Red
S.J. Sanders
Contents
I. Into the Woods
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
II. All the Beautiful Flowers
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
III. The Huntsman
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Also by S.J. Sanders
Red
A Dystopian World Alien Romance
S.J. Sanders
©2019 by Samantha Sanders
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without explicit permission granted in writing from the author.
This book is a work of fiction intended for adult audiences only.
Editor: LY Publishing
Cover Artist: Sam Griffin
Many thanks to all the people who made this book possible!
Part I
Into the Woods
1
There were certain truths everyone knew. Never wear red or any other bright color. Make as little sound as possible if one has to be outside the protection of the sanctuary settlements. And never, ever, go out in the wild alone. Humanity was no longer at the top of the food chain. In fact, they were barely surviving after a series of terrible wars that wiped out most of the population.
That was before they came.
Three generations ago, aliens that identified themselves as the Feriknikal arrived, broadcasting their message of peace for all to hear. They were transporting primitive refugees from a dying world, known as the Ragoru, who wanted nothing more than to share the forests and wild stretches of Earth. At first humanity welcomed the refugees, until the first settlements got a look at them.
The Ragoru were like something out of a nightmare. They almost resembled the werewolves of lore. The differences, however, were staggering.
They didn’t transform into beautiful men and women. Though they had velvety fuzz on their hands, sculpted pectorals and abs that seemed almost human if not for the thick fur on their bodies, and almost lupine faces, everything else about them was alien. Thick, spiny bone protrusions protected their backs and skulls, six digits helped them scale surfaces impossible for humans, and two sets of luminous eyes gave them a superior field of vision. That they had four arms just made them more terrifying.
They were made to kill things.
People whispered of the Ragoru, but it had been many years since anyone dared to get close enough to verify the stories. Few had been seen at a distance, and those humans who were believed to have encountered them were never seen again. They disappeared and left their possessions abandoned. Everyone was certain that the worst was happening. They were killing people. They were predators, and humanity their prey. Anyone with any sense feared the Ragoru.
Arie had the misfortune to be born into that world with a flaming red cap of hair that she’d inherited from her great-great-grandmother, or so her mother said as she fretted over her curls. As her red hair grew in thick and curly, her mother devised means of hiding it, often tucking it under dark woven caps. The sanctuary wouldn’t allow her to stay if they discovered she had red hair. People had become fanatics in their superstition about it. What had started as concern over any sort of vivid color attracting unwanted attention had turned into paranoia over the years. It was worse in the outlying village sanctuaries. There, people swore that red hair, just by the virtue of being red, would curse a community.
Her mother, one of the few educated women from the sanctuary city of Old Wayfairer Citadel, where there were schools and some technology was still in use, always claimed it was ridiculous. She’d never gotten used to living within the limits of the village. Long before Arie had been born, her father had talked her mother into leaving all she knew to journey far beyond the Murk Woods to join a settlement beyond Ragoru territory. No one remembered what the area had once been called, but for generations the widespread dark forests were simply referred to by that descriptive name.
The recruiter had been charismatic and charming, and it inspired her restless father to carve out his own destiny. Her mother, even years later, would speak with thinly veiled anger of how so many who were desperate and poor had followed the honeyed words promising a golden future. A village had been founded a hundred years ago by group of wealthy families from the Citadel after they’d discovered vast mineral deposits, chiefly iron, that were much valued by the Citadel. It wasn’t difficult to draw people who dreamed of escaping the struggles of the Citadel, hoping for a better life.
She hadn’t wanted to leave her home, but she’d loved her husband enough to stay by his side when he’d decided to follow the colony leader. By some miracle they’d traveled through the forest for months without encountering any of the aliens. Her mother would shudder as she recounted seeing glimpses of the beasts from a distance, and hearing their eerie howls late at night when she huddled against her husband with five other families in one of the many large canvas domes.
Her mother never spoke in detail of what happened those first few years, other than to say that for as long as the sanctuary had stood it had been clear to her that its founding so far from the safety of the Citadel had been a decision bred of foolishness. Only human arrogance would think nothing of generations suffering to battle the encroaching grip of the wilderness in an inhospitable world. The unseen Ragoru were not the only threat. Giant carnivorous plants were part of the new world. Vicious beasts, mutated by warfare and pollution beyond recognition from the animals illustrated in surviving old-world books, prowled in the shadows.
Only rigorous safety measures protected humanity from suffering the same fate as much of the flora and fauna of Earth. There were rumors of some people who did not get so lucky and lived in wild bands scattered in the least hospitable places that only the Ragoru called home. When Arie had tried to find out more about them, her mother had pinched her lips shut and refused to say anything more.
All Arie really knew was that many people died shortly after arriving, among them Arie’s father. Death came, if not from the wildlife, then from the dangers of working in the mines. Her mother lived the rest of her life heartbroken, with only Arie for company. Arie never understood why her mother hadn’t returned to the Citadel. There had been nothing in the colony for her mother but bad memories as she grieved for the husband who had widowed her at such a young age.
Now he would keep her company in the next world.
Arie looked down at the simple headstone marker at the fresh grave beside her father’s, her brown hood pulled down low over her head, hiding most of her face. The few who had come to the releasing service had already left. H
er mother hadn’t been popular or well-loved. Too educated for her own good in the views of many, and too vocal against the village’s wealthy leadership. Only three people had bothered to show up: old widow Townsly, to whom her mother was often a companion; the baker Ferily, for whom her mother had occasionally worked (and he’d been quick to leave after making sure he was present long enough to be respectable); and the loathsome Jak Terrivos.
She’d never been gladder than when Jak had finally left. He’d lingered long after the others. Only a few polite promises that she would think over his offer had finally persuaded him to depart and leave her in peace with her grief. Jak had been after her to marry him for months—there was no shaking him.
She knew that eventually she would have to give him an answer, and probably one she would regret for the rest of her life. He liked to remind her that he was the only one who knew her secret. She’d been successful at turning away his attempts to woo her, sometimes with little tact or grace, as he became more insistent. But everything changed when, on one occasion, she hadn’t covered her hair quickly enough when he’d barged into her mother’s house on another mission to press his suit.
Dropping the handful of flowers over her mother’s grave, Arie sighed, her breath fogging in the chill early evening air. She knew she had no real choice now. Her mother was no longer there to protect her from Jak. He would never have raised his hand against her mother. He yielded to her solely out of respect for her saving his leg with her simple medicinal knowledge after a disastrous hunting trip.
Arie would spend the rest of her life bonded to him. She blinked back tears.
“I would do anything, even marry that odious Jak, if it meant having you back again, Momma,” she whispered. “I love you and I miss you so much. Goodbye, Momma. Give my love to Daddy.” Arie turned away from the grave and began the trek to her home on the outskirts of the walled village.
A cold breeze made her pull her cloak tighter around herself, and she shivered. Autumn was descending with a vengeance. Arie was almost willing to chance the woods to go south to the Citadel where her mother was born, and where her grandmother was likely still alive, if the journey there wasn’t so long and dangerous. Survival in a group had terrible odds stacked against it, but traveling alone was plain suicide.
Her mother’s cottage—no, it was her cottage now—was barren of any light or warmth when she arrived. She’d been gone since sun-up to see to her mother’s burial and service. The priest of the Way of the Divine Light had been impossible. She had to offer him a barrel of her last harvest of summer apples, the three jars of honey she’d carefully collected from wild bees, and what little fresh meat she had in order to see her mother properly attended to.
Her mother would have been disgusted to see what Arie had to barter for such a simple service, but the only other option was that her mother’s body would have been laid to rest in a pit outside of the walled sanctuary. Arie couldn’t bear the idea of her mother’s resting place being one where predators could get to her, rather than beside her husband. So, she’d done what needed to be done while praying to her mother’s shade for forgiveness.
Ignoring the gnawing hunger in her belly, since she hadn’t had time to make bread that morning, and it was too late to bother trying to put together a stew from the dried meats and vegetables in the cellar, Arie went inside to build a small fire. It would at least knock the chill off the air a little bit. She had nearly pulled off her hood when a knock sounded at her door.
Arie dropped her hand and went to answer it. The hinges screeched as she pulled the door open, no more cooperative than when she’d arrived. Joshu stood at the other side of the door fidgeting, a covered dish in his hands. She smiled and pulled the door open wider.
“Joshu, would you like to come in?”
His eyes flicked around the room, but he shook his head.
“It wouldn’t be proper, Arie, seeing how you are alone and all.”
“Oh, right. Of course,” Arie mumbled. Disappointment flooded her. Joshu was reasonably attractive, quiet, and non-threatening. He didn’t set off any sparks, but he was safe and sweet. A nice young man, as her mother had said with an approving smile. Arie knew she would be lucky if he married her. Plus, he was her friend.
“Momma thought you could use a little supper. She apologized that we couldn’t be at the releasing, but I had to help Daddy in the field today, and Mistress Asher had her baby that needed birthing this morning.”
She gratefully accepted the dish that he handed her. The aroma of venison and hot potatoes drifted up from the towel covering it.
“Tell your momma thank you, and not to worry. The Mother knows that your momma’s heart was with my momma on this day, and that is all I can ask.”
Joshu smiled and nodded. He surprised her then by reaching forward and touching her shoulder.
“May the light of the Mother of All comfort you in this dark time,” he said solemnly. Arie reached up and squeezed his hand before he jerked it back and blushed. “I will be back tomorrow for the dish. Have a blessed night in all comforts, Arie.”
“You as well, Joshu.”
He touched a finger to his forehead in polite acknowledgment before turning and stepping off the porch. She watched his retreating form grow smaller and sighed. The mist was rolling in quickly this night with its usual thick haze. The high wooden poles that formed the sanctuary walls were nearby, but nothing stopped the insidious drift of the mist.
She could only be thankful that the walls kept everything else out so that everyone could walk safely in the settlement. As always, however, it was unnerving how it took only minutes for his silhouette to be swallowed up and disappear.
Arie couldn’t help the shiver than ran through her. She ignored the ominous screech of a nearby owl. No bad omens tonight. She refused to give them any heed. Instead, she pulled off her hooded cloak and sat down with the plate of food, uncovered it, and ate every bite. She knew she should reserve some for the morning when she would be hungry again, but at that moment, weighed down by grief, she couldn’t summon up the energy to care.
The meal consumed, she read one of her mother’s brittle, aged books until the lamp burned low. Arie rubbed her eyes and set the treasured, time-worn volume on the small table beside her chair. Her mother’s empty chair stood as a bleak sentinel across from her. Picking up the lamp, she banked the low fire and went into her small room.
Facing her mother’s room would wait for another day.
She pulled off her plain, homespun tunic and skirt. Both were the dull grayish color of the wool her mother had traded for two years ago, and were becoming so threadbare that Arie knew she wouldn’t get much more wear out of them. Pulling on her only shift, she crawled into bed. Burrowing into the blankets, she curled up on the straw-stuffed mattress and allowed sleep to claim her.
2
Arie managed to avoid Jak for almost a week after the releasing. She knew it was not just due to good fortune. Propriety demanded that the loved ones be given at least five days to mourn before they were expected to engage in social visits. By custom her mother’s spirit was now released from the grave to join her ancestors, and the miasma of death no longer lingered upon her house or person. She knew her moment of respite was over when he sauntered up to her as she waited by the communal fire where the merchants were setting up their wares.
The merchants were rovers, trading goods and carrying various supplies from city to village over long distances. Most people were distrustful of merchants, but not one person turned them away. Margot and Sheli, with their backs turned to her, giggled with their heads together. Sheli cocked an eye toward her and whispered something to the other woman, which made them burst out into laughter again.
Miserable bitches.
The two of them had been her bane ever since she’d thwarted their attempt to play a practical joke on her as girls. Arie had been a plump child—she was still curvaceous despite her lean diet—and the girls had decided to “put the pig bac
k in the mud.” Arie had, by chance, moved out of the way just in time to avoid being knocked into the mud pit. The girls who were attempting to “accidentally” collide with her ended up tripping over each other and landing in the filth. They’d hated her ever since and took every opportunity to make her life unpleasant. That Margot had married a wealthy man on the council made it even worse.
“I hope this time they brought lace from the Citadel. Unlike some filth around here who are content to dig in the dirt like beasts,” her eyes slid to Arie, “I insist on the finest things. Viktor says he will cover anything I pick out.”
Arie resisted rolling her eyes. Of course he would. He lived well off the percentage tithed to him as a council member. Tax collectors arrived early every month to collect a share of the wild honey she gathered and the herbs and vegetables she and her mother grew. No doubt, even with her mother’s soul just recently released, the collectors would be at her door again in just a few days’ time.
Margot and Sheli stepped back as the merchants came out, fearful that one might accidentally touch their embroidered forest-green skirts and tunics. The merchants were ruddy-cheeked from days spent out in the sun, and their long hair was braided down their backs, unlike the shorter hair of the village men. That aside, there was little to distinguish the merchants from any other resident. Arie bit back an irritated sigh as those ahead of her looked over the wares being set out.
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