experience with fighting?” I ask, shifting a crossbow aside as I search for the long knife I had in mind for her.
“I have a black belt in karate. That’s a martial art on Earth,” she says. “Let’s just say that I’m quick on my feet but I’ve never actually fought for my life before. At least, I hadn’t until I got to this planet.”
Her mouth twists slightly, and I find that I don’t like seeing her eyes dim.
“You were obviously successful if you managed to escape a pack of Voildi,” I say, and I’m rewarded with her grin.
I hand her the knife. “If you’re quick on your feet, this should be a good weapon for you.”
She smiles, taking the knife from my hand. “Thanks.”
She should look ridiculous, her fiery hair clean but still tangled—I forgot to give her a comb, I realize—while dressed in nothing but my shirt, which swallows her, even as she clutches the large knife in her hand.
Instead, she looks strangely endearing, her smile inviting me to smile back.
I don’t. Instead, I lean down and take her mouth with mine.
The shock of need is instant, hitting me like a punch to the gut. It slams into me, taking over, until I want nothing more than to strip my shirt off her body, to run my mouth over every inch of her creamy skin.
My blood pounds in my ears like thunder as Ivy lets out a broken moan, her hands coming up to clutch at my shoulders, her mouth softening under mine.
I want her desperately. And it’s the craving for her, the sheer need, that makes me pull my mouth from hers, makes me frown as I look down into her eyes, blurred with pleasure.
This brave, kind female is not for me.
“This is a mistake,” I say. Her eyes clear, the expression on her face cooling as she steps back. My hands instantly fist as I force myself not to reach for her.
She doesn’t protest. Instead, she simply turns and walks away.
Ivy
I manage to bully Vrex into returning to Ilax the next morning. He seems amused by my nagging, and we walk over to his neighbor’s tashiv as soon as we’ve eaten a quick breakfast of fruit.
Ilax seems pleased to see me wearing one of his daughter’s tunics with a pair of soft leggings underneath, although his eyes turn sad for a moment as he stares at me.
“You combed your hair,” he says finally, and I grin at him.
“I sure did. It was so difficult that I was about ready to hack at it with my knife.”
Vrex whips his head to glare at me, seemingly scandalized at the thought, and I burst out laughing.
After he’s finished his tonic, we make our way back to his tashiv and stay just long enough for him to saddle up Nari. I may be imagining it, but it seems like he’s in less pain today, and he seems to be moving easier as well.
He climbs up onto the mishua and then reaches down, clasping my arm with his good hand. The breath escapes my lungs with a whoosh as I’m suddenly sitting up in front of him.
God, the guy is strong.
With him sitting behind me, his good arm wrapped around my waist, I’m exceedingly aware of the fact that he hasn’t tried to kiss me again.
“This is a mistake.”
I mean, he’s not wrong, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel a little rejected. What woman wouldn’t after a guy kissed the daylights out of her only to immediately turn cold as ice?
I scowl at the thought.
It’s probably close to an hour before we arrive at the trading post. The sun has only been up for a couple of hours, and the clearing is busy with all kinds of aliens tempting me into gawking.
Of course, I’m the alien here, and they gawk back before quickly glancing away when their gazes move behind me to Vrex.
His muscles got tenser and tenser as we approached the trading post, and now it seems like he’s almost vibrating with tension.
I glance over my shoulder at him, blinking as I come face-to-face with a scowl that dares the receiver to approach him.
No wonder everyone seems so scared of him.
“Assassin of Agron,” I hear a woman murmur, and I narrow my eyes at her. She looks like she could be related to Ilax, with the same-colored skin and similar horns rising from her head. She quickly glances away, and I can practically feel Vrex’s mood get darker behind me.
The trading post is little more than a few tashivs, sitting behind ten or twelve stalls where vendors are selling everything from meat and fruit to scrolls of paper. Vrex jumps off Nari, and I know for a fact that the pain from the movement must have made him want to throw up, but his face stays completely blank.
He attempted to remove the sling before we left his tashiv. But I refused to get onto the mishua unless he wore it. Our standoff finally ended with him giving me a dark look before muttering to himself as he mounted Nari.
God forbid the guy show any hint of weakness.
Now his expression is like stone as I jump down beside him. He ties Nari to a tree, and then I trail behind him as he heads straight for the smallest tashiv on the left. I’m so busy glancing around at the stalls and the wares that it takes me a moment to notice that everyone has suddenly gone silent.
I turn, scanning the small clearing. Every single alien is looking at Vrex, and their faces are filled with fear. As if the guy is suddenly going to start slaughtering everyone in sight.
Suddenly, I’m completely, unreasonably offended.
“What are you all looking at?” I hiss. “Take a fucking picture; it’ll last longer.”
Most of them turn away, although a few of them stare back at me. I’m not the most threatening person on this planet. I have no claws and no horns, and I’m shorter than most of the oversize people here. From the look on one guy’s face, he’s unimpressed by what he sees.
Vrex is a few steps in front of me and glances over his shoulder, raising one eyebrow. His eyes have turned that whiskey color that tells me he’s amused, and he turns his gaze to the gawkers behind me. Suddenly, people have better things to do than stare at us.
“I am beginning to think that your personality reflects your fiery hair,” Vrex murmurs as we step into the tashiv. I send him a look, and his mouth twitches. “Ferocious female.”
This tashiv is just one large room, with what looks like a smaller room attached to it. A man with deep-green-colored skin steps out of the smaller room, a piece of paper clutched in each of his four arms.
“Vrex,” he murmurs. Even this guy, who obviously knows Vrex, seems wary of him. Vrex nods and hands him a piece of paper before turning to go.
I frown. “That’s it?”
“Yes. We will return in two days to see if Rakiz has returned my message.”
Rakiz. I haven’t heard the tribe king’s name before, but I tuck it away for future reference. Getting information from Vrex is like pulling teeth.
“I have something to show you,” Vrex says as we leave the tashiv. No one stares at him when he’s facing them, all of them keeping their attention firmly on their own business. I rub at my chest, attempting to ease the squeezing sensation that I feel thanks to the way Vrex is treated by these people.
He’s been nothing but good to me, and they treat him like he’s a dangerous monster.
“Oh yeah?” I feel the weirdest urge to reach out and take his good hand in mine, but I push it away. Vrex is ignoring the people around us as we walk back to his mishua, and I attempt to do the same.
He nods. “It is not far from here and won’t take long with the mishua.”
“Sure.” I shrug. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Seven
Ivy
“Asshole,” I mutter as Nari pushes past yet another branch, and Vrex has to reach out with his good hand to stop it from hitting me in the face. Nari snorts like she understands me, and if I didn’t know better, I’d hear amusement in Vrex’s voice.
“We’re almost there.”
“You know, I’m like a fish out of water on your planet,” I tel
l him. “I’d love to see how well you’d do on Earth.” I snort at the thought. Once everyone got over the sheer size of him, they’d probably try to convince him to be a male model. He’s not pretty, but once you look at his hard face and those whiskey-colored eyes, it’s a challenge to look away.
“Tell me about your planet,” he murmurs.
“Well…it’s nothing like this one, that’s for sure. At least where I live. Men don’t carry around swords, and you don’t have to worry about potentially being attacked by a pack of flesh-eating cannibals at any moment. Although, we have to deal with door-to-door salespeople, which is basically the same.”
He grunts behind me, and I laugh.
“You know, I blame the Arcav for this. We had no problems before they invaded, looking for their mates. Once they’d found the Arcav queen, they left Arcav bases across the planet, saying they were there to protect us from the Grivath.” I scoff at that. “In reality, I think they were there to make sure we humans didn’t get any ideas about kicking them off our planet. Life kind of returned to normal after they invaded, believe it or not. Unless the blood test found that you were a match as an Arcav mate. But it was still a small portion of the population.”
Vrex is tense behind me. “What is a blood test?”
I explain how it works. “Every living being has what we call DNA. One of the Arcav scientists had a meltdown when his mate died, and he was responsible for messing with human DNA. Now human women have to get their blood tested to see if they’re a match and an Arcav mate.”
“Are you a match?” Vrex’s voice is hard, and his arm tightens around my waist.
“Nope. Don’t get me wrong, I would’ve been open to checking out another planet one day. Arcavia sounds awesome—their technology is way ahead of ours. But I was pretty damn happy that I wouldn’t be expected to give up my career and move to Arcavia. That’s kind of ironic now, huh?”
I grimace at the thought of the Grivath. I thought the Arcav were assholes when they invaded, but at least they pretended to play nice with us.
Vrex is silent for a long moment. “What is a ‘career’?”
“It’s different for everyone. I’m a firefighter.” I describe my work, and Vrex pulls Nari to a stop, staring at me when I turn around to see what’s going on.
“You run into buildings that are aflame?” His eyes move to my hair, and I laugh.
“I wear a ton of protection, and it’s not like I do it alone. We’re putting out the fire to save people’s lives.”
“What would make you do such a thing?”
I attempt to ignore his tone. From the way Vrex has described this planet, it’s clear that women don’t really get out much.
“My dad was a firefighter. He went down in the twin towers. He was a hero, and I always wanted to be just like him.” I turn back around, staring sightlessly at the trail in front of us as Nari begins walking again. “When my mom found out I was going to be a firefighter… Let’s just say it didn’t go well. She was broken by my father’s death, and she always hated that he was constantly putting his life in danger. When I finally admitted that I was planning to do the same thing, she told me not to contact her again until I’d changed my mind. She moved down to Florida with her boyfriend a year later, and I haven’t talked to her since.”
I ignore the way my eyes sting at the thought. Who knows if I’ll ever get the chance to talk to her again?
“I’m sorry,” Vrex murmurs in my ear, his tone grave.
“Thanks. It is what it is, I guess. She didn’t have it in her to spend any more time wondering if a family member was going to come home, and I’d dreamed of being a firefighter since my dad let me try on his helmet when I was six.”
“It is…difficult when parents behave this way,” he rumbles, and I open my mouth to ask him about the pain in his voice, but the mishua breaks through the trees, and my mouth drops open.
“Holy shit. It’s our ship.”
I can feel Vrex nod behind me. “I thought you might want to look at it.”
I glance over my shoulder at him. “I do. You’re a good guy, Vrex.”
His cheekbones turn a dull red, and I grin.
“Are you blushing?”
“No,” he grinds out. “Go see it before I change my mind.”
I laugh at him as I jump off the mishua before shifting from foot to foot while he ties Nari to a tree branch. He reaches into one of his packs for a handful of food for her, giving her a pat on the snout while I wait impatiently.
Then he joins me, and we both stare at the ship. If it were a car on Earth, my dad would’ve called it a “write-off.”
“How the fuck did we survive that?” I murmur. Vrex tenses beside me, glancing from the crumpled visage of the ship to my body and back again. He seems to be thinking the same thing because his face is grim, his body tense as we move closer.
When I stumbled out of this ship with the other women, the purple aliens who bought us were all dead. Not all of them had died on impact. From the blood splatter, it was evident that the aliens who had survived the crash had then been taken by surprise by the pack of Voildi. Those Voildi pretended to be our rescuers and convinced us to follow them. In reality, they were taking us home for dinner. And we were going to be the main course.
The door is still flung open, and I brace myself for the stench of decomposing corpses. But they’re gone.
“What happened to the bodies?” I mutter, glancing at Vrex. He shrugs and obviously immediately regrets it, his mouth tightening as he winces. Just a couple of days ago, he refused to let me see his pain, and something unclenches in my chest as his face clears.
Small steps.
Get it together, Ivy. Quit stalling and check out this ship.
I move closer to the ship, Vrex shadowing my every move. When I attempt to stride up the stairs, he hauls me back before drawing his sword and stalking up the stairs in front of me.
I don’t stick my foot out and trip him for being an overprotective alpha male, but it’s a close call.
Vrex’s shoulders relax when he reaches the top of the stairs, but he keeps his sword in his hand. I follow him inside, and he steps out of the way, revealing the ravaged control center of the ship.
There may not be any bodies, but there’s still plenty of blood. It stains the floor, the walls, and the huge window, which must be near indestructible, since it seems to have bent with the force of the crash instead of breaking.
I wrench my gaze away from the rust-colored stains. Those assholes got what they deserved. I move down to where we were kept after we were loaded onto this ship.
Vrex is silent beside me while I stare at the cage.
“It still doesn’t seem real,” I murmur. “I know it happened. But sometimes I still need to pinch myself to convince myself that I’m not dreaming. That we were taken for no reason at all.” I glance at him. “What makes people think that they can treat others this way?”
His body is tense next to me, his eyes narrowed in fury as he stares at the cage. I think this is the most emotion I’ve ever seen from him, and it’s his rage that pulls me from my pity party.
“Come on,” I say. “I want to make sure I’ve seen everything.”
A few minutes later, I find it. Something that makes my mouth dry, makes my hands shake. Next to one of the broken monitors, a red light flashes every few seconds. For some reason, that red light raises every hair on the back of my neck, and I run my palms along my forearms in an attempt to get rid of the goose bumps.
“Hand me that sword, big guy.”
Vrex attempts to hand it to me, then grabs it back as I almost drop it.
“How the hell do you carry that thing around so easily? I’m pretty damn strong for a woman. Never mind. I need you to smash the shit out of that light.”
Vrex shrugs and slams the hilt of his sword into the control panel. He scowls as we both watch the light continue to flash red. He hits it again and again, denting the control panel and smashing the monitor,
but the light itself doesn’t stop flickering.
“Shit.”
“What is it?” Vrex asks.
“I don’t know. It could be nothing, but if I were in charge of a bunch of spaceships like these, I’d make sure they had some kind of locating device in them. This entire ship is toast, but this one thing is still working. It freaks me out.”
Vrex nods, glowering at the light.
“Well,” I say finally, “there’s nothing we can do about it now. Maybe when I find the others, we can all come back and try to figure it out. Thanks for bringing me here today. It helps to see this.”
Vrex meets my gaze, his jaw tight. Finally, he nods again. “You’re welcome.”
Vrex
“Like this?”
I nod as Ivy sets the trap. She is a fast learner. When she insisted that I teach her how to set traps for protection and to catch food, I was surprised. But with her shoulders set in determination, she has adjusted one of my favorite traps so that it is now more easily hidden—and likely more lethal.
“Where did you learn to do this?”
Her voice is sad. “My dad was big into the outdoors. He wasn’t a prepper or anything, just liked to teach me what he knew.” She looks up with a small smile. “When you’re that young, your parents are still your heroes. I lost my dad when I was eight, so while I know in my head that he was just a man with flaws like any other, in my heart he’s still superhuman.”
I nod, and she looks up at me from where she’s crouched on the ground.
“Do you see your parents often?”
I tense. “No. We should go back to the trading post after we have seen Ilax. It is likely that there will be a message waiting for me.”
Her eyes search my face at the change of subject, but she nods, brushing the dirt off her hands as she stands.
“Listen,” she says. “I wanted to thank you again for everything you’ve done. It’s nice to know there are men on this planet who are willing to actually help us, you know?”
Guilt stabs through me like a knife. I open my mouth to tell her the truth—that I’m not her hero, I’m just another mercenary profiting off her and her friends. But her smile is so broad, her eyes sparkling as she peers up at me.
