by Presley Hall
“No.” My voice is rough. “I don’t like that one.”
Sadie swallows, blinking several times as the liquid clears from her eyes. She doesn’t seem to let go of this emotion as quickly as she did the first, and an air of melancholy clings to her as she swallows. “Yeah. Being sad isn’t fun.”
My knuckles are still moving lightly over her cheek, trailing over the line of her jaw, but she makes no move to pull away, and neither do I. We stay like that for a long moment before she clears her throat, taking a small step back.
“Maybe we should stop,” she says.
“If you like.” I nod. “But I want to see others, if you would show me.”
For a moment, I’m sure she’ll say no. That she’ll close herself off again like she always did back at the crash site, keeping me at a distance.
Although she told me this was all pretend, I feel certain that the emotions she’s demonstrating are real. She feels them as deeply as she would if she had truly received good news or bad news. The circumstances might be manufactured, but the emotions are not. And by doing this, by sharing this with me, she’s making herself vulnerable, showing me a part of herself that not everyone gets to see.
But to my surprise, Sadie dips her chin in assent. “Okay. Just a few more. You can pick this time, since you didn’t like the last one. What would you like to see next?”
I blink, my mind racing to come up with a good answer. “Surprise. I’d like to see surprise.”
She grins, the shadows leaving her eyes as she takes a moment to gather herself. Then her jaw drops open, her eyes widening as she looks at me with a shocked expression. I nearly laugh, unable to help it. Her features are so perfectly arranged into a look of surprise that it’s almost comical.
Maybe she sees the glint of amusement in my eyes, because she breaks into a laugh herself, the happy sound filling the air around us. Still chuckling, she shrugs. “That’s more of an over-the-top version. I’ll show you one where I’m a little less surprised.”
She makes another face, then another, and I watch with rapt attention as I see a cascade of emotions pass over her features. I can’t look away, utterly drawn in by the nuance and depth of her expressions.
“I was wrong,” I murmur in awe as she drops the look of confusion she was demonstrating. “You aren’t lying. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything so true.”
She flushes with pride, looking down at the ground almost bashfully. “Yeah. That was always my favorite thing about acting. Even when everything else in my life felt off balance or I didn’t know what to believe, it always felt like I could find the truth when I was performing.”
“You’re very good,” I tell her sincerely.
“Thanks.” She twists a lock of hair around her fingers, lifting one shoulder. “I always wanted to—”
But she breaks off before she finishes the thought, her features transforming once again. She glances behind me, and her eyes widen. Her pupils dilate as the color drains from her cheeks. Her mouth drops open on a sharp breath, and I know exactly what this expression is.
It’s fear.
11
Sadie
Oh, fuck.
My stomach drops as my gaze fixes on the creature charging through the forest toward us. If I thought surviving the raider attack, the river monster, and the climb up a canyon wall would make me more prepared to face the predatory wildlife on Nuthora, I was dead wrong.
Because the beast bearing down on us is terrifying.
It looks sort of like an oversized boar, with a body the size of a rhino, dark red fur, and massive tusks protruding from its snout. Its eyes are small and black, and its gaze fixes directly on us as it lets out an angry squeal.
Jaro’s expression turns to one of alarm as he reads the look on my face. He whirls around, drawing the knife that’s belted to his hip in one smooth movement. His free hand whips out to shove me out of the way as the boar-like thing reaches us, and I go sprawling, hitting the ground and rolling as another ferocious squeal splits the air. I hear a grunt, and I look up just in time to see Jaro darting out of the way of the beast’s tusks.
The massive creature swings around to attack him again, but Jaro dances backward, his knife at the ready. His lips are pulled back slightly, and he looks dangerous and wild as he slashes at the monster, his blade glancing off one of its tusks.
The thing is so big that its footfalls seem to shake the earth, and when it charges toward him again, my heart jumps into my throat. Jaro evades, barely escaping being gored by one of the monster’s tusks. He swipes out again as he dances to one side, but the boar-thing swings its head, blocking his blow with its tusks.
Shit. Jaro is faster than this hulking beast, but not by much. It’s surprisingly agile for something so big, and it’s got several hundred pounds on him. If he gets caught by one of those tusks or trampled under its feet…
My mind refuses to finish that thought, shoving away the horrifying images that accompany it.
No. The Voxerans are good fighters.
I saw their skills in the battle against the raiders, and I saw Jaro’s prowess when he took on the tentacled creature in the river. He lost his sword in that fight, which puts him at a disadvantage now—his knife blade isn’t nearly as long, which means he has to risk getting close to the tusks every time he darts in for a strike.
But still, he’s strong and clearly well-trained. He can do this. He’ll be okay.
Even as I try to hold on to the reassuring mantra, Jaro rushes in again, feinting left before lunging to the right, trying to catch the creature off-guard.
It almost works. The boar swipes his tusks to the left to block the blow it expects to come from that direction, and when Jaro changes the angle of his attack, the beast lets out a startled huff. But it recovers too fast. Just as Jaro’s knife descends toward its eye, the monster jerks its head to the right. One of its tusks hooks the knife blade, and with another jerk of its head, it yanks the weapon out of Jaro’s grip, sending it flying.
“Akhi!” Jaro grunts, backing up and ducking into a roll to evade the boar-thing as it stampedes toward him again, rage burning in its beady eyes. One of its large feet nearly lands on his leg, and I wince as I imagine bone breaking.
That was so close. Too close.
Jaro scrambles to his feet again, putting more space between him and the charging beast as he glances around quickly, obviously looking for something else he can use as a weapon.
But what can he use? What would even work? A stick won’t do, even if he could manage to find one big enough. The boar-thing’s red fur is matted and thick, and I have a feeling the skin beneath that coarse fur is tough as hell. Maybe he could bash its head with a rock, but he’d have to get so close to do it that the creature would gore him before he could even get in a solid hit.
A horrifying image fills my mind—Jaro, covered in dark blue blood, his beautiful cat-like eyes turning dull as the life fades from their depths. Panic surges inside me, rising up in my chest and seeming to press against my rib cage, stifling my heartbeat.
I can’t catch a full breath as I watch Jaro dart out of the way of another attack. He tries to circle around the creature, but it blocks him, squealing loudly as it swings its tusks again.
My limbs are heavy, and I can feel my fingertips going numb, my body shutting down as fear seeps through me like poison. I’m used to this feeling—I’ve been dealing with panic attacks for years, long enough to know what the onset of one feels like.
But this isn’t like the attacks I had back on Earth. On Earth, I feared a faceless danger that seemed to lurk in the shadows. The stalker who plagued my life for years was always an invisible threat, someone I couldn’t fight off because I didn’t even know who he was until it was too late.
Now, though, I can see the threat. It’s right in front of me, as clear as day. And if I can see it, that means I can do something about it.
My body doesn’t give my mind a chance to analyze the recklessness of my ac
tions. Instead, I just spring into motion, launching up from where I’m crouched in the underbrush. I can see Jaro’s knife glinting in the sunlight where it landed on a thick patch of moss, and I race over to it, my hands shaking as I bend down to snatch it up.
The boar-creature is turned away from me, still facing Jaro and completely focused on him as it lets out another grating squeal. It seems to have forgotten I’m here entirely, swinging its tusks back and forth as it advances on the Voxeran warrior.
Gripping the knife handle tightly, I sprint forward, using all of my momentum to swing the blade as I jam it into the beast’s haunch.
The squeal it lets out this time is truly ear-piercing. Its head rears back and its body stiffens as the knife sinks into its hindquarters. Then it swings around to face me, grunting heavily. The knife handle is yanked out of my grasp, the blade still lodged in the monster’s flesh as it lashes out with its thick tusks.
“No!”
I hear Jaro’s bellow as I stumble backward, feeling the rush of air on my skin as the tusks whip past inches from my body. My heel catches on a tree root, and I go down, landing heavily on my ass.
But before the boar can attack again, Jaro takes advantage of the opening I gave him. With its massive tusks no longer in the way, he sprints forward, launching himself off the ground and leaping onto its back. He lands with a heavy thud that draws the boar’s attention, and as it twists wildly, trying to dislodge him, he clings to the fur with one hand and yanks his blade out of its haunch with the other.
With a savage roar, he brings the blade down again, in the beast’s side this time. The boar-thing paws at the ground and writhes, whipping its head back and forth as it squeals and grunts. Jaro raises the blade and brings it down once more, and the shriek that falls from the creature’s mouth sends a shiver down my spine. When Jaro strikes for a third time, the boar bucks hard, throwing him off. He twists in midair, landing in a crouch with the bloody weapon raised.
But instead of charging toward him, the boar lets out a strange sort of whine. It shakes its head as if trying to orient itself, and the black pits of its eyes no longer hold anger. They hold fear. Backing away, the creature shakes its head again. Then it turns and charges off through the woods, limping slightly and huffing loudly as it flees.
Jaro and I both watch it until it’s out of sight, and after a moment, I can no longer hear it snuffling and grunting as it crashes through the undergrowth.
It’s gone. We won.
Breathing heavily, Jaro wipes off his bloody knife on the grass beside him, and I stare at the red streaks against the vibrant green. I expect to feel a rush of relief, but all I feel is the panic I managed to shove away earlier, returning with a vengeance as everything that’s happened in the past twenty-four hours—hell, the past week—catches up to me in a rush.
We almost just died. Both of us. Jaro was nearly impaled by the thick blunt tusks of some kind of monster worse than anything the art department on that sci-fi film could ever have dreamed up. It almost trampled me to death after I stabbed it, and if Jaro had been even a second slower, I would’ve ended up crushed under its heavy feet.
And that wasn’t even the first time today that I almost died.
How can this be real? How can any of this be real?
That’s the question I’ve been avoiding contemplating ever since I woke up in that claustrophobic little pod with Elizabeth’s wide-eyed face staring down at me. I’ve never really processed the abruptness with which my life changed completely. One day, I was living a simple—even boring—life back on Earth, and the next, I was part of a small band of survivors of a spaceship crash, lost on an alien planet with no way to get back home.
I’m not equipped for this.
My hands are shaking, and I’m breathing in choppy gasps, every inhale requiring supreme effort. It’s like my lungs don’t want to accept air, like there’s an elephant sitting on my chest.
I can’t fucking do this.
I can’t.
“Sadie.” Jaro’s deep voice draws my attention, cutting through some of the fog in my mind, and I look up to see him standing over me, a look of concern on his face. “It’s all right. We’re all right. The umbaba is gone.”
I want to tell him it’s not all right, that it can’t possibly be all right, and that I need to go home. That there must’ve been some mistake, some mix-up, because I’m not up for the challenge of adapting to live on an entirely different planet. I just figured out how to live again on Earth, dammit.
But none of those words make it past my lips. I can’t get my mouth to work right. My jaw hangs open slightly as I gasp for air, and I vaguely realize I must look like a dying fish, but I don’t care.
The concern in Jaro’s expression deepens, and he reaches down to pull me gently to my feet. My body moves, but I think he’s supporting most of my weight as my legs wobble beneath me. Keeping a firm grip on my shoulders, he ducks his head to bring his eyes level with mine.
“What do you need? What can I do?”
My eyelashes flutter, and my throat works as I swallow.
He wants to help me. He’s worried about me. I can see it in every line of his face, in the way his gaze scans my features, in the shadows that darken his eyes.
His eyes.
They’re beautiful. Strange and mesmerizing all at once. I remember the way he used to look at me, with so much suspicion and wariness in his eyes, but I can’t see any of that now. All I can see is… tenderness. Warmth.
With my gaze still locked on his, I draw in a deep, shaky breath, forcing my lungs to expand as oxygen floods my system. He sees what I’m doing and matches his breath to mine, breathing out when I breathe out and inhaling when I do. The rest of the world fades away a little, and all I’m aware of is the little bubble of space that surrounds us as we breathe together.
Slowly, the sickening feeling of panic begins to ebb away, and my muscles unclench. Breathing becomes easier as my head clears. But still, I don’t look away from Jaro.
It feels safe here in this bubble with just the two of us, and I don’t want to leave it. I’m not sure I’ll ever want to leave it.
As we both inhale deeply, breathing in each other’s scent, Jaro takes a small step closer to me, his grip tightening slightly on my shoulders. One of my hands comes up to rest on his chest—not to push him away, but because I want to touch him.
His skin is warm and smooth beneath my palm, and I feel the steady thrum of his heart as it beats beneath his breast bone. I swear I can feel the vibrations of it traveling all the way up my arm, and as they do, something seismic seems to shift inside me. It’s like something has cracked open in my chest, something I didn’t even know was there until now.
Warmth floods me, spilling through my torso and then into every one of my limbs, making butterflies dance in my stomach.
Jaro sucks in a sharp breath, his breathing falling out of sync with mine for the first time since he came to stand in front of me. His eyes flare wide, and his fingers stiffen where they wrap around my arms. He blinks, the muscles of his throat tightening as he swallows, and a low noise rumbles in his chest.
He’s looking down at me as if he’s just witnessed something miraculous, as if he’s never truly seen me until now. Then he releases his grip on one of my shoulders to rest his hand over mine, trapping it against his chest. His heart is beating faster, I realize, as my own kicks up its pace too. It pounds hard against my palm as he opens his mouth and murmurs a single word.
“Rhael.”
A shiver runs down my spine at the deep timbre of his voice. I don’t know what that word means. It must not have a direct translation, since the translator chip didn’t turn it into English. But as the warmth in my body burns hotter and hotter, making my body pulse with a need I can hardly explain, understanding floods me in a rush.
The mate bond.
Charlotte explained it to us, doing her best to describe what it is and what it feels like. But to be honest, I always sort of thought
she was making it up—inventing some far-fetched story to justify her intense attraction to a man who isn’t even her species. That explanation made a lot more sense to me than some mystical bond that binds two people on a soul-deep level.
But if it’s not real, then what the hell am I feeling right now?
12
Jaro
Shock almost steals my breath as I stare down at the small, beautiful Terran woman before me.
Sadie.
My Sadie.
My mate.
I can’t believe it. I’ve never doubted that Droth’s bond with Charlotte is real, but I didn’t expect to find my own mate on this bleak planet. I wasn’t sure I would ever find a mate at all, and I made my peace with that. My life as a slave left me hardened against the world, and although I’ve come to love the other Voxerans like brothers, I didn’t think my heart could ever soften enough to find a mate.
Perhaps that’s why it took me so long to recognize the bond between me and Sadie. Looking back on it, I should’ve known. This explains why, from the very first moment I met her, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Why she occupied my thoughts even when I didn’t want her to, and why I leapt into the river without hesitating when I saw her fall into the rushing water. Why I would do anything in my power to keep her safe.
Because she is mine. And I am hers.
Sadie’s eyes are wide as she gazes up at me, and I know she feels it too. It seems to have struck her in the exact same moment that the realization flooded through me. Her fingers clench, digging into the muscles of my chest lightly as if she’s trying to verify that I’m truly real. That this is real.
“My mate,” I murmur, my voice almost a purr as I speak the words.
She nods, still looking dazed. “That’s… that’s what this is, isn’t it? The bond? Is that why I feel…?”
She trails off, as if unable to find the words to describe it.