by Lea Linnett
He looked up to find her standing knee-deep in a snowdrift, her arms crossed over her chest and a smile softening her usually stern features. “I think I would like to conduct tests on these firestones,” he said carefully, and Bree laughed. It was a clear, bird-like sound, and one that he hadn’t heard often enough.
“Well, I’d give you a piece, if it hadn’t been taken from me when I fell.”
“A shame…” he murmured, his attention locked on the human as she approached one wall of the cage and scanned the eastern horizon.
“Do you mind if I just… walk around a bit?” she asked, glancing at him hopefully. “Do we have time?”
Marek looked back at the door. He had activated the locking mechanism, even though he knew that Peris would be able to override it. But from this side, he could now see that the door featured a bulky, disused mechanical lock as well, and he went over to inspect it with interest. The lock fought him when he tried to engage it, showing its age where the rust-free levekk metal did not, but eventually, he was successful. He forced it into place with a loud clang, before turning back to Bree. “Now, we have time.”
Her look of shock was swiftly replaced by a beaming smile, and she turned away, taking up a handful of snow and crumbling it through her fingers. Part of him wished to walk with her, but the snow made him uncomfortable, even through his heatsuit. He had never enjoyed the sharp bite of the CL-32 winter—an echo of his levekk ancestry—and it made him shiver even now.
Bree, on the other hand, appeared to be in her element, even dressed in his people’s attire. She cut through the snow in a way that he had never mastered, and her expression was wistful as she gazed out through the fence.
“Marek!”
His shoulders jumped, but he relaxed when he saw Silas approaching the cage from the direction of the ravine. He looked more serious than usual, although he still paused to briefly wave to Bree in the human way over Marek’s shoulder.
“How did you know we were here?” Marek asked in Levekk Trade when Silas reached the fence, his voice hushed.
Silas lifted his chin in greeting. “Saw you from the tower. I was doing maintenance there.”
“Good. I feared that news of our… altercation with Peris might have spread already.”
“You fought with Peris?”
“Bree fought with Peris,” he said, his voice dropping even though Bree was out of earshot and couldn’t understand them anyway. “I only arrived in time to pull them off one another.”
“Was she winning?” Silas asked, a toothy smirk forming.
“No.” Marek thought back to the scene, his blood boiling. He’d never been so angry as when he’d found Peris with her claws in Bree’s hair, ready to break the human’s arm. It had taken everything he had not to throw the security officer into the wall and get them both banished to a cell. There was one small consolation, though. “Bree fought fiercely. Even when Peris seized her, she continued to resist.”
“You’re impressed.”
His eyes narrowed. “Should I not be?”
“I could never work out your feelings towards them—humans, I mean,” Silas said, cocking his head. “You work with us solayans, turning your nose up at any humans who pass you by in the hallways. You curse every time the human hunger catches up to you. But then you tell me stories of them from before, their achievements and battles won. And you are proud of her. I see it.”
Marek shook his head, glancing over at Bree where she was walking the perimeter and trailing her fingers along the wire fence. “Your imagination is at work again. How could I not be fascinated by a human who has escaped the Constellation for so long? This place is otherworldly and terrifying, and yet she still fights. There is something different about these humans, Silas.”
“So, you are proud of her.”
He glared at the solayan, whose grin had widened knowingly, and felt a very human heat creep up his neck even as his stomach turned icy. Silas’ tone implied that Marek felt something that was impossible. That he couldn’t entertain.
“What is it you wanted?”
Silas turned immediately serious. “I asked around for Bree’s mother and what may have happened to her.”
“You did?” he asked, perking up.
“Of course. How could I refuse when she asked so sweetly?” Silas said with a grin that refused to dim even when Marek scowled. “It turns out some of the older solayans did remember a human female being found, just like Bree.”
Marek’s eyes widened. “What happened to her?”
“She escaped through the mines.”
“Escaped?”
“That is what my elders told me. They helped her do it. She was escorted into the mines and out of the southwestern mine shaft. They said she was aiming for the coast.”
“But that is impossible. She could not have survived down there. Or out in the wilderness,” Marek said.
Silas raised a thick eyebrow. “Were you not just saying how different these humans are?”
“I—” Marek fell silent. This was Bree’s mother, after all. If she was anything as fierce as his human, then… “But how did they manage all this? They would have had her under tight security—with how badly the levekk covered up her presence, I assumed they would have ended her quietly.”
The solayan fidgeted, running his tongue thoughtfully over one large fang. “That is… the other news I have for you.”
“What?” Marek frowned.
“My elders did not escort her alone. She traveled with another, who journeyed on past the mine shaft at her side.” Silas met his gaze, his expression unusually serious. “He was levekk. The teraan who was set to guard her.”
Marek blinked, unable to speak. Teraan—jailer. Not so dissimilar a role to his own, right now. That brought up so many questions that they made Marek’s head hurt, but there was one that was more important, the only thing Bree would care about.
“If they escaped successfully….”
“Which they did, according to my elders.”
“Then either they perished somewhere in the south…”
“Or…”
“Or her mother chose not to return home to her daughter.”
Silas’ yellow eyes softened sympathetically, glancing over Marek’s shoulder at Bree again. “That was my thought, also. If she had a levekk with her, it is possible they went in search of a warmer climate.”
“Do you think she may have been taken against her will?”
“It’s possible,” Silas said, “but my elders implied that they were… lovers.”
Marek stared down at the snow, his heart thumping. Lovers…?
This was good news. Her mother may still be alive somewhere. But how could Marek tell her that the woman she’d sought for so many years had simply abandoned her? And that she’d chosen an alien over her own people?
He knew how painful losing a parent was, and how one’s life could change after they died. But he also knew that, in many ways, having a parent choose to walk away was even more painful.
The thought of delivering that news, of making Bree feel abandoned, rather than just bereft, made him sick to his stomach.
He was drawn from his thoughts by Silas’ hand on his shoulder. “I must get back to my duties. Watch out for Urek.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“It’s no problem. She needs someone watching her back in this place,” the solayan said pointedly, before retreating back the way he had come.
Marek remained in place for a long moment, his gaze trailing over the dark walls rising up around him. Could what Silas had found out be true? Could Bree’s mother really have escaped the mine with a levekk in tow? Where could they have gone? There was no way for Marek to find them now when it happened so long ago.
And Bree…
She had proven stronger than he ever expected from a human, and he was sure that her devotion to finding her mother was a part of that. How would she fare if that she was told that devotion was misplaced? How would she suffer if she found out h
er mother might not have even wanted to return to her daughter?
He knew how he had suffered, when his father vanished.
What if telling her the truth broke her?
Marek sighed, turning back to the snowy yard, but what he saw—or didn’t see—made his heart plummet.
She was gone. The blanket of crisp, white snow was perfectly still, with no sign of the human except for a maze of deep footprints.
“Bree?”
He started forward, his gaze sweeping back and forth for any hint of her location. She wasn’t by the fence where he’d last seen her, and her trail was confusing, criss-crossing over itself. Had he had his back turned for that long?
His heart thundering, he staggered forward into the snow.
“Bree! Where are you?”
15
Bree startled from where she sat in the shadow of a tall snowdrift at the sound of Marek’s panicked voice. She’d been spacing out, marveling at how the snow melted beneath the artificial heat of her gloved fingertips, and she just made it to her knees by the time Marek launched into view.
They stared at each other.
“Did something happen?” she asked, her stomach twisting as she looked the hybrid up and down. The last thing she wanted was Peris intruding on this peace she’d found. “Is it Urek?”
Marek’s chest heaved. “No, I… It is silly,” he finally said, hesitantly drawing closer. “I thought you had…”
“Oh.” She looked out at the ridge and the swathe of forest that flowed down and to the east. “No, I didn’t try to run. I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
He stopped beside her but didn’t sit down, and Bree studied him. His suit was as tight as hers, molding to his muscular thighs and strong legs. At this level, he looked almost human, just a handsome man standing on his two regular, five-toed feet. Then, her eyes moved higher, grazing his narrow hips, his broad shoulders, the generous outline of his cock (and not in that order). But even as she arrived at his scaled neck and his rough, ridged brow—and his complete lack of visible ears, which might have been the strangest thing about him—she still found him handsome. His scales were pure gold, his eyes a bright violet in this light, and the look in those eyes…
“I was just looking out there,” she said, tearing her gaze away towards the trees. “I’d be out hunting game at this time of the day, when everything’s waking up and taking advantage of the break in the weather.”
She’d expected to get a smile, but Marek looked solemn.
She frowned. “Is something wrong?”
“No.”
“Then, do you want to sit?” she asked, patting the snow next to her. She glanced at his hips, which were perfectly at eye level. “I’d rather talk to your face than your dick, you know.”
She knew the exact moment when Marek deciphered her words, because his eyes went comically large. His shock was chased by something darker, something that made her breath hitch, but then he shuffled awkwardly, eyeing the snowy ground with distaste.
“You hate the snow that much?”
He grimaced. “It is… unpleasant.”
“You’re wearing a suit,” she said with a raised eyebrow. Marek crossed his arms, moving unhappily from foot to foot.
“Maybe we will walk instead?”
Bree snorted. Of all the ways he could have reminded her how alien he was…
“Sure thing,” she said, getting to her feet.
But as they began another circuit of the caged-in yard, she had an idea. A silly idea, but the freedom of being outside was making her giddy, and it had been so long since she had some fun. Marek was lost in thought, meaning he didn’t notice when she dropped back behind him to gather fallen snow between her hands.
The snowball caught him squarely between his wide shoulders, surprising a grunt from the hybrid. He whipped around, looking at her as if she’d aimed her bow at him, but when he did she was ready. She drew back, throwing another snowball, and watched it land in the center of his chest with a loud whomp! Bree pressed her hand to her mouth as the snow rapidly melted down his chest, unable to keep from laughing at the slack-jawed expression frozen on his face.
“Why do you laugh?” he demanded, his accent thickening.
But Bree couldn’t answer, tears of mirth slipping from her eyes as she shook her head.
“…You throw snow at me.” He frowned at her, his textured brows drawing together in confusion. “Why?”
For a moment, Bree feared she’d gone too far, but then her chest warmed at the round-eyed look of betrayal on his face. “Well, for one, a little bit of snow isn’t going to kill you,” she finally managed to say. “And two, it’s funny.”
He cocked his head, wiping away the melting snow. “Funny?”
“Yeah. It’s called a snowball fight,” she explained. “It’s a human thing, and it’s fun. Or, it is when you throw one back at me.”
Marek’s eyes narrowed. “You fight for fun?”
“It’s just pretend. Although, I guess it’s good practice for the alien invasion my elders insist is coming.” The levekk still looked unconvinced, and Bree sighed. “Come on, throw one at me. You’ll see.”
Hesitantly, he bent down, gathering some snow up into a misshapen ball. “It’s melting…” he complained as it threatened to slip through his fingers, and Bree laughed.
“Hurry up, then!”
Standing with his legs splayed for balance and a look of pure befuddlement creasing his heavy brow, Marek studied her. He tested the snowball’s weight in his hand, and then took aim.
Bree was ready for him, dodging sideways as soon as the snowball left his hand. The ball hit the snow behind her with a wet splat.
“You dodged,” Marek said accusingly, and Bree grinned.
“That’s the whole point, dummy. Now try to get me before I get you.” She was already bending down, and Marek’s cat-like eyes flashed as he followed suit. This time, she got him in the thigh, and just managed to lurch out of the way of a snowball aimed at her mid-section before she ducked down to make another.
Her next shot landed in the crook of Marek’s elbow, making him drop his snowball, but he didn’t pause, just scooped up enough snow for another and circled her, his eyes lighting up. She landed two more broad shots and took one to the knee before Marek started learning how to predict her blows, and then the game was really on.
Bree dashed away, using a bank of snow for cover as she started preparing her arsenal, and the hybrid mirrored her. Her heart thundered with a new kind of excitement, far better than the wild fear she’d felt around Peris just a little while earlier, and it soared when she glanced over her shield and caught a small smile pulling at Marek’s mouth.
She stopped smiling when a well-aimed snowball grazed the top of her head, though.
“Hey! You nearly hit me!”
Marek stood up straight behind his barrier, another snowball melting through his fingers as he smirked at her. “I thought to dodge was the point.”
Bree fought back a grin, scooping up a large snow ball and stalking around her barrier. “Head shots are off-limits. Which means I get a free one.”
The hybrid’s eyes narrowed. “I am not sure this is fair.”
“Oh, it’s fair,” she said, just as she drew back and threw the snowball straight at Marek’s face.
For some reason, he was slow to dodge despite her warnings, and the ball of soft snow hit him right on target, knocking him back a pace. He coughed, reaching up to wipe it away, but Bree’s heart stopped.
Time slowed down as she noticed something. They’d moved close to one of the fences, the one with the sehela-sized hole near the top. Except, now that she was close enough, she could see that someone had cut part of it open. A part that looked the perfect size for a human to slip through.
Shock rocked through her. This was her chance. Marek was temporarily blinded, hampered by the snow, and if she moved fast enough, she might just make it up the fence before he realized what
was happening.
But her feet stuck fast in the snow, her legs leaden. This was what she was supposed to want, right? What she’d been waiting for all this time? There might not be another opportunity to escape, so why did her lungs suddenly feel empty of air and her throat clenched too tight to breathe?
She glanced past Marek at the metal walls towering behind him. Could she bear to return to that place, where her captors looked at her with disgust and her world was reduced to the same four walls for hours on end?
The thick snow grabbed at her as she ran, the snow softening and threatening to make her slip despite the spiked soles of the heatsuit. It was like running through flour or grain, the cold irrelevant thanks to the artificial heating, and it slowed her down, but not by much. She knew how to run through snow.
The yard had gone silent, and even the metallic ringing of the wire was strangely muted when she slammed into it, threading her feet into the spaces between and hauling herself up. She felt more than heard the heavy pounding of footsteps behind her, and she’d scaled half the fence before she quite realized what she was doing. The tear was above, a cloudy, gray-toned sky stretching out above her.
If she could only reach through the hole and pull herself out…
The fence jerked with a sudden impact, and she wobbled precariously. Then, a strong arm snaked around her stomach, a great weight pulling her down. She tried to hang on, but the wet rubber pads on her gloves slipped through the links, and she sailed through the air, her back pressed to a hard chest.
Marek took the brunt of the fall, grunting with the impact as they landed. She was squashing him, but when she tried to worm out of his grip, his muscled forearm only tightened around her waist. He said something unintelligible, his voice lost beneath the sound of her blood rushing in her ears.
She was trapped again, held down, and she didn’t want that. She wanted to be out there, so she scratched at his arm, and was shocked when it suddenly released. He caught her again halfway through her next lunge for the fence, spinning her around, and then the world tipped.
Bree landed on her back on the ground with a gasp, a heavy weight settling over her. For a moment, she thought she could see the turning of the Earth on its axis, but it was just dizziness. Her heart thundered, her eyes were wild, but it all fell away when a pair of large hands caught her wrists and a scaled, golden face swam into view.
