by Ava York
“You like mountains?”
“Farmland tends to be pretty flat.”
“Come on.” Rekker extended a hand to me, which I took. Together, we walked toward the mountains. There was no way we’d come close to the foothills within the hour we had at our disposal, but with every step, the mountains looked more and more awe-inspiring.
There weren’t any man- or alien-made structures on this planet, from what I could tell. I hadn’t spied any from the sky and I didn’t see any now. It was desolate, but that was part of what made it beautiful. The landscape was allowed to be what it was meant to be without interference.
“It’s good to see you like this,” Rekker murmured.
“What do you mean?” The desert wind caught my hair and blew it around my face. Rekker reached out and tucked it behind my ears. He cupped my cheek with one hand.
“You look happy,” he said. “I love seeing you happy.”
I stood on my tiptoes so I could wrap my arms around his neck.
“You make me happy, Rekker.”
“You make me happy as well, Lila. I thought I knew joy from a successful mission, from achieving our goals. But I was wrong. I didn’t learn what it truly was until I met you.”
His sweet words stole my voice. Unable to fully communicate just how full he made my heart feel, I pressed my lips to his and told him through a kiss.
His hand cupped the back of my neck, holding me to him. Our bodies pressed together as I lost myself in his kiss. At some point, we lowered ourselves onto the sun-warmed sand. I lay on his chest, smiling down at him while he stroked my hair.
“Are you sure we have to be back in an hour?” I grinned.
“We can stay here as long as you want.”
“Good. I want you all to myself for a long, long time.”
He brought me in for another kiss just as the first stars began to glimmer in the evening sky.
My mate. My love.
Our future.
Keep reading for a sneak peak of Kyre, book two of the Vaznik Warriors, or click to get it now!
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AVA
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Kyre: Sneak Peek
Ferne
“Lean back and spread yourself out against the rockface,” I called down the line. Everyone was pouring sweat, but each face beamed with elated, nearly maniacal smiles. The ledge was so narrow, some of the men couldn’t point their feet directly out in front of them, but had to keep them turned out to the sides.
Just past the lip of the footing, the deep scoop of the ravine banked off to a range of tree freckled mountains on the other side of the valley. We were closer to the clouds than we were to the bottom of the drop. A host of birds whirled and swooped in the haze before us. All that pristine beauty tickled with the frenetic vibrancy of danger.
No guard rails, nothing to hold onto but the odd bit of scrub. Nothing dividing us from oblivion but will and scrappy determination. I’d never wanted to live any other way.
I didn’t honestly think I could.
At an elevation of seven thousand feet, pitted against nothing but self, was the most alive a person could feel. That’s why I led these expeditions. The five people who trailed me were perhaps the most experienced hikers I’d ever brought out. Most groups wouldn’t get to come on a stretch like this.
These folks were big spenders and only came to this region for the climbing. Not that there was much else to entice people to this area. To call Postpike a town would have been paying it a compliment. It wasn’t much of a spot on the map. Only about four hundred full time residents held down the fort for the tourist trade that picked up during the warm seasons.
Most of the trade came from families looking to get in on the mineral springs tucked away in the cracks of the stony landscape. They were nice, but not much to look at when push came to shove, so a couple of eateries and bars did their best to suck up the overflow. The more adventurous families might book me to take them on a hike up into the moderately exciting passes.
Cash from that sort of thing was good enough to keep me going, but what actually kept me going were groups that really wanted to test what our little corner of the world had to offer. There were some incredible, difficult climbs, and I was the only guide taking folks out. That meant I could pretty much name my price and most high-risk climbers were ready to pay it.
While I would never point it out, I could see my own cabin from where we were standing. It was about a quarter of the way up a ridge from the center of Postpike and gave me as much seclusion as a person could want.
And I wanted plenty of it.
I liked being alone. Depending on nobody but myself.
Because when it came down to it, that was all you had.
In truth, I’d rather be making this climb by myself, even if it was for the thousandth time—but the cash was necessary.
The best thing that could be said about Postpike was that it let me fly well under the radar. It seemed like most people who settled there were looking to escape from something back in civilization, and I was no exception. Most of them were bail jumpers or petty thieves, but I was something tantamount to a state criminal.
And what was it that kept me lying so low?
Not wanting to get married off to a stranger. My birthday had been called for the Friday lottery. I had two choices. Get processed or get out.
There was no doubt which one I’d chosen.
My parents had been keeping some identity documents tucked away for me since I started stomping my feet about this unjust system when I was twelve.
They’d split up when I was a kid, but on this issue, they’d stayed united.
When the day came, those papers got shoved in my pocket with enough money for me to hop a couple of ground transport units and get the hell out of there.
Did I miss my parents? Yes. Every day.
Did I miss the constant threat of getting ‘matched’ with some stranger alien and married off as recompense for defense?
Not so much.
I knew my chance of being a genetic match was low, but it was the principle of the system I stood against.
“Ferne,” came a voice from the back of the group and snapped me out of my meditation. Julie was the shakiest of the bunch, yet still a far cry ahead of the majority of climbers that came to Postpike. The edge to her voice told me I needed to get a set of eyes on her.
Bracing my backside on the rock face, I craned my shoulders out and looked hard to my left. The exhilarated smiles had dimmed into something slightly more troubled, and cautious eyes darted back and forth between me and the woman at the back of the line. As I leaned to look, that tingly pit set to work in the base of my stomach—the best feeling in the world. Maybe only bettered when coupled with that cold, jelly feeling that tucks in the back of your knees.
Yeah, Julie was on the edge. She hadn’t yet tipped over into full panic, but it was coming. Much though I hated to admit it, moments like this one were always my favorite part of the job. Not for the poor wreck going through th
e ordeal, but because these situations always called for me to push my own limits.
“Hang on, girl. I’ll be right there.” Now that I had said it, I had to make good on the promise and actually get past four other people on this tiny ledge and get to her. To my right, the outcropping we were passing actually widened out to just over a foot. That ought to be enough.
“Alright. Harry, Yazmin, Tate, Viv—you guys follow me. Julia, you stay put. This will only take a second.”
It was a big promise considering I wasn’t entirely sure how this whole thing was going to work, or what I was going to do when I reached her. Still, there’s nothing like having a task to stir up the blood. The four others fired up with a wicked gleam of determination, and started shuffling after me.
When I hit the widest margin of our footing, I inverted my feet and did a quick spin, slamming my stomach flat to the rock face and pressing hard so that the momentum didn’t carry me over into a freefall.
“Holy fucking shit!” Harry’s eyes were wide and I could see fresh sweat beading upon his face.
“Don’t even think about it. You are nowhere near ready for that kind of thing.” I inched further down the path and coaxed Harry to the place where I had just been standing. “Come on.” He crept into place, watching me for instruction.
“Alright, flatten as hard as you can.”
He did and I slid back over to him, placing my right hand on the far side of his chest, and my foot on the gap between his. I began to inch past him.
“Put your hands on my waist and lean back into the rock as hard as you can.”
He obeyed, and I pressed my body against his and snugged across him. As I did, I could feel his hard piece digging up against me. Turning my face to his, we were nearly nose to nose as I stared into his eyes with my best no-nonsense glare.
“Really?”
“Couldn’t help it.”
Couldn’t argue with that. These situations gave rise to all kinds of reactions. Landing on the other side of him, I looked at Yazmin.
“You got the idea?”
She nodded, and we repeated the process until there was nothing between me and Julie but about fifty feet of narrow rock. After all the wriggling I had just done, this ought to be a piece of cake.
“Julie, can you hear me?” She nodded but didn’t turn to look my way. She was in full lockdown mode, and it was apparent the fringes of panic eating at her earlier had blossomed into the full thing. This might be trickier than I thought. Harder even than whatever Henry had been packing when I slithered over his body.
“Listen. I’m going to come over to you and take your hand, okay?” Julie nodded again. “Good. Now, I know you don’t want to look but just focus on the sounds of my feet on the ledge. See if you can hear how much room I’ve got over here.” I made sure to shuffle more than usual, moving quickly to demonstrate the ease of it.
Within seconds, my fingers laced with hers, prying her hand away from the rock. She gripped so hard, I could feel the bones in my hand buckle.
“I don’t get what the big deal is. You’ve already passed the narrowest part of the pass,” I lied. “Everything ahead of you is wide open compared to what you just went past.”
“Really?” The tension in her neck broke just enough for her to turn her head to look at me.
“Are you kidding? I do this pass in my sleep. I mean, look out at that view. It’s what you came up here for.” It was a risky move on my part, getting her to look out, but it paid off immediately. Her breath settled deeper and her shoulders dropped.
“Not bad, huh? Just keep your eyes on the horizon and follow me.”
We crept along, every foot gained a major victory for the group. Just as we were about to reach the other four, my foot lost purchase. It was my own fault for keeping my focus so intently on Julie. But when that telltale scrape skittered up under my foot, I couldn’t do anything but look at Julie.
“Let go of my hand.”
“What?”
Even if she didn’t seem to understand, her body heard me and she turned loose her grip as I rocked backward off the ledge and out into the open air. My body went cold, and somebody turned out the lights.
Kyre
Three days ago, we’d arrived on Gravum IV and had been stuck there ever since. The original plan was only to touch down for a night, enough to get our bearings and recoup from the journey, but the comms systems went down as soon as we’d landed.
Something in the atmosphere was causing interference, and no matter what tests I ran, everything came back inconclusive.
With no way to get in touch with command and no details provided about the mission upfront, we were essentially stranded. There was nothing for us to do but wait.
The first night, at Lila’s insistence, we’d set up camp outside under the stars. She’d told us about how she and her sisters sometimes used to sleep outside for fun and had made it seem like an adventure, far from what the team was used to when we’d be forced to camp on other missions. She was right—when you weren’t worrying about being killed by enemies or consumed by the native fauna, sleeping outside was enjoyable.
By the second day of our grounding, my teammates, Captain Rekker, Lila, and I had become understandably restless. To keep ourselves both sane and busy, we’d focused on various tasks around our stations. Derrix went to work disassembling and reassembling weapon after weapon, cleaning and polishing them until they shined. Cedroc checked and rechecked all flight systems. Javik, with the help of Lila, set about tidying up and reorganizing the infirmary. By the end of the day, nearly everything was back to working order.
Except for the comms. I’d done everything I could, all day, to figure out why nothing worked. I’d rewritten codes, fiddled with wires, rerouted through satellites and nothing. For some stupid reason I couldn’t figure out, The Calliope was floundering in the dark.
The thought of being isolated on an unknown world without comms abilities didn’t sit well with me. In fact, it downright freaked me out and I threw myself into finding a solution.
Since I’d tried everything, the only thing left to do was work on extending our wave range. Gravum IV was far out in an uncharted system, so we were likely inaccessible to satellites, preventing us from receiving transmissions properly. If I could figure out a way to rig something up to our main transmitter, I might be able to extend our signal just far enough to hit a satellite closer to the High Command base.
If that idea didn’t work, then I guess we’d be on our way back to base sooner than we thought. Rekker was good at following orders, but he wouldn’t just leave us out here. Not when he was already pissed that he’d been given next to no information about this place. If I couldn’t fix this mess, at least my inability to do so would get us out of here.
I spent the third day exploring the ship, visiting various stations to inspect and collect anything that might remotely work to extend our range. Anything made of metal was fair game, regardless of its size or its previously intended use. I took old weapons parts from Derrix, used scalpels and needles from Javik. Even Cedroc had a steering mechanism he wasn’t using anymore that he let me add to my growing menagerie of junk.
By the time I returned to my workshop, I’d assembled quite the trove. I laid them all out, examining each item individually, and cataloged them as best I could according to what I thought would actually work. Once everything was assembled in front of me, I saw that my options were grim indeed.
I wasn’t an idiot, by any means, but the items I’d collected were basically garbage. I wracked my brain thinking of any and all possibilities for a device I could create to hook up to Calliope, but no ideas presented themselves. For the first time in recent memory, I was truly at a loss.
Around midday, I decided to take a break. I needed to pull back, clear my mind, and do something else to focus my thoughts. Whenever I’d been faced with a tough puzzle in the past, I’d often found that distracting myself with another task helped me see the forest instead of the tree
s. I felt mired deep in the weeds and desperately needed something to pull me out of it. I wasn’t getting anywhere just staring at glorified trash.
My rumbling stomach determined where to best occupy myself, so I wandered to Calliope’s mess, intent on rustling up something to eat. To my surprise, I found Rekker seated at one of the long tables, stabbing angrily at a meal of his own. His eyes lit up a little upon noticing my arrival.
“Come sit with me, Kyre—I need an update,” he said, pulling a chair out for me.
“Permission to grab something to eat first, Captain?” I asked, half-jokingly.
Up until that point, I didn’t think I’d seen him smile at another crew member since we’d touched down on Gravum IV. I’m sure he’d smiled at Lila, but none of us Vaznik warriors were as pretty as his human mate.
“Of course,” he said, gesturing to the long table near the front of the room that had already been laid out with food from the replicator.
I quickly made my way over and piled a plate high with various items, unable to avoid thinking of how quickly we’d run out of rations if I didn’t get comms back up and running to get the transporter up. Without the comms working, the signal to other transport pads wouldn’t connect. Once the plate was filled, I returned to join Rekker at his table.
“Where’s Lila?” I asked.
It couldn’t hurt to disarm him with a little mindless chatter before telling him I’d not made any progress. He was already irritated enough that Strygan had refused to tell him anything about the mission. Leading with my ineptitude would only make his mood worse.
“She’s down in the infirmary with Javik. They organized the place yesterday, but she has an idea in her head on how they could make the space more efficient during emergencies. I’ve never seen Javik willingly listen to anyone else or take suggestions on how to run the infirmary before, so I’m letting her take point on it,” he said with a laugh.