by Ella Maven
“Fleck!” I roared. “They can’t remotely deny an individual car’s access, but they can change the permission levels on the exits.” Panic welled in my chest, squeezing my lungs until I could barely breathe. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Val reached for my biceps, her wide eyes peering up into my face. “It’s okay, Sax. We did everything we could.” The resignation in her voice cracked my cora wide open.
Ever since the cora-eternal loks had appeared on our wrists, I’d felt her in my mind, a golden salibri with black stripes standing proud and quiet. But now that salibri lay down, its belly flat on the floor, nostrils wide and flaring. No way would my lioness give up. I wouldn’t let her.
“What?” I whipped my head to her. “It’s not okay. I haven’t done everything I can. Not yet.”
“Can I override gate permissions?” I asked the car.
“Only with e-e-elite level access-s-s-s. Scan if in your p-p-p-possession.”
“Elite level what?” Val asked.
I let out a long, low breath of relief and didn’t slow down as we approached the gates.
“Sax, slow down!”
I waved my hand in front of the screen, the key ring Gram had given us shining on my first knuckle. “Here’s your elite level, you fleckers.”
The sweet, sweet words of “Access-s-s-s approv-v-v-ed” fill the car, and the gates flew open. We soared through them, the edges of the doors scraping the sides of our car with an animal-like shriek on our way out.
“Holy shit.” Val whirled around.
I glanced over my shoulder to see the gates closing. We were out from behind the walls. Away from the Uldani. Free. For now. We still had several more obstacles, and I wasn’t looking forward to any of them.
I pushed the car to its limits across the open plain and immediately began to swerve in a zig-zag pattern. Val slammed her hands on the dashboard to brace herself. “What are you doing?”
“Avoiding the long-range solar bombs.”
“The what?”
An explosion to the right of the car sent dirt and rocks scattering across our windshield. I avoided the shock of the blast, but not the debris. Val screamed.
“That,” I muttered, whipping the wheel to the left to avoid another shower of grass.
“Where the hell are they coming from?” Val cried.
“Get away from the window!” I grabbed her shoulder and pushed it down. “Cover your head. They’re shooting at us from atop the fortress. Once we get to that tree line, we’re out of their range. We just need to—” Something hit us, and the entire vehicle went haywire. I licked my lips. “We need to avoid, uh, that.”
“Oh my God,” Val sobbed in the passenger seat. Her salibri cowered, and I loathed my proud fierce lioness being this afraid.
I gripped the steering wheel. There was still power, and we were still in the air. The tree line was approaching. Just a little bit more time. Just a little more—
“L-l-ow f-f-uel,” the car crackled to life.
“Oh fleck your fuel,” I spat. I pulled back the steering wheel. If we had any hope of getting to the tree line, I had to get this thing as high as I could. Fast.
I punched a button on the ceiling and a fabric pack landed in my lap. I’d just put my arm through one of the pack’s straps when another explosion hit the front corner of the vehicle, sending us into a spiral. I eyed the tree line. Close enough.
I jammed the accelerator to the floor and locked it into place. After disengaging the belts on Val and myself, I faced the vehicle’s front, tensed my legs, and kicked them up and out, sending the windshield flying. Val screamed, and I hauled her into my arms. I scrambled onto the front of the vehicle, readjusted my grip on Val, and whispered, “Hang on, lioness.”
She gripped me hard, her legs locking around my waist. I took a deep breath, and using every last ounce of strength I possessed, leapt toward the edge of the tree line.
Val clung to me, her nails digging into my skin as she opened her mouth in a silent scream. I prayed to Fatas we were out of the range of the solar bombs. Once we hit this tree line, we were home free. The rough terrain of Corin was my element. Until then…
I yanked on the pack’s cord. Fabric unfurled above us, breaking our fall right as we reached the tree line.
Val burrowed her head into my chest as branches whipped at us on the way down. I took a trunk to the face before we jerked to a halt, our legs dangling. The fabric was stuck on a branch, preventing us from falling further. I wiggled out of the pack and we dropped the rest of the way to the ground. I’d twisted at the last second to protect Val, and pain streaked down my back, breath leaving my lungs in a painful rush. I lay gasping on my back while Val immediately rolled onto her hands and knees and threw up.
She wiped her mouth and crawled over to me, her hands patting me everywhere she could touch. “Are you okay? Can you breathe? Can you move your legs?”
I waved her away as I sucked in air. “Fine. Just… give me a moment.”
“You sure?”
I swallowed and licked my lips. “Yeah, positive.”
She sat back on her heels and squinted up into the tress. “I, for one, never want to do that again. Ever.”
“Really?” I grinned at her. “I don’t know, it was kind of fun.”
Her nostrils flared. “If I wasn’t so grateful to you for saving my life, I’d hit you right now. That was not fun. Not at all. Opposite of fun. So opposite of fun that there isn’t even a word for it.”
Her fury was a sight to behold. Her salibri snarled. After everything that had happened since we walked into Borhan’s lab, I welcomed her anger.
“Okay, I promise we won’t do it again.” I hauled myself to my feet and stumbled when pain shot up my leg. The same leg Borhan had plunged a needle into. I hadn’t let myself think about what he’d injected me with. I pressed on the skin, and winced at the sore, swollen flesh.
“You okay?” Val asked. She jumped to her feet and immediately ran her hands over my body. “Anything hurt?”
I straightened, not wanting her to worry. Whatever Borhan gave me, I’d get through. I’d done it before. He’d never found anything that had affected me enough to be worried about. “I’m fine.”
I glanced at the open plains surrounding Alazar through a break in the trees. We were too close to the fortress to rest. “Come on, we have to move. We can rest when we’re farther away. Any minute now, those gates are going to open, and they’re going to send Kulks out in droves to hunt us down.”
Val took one last look at the walls where we’d been held. “I can’t believe… we’re out.”
“We’re out, and we’re not going back.” I shook off the odd aches and pains in my body. “Climb on my back. We need to move.”
“I can ru—”
“I know you can run, and sweet Val, I’m sure for a human you can run fast. But not for a Drixonian, and we don’t just need to move. We need to move.”
She swallowed and nodded her head. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Val
We were maybe a mile away from Alazar, Sax’s strong legs powering up a hill, when the gates to Alazar opened and a stream of Kulks emerged on foot. I could see them, like little ants emerging from an anthill, but I knew they were no ants. Up close, they were scary as shit. Goosebumps rose on my arms, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I shuddered just thinking about those smelly massive aliens.
I’d seen Sax kill four Kulks since I’d met him, but the amount of Kulks emerging from the gates? Dozens. I looked away and tightened my grip on Sax’s back. He’d seen them too. I hadn’t thought it was possible, but he picked up his pace.
“Why aren’t they all in those car things?” I asked. “Wouldn’t they be able to find us faster?”
“The terrain is too rough for the vehicles. It’s one of the reasons we stay on our side of the continent and they stay on theirs. Even so, their resources are finite. They don’t have enough transport vehicles to supply all their D
efens, and even if they did, the fuel cost would be astronomical.”
I nodded because that made sense. Suddenly, Sax faltered, like he’d stepped in a hole, but he righted himself quickly. I frowned. His gait was off. I didn’t want to draw attention to it, but I could tell he had some sort of injury. At first, it wasn’t noticeable, but as time drew on, and he continued to run, I could tell he was favoring his left leg.
“We need to rest,” I said into his hair.
“Are you tired?” he panted.
“No, you are! We need to get you something to drink. And eat.”
“I’m fine.”
“Sax,” I pleaded. “You can’t act like this is some Drixonian talent where you can run for miles and miles without stopping. I know you need to eat and drink.” Then I went with the thing I knew would get to him. “What will I do if something happens to you?”
That made him slow down, but only slightly. “We’ll rest at nightfall. I’m heading to a place we won’t be spotted. If we rest before we get there, we’re as good as dead. Or as good as prisoners again.”
I patted his chest. “Okay. I’ll accept that answer.”
I was slowing him down, but I also knew, without a doubt, I’d slow him down a hell of a lot more if I was running with him. His pace was blistering, a near sprint even though he breathed like he was out for a morning jog.
“Can I ask a question?” I said.
“Yes.”
“You’re faster than the Kulks, right?”
His ears lifted, and I could tell he grinned. “Absolutely. At least twice as fast. They’re slow to begin with, and then they have all that armor because they can’t fight without it.”
Satisfied at that answer, I breathed easier. Just a bit. “That’s good news.”
He ran for what felt like hours. At the beginning, he powered to the peak of the mountain in an all-out sprint. After that, he settled into a jog as he maneuvered through a semi-plateau of rocky terrain. We went up, down, and sideways. I wanted to ask more about the planet, but I worried about taking away his concentration. His eyes were a bit glazed, like he’d settled into cruise-control mode. So, I clung to him, clenched my teeth against the jarring pace, and remained silent.
As I’d noted upon first landing on the planet, the foliage was a brilliant blue color, as well as the grass. The dirt was green, kind of like matcha powder, and puffed up in spurts under Sax’s feet. Every so often, I caught glimpses of wildlife—some winged bird-like creatures, massive flying insects the size of my palm, and even a hoofed four-legged animal about the size of a deer with antler-like growths emerging from its head and wrapping around its slender neck.
Through gaps in the overhead trees, the sun shone close and hot, causing sweat to drip down my back. Of course, it wasn’t my sun, the sun I was used to, but it was a sun nonetheless, and I basked in its warmth. There had been many times in the Uldani fortress I thought I’d never feel sunshine again. On the other side of the horizon, a large planet rose, swirling blues and greens, and I remembered Sax had said that it was his home planet—Corin.
As the sun began to dip, Sax’s breathing finally grew labored to the point of wheezing. “Can we stop yet?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “Not much longer. Almost there.”
By the time he slowed, I swore my bones had rattled apart and everything ached from holding onto his body. Fuck, I was tired. But I didn’t dare complain. He had run almost the entire day. Between the two of us, he was the one who deserved to whine. But he didn’t say a word.
He drew to a stop in a non-descript spot that looked like a million other spots we’d passed. He set me gently on my feet, and I wobbled as feeling came back into my legs. I braced myself on a tree and listened for the stomping of Kulks. In the far distance, I could hear rustling, but it didn’t seem to be close. What did I know though? I wasn’t a tracker.
Sax had approached a dense-looking bush and appeared to be looking for something in its branches. He knelt, and for a moment I thought he was pulling on a root. I gasped as the tree root turned out to be… not attached to a tree. It was a handle to some kind of door embedded in the earth. With a jerk, Sax opened the door all the way and gestured toward a dark opening in the ground.
“What is that?” I muttered, stepping closer.
“I’ll explain once we get inside.” His voice was low, urgent.
“We’re going in there?” I squeaked. Oh God, I was claustrophobic. The elevator had been bad enough, but now he wanted me to climb into dark hole in the ground? Lord, kill me now.
Sax grabbed my hand and looked me in the eyes. “We have to Val. I can’t outrun them the entire way to safety. We have to hide, so I can rest.” His fatigue was stark in the pale lines of his face and the cracked skin of his lips. He was dehydrated, hungry, and exhausted. I had to buck up and crawl into this pit of hell. For him. I could do it for him.
I nodded with gritted teeth and tried to hide my full-body tremors. “Right. So, I just…”
“There’s a ladder. You have to go in first so I can shut the hatch.”
Of course. Fuck me. “Okay.”
He showed me the first rung of the ladder and after counting to ten, I descended. I tried not to think about the darkness below, but instead focused on Sax above me. That is, until he stepped in after me, shut the hatch, and plunged us into complete darkness.
“Sax!” I whisper-shouted, just managing to curtail a scream. Suddenly, a click echoed in the inky blackness, and I froze in fear until a light appeared above me. Sax held a flashlight-looking device in one hand and shone it into his grinning face. “Solar light. It was hidden in the numa bush out there. It’s fully charged, so we should be good for a while.”
A light. Okay that was good. Fantastic, even. The tightness in my chest eased now that I wasn’t descending into total darkness. I’d seen the movie Descent. Darkness was not my friend.
I continued down the ladder until my feet touched solid ground. I stumbled and scooted out of the way so Sax could jump the rest of the distance. He landed with a thud and swung the flashlight around the space.
I caught a glimpse of some crates and a few other unidentified objects before Sax’s light settled on a translucent round sphere on a pedestal in the corner. He sat the light inside, and a dull yellow glow filled the space, amplified by sphere like a lamp.
I performed a slow turn, taking in the details of the room. We were in what I could only describe as a roughly dug-out bunker. A few crates sat on the floor next to some dusty jugs of liquid. There was a lump of fabric that I assumed was a pallet for sleeping. The walls and the floor were nothing but green dirt, but it seemed safe, and not too cold. And by God, was that food?
Sax had already descended on the crates, clawing through them like the starving man he was. He pulled out a couple of bars, and I practically inhaled one. I didn’t even care that they tasted a bit like cardboard. It was the most delicious cardboard I’d ever eaten.
He ate two in quick succession before he finally spoke. “We built several of these bunkers during the Uprising. The Uldani were never able to find them because this area is too difficult to map. This strip of land between the western and eastern half of the continent is generally considered a neutral no-man’s land. But the Uldani know if a battle occurred here, we’d crush them. They rarely leave the safety of their fortress, and their battle strategies rely on tech and planning. They need space for their weapons. Close combat is a no-go.”
He ripped open the top of a jug and poured some into his mouth. He handed the rest to me. “It’s stale qua, but it’ll do.”
I glanced at the other five jugs. “Should we ration it?”
He shook his head. “Don’t plan to be here long.”
“You need to rest,” I urged him.
He nodded. “I know.” After downing another tein bar, he stood up. His left thigh faltered before he regained his balance. I noticed a rip in his pants and a bit of exposed skin underneath that was darker in color.
/>
“Is your leg okay?” I reached for him, but he shuffled away. I drew my hands back, alarmed. “Sax?”
“I’m fine,” he muttered. “Just got stuck with a branch while running. It’ll be fine. I just need some rest.”
“Is there medis here?” I asked.
“No, and it’s okay. I don’t need it.”
He peeled the dusty top layer from the pallet and fell face-first on top of it. A swirl of dust kicked up, and he coughed. Through slitted eyes, he mumbled, “Come, lioness, keep me warm.”
I smiled as I crawled into bed beside him. “Isn’t it the other way around? You keep me warm.”
He slung a heavy arm over me, his eyes now fully closed. “Keep me company, then.”
I smoothed back his sweaty hair just as his breaths evened out. “Always,” I murmured. I curled onto my side, shoved my face into this shoulder, and fell asleep in seconds.
Eleven
Val
I blinked my eyes open and all I saw was blue. A beautiful blue hue. I slowly lifted my gaze to see Sax still asleep, his full lips parted, and the fatigued lines erased from his face. The light in the sphere still glowed, showing me that Sax’s color had returned. A relief after he’d been so pale last night.
In sleep, we’d both migrated onto our sides facing each other. Sax’s arm was wrapped around my waist, his other tucked under my head so my temple rested on his biceps. His tail lay across my legs, thick and heavy. I didn’t dare wake him. He needed his sleep, and I had to admit, I was enjoying this unencumbered study of my big alien.
At least, I wanted to think of him as mine. I still hadn’t talked to him about these wrist markings, but they tied us together somehow. Had Borhan done something to us? I shuddered. I didn’t want to think about Borhan now. He was dead, and the lab was destroyed. Sax held some sort of information chip in his pocket, so the whole Uldani race could fuck off. Except Gram. He was the only Uldani not on my shit list.