Wyst

by J. A. Hornbuckle

  Bronsyn was almost too tired to continue, but he had to bring up the last item before he could find his rest. “I don’t know if you noticed, but Stege didn’t ask to speak to Wyst or Rykhan during his call. Which is what I would’ve done if I were looking to recapture their mates, wouldn’t you? So I’m thinking we need to have something in place, a false location device or scrambler—something that would record our brothers presence in and around the Phoenix area.”

  Arbrynt pulled at his lower lip as he stared towards the ceiling, unaware every eye in the room was trained on him, since he was the only one capable of such a device. “It’s possible. Might take a bit of experimentation…tweaking the…maybe modifying the…”

  Bronsyn pushed his chair back and stood as quietly as possible before making his way to his bed, assured the males in his charge were willing to help overthrow Stege and his diabolical Committee.

  Chapter Seven

  An hour and a half later, after receiving the sharp edge of her tongue every five feet or so, Wyst hauled the pixie up onto the asphalt of a two-lane road by the seat of her, by then, very dirty jeans. He counted it as a win as he released both his hands and his knees from his crouched position and sat down fully, stretching out his aching legs on the empty but dusty road. She, in turn, sprawled out on her back, panting as she took in more than a few deep breaths of air.

  “That was the single worst experience of my life,” she groaned, rolling from her back to her front until she was propped up on her hands and knees. A position reminding him of one of the porn vids he’d watched again and again after discovering Earth’s internet. Knowing an errant thought when he had one, Wyst turned his head away but not before his eyes admired her heaving, hanging breasts and her dirty, jean-covered ass.

  His tailpor twitched in delight at the view, but he was sure his reaction was only due to the almost of the Arleen’s promises and his inability to find a quiet moment in order to assuage his physical frustration.

  “Wish we had some water,” she mumbled as she sat back on her heels, looking up and down the long ribbon of the small highway. Turning to look at him, she stood, pushing her mud-caked clothes into place. “Which way now, warrior?”

  Ignoring her derisive tone as well as the label she’d assigned to him half-way through their climb up the hill, he aimed his tresl to the road in both directions, scanning to obtain their coordinates. “Left.”

  When he turned back to her, he saw the pixie holding out a hand as if to help him up. The move disarmed him in its simplistic offer of assistance, especially in light of all the curses she’d heaped on him, his ancestors and the whole of the Picari Galaxy as the two of them slipped and slid among the wet leaves, scrambling up the mud-covered the hill.

  There was even a streak of dirt running down one of her cheeks giving her a gamine appearance, one that spoke to him in a way he was unable to ignore. But as his palm met hers, an audible sizzle hit the air and Wyst found himself unable to let go just as her mind opened up, allowing all her thoughts to spill into his.

  Goddamn, son of a bitch, what the freak is he doing to me? Christ! Why him? Of all the men I’ve ever wanted to get nasty with, what is it about this guy that makes me weak in the knees with just a touch? Shit. Now my panties are thoroughly ruined and I’m gonna need to throw them away because there’s no way in hell I’m ever gonna get these clean…

  He couldn’t help but stare into her eyes, his hazel one’s meeting the baby-blue of hers as he listened to her internal musings.

  He is too freaking hot for words, even if his man-bun thingy is half-hanging down around his face. Damn his shoulders, that chest and his freakishly hot abs. He got us into this mess! And I’m hot, tired, hungry and don’t know where the hell we are. Probably looking like the creature from the black lagoon too. Why isn’t he talking? And why is my wrist itching like a mo’ fo’?

  Wyst quickly took to his feet, only hoping she couldn’t read his thoughts as well. He was more than pleased she found him appealing but hated she blamed him for their predicament, when it was she who’d caused the majority of it. Disconnecting his hand from her fingers, he again raised his tresl as his mind worked through the rest of what she’d said, believing she was alone in her musings. “We still have many miles to travel yet. If you are rested, we should leave.”

  “How much further?”

  Turning away in order to begin their journey, her voice hit him between his shoulder blades. Because of all the questions he hoped she’d ask, the one she voiced was the one at the bottom of his list. “Thirteen and approximately one-half miles.”

  Only one set of heels were heard on the road after his answer and he dipped his head, glancing back at her covertly, over the side of his arm as he continued to move. She’d stopped dead-center in the middle of the highway, shoulders drooping and eyes closed. “You’re messing with me, right? Trying to get me back for the shit I called you back on that climb-from-hell?”

  “No. I am only speaking the truth.” Maybe he should’ve stopped, taken the time to calm her down but he, too, was tired, hungry and sweating in the heat of the full, mid-morning sun bearing down on them.

  So he continued on, hitching his bag into a more comfortable position.

  Both Arbrynt and Bronsyn advised him to get her to the nearest town, one ridiculously named ‘Wayward’, citing it had a population of twenty-five hundred people. Which was small enough to hide in, one the Committee would never consider in their search for the AWOL warriors.

  A trickle of sweat ran down his back and he again ducked his head to be certain she followed. He wouldn’t put it passed the little minx to stubbornly refuse to walk any further.

  “And just how long is that gonna freaking take us?” Her voice was loud enough to cause a bevy of birds to take flight.

  He knew if she had a problem with the distance, his traveling companion definitely wouldn’t like his answer regarding the length of time it would take to get there. “Approximately two point seven five of your Earth hours.” Wyst heard her scream of frustration but didn’t stop or even look back. “Perhaps up to four if you continue to throw temper tantrums over every fracking thing and not keep up.”

  Once again, his were the only footsteps echoing along the road and without looking back he knew she’d stopped. Oh well, he sighed to himself as he continued to put one foot in front of the other. If that’s the way she wants to play it, so be it.

  He went another thirty yards down the two-lane road before she started running towards him. As she approached, before she even made it to where he was, she began to yell again. “You were just gonna, like, leave me here, weren’t you? What a dick! Leaving a girl all alone in the wilderness, miles from the nearest town and without—.”

  Wyst decided he’d had enough and deliberately ignored her, preferring instead to scan the trees and thickets that lined either side of the highway. Earth’s foliage was similar to Nutrol’s enough to look familiar, but with just enough difference to make it interesting. Even the climate was almost the same, especially at the higher elevations. And those similarities helped to calm him and allow him to focus on the next part of their journey.

  Arbrynt had told him the part that was needed to repair their transport but wasn’t sure if the auto shop in Wayward would have it on hand or if it would have to be ordered first. Wyst hoped it was the first so they could get back to their mission at the soonest opportunity.

  The sun rose a bit higher as he and Pam continued their now silent trek along the road. Since the direction it was taking them in was northeasterly, he realized soon they would be fully exposed to its rays as well as its heat. With that in mind, he stopped and dropped his bag before he unbuttoned his over-shirt, the one Pam called a ‘flannel’. Under that, he wore a woven, long sleeved stretchy shirt she called a ‘thermal’. And the name of it fit as it kept him reasonably warm overnight but in the sun’s strong rays, it was too much and made him sweat profusely. He unzipped his bag and dug out a sleeveless white t-shirt to
wear instead.

  “Good idea,” she mumbled, dropping her purse and untying his jacket from around her waist she began to peel off her own sweat-dampened top. Tossing him the leather jacket without looking, he took a half-step forward and was able to snag it in mid-air before it hit the dirty road.

  He was glad she’d calmed herself, preferring the silence between them instead of her shouting her dissatisfaction of both him and their situation to the treetops. And although her careless toss still spoke of her pique, there didn’t seem to be any heat behind it. Just to make sure, he chanced a glance her way while stuffing their sweaty shirts and jacket into his bag.

  The view that met his eyes though caused his hands to still mid-motion, his hearts began to beat faster and his tailpor to immediately swell to full hardness.

  Gyed, but she was beautiful!

  She stood in the middle of the road, arms thrown out to either side, back arched, her head thrown back as if she was offering herself up to the sun’s rays. And from the way the sunlight caressed her upturned face, bounced over her blonde curls and kissed the exposed skin of her shoulders and arms it appeared the sun approved of her as well.

  Wyst knew he approved of the view, especially since underneath her shirt she’d worn a smaller, tighter white shirt that stretched tautly over the mounds of her bountiful breasts, the skinny straps of it tangling with her pink bra straps. The undershirt was so thin yet so tight, he could clearly see the lace of her bra cups, the outline of her ribcage and his eyes dipped lower to catch on the shadow of her navel before the top met the waistband of her low-slung jeans.

  He swallowed so hard and so deeply it made an audible noise. One that caused her to drop her arms and her head. Kneeling down to the road, she began to rummage in her huge purse.

  “I’m almost sure I still have some…” she murmured as Wyst tried to unobtrusively adjust his current hardness into a less tell-tale position in his jeans. “Ah ha!”

  He cocked his head and tried to make out what she brandished above her head in triumph. “I knew I still had some! Isn’t it great, Wyst?”

  The smile on her face told him the small tube of whatever it was she held was important but he was too far away to see it well.

  She opened the cap and squeezed out a portion of white cream into her hand before she tucked the tube into the valley between her breasts. Wiping her palms together, she then began to rub the cream into the skin of her arms, shoulders, neck and face. But it was when she massaged the cream into the tops of her breasts, Wyst decided he’d had enough of her sexy, tormenting movements.

  “What is that stuff?”

  “Sunscreen!” Her smile gave evidence to her delight as she threw him the tube. “It’s so we won’t get sunburned. Have some.”

  He flipped open the cap and sniffed at the contents. It held a slight chemical smell but the overlying aroma was of coconuts. Squeezing out a dollop into his palm, he copied her previous action and applied the cream to his arms, face and the back of his neck enjoying the feel of the cool ointment on his overheated skin. “Does this really prevent the sun from burning you?”

  “Don’t you have sunscreen on your planet?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” he hedged as he tried to remember his youth. “We always wear clothing to cover our skin and large hats to prevent the solar rays from affecting us. Either that or we stay in the shadows of the trees.”

  “Can’t do that here, can we?” She held a hand up to shade her eyes as she turned to look at the dense forests crowding both sides of the road. “Too bad. Because walking in the shadows sounds a lot cooler than walking on a hot road, don’t you think?”

  Wyst nodded but refused to let his mind wish for things that weren’t possible. Things like shade, food and water not to mention a running vehicle so they could get back on track. With that in mind, he pulled his tresl from his back pocket and checked their course and distance from Wayward. “We must increase our pace in order to reach the town within our time limit.”

  “We have a time limit?” She pulled her purse up by the strap before slinging it over her head. “Is there some place we gotta be by such-and-such a time? ‘Cause I thought we were just walking to get there, dude.”

  Zipping up his duffle and copying her move to wear it across his body, he looked at her only then realizing she was unaware of what they were facing. “We have been without food or water for many hours. We are sweating which means we are losing our hydration without any hope of replenishment until we arrive.” He couldn’t keep the frown that creased his eyebrows. “Dehydration is a very real possibility for us, Pamela. Do you understand?”

  She blinked and nodded. “But won’t us going faster make us sweat more?”

  “Probably,” he grudgingly agreed and began walking. “But if we begin to experience any physical distress due to dehydration I would prefer to be closer to civilization.”

  Sighing deep, the pixie fell into step beside him although she had to take two or three paces to equal one of his long strides. In order to keep her from lagging behind due to no fault of her own, Wyst slowed enough so she didn’t have to struggle to keep up.

  She was, after all, his responsibility.

  Chapter Eight

  It felt like we’d been walking for hours but when I checked my cellphone, we still had a while to go before we reached Wayward. And already I was starting to feel light cramping in my calves and thighs which Wyst explained was one of the first symptoms of dehydration.

  A pack of gum in my purse gave us respite for our dry mouths but as we continued to walk and sweat in the blazing sun, I knew that relief was only temporary. And with that knowledge an edge of panic shot through me.

  Enough so, the sound of a car coming from behind us made me start to laugh in happiness. As the sound of the engine grew, I waited until it rounded the bend before I turned to walk backwards, throwing out an arm and put up my thumb in the age-old, hitch-hiker’s gesture. It was a pickup, not a car, and it was going really fast right down the middle of the road. So fast both Wyst and I had to run to the side in order to avoid getting ran over.

  As it passed us, I saw three men crammed into the front seat and each of them were laughing as their eyes remained on us as they flew by. To add insult to injury, the wake of their leaving found me and Wyst pelted with the gravel and dirt their truck kicked up, covering us both in a fine dust that clung to our sweaty skin.

  “Goddamn bastards!” I yelled as I switched my hand gesture from the hitch-hiker thumb to my middle finger. “They didn’t even slow down! What kind of idiot sees people walking on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere and doesn’t try to help?”

  Wyst didn’t answer but asked a question of his own. “What was that thing you did with your hand?” He made a fist with his thumb held up, aping what I’d done before.

  “It’s a request for a ride. Back in the day, people used it to flag down motorists so they could get wherever they needed to go.”

  He went quiet, so quiet I could hear the sound of our footfalls on the road. “And this was considered a safe way to travel?”

  “It was,” I shot back, kicking at a pebble. “That is until all the weirdoes screwed it up.”

  He gave me a sideways glance I chose to disregard. Adjusting my purse strap, I kept walking, trying to ignore the leg cramps which were relocating to my butt.

  The road wound around in a lazy ‘S’ formation and I wondered at the planning of it. Did someone think it was a good idea to have it meander around the hills rather than create a direct route to the next town? In my opinion, a straight shot would’ve been better since all those curves surely made the drive (or the walk) much, much longer. Not to mention, by winding around the foothills, there was no way to see what was ahead or how far away the town way.

  I must’ve slowed my steps during my ‘head time’ because the next time I looked up, Wyst was a good twenty yards in front of me and using the long-legged stride I had so much trouble copying. Just about the time I op
ened my mouth to ask him to wait up, he stopped dead in his tracks and silently gestured for me to catch up as he reached for his tresl. I quickened my pace, especially seeing the way his body had gone was on full alert.

  Be quiet, he told me through our link, his eyes scanning the road ahead, a view I wasn’t able to see from my current position. And of course, because he’d ordered me to do something, I had to argue the point albeit, nonverbally.

  Why? What’s going on? What do you see? But all my questions got me was a frustrated glance as he turned his head from side to side, peering into the forest on either side of the road. Coming to stand next to him, I saw the reason for his concern.

  The red pickup truck which raced by us earlier was now parked on the side of the road, it’s engine quiet. Even more unsettling was the fact the three men were nowhere in sight.

  Where’d they go? I mentally asked, looking up at Wyst. He was still scanning the area while his posture screamed ‘pay attention’ although I had no clue what we were supposed to be looking for or at.

  Still not getting any answers to any of my questions, I opened my mouth but before I could even exhale, Wyst put his fingers over my lips. Quiet! Although my eyesight and hearing are better than your species, I cannot concentrate with your yammering.

  “Well, well, well,” an unfamiliar voice called out from the left-hand tree line, making me jump. “Looky what we got here.”

  With my heart in my throat, I leaned forward around Wyst’s tall broad body and watched as two men emerged from the bushes about twenty yards up from where we stood. Both seemed to be just out of their teens, both dressed in jeans and flannels that hadn’t seen the inside of a washer in a while and both wearing grins. But their grins weren’t of the happy or humorous kind. More like those of the scary type; the sort that promised pain or humiliation. Or both.