“Excrement-eating filth, what was that?” Azan snarled as she lowered her weapon.
Veral considered wresting the blaster from the female, irritated that she was the one to deal with the threat rather than himself. He did not even attempt to disguise the displeased glower that he leveled at her.
Noting his expression, the female smirked and holstered the weapon. “What is wrong, Argurma? Feeling a little… inadequate?”
Lips curling back into a snarl, he rounded on her and took a step just as Terri pressed her hands against his chest. Although he could have easily brushed by her, he yielded to his mate’s touch.
That did not stop him from narrowing his eyes threateningly at the Blaithari female.
“I did not request your assistance. Your interference is a direct insult to my ability to protect my mate. Attempt to do so again, and I will merely move her to safety and allow the next predator in this forest eat you.”
Azan cocked an eyebrow. “Is that so? That is not very nice.”
A hard smile lit up the Blaithari’s face, and while it was possibly fearsome to some beings, Veral was neither impressed nor frightened. It was nothing more than the challenge of a rival, as far as he saw it.
“I am not required to be ‘nice.’ My interests do not extend any further than my mate. You would do well to remember just how little my sympathies stretch beyond that. Do not get in my way again.”
“Duly noted, Argurma. However, just so we are clear, you do not scare me. Nor am I inclined to jump to your pleasure. If I wish to protect the human in our company, then I will do so without seeking your permission.”
Veral just barely restrained himself from snatching Terri away from the Blaithari and against the hard muscle of his body. Judging by the puzzled frown on his mate’s face as she watched them, he knew that she did not understand the hostility brewing between them. It was unlikely she would approve, considering their circumstances.
It was perhaps unwise given the threat, but he did not like the female. Azan did not defer to him when it came to his mate, and he found it intolerable.
Azan’s smile widened as if she could guess the exact cause of his tension. Shaking his head in an attempt to loosen the muscles and find his center of calm, his vibrissae rattling softly with the motion, he settled for a clicking snarl before turning away in dismissal.
The message was clear: she was no threat to him and no rival for his mate. She was unworthy of his concern.
He did not even glance down at the carcass lying in the thick grass at his feet. It too was no longer of concern, the details regarding the predator already filed away into his system’s memory banks. Instead, he skimmed one hand down Terri’s arm, her reluctance to even walk by it evident on her face and her natural recoil from it. He felt a shudder run through her. She leaned into his touch before lifting her chin and striding by it fearlessly, though she did not remove her eyes from it until it dropped out of sight.
“This planet just keeps getting better and better,” she muttered. “It didn’t need any help from the Elshavan to be inhabited by nightmarish wildlife.”
Azan hummed in agreement at her side. “Not a planet that would make it to my list of ideal places to retire from piracy. I have never considered myself picky on that matter, so that says something.”
“At least it’s pretty to look at,” Terri replied.
As she spoke, her fingers ran down a green vine that glittered as light hit the silvery hairs that covered it. Her hand trailed to the edge of a deep purple bloom with a diameter of nearly the same length as the whole of her arm.
A sense of foreboding prickled through Veral as his eyes fastened on the flower. He noted the serrated edge of the petals and paler spines on the bigger ones that ran down to the center of the bloom. The spines clustered thicker in throat of the flower in a manner that disturbed him.
He was not certain exactly why it distressed him until he felt a vibration of movement from the flower. His hand shot forward to grab Terri’s arms the exact moment she yanked her hand back, narrowly avoiding the snap of the closing petals. His eyes fastened on her as she drew in a sharp, startled breath.
“Fuck!”
Azan made a shrill sound between her teeth as she skirted the cluster of flowering vines cautiously at great distance.
“Stay away from the flowers!” she yelled back to the crew.
There were a few incredulous snorts and some laughter, but it all cut off when a scream rose up behind them. Veral glanced back, his vibrissae rustling in surprise as one of the guards stumbled against the captain, dark blood gushing everywhere from the ragged wound where his arm had been. It splattered over the nearby fronds and leaves of the brush as he flailed.
Egbor hissed an unintelligible curse under his breath and lifted his blaster. The discharge cracked through the air as the male crumpled to the ground, his screams silenced.
The captain shook his head, and he looked down at the guard’s corpse. “Brushed the damn vine in attempt to push it away from me. Good male died an honorable death.”
In his peripheral vision, Veral watched as Terri’s mouth dropped open, a red flush of anger rising in her cheeks.
“Bullshit! You could have avoided them if you made the attempt instead of making your lackeys clear everything in your path. It’s because of you that he was injured, and you just shot him.”
Veral bristled as the captain calmly pointed his blaster at Terri. His eyes glinted with warning as he addressed her coldly.
“I suggest you gain control of your tongue, female, before you wear away the last of my fond regard for you. I will not tolerate being challenged… Not by any male nor by you. Despite what you think of me, what I did was a kindness. He would have suffered greatly, and his blood would have drawn predators to us. Now should we continue on—or do you really wish to discuss this further? I can inflict so much pain without doing any true harm.”
Veral stepped forward, a rattling growl releasing from him, and the blaster hummed with power as Egbor cocked a brow at him.
“Do not do anything foolish, Veral,” Egbor cautioned. “If you press me, I will kill her.”
“Argurma,” Azan murmured.
Hissing angrily, his vibrissae rattled as information flooded his systems. He could practically taste the coiled tension and anger radiating from the male. From Azan too, although he knew it was for another reason. The other guard moved, also directing his blaster at Terri.
Veral’s eyes narrowed and the captain paled slightly before recovering. Veral knew that the male saw the promise of death in their depths. This was the second time that the captain had threatened to kill her since they arrived on the planet.
He would not be leaving it alive.
“For fuck’s sake,” Terri snapped as she pushed between them. “You’re not going to kill me just yet,” she said with a hard glare at Egbor. She turned to Veral then, flattening her hands against his chest. “Later,” she whispered.
Energy snapped through his muscles, every inch of him thrumming for a fight. A fight that did not come. Her touch restored his control. Instead of lunging for the pirate as he wanted, he wrapped a possessive arm around Terri, drawing her to him before pulling her around until she was in front of him, within the shelter of his body.
She was correct. Later, he would remove the male’s head from his body. He would gild it in the pirate’s own wealth and present it to her. She had a strange objection to such trophies, but perhaps if it were gilded it would more suitably honor her, if she disliked seeing the unadorned bone.
19
After the confrontation with the captain, there was unease among the pirates as they climbed into the higher elevation, away from the low bogs. Terri was aware of it, but kept her attention on the forest. She hadn’t even been aware of the animal that Veral and Azan brought down until it was knocked to the ground directly in her path.
The forest was beautiful, but dangerous. She had no doubt that, even as it became more fantastic
as they ascended into its depths and the forest became all the more glorious, there were far worse threats that lurked within it.
And it was beautiful, unlike anything she could have ever imagined existing on Earth, though she knew there were forests and great trees that once grew there, before the devastations. But in the material that she had read since acquiring the info dumps in the translator Veral implanted, nothing had been described that matched what she saw on this planet. Only those of the outer forest bore any resemblance to what she had imagined once grew on Earth. That changed as they went deeper into the forest.
As the forest thickened, the trees of the outer forest were replaced by enormous trees that dwarfed those that came before them. They towered at heights even greater than the broken remains of the tallest buildings of Phoenix. The leaves, most more than twice the size of her hand, cast so many shades of green that it reminded her of a polished alien gem she had seen on the space station. It had swirled with so many hues that it was entrancing, even as its cut made it sparkle with life. That gem could almost have been the perfect recreation of the hues of the forest she now walked through. Even the fine hairs that covered the leaves of many of the trees, and the thick dusting of silver hairs on vines, made the forest sparkle in the sunlight.
There was another vine that came from the tree covered with a dusting of dark, jewel-tone red hairs. The protrusions that grew out from the sides of the trees swayed in the air, not unlike Veral’s vibrissae. Terri couldn’t see any reason for them to have them—not until she watched one catch a large insect and drag it into a hole just above it. Their constant movement unnerved her, especially whenever she caught a sharp movement from one of the vines out of the corner of her eye. It made Terri tense with anxiety, fearing that another animal was preparing to pounce.
After all, there was plenty of cover to conceal any number of creatures. Clinging to the sides of the trees and filling in the gaps between them were fronds, bushes, and vines, and so many types of flowers in hues of reds, pinks, blues, pink, and even silver in tiny sprays, large blooms and thick clusters that it was magical.
A magical place where anything could hide. Including the drop into the depths of a ravine.
“Halt! Do not move,” Veral snarled, his arm banding around Terri so suddenly that her heart almost stopped before she caught a glimpse of what had made him call out to everyone. Shouts went up among the pirates as they drew to a stop and backpedaled with a sense of urgency. Veral’s systems, with his ultra-sensitive vibrissae, had picked up something that none of them had seen. Even Azan drew up short with a sharp gasp of alarm. They had all come too close to their demise.
Terri’s heart hammered in her chest above the band of Veral’s arm secured tightly around her as she stared down into the chasm of a ravine. Ever since the confrontation with Egbor, her mate had kept her within arm’s reach, and she had never been more grateful than she was at that moment. She hadn’t even noticed that they were approaching the edge due to the angle at which the trees grew.
It was nothing like what she had expected. She had assumed when looking at the schematic of the crash location with Veral that the forest would open up and the ravine itself would have been nothing but barren rock, not unlike some of the canyons that peppered the landscape where she had grown up.
For one, the trees didn’t thin out and part before reaching the sheer stones. Instead, the giant trees seemed to bend and grow at angles as the forest appeared to drop down the walls of the ravine. There was plenty of rock, but if it hadn’t been for Veral alerting everyone to the sudden drop, she doubted anyone would have been aware of it.
And it was a long way to fall.
The sound of rushing water from the river below was loud, echoing despite the distance. In a few places, she could see waterfalls cascading down the sheer drops. Terri jerked as a flock of large reptilian birds, disturbed by the presence of outsiders, burst up from a ledge, sunlight bouncing off the vibrant green and red feathers and indigo scales as they winged away, their piercing shrieks reverberating.
“This is unexpected,” Egbor muttered as he drew to their side, squinting as he scanned the depths of the ravine. “Are we to go down there?”
“As you are aware, the Evandra is farther west. I initially calculated that the only way to approach would be via this ravine. Whether it is on one of the many ledges or in the water below remains to be seen,” Veral replied.
Despite the lack of apparent emotion in his response, Terri knew her mate well enough to know that he was tense and angry, and that the mere presence of the pirate put him in a killing mood. His vibrissae whipped faster, and his mandibles were flexed out in defensive posture.
The captain, however, seemed oblivious—or just didn’t care.
“This will slow us down considerably. There is no way to arrive at the Evandra before nightfall.”
“Correct.”
“It will not be safe to camp here with our backs to the ravine. We will be at a disadvantage, and vulnerable to anything that hunts us.”
“Yes.”
Egbor sighed. “What is your suggestion?”
“That we turn around and leave Evandra to its rest,” Veral rumbled.
The pirate chuckled. “Nice attempt, but that is not happening. Try again. Where would be a safe place to camp that will allow us to arrive at the crash site before nightfall?”
A low hiss escaped her mate as he scanned the cliffs. Finally, Veral jerked his chin, his mandibles clicking, as he gestured to the wide ledge the birds had vacated, some distance away from them. Terri’s stomach dropped as she looked at it. Not only would they have to climb down among the trees a considerable way, but traveling along the narrow rocks and outshot trees until they reached the ledge wasn’t going to be easy.
The pirate’s lips thinned as he noted the location of the ledge. “We go there?” At Veral’s short nod, Egbor turned to address his crew. “All of you keep in tight formation. The Argurma has found a suitable ledge for us to make camp on. Make haste. We will not have the sun for long!”
There was some hesitation among the crew, and numerous grumbled complaints as the males noted the location of the ledge and how far they still had to travel before the sun sank below the horizon. Even Azan seemed a bit paler than normal.
“Are you all right?” Terri whispered.
Azan swallowed and her hand tightened around the butt of her blaster, but she jerked her head in a short nod. “I am not a fan of heights, I admit, but I will be fine. That is… quite a drop.”
“How the hell is a pirate scared of heights?”
“There are few opportunities to dangle over impossible ledges unless one is stuck somewhere in engineering of a war class fleet ship. Not even the great monstrosity that we crew has any such expanse as that. Fighting in space involves little in the way of heights,” Azan replied with the hint of a smile.
“We’ll be fine. Just take it slow and we’ll make our way over there,” Terri said as she swallowed back her own fear. She normally didn’t have a fear of heights, but she didn’t typically test the whims of fate by walking along ledges with drop-offs that were hundreds of feet deep.
Veral’s vibrissae expanded, a soft click rattling from him even while his vibrissae hissed with their own vibrations as he shook his head in the negative. “This ravine is much like the gorge of Ilathitankyu on Argurumal. Best to move quickly. Erosion will make some footholds unstable. The trees and vines will give some added stability, but do not trust that it will remain so. Move as quickly as you can as you pick out your hand and footholds. Stay close to me if you can. I will identify what appears to be the most secure route. I cannot guarantee how long it will hold, but if you are at my side there is a high probability of safe arrival at the ledge.”
Azan let out the breath that Terri hadn’t even noticed she was holding. The Blaithari circled her head, releasing the tension with tiny cracks and pops.
“I am to trust my life to a male who half a rotation earlier th
reatened my wellbeing… Very well then,” Azan mused with something close to her normal cheer, a crooked smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.
Veral narrowed his eyes on the pirate and made a sound like a dismissive growl mixed with a laugh before turning away to address the more immediate problem: the climb down.
Terri wrapped her fingers around the horn protruding from his elbow, clinging to him, though his arm didn’t move away from her as he angled them at the edge of the chasm. Glancing down, his glowing blue gaze met hers and he squeezed her, trying to comfort her.
“You will do well,” he assured her. “Remember the training.”
“Of course,” she agreed and took a deep, steadying breath.
This was part of the game of being a salvager. In space, she prepared for months for situations such as this. This trip would prove what she learned. The pirates were an unanticipated addition, but having to climb from great heights was something that she did over and over again in the simulations, in addition to the physical training Veral had her do in the cargo bay on the obstacles he had constructed.
It was just climbing. She had this.
Still, she couldn’t hold back the tiny squeak of distress that left her when Veral released her and stepped away. His eyes pinned on her, his vibrissae stirring with their vibrations as he peered down at her.
“Close behind,” he reminded her.
He didn’t move until she nodded and followed him to the ledge. Immediately, Veral gripped one of the higher branches of a nearby tree and began to drop down its length. The moment he let go of the branch, Terri followed, the weight of her mate’s eyes on her as she trailed his path.
She was only vaguely aware of Azan lowering Garswal to the branch until she heard Egbor’s angry shout from above. She tilted her head up and looked beyond the young Blaithari trembling on the branch to the sight of the pirate captain leveling a blaster on his second-in-command. Terri continued to inch toward Veral, but she couldn’t look away, her breath caught in her throat at the sudden hostility.
Pirate's Gold (Argurma Salvager Book 2) Page 14