“Maybe I was an explorer back on Earth,” I murmur, smiling softly to myself.
Since that entire part of my life is a blank in my mind, I sometimes like to imagine backstories for myself, pretending that I was someone capable or powerful or highly skilled at a certain profession.
I’ve established that I couldn’t have been a professional singer, since I can’t carry a tune well at all. And I don’t think I played any kind of instrument, although it’s possible I’m wrong. Gornok tried to make me play a stringed sort of instrument once, the same day he tried to make me sing—he was hoping to impress another alien criminal who was coming to the hideout to do business with him. I plucked at the instrument’s strings a few times, trying to figure out how to play it, but whatever I did was clearly wrong. At least Gornok never tried to make me play again, although he found plenty of other ways to make me “useful.”
Dammit. You’re letting him into your thoughts again, Willow, I reprimand myself. I don’t want to give him any more of myself than he already stole from me, and I refuse to let him live inside my head.
I try to empty my head, letting myself fall into an almost meditative state as I walk. Memories of Gornok slowly fade into the corners of my mind, and I draw in a cleansing breath.
But then, unbidden, a new face pops into my mind’s eye.
A face framed by shaggy dark hair, with pearlescent blue skin and cat-like eyes that alternate between appearing blue and violet.
Bohrir.
My heart pounds a little harder at the thought of him, and I reach down and grab a large smooth stick from the ground as I pass by, needing something to occupy my hands. I use it as a walking stick, letting one end thud against the soft ground with every step.
Bohrir.
I don’t know why his face is so vivid in my memory, or why I can picture him down to the littlest detail. I don’t know why when I cleared my mind of Gornok, Bohrir is the person who popped into my head instead.
What is it about him?
It doesn’t matter now, I tell myself firmly. You’ll never see him again.
That thought makes a strange ache bloom in my chest, and I rub at it with the heel of my free hand and pick up my pace a little, as if I can leave the feeling behind by walking faster. That’s not really possible, of course, but I manage to distract myself from it for a little while by listening to the sounds around me and trying to keep track of the different birdsongs I hear. After that, I stop to forage for a meal, plucking more tari fruit as well as a few nuts that I know are edible.
By the time I stop for the night, I’m tired enough that I don’t think of Gornok or Bohrir or anything else. I just curl up beneath a large tree and fall into a deep and dreamless sleep.
The next morning, I wake with the sunrise and continue on, enjoying the feeling of purpose and the simple distractions of finding food and water. I kept my walking stick from yesterday, and it comes in handy a few times as I make my way through the dense forest. I use the heavy stick to beat a path through some particularly dense bushes, as well as to fend off a small pack of rodent-like animals that come scurrying toward me in the early afternoon. I can’t tell if they’re trying to attack me or just interested in the contents of my pack, but either way, I’m eager to keep them at a distance.
The sun moves slowly across the sky, and I pass the time by imagining different past lives for myself back on Earth, entertaining myself by coming up with more and more outlandish possibilities.
I’m in the middle of a daydream about having once been a queen when the back of my neck prickles. The fine hairs there stand on end as my body instinctively goes on alert. I haven’t encountered any carnivorous beasts out here in the wilderness yet, but I know they’re here. There are creatures much more deadly than the rodent-like animals in these woods.
A low rustling sound rises up from behind me, and I don’t think—I just act.
Gripping my walking stick with both hands, I wheel around to face whatever is behind me, swinging the large, smooth stick in a wide arc.
I have just enough time to register a startled pair of violet-blue eyes before my walking stick collides with Bohrir’s head.
6
Bohrir
Akhi!
I manage to raise an arm just in time to absorb some of the impact, but the large stick in Willow’s hands still hits my head in a glancing blow. I stagger sideways, stars dancing in my vision as I let out a low grunt.
This is what you get for losing sight of everything else the moment you saw Willow, you slanching idiot, I think to myself wryly as my head spins.
My training as a warrior and a hunter usually serves me better than this, making it difficult for anyone to blindside me with a surprise attack. But when I finally caught sight of Willow walking through the trees up ahead of me, the rush of relief that flooded me was so strong that it drowned out everything else. I just wanted to get closer to her, to make sure she was truly all right—and that impulse made me careless and sloppy.
“Oh, shit!”
Willow’s light, melodic voice reaches my ears, her tone laced with panic. I half expect her to use the advantage of my stunned state to take off running through the forest, getting a head start as she tries to evade me, but instead, she steps closer. The large stick falls from her fingers as she stares at me with wide eyes.
“Are you okay? I’m sorry, I—”
She breaks off, reaching out to brush her fingertips over my temple. When she pulls them back, they’re streaked with blue. My blood.
I grimace. The blow must’ve split the skin open.
Lifting a hand, I touch the wound myself, grimacing at the bruise I can already feel forming there. Wetness trickles down the side of my face, and Willow bites her bottom lip as she looks at it. Then she slides the large pack off her shoulders and digs around inside it, coming up with a small piece of cloth.
“Here. You need to put pressure on it.”
She folds the cloth into a small square and steps forward so that she can hold it to my temple. The difference in our height is enough that she has to stand very close to me in order to easily reach my forehead, and I can feel the warmth radiating from her small frame as our bodies nearly brush. The pressure on my bruised temple is a bit painful, but those sensations barely register. I’m too distracted by the feeling of her proximity, lost in her wide eyes. There are very small flecks of a brighter green color mixed in with the dark green, like budding leaves on a tree.
This is the first time she’s been this close to me since I picked her up and carried her out of Gornok’s den, and the only time she’s been this close of her own volition. I hold perfectly still, almost afraid to move for fear of startling her and making her run.
“I don’t know why I went for the head,” she murmurs, wincing as she moves the cloth to dab at the blood on my face.
“With the kind of predators that live on Nuthora, aiming for the head straight away is a good impulse to have,” I tell her, smiling lightly. “You’ve got a warrior’s instincts.”
For just a moment, my words seem to affect her. An answering smile, shy and proud, spreads across her lips as she stands a little taller. Then she suddenly seems to remember herself. Her posture stiffens, and she removes the bloodied cloth from my temple, shoving it into my hands before stepping backward.
“What are you doing out here?” she asks suspiciously. “Did you follow me?”
“Yes,” I admit. There’s no point in trying to disguise that fact. She wouldn’t believe me if I denied it, and besides, I’m trying to win her trust. Lying isn’t conducive to that.
“What do you want?” She takes another step away from me, and I notice her gaze dart down to where she dropped her stick.
She’s definitely thinking about hitting me in the head with it again, and although I sincerely hope she doesn’t attempt to do it, I have to admire her strength.
Pressing the cloth to my temple with one hand, I hold the other out toward her, palm out. “I want to
keep you safe. That’s all.”
Her gorgeous green eyes narrow. “I’m not going back to the village.”
Despite the conviction in her voice, I can see fear in her too. Vulnerability. It tugs at something in my chest, making me yearn to erase that frightened expression from her face.
“Why did you leave?” I ask quietly.
She licks her lips, her gaze darting from my face to the forest around us and back again. I can tell that she’s considering running, searching for the best means of escape.
“I don’t think you’d understand,” she murmurs after a moment, her body still tense.
I shrug. “Perhaps I wouldn’t. But you could tell me and find out.”
Willow blinks, seeming surprised by that answer. Then she swallows and says, “I just… I need to be on my own. I don’t belong there.”
That’s not the whole truth. I can see in her eyes that there’s something she’s not telling me. But having seen the way she acted in the village ever since she arrived, one thing is clear to me. She feared being kept prisoner again, the way she was held captive by Gornok. Even though we did what we could to make her feel safe and free, she was living in a settlement with a group of strangers, surrounded by a high wall. After everything she’s been through, what feels like a haven to the rest of us probably felt like a prison to her.
I tilt my head, keeping the cloth pressed firmly to my temple, although I think the bleeding is beginning to slow already. “I think you’re wrong about that. About not belonging. But when it comes to that, it’s your opinion that matters, not mine. So I have no intention of forcing you to return to the village.”
Her jaw falls open slightly. She looks even more surprised by those words than she was by my previous ones, and it takes her a moment to find her voice.
“Then… why are you here?” she asks again.
“I told you. To keep you safe.”
“What does that mean?”
I lower the bloodied cloth from my temple. The urge to take a step closer to her and close the distance between us is strong, but I resist, keeping my feet planted where they are. “It means that as long as you remain out in these woods, I will too. I won’t carry you back to the village, and I won’t force my presence on you, but I’ll stay nearby. And if you ever need help or protection, I’ll be there to provide it.”
A line appears between her eyebrows. She’s staring at me as if she’s trying to see through a mirage, and several different expressions flit across her features, although I’m not quite sure what any of them mean. When she finally speaks, her voice is quiet.
“Why?”
I hesitate. I’m not quite sure how to answer that question. Should I tell her that since I was the one who rescued her from Gornok’s den, I feel responsible for her? Should I tell her that my honor demands I protect those who need it? Or should I tell her that as soon as I realized she’d left the village, something in my chest became agitated and unsettled, and I don’t think it would ever have gone away if I hadn’t ventured into the woods after her.
All of those things are true, but I worry that all of them will only frighten her more. So I tell her the simplest truth, the one that’s at the very root of my decision to follow her.
“I don’t want you to be hurt,” I say.
There’s a long moment of silence as she absorbs those words, her green eyes studying my face intently as she chews on her lower lip. Then she slowly bends down and retrieves her walking stick.
I force my muscles to stay relaxed and loose. I’d rather take the risk of getting hit in the head again than make it look like I’m tensing up in preparation to fight her or chase her down. Her gaze stays on me as she straightens, and she takes a few more steps backward, still facing me. She glances quickly at the wound on my temple, her cheeks flushing a little.
“I’m sorry about that,” she murmurs. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Her mouth opens again as if she’s about to say something else, but instead, she closes it and turns away from me, starting off through the woods again. I stare after her for a moment, taking in the way her hips sway slightly with every step and the way her dark red hair cascades down her back. Even weighed down by the pack on her shoulders, she has an intrinsic grace and delicacy—as if she’s not quite a creature of this world, but a spirit floating through it.
I make sure not to let her out of my sight, and once she’s far enough ahead of me, I begin walking too, striding through the thick undergrowth after her. I meant what I said. I won’t force my will on her or make her return to the village if she doesn’t want to.
But even if I have to do it from a distance, I’m determined to keep her safe.
7
Willow
My heart feels like it might pound right out of my chest, each heavy beat rattling my rib cage. I grip my walking stick tightly, feeling my sweaty palm slide against the smooth wood.
That prickling sensation at the back of my neck is even stronger now than it was before. Because now I know exactly what—exactly who—is behind me.
I just have no idea how to feel about it.
When I whirled around and swung the stick, I was anticipating a wild animal, some creature that had decided to make a meal out of me. I wasn’t expecting to see Bohrir.
I bite my lip as I recall the sight of blue blood seeping from the wound on his temple. Guilt and worry rise up in me, but I resist the urge to peer back over my shoulder to see if the gash is still bleeding.
I know he’s behind me. He’s making no attempt to hide the fact that he’s following me, although he’s keeping his distance, walking several yards behind me from the sound of it.
Why did he come all the way out here? What does he want?
If he’d come to fetch me and drag me back to the village, I would understand that—although I would fight it tooth and nail. But he told me he has no plans to do that, and so far, he hasn’t done anything to contradict his words.
As much as I hate to admit it, he could almost certainly overpower me if he wanted to. The fact that I stunned him with a blow to the head was pure, dumb luck, and I’m sure I couldn’t do it again. So it’s not fear of my fighting skills that’s holding him back from attempting to nab me.
But then… what is it?
He said he wants to keep me safe, but I have a hard time taking that at face value. In my experience, the only men who’ve tried to keep me safe in the past have done it because they were protecting their property, not because they cared about me as a person. Gornok saved my life more than once—but he also abused me, kept me captive, and threatened to kill me himself on other occasions, making it clear how he truly felt about me.
After several minutes of walking, I can’t stop myself anymore. Trying to keep the movement small and subtle, I glance over one shoulder. Bohrir’s tall, imposing frame stands out amid the greens and browns of the forest, and it looks like he’s put away the cloth. A bit of dark blue still mars the side of his face, glinting in the dappled sunlight as he catches my gaze and nods at me.
I whip my head back around, my pulse speeding up even more. I’m not even quite sure why. He didn’t lunge toward me or make any threatening move. All he did was look at me, but my heart is racing like I just sprinted a mile flat-out. His eyes are such a dark, deep blue, bordering on violet, and they seem to see way too much. Every time he looks at me, it’s as if I’m a puzzle he’s trying to figure out, a mystery he’s hoping to untangle.
And the worst part is, it feels like he’s succeeding.
Like he knows too much about me already, even though we’ve barely ever spoken to each other.
The easy feelings of excitement and confidence I had on my first day after leaving the village begin to seep away as I keep walking, always conscious of Bohrir behind me. The questions I was in no hurry to answer before loom even larger now, making me doubt myself.
What is my plan? Where should I go?
I need to either stop or veer in a new direction soon,
or I’ll get closer to the city than I want to be. But I don’t know where a new path would take me, and I’m not quite sure what I’m looking for. With Bohrir right behind me, though, his presence a steady weight at my back, I feel like I need to prove that I know what I’m doing.
I stop before the sun goes down, picking an area where another one of those trees with the long, bowed branches sits among the other plants and bushes. I set my pack down and stretch my shoulders, working out the kinks in my sore muscles. In the past couple weeks, I’ve walked more than it feels like I ever have before in my life—at least, the parts of it that I remember.
My stomach grumbles loudly as I roll my neck, and I press a hand over it, glancing up surreptitiously to see if Bohrir heard it. He stopped when I did, although he’s kept the same distance between us as he did when we were walking. But even from several yards away, the sound definitely reached him.
“Did you pack food? Any meat?” he asks, glancing at my bag where it rests on the ground.
I consider not answering him. He’s made it clear he doesn’t intend to drag me back to the village, so part of me hopes that if I ignore him, he’ll get bored of following me and go away. But when he looks up to meet my gaze, the concern I see in his eyes throws me off balance. The words come to my lips before I even consciously decide to speak.
“A little,” I admit. “But I ate it already.”
“You’ve been foraging for the rest?”
“Yes.”
I don’t mention that I passed on several potential food sources—fruits, berries, nuts—because I wasn’t sure if they could kill me. I’ve been careful to only harvest things I recognize and have eaten before, which unfortunately means that I haven’t had as much to eat as my body would like. Walking miles every day isn’t the most strenuous exercise in the world, but it adds up.
Bohrir’s gaze drops to my stomach as it makes another small grumbling noise, and I flush. I brace myself for him to tell me how foolish I was to strike out on my own when I clearly don’t have all the skills it will take to live off the land, or to use this opportunity to try to convince me to go back to the village with him again.
Her Alien Protector: Voxeran Fated Mates #6 Page 4
