by Presley Hall
No matter how deeply she kissed me back there on the floor of my cabin.
And then, as if to prove my point about the danger of the forest, a roar sounds through the trees. The woman skids to a stop, looking around with wide, fearful eyes.
“Desh.” I curse under my breath, stopping in my tracks as well and glancing around. I hear the screeching, snarling sound again, and I know exactly what it is.
“Don’t move,” I tell her, holding out my free hand in a stop motion, in the hopes that she’ll grasp what I’m trying to convey. I don’t know if she does or not, but at the very least, she doesn’t move. She stays frozen in place, and her face goes bone white as she sees what’s crashing through the trees in front of her.
It’s a krauk, one of the more vicious carnivores in the Kalixian wilderness, and native to our planet.
The animal is a huge, four-legged thing with oily black fur covering the entirety of its body and tentacles growing out from either side of it. They twist in the air as they seek prey to grab on to. It has small ears, a long snout, and beady dark eyes, and when it rises up in front of her and snarls, both of us can see all of the long, jagged teeth in its mouth—two rows of them, gleaming and sharp.
Even if she weren’t my Irisa, I’d defend her. There’s no part of me that would leave her to try to fight the krauk alone. But I can feel that need only increased by the bond, driving me to heft my spear and aim, throwing it directly at the snarling beast as it starts to crash through the underbrush toward her, saliva dripping from its jaws.
To her credit, she doesn’t scream. And she seems to know better than to run. She stands there, fists at her sides, her face white as death and her gaze boring into the krauk’s. She looks like someone who knows she’s staring her death right in the eye and has decided to face it with bravery.
My spear lodges in the krauk’s neck just behind the ear, and it roars angrily, momentarily distracted from its target. Its heavy head swings in my direction, another snarl emitting from its drooling mouth, and it bats at the spear stuck in layers of fur and muscle and skin, clawing at its own flesh to dislodge the weapon.
It rises up on its hind legs again, looking between me and the woman, clearly deciding which to attack first.
I make the beast’s choice for it.
Sword drawn in one hand and long knife in the other, I charge toward the krauk, the battle cry of the Kalixians rising to my lips.
8
Jade
I can’t remember the last time I was this afraid.
If seeing the creatures that took me, or the spaceship they put me in, or the horned alien I woke up to this morning hadn’t convinced me I was no longer on Earth, the creature towering over me would certainly do the trick.
It looks almost like a bear, albeit one with the thickest, greasiest black fur I’ve ever seen.
And it has tentacles.
Tentacles.
There are eight of them that I can count, growing irregularly out of its sides and waving in the air. And when it roars, I see teeth that look remarkably bear-like, but there are way too many of them. Two rows, sharp and dangerous. And hungry for me.
I’ve run out of the frying pan and into the fire, as they say.
And then, to my surprise, I hear the alien man shout. A second later, a spear of all things comes flying through the air directly toward the bear-creature in front of me. It lodges in the animal’s neck, and the creature roars furiously. Spittle flies through the air as the beast drops to all fours and turns in the alien man’s direction, clawing at its neck to dislodge the weapon.
For a moment, I truly don’t know what’s going to happen. Will it attack me? Will it attack him? Are both of us going to die? If it attacks the alien, do I take my chance and run?
And above all, why does the idea of something happening to this strange man make my chest feel hollow?
I know better than to move as the creature looks between the two of us, clearly trying to decide which is the greater threat. Everything I’ve ever heard or read about bears tells me to stand dead still, and I assume that goes for this thing as well. At any rate, I know I can’t outrun it.
The alien man shouts, a strange-sounding cry emitting from his lips as he draws two weapons and charges toward the beast. He leaps through the air, slashing furiously as he dives beneath its paws, and for a moment I’m too fascinated to be afraid.
And turned on. So, so desperately turned on.
I’ve always loved watching men fight. As a fighter myself, there’s something to be learned from it, of course. But I love it for other, less professional reasons too. The slick, sweating bodies, the gleam and flex of muscle, the barely restrained fury as fists hit flesh. It’s all exciting, dangerous, and sexy. I never failed to leave my own fights wanting to go straight to a bar and take someone home.
And this man is glorious as he fights.
He’s clearly dead-set on protecting me, although I don’t know why. But I can feel my mistrust of him easing as I watch. He’s got no reason to risk his life for me, no reason to dive headfirst into a brawl with this animal instead of taking advantage of its focus on me and running for his own life.
I watch him slice at its underbelly then dodge the swipe of a paw as big as my head, and I realize with a fresh tremor of fear that I’m not entirely sure who’s going to win this fight.
The alien is clearly a formidable fighter, but the bear-creature is as well, and it’s many times his size. The power behind each swipe of a paw or gnash of its teeth is both incredible and terrifying, like watching a great white shark rip apart its prey. I shudder as I watch it rear back, and as it swings again, the alien man barely manages to dodge the swipe of that long-clawed paw.
Shit. I can’t just stand here and watch.
But there’s nothing I can do against this beast with only my own two hands. I look frantically around for some kind of weapon, taking advantage of the bear-thing’s focus being elsewhere. As the alien ducks out of the way of another swipe, dodging the creature’s snapping jaws, I snatch a long stick out of the muddy earth and run toward them both, shouting curses at the monster as I swing the branch hard at its head, like a bat.
I’ve never been so thankful for my upper body strength. The limb strikes the beast’s head hard, cracking against its skull with an audible sound. It’s not much, but it’s enough to momentarily daze it, and it gives the alien a brief advantage.
He takes it.
He slides beneath the creature, driving his sword up hard into its belly and dragging the blade downward. I hit it again with the stick, swinging at its head and paws as the alien man slices at its chest and underbelly. As the creature roars in pain, stumbling back, I stab hard toward its face. The stick glances off its eye, sending blood pouring down the animal’s face.
It paws at its cheek, roaring as it stumbles backward again. I look around frantically for anything else I could use to help us and spy the alien’s spear, still lying in the bloody mud where the bear-creature clawed it free.
As the alien stabs again with a desperate shout, I grab the spear and lunge forward, driving the pointed tip as hard as I can under the beast’s chin as it rears up. I grit my teeth, praying to anyone who might listen that this will work.
The animal screams and collapses to one side with a thud that reverberates through the ground, making me fall to my knees. The alien stabs it once more, deeply, tearing its underbelly. Feebly, it paws at the spear in its throat, but it does no good.
We’ve won.
I’m alive. We both are.
Breathing hard, I look up at the alien man as he wipes his blades clean and slides them back into the belt at his waist. He turns his head as if drawn by my gaze, walking toward me with concern lining his face.
He’s tall—taller than I am by a good bit. The dark tattoos on his arms stand out starkly against his bronze skin. His body is massive, corded with the kind of muscle you get from hard physical labor. He’s covered in sweat, and almost all of that massi
ve, chiseled body is on display for me to see. All he’s wearing besides his weapons belt is a leather loincloth, knotted at his hips.
It would be so easy to take off.
As the thought drifts through my mind, I have a sudden urge to clap a hand over my mouth, even though I didn’t speak the words out loud.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
But as I stare at him, I can’t deny what I’m feeling. It feels like more than lust, more than simple desire. It’s like a magnetic force inside me, pulling me toward him. It makes me want to get up out of the mud and go to him, make sure he’s all right, and then wrap my body around his so that every inch of me is touching every inch of him.
He crouches in front of me, reaching out to touch my face. The thought occurs to me that I should swat his hand away, but I don’t want to. Instead, I let his fingers trail over my cheek and down to my jawline. He makes a low noise in his throat, and I see that the silver eye has darkened to stormy gray during the fight. Now it begins to lighten again, changing to the soft dove gray of a hazy morning as he looks closely at me. Finally, with his eyes fixed on mine, he taps his chest.
“Brele,” he says, and then taps his chest again. He points at me, nodding encouragingly.
Brele. So that’s his name.
It seems obvious that’s what he’s trying to tell me, and I repeat it, the word feeling strange on my tongue.
“Brele,” I murmur. It’s a beautiful name.
He smiles strangely. There’s happiness in his face, but also pain. It occurs to me to wonder—if he lives out here in this wilderness all alone, how long has it been since he’s heard someone else say his name?
He must be very lonely.
I feel a twinge of softness toward him. I don’t know if I should trust him, but something inside me is urging me to. After all, he risked his life to save me from the alien beast. It’s worth giving him a chance, at least.
Maybe.
He points at me again, and I bite my lower lip. Surely it can’t hurt to tell him my name, can it?
“Jade,” I say finally, touching my own chest, and his eyes light up.
“Jade,” he murmurs. His voice is low and raspy, and my heart flips in my chest. My name sounds beautiful on his lips, in his accented voice. More beautiful than it’s ever sounded before.
“Jade,” he repeats, and then keeps talking in his language, gesturing to the woods around him. He points in the direction we came, saying something urgently that I don’t understand. But I can grasp enough of his gestures to get the gist of it. He wants me to go back to his cabin with him, that much is plain.
He frowns and waves a hand around us again, still speaking. I don’t have to understand his words to know that he’s telling me it’s dangerous here.
“Yeah. No shit,” I say aloud. Brele frowns, not understanding me any more than I do him.
But he looks pleased as I get to my feet, holding out a hand to help me up that I ignore. For a moment, I waver on how wise it is to go back with him. I can’t possibly know for sure that he didn’t just save me because he has his own darker plans for me. But after our interaction just now, it feels almost paranoid to think that.
I don’t know where I am. The communication Alkul received said something about a place called Kalix, but that’s not a planet I’ve ever heard of. I’m somewhere deep in this planet’s wilderness, and it’s clear that they have wildlife I’m not familiar with or prepared to defend myself against. I have very limited options—I’m unarmed and in an unfamiliar place—I’m still in my underwear, for fuck’s sake.
My clothes are back at Brele’s, and even if I were to retrieve them and then insist on leaving, I have no idea what nighttime here is like. I might be even less prepared for that.
Over the course of my life, I’ve learned not to waste time wishing that circumstances were different. They are what they are. I don’t understand exactly how it happened, but I’m here. All I can do is move forward with what I’ve got. And there’s a possibility that Brele could be an ally. I should at least explore that chance.
So I gesture in the direction where he pointed, nodding to him. His face visibly relaxes, and he smiles reassuringly at me before turning to walk that way, taking the lead as he cuts a trail through the woods ahead of us.
With a deep breath, I follow him.
9
Brele
I can’t help but feel pleased with the turn the day has taken—the krauk’s attack notwithstanding.
Glancing behind me to make sure that Jade is following, I let out a relieved sigh when I see that she’s steadily making her way through the trail I’ve tried to make for us. I’m glad I didn’t have to struggle with her to bring her back to the safety of my home.
More than that, I’m pleased to see that my mate isn’t just beautiful, she’s intelligent and picks up on things quickly. She understood what I was trying to tell her, even if she didn’t grasp the words themselves—and just the memory of her joining in on the fight against the krauk is enough to send a shiver of admiration down my spine. She’s a fighter, just as I expected. And I can see just by looking into her eyes how intelligent she is.
There’s no question that she’s my match, a female who can be my partner in every way. But how do I make her understand that? Should I even try? The questions run through my head as I trudge forward through the woods, mouthing the shape of her name.
Jade.
Her name is beautiful, just as she is. The idea of letting her go makes me ache. But if she doesn’t want to stay…
I can’t force her, and I never would. The thought of my banishment pricks at me in a way that it hasn’t in a long time. I don’t deserve her—and she doesn’t deserve this life, out in the middle of nowhere with few conveniences and no other contact.
But still, I can’t keep my eyes off her. She keeps pace with me as we make our way back, and I’m intensely aware of her as she draws up next to me, focused intently on the trail ahead.
Her skin gleams in the sunlight with a faint sheen of sweat from the fight, and I can smell the salty, warm scent of it, her own unique smell under that. I want to slide my hands over the curves of her body, pull her close to me and bury my face against her soft flesh, run my tongue over every inch of her. She looks more breathtaking than ever right now, her dark hair tangled around her shoulders. She looks wild and strong. Fierce.
A woman to be reckoned with. My Irisa.
I wrack my brain for something that I can do to help relax her, something that will help show her that she can trust me, even though I don’t have the ability to tell her that. And then I have an idea.
She follows me gingerly into the house when we arrive, but I can see a bit of the nervousness returning to her eyes. She’s clearly unsure of whether she should be here or not. Her gaze flicks toward the small room where the healing pod is, and she swallows anxiously.
I want to reach out and touch her. I want to run my fingers over the column of her neck, slide them into her hair, and pull her close to me so that I can kiss her again. The memory of her lips against mine sends a sweeping ache through me that’s nearly unbearable, but I resist it, shoving the need down. Instead, I gesture toward the back of the house.
“Let me show you something,” I say, and although she can’t understand my words, she follows me.
I take her into the room adjacent to where I sleep, where I’ve hollowed out a bathing pool in the floor. It’s nothing like the tiled and gold-inlaid bathing pools of the palace where I once lived, but it has its own charm.
There are caves a few miles from here where shimmering white stone can be mined, and I chipped away at them bit by bit over months of work until I had enough to bring home. I carefully carved out flat pieces of various shapes that I fit together in between the plain gray stones that I used for the floor of the room as well as the walls and floor of the pool.
It’s not large, just big enough for two people, but I see Jade’s mouth open slightly with surprise when I le
ad her into the room.
She says something in her language, her voice breathy and a little awed, and I smile at her as I go to the small apparatus that I managed to wire up to heat and run water into the pool. I was always good with tech, even as a child—it fascinated me, the way machines worked. Everything in my house is homemade, various bits and pieces that were never really meant to fit together, but that I’ve salvaged or purchased and made work.
Jade is standing stock still at the edge of the pool, her gaze flicking from it to me and back again. She says something else in a low voice, and I wish more than anything that I could understand her, that I knew what she was saying. I want desperately to be able to speak to her, to explain what’s happening between us, to tell her that she has nothing to fear from me.
But instead, I just point to the rapidly filling pool, and then to her.
A small smile curves her lips, and I realize with a flash of joy that I’ve made her happy. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the reason or ability to do that for anyone, and the emotion it rouses in me is almost as strong as my need for her.
I cross the room to her without thinking, reaching out to gently touch her sides. She shivers when my hands meet her flesh, and I frown a little as I look down at the garment she’s wearing on her upper body. I want to help her with it, but it’s fastened with some sort of strap in the back. I reach behind her, my fingers fumbling with the catch of it, and I grunt with frustration as I try to undo it.
What kind of restrictive clothing is this?
The catch comes free suddenly under my fingers, the garment loosening, and I hear Jade gasp quietly. I look up, realizing that her lips are very close to mine. She shivers again, her eyes dilating as she momentarily sways toward me.
Then she jerks back, shaking her head as if to clear it.
She turns away, wrapping her arms over her chest so that her breasts are obscured from my view. She glances over at the nearly full pool, then back at me, her eyebrows rising a little.