The predominant species of tree towered high above them, more than three stories tall. The trunks twisted and curved like rheumatic fingers. The bark was white and papery, sloughing off in dangling sheets. The massive leaves were wine red, shaped like scalloped hexagons, a foot in diameter. They hung in crowded rows beneath the branches they grew from, dangling from a long stem. They looked like ladies’ parasols that had been turned inside out by the wind.
There were stout, bulb-shaped conifers, barely any taller than Lyra. Their ashy-gray branches bore midnight-blue needles as thick and long as porcupine quills. A viscous, mint-green resin dripped down their trunks. Growing in clusters, were narrow, willow-like trees. Their hanging fronds were thick with frilly, heart-shaped, harvest-gold leaves.
The other trees varied among more middling heights. Some were not unlike the tall, twisting ones, but with smaller, hand-shaped leaves of a more subdued red. Some had navy blue leaves that hung down like limp rags, fluttering softly in the wind, another had mustard-colored leaves, shaped like open clamshells.
Pale gray lichen hung from branches overhead, thin and delicate as moldered lace. Acid-pink carpets of frizzy moss grew thick on old rotted trees, along with blue and orange fungi. Thin, whippy seedlings grew in the spaces where sunlight pierced down through the canopy with leaves of salmon and amber and turquoise.
The ground in between it all grew thick with scrubby, cobalt gorse; thickets of thorny, red-skinned twigs; and the occasional stand of pale yellow canes that rattled against each other like old bones.
Where nothing grew, striated black rock thrust from the earth in jagged formations. Running the length of their journey, a wicked escarpment of black rock overlooked a steep ravine that gouged through the planet all the way to the furthest horizon.
Lyra trailed clumsily behind Asier, stumbling over the uneven ground and bumping into him again and again. She tripped over papery white roots and marbled black stones. Even when the ground was level and clear, she swayed with exhaustion.
“You need sleep,” Asier observed.
The sound of his voice startled her. Neither of them had spoken for more than an hour.
“Later. Let’s just get to your ship.” With a concerted effort, she straightened her shoulders, blinked her eyes wide and alert.
“Humans sleep very frequently,” Asier said. “Since being captured, have you slept?”
No. “I won’t be able to, Asier. This planet isn’t safe. My instinct for survival won’t allow my brain to go into a sleep cycle.”
“I will carry you.”
Lyra’s eyes widened. Her entire body flushed. “But—”
“You can trust me.” He reached behind his head, tying the bandana tighter.
Suddenly, she was not tired at all. And she wanted nothing more than to be taken into his arms. “I trust you. But I won’t be able to sleep like that.”
He scowled down at her until her meaning sank in. His expression softened as his eyes sharpened, pupils dilating. His gaze pinned her in place. Her skin prickled with heat. She could close the distance between them with one step.
“Tell me about the spiders again,” Lyra said breathlessly.
Around them, trees creaked. Leaves rustled. Dappled sunlight shifted over the ground.
“They can leap as high as you are tall,” Asier answered, his voice even deeper, more rumbling than usual.
She nodded. Cold fear ate at the hot desire. “What else?”
“They secrete a corrosive digestive fluid. They don’t chew their prey. They dissolve them.”
“What an unpleasant way to die,” Lyra said lightly. She shivered, unsure whether it came from fear or from desire. Either way she suddenly had the wherewithal to start walking again.
Asier fell into step beside her. She could feel his gaze on her, burning hot, but she didn’t dare look over at him. After a moment, she sensed him look away from her.
“You could sleep on the ground. I would keep watch.”
She shook her head. “We’ll lose time.”
“You’ll lose your life if you are too exhausted to think and react.”
Lyra opened her mouth to argue that she could think and react just fine, thank you, when she stepped onto a soft patch of soil. Her foot plunged through it, and she sank up to her knee. The soil churned, and she felt something clamp onto her leg—something large and strong, and piercing sharp.
She screamed as it yanked her down. She plunged down to her hip. The painful bite crawled up her flesh, piercing, constricting.
Asier’s arms were around her in an instant. He wrenched her from the ground, pulling her leg free with a spray of soil. A grub-white, slime-coated, segmented worm, as thick as Lyra’s bicep, was wrapped around her leg. Bristling black setae stabbed through the armored fibers of her flight suit, piercing her skin. Most of its body remained below ground.
Movement pulsed down its segments as it fought to drag her under.
Asier held fast to her with one arm, growling in his own language as he searched frantically in his jacket with his free hand. Lyra screamed again, using her free leg to kick and kick and kick—driving her heel into its translucent, throbbing body until the slimy, thin skin broke and green viscera spilled out.
The massive worm slackened, and Asier ripped her out of its grasp. The two of them flew backwards, landing in a heap.
Twitching and pulsing, the pallid monster retreated back into the earth.
Lyra couldn’t stop screaming. She was hurting her own ears, and abrading her throat, but it was the only thing she could do.
A massive steely hand descended over her mouth, silencing her. Beneath the ringing in her ears, she could hear Asier snarling incomprehensibly. She didn’t have to speak the Scaeven language to recognize some colorful swearing.
Her chest heaved as she sucked big draughts of air through her nose. She twisted her face away from Asier’s hand, gasping when her mouth was free.
“If you think I’m going to sleep now,” she wheezed, “you are completely cracked.”
Asier said nothing.
She realized she was pressed against his chest, sprawled between his thighs. His big, hard body was warm behind her. His arousal was an intimidating pressure against her back. She sat up abruptly and rolled away from him.
“Sorry,” she said quickly, still lost for breath.
Asier took a second to reply. “Your leg,” he said finally.
She looked down. The right leg of her flight suit was shredded where the worm had wrapped around her. Tufts of armored fiber fringed bare swaths of blood-smeared skin. Dozens of the worm’s barbed setae were still embedded in her flesh. The pain hit very suddenly, and her leg buckled beneath her.
Asier surged to his feet, rushed to her. He caught her arms and hauled her upright.
“I’m taking you to rocky ground,” he said. He scooped her into his arms, carrying her as easily as if she were a child. The pain in her leg was an unbearable fire. Embarrassing tears filled her eyes.
Asier found a an upthrust table of the black, basaltic rock and laid her down gently. She whimpered.
He pulled a knife from his jacket. “I’ll have to cut the trouser leg away,” he said.
She nodded, biting her lip to keep from sobbing.
Starting at her ankle, he slid the knife up the armored fabric. It cut through like butter. Even through the pain, Lyra was astonished. That was some knife. She’d seen armored flight suits deflect everything from laser fire to ballpoint pens.
Asier flipped the fabric aside and leaned in close to examine her leg. Black setae—as hard as horn, as long as her pinky finger, and just as thick—had broken off of the worm’s body, and protruded from her skin.
Working as delicately as he could with his massive hands, Asier began plucking them out. Each one ripped away with a pain like a hot knife stabbing in and out of her leg. With each one, she whimpered. The pain was getting worse. Her breath came in shuddering sobs and she curled in on herself.
&nb
sp; It was too much to take. The horrible burning agony was consuming her flesh, dissolving her bones. It radiated from her leg and into her mind until all she could think, and feel, and be was pain. Unbearable, excruciating pain. Blackness edged the periphery of her vision. It ate inwards, faster and faster.
She welcomed unconsciousness.
Asier knew the instant the pain had overwhelmed her. Her entire body went limp against the rock, and her desperate keening died away.
He swore again, his hands shaking as he worked quickly to pull away the last of the worm’s barbs. He had no way of knowing if she was dying, or just in extreme pain. Was it venom? Was she reacting to the setae themselves? Was she going into anaphylactic shock? Was her nervous system shutting down?
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small flask. He’d started keeping it with him after his first encounter with the cone tree sap.
He opened it, and then hesitated for a minute. He didn’t know much about human physiology. The neutralizing tonic might have no effect at all. Or, it might harm her instead of helping her. But he couldn’t do nothing. Even unconscious, she shook with agony, her face a tense grimace. Humans were compatible mates with Scaevens. He had to hope that meant Scaeven medicine would work on them.
He tipped the flask and poured the tonic down the length of her leg. He used his palm to rub the liquid into each and every wound. She had a long scar, a thin pink ribbon, running from the inside of her knee, all the way up her inner thigh, where it disappeared into her flight suit. The scar fascinated him, but not in a prurient way. His concern for her survival allowed him to ignore the fact that he was running his hands over a long, smooth, sleekly muscled female leg. Instead, he looked at that wicked scar and felt only admiration. She was a survivor, this human. She would survive this.
He poured more tonic on her leg, and continued to sweep it into her wounds. It took some time, but her trembling slowed, and then stopped. Her breathing eased.
At long last, her eyes blinked open. She looked around, groggy and unfocused, until her gaze settled on Asier. She watched him hazily.
When he was done, he closed the empty flask and slipped it back inside his jacket.
“How many pockets do you have in that thing?” Her voice was faint, but steady. The color was returning to her cheeks. She pushed herself up to sit, moving weakly, but steadily. Asier allowed himself to hope that the worm’s venom only caused pain and not eventual death.
“Are you in pain?” Asier asked.
“Yes. But nothing like I was.”
“What do you feel?”
She rubbed at her injured leg. “I feel like I’ve been stabbed fifty times by a barbecue fork.”
“Can you walk?”
Fear flashed into her eyes, and her gaze shot to the disturbed soil where the worm had snared her.
“Will you let me carry you?” He touched the bandana, checking it was still secure.
“Maybe we could just stay on the rocks.”
She was already so much slower than he was. Waiting for her to hobble over craggy ridges on an injured leg would take forever. And besides the logical arguments, something inside of him demanded to take care of her.
“We can cover more ground if I carry you.”
She regarded him nervously. “But, won’t that be… difficult?”
Yes. Agony. But it would be a different kind of agony to watch her limp, exhausted and frightened, for the length of time it would take to reach his ship. She was too stubborn to accept her biological limitations, but perhaps under his protection, she could at least rest.
“This is the most efficient solution,” he said.
After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded, surprising him. He made note that she was more easily swayed by logic than by chivalry.
“So…” she shifted awkwardly, keeping her weight off her injured leg. “How are we going to do this?”
He wanted to carry her in his arms. But that had nothing to do with efficiency. It’d be easiest to carry her on his back, but he didn’t know if her legs were long enough to comfortably straddle him for the next two days, or if her thighs were strong enough to grip him for so long a time.
Dangerous thoughts. He forced himself to breathe evenly, looking away from her for a moment.
“We need a sling,” she said.
He glanced back at her, and the tattered remnants of her right trouser leg. She followed his gaze.
“That should work,” she agreed to his unspoken question.
Using his knife, he cut the trouser leg free of her suit, sliced it into strips, and then tied the strips together into a loop. He took off his arc rifle, and shrugged the sling on like a backpack. The loop went behind his neck, over his shoulders, under his arms, to hang down against his back. He crouched, and Lyra climbed onto him. Her slight weight shifted as she maneuvered herself into the sling.
“It’s like climbing onto a living statue,” she said, more breathless than the effort warranted.
When she was settled, Asier straightened slowly to stand. She wiggled in the sling, adjusting her weight. Her little body pressed against his back. Her legs straddled him, knees squeezing against his sides. He swallowed down the groan rising in his throat.
“Is that alright?” she asked. Her arms came to rest on his shoulders, palms pressed to his chest, just below his collar bones.
She needed to do so in order to maintain her balance, Asier told himself. Her touch was impersonal. Practical.
So why did he feel her trembling?
“Fine,” Asier said gruffly. Carrying his arc rifle in his hands, he set off. With each stride, she shifted against his body. He could feel her curving, female softness even through the layers of their clothing. He could feel her heat. He walked on, doggedly ignoring the stiffness in his groin.
It took some time, but eventually, she relaxed against him. He felt the contours of her body even more acutely. More time passed, and she laid her cheek against his back. Her breathing slowed. Her arms draped bonelessly over his shoulders. She’d finally fallen asleep. Both wanting and satisfied, Asier journeyed on.
Chapter Five
When Lyra woke, her cheek was stuck to Asier’s back, her hips ached from straddling his huge body, and her arms had fallen asleep from being hung over his shoulders.
His jacket softly mirrored the colors of her body—forming a pale halo where her face had been pressed against him, and black against her flight suit. The rest of the strange jacket softly mirrored the scarlet, navy, and gold profusion of the surrounding forest.
“You’re awake?” Asier’s deep voice rumbled.
“Yes.” She lifted one of her arms, making a fist and wincing as the feeling began to return. “How long was I asleep?”
“Most of the day.” He pointed to the sun, low on the horizon.
Had it been on the opposite horizon earlier? It wasn’t like her to miss these sorts of baseline observations. All her awareness seemed to be trained on the big, brawny Scaeven male, leaving her nothing for the basics of survival. Was it a lingering effect of his toxin?
She inhaled deeply, bringing oxygen to her addled brain. If she’d slept through most of the daylight hours on this planet, then she’d been out for nearly six Earth Standard hours. She’d drifted into partial consciousness here and there, but for the most part, she’d slept as deeply against his back as she did in her own berth.
“The traffickers’ ships have departed,” he told her, something cautious in his deep voice.
Lyra felt a sharp pang of guilt. She had left the other women behind without a second thought, condemning them to a lifetime of enslavement.
Asier seemed to read her thoughts. “There was nothing you could have done for them,” he told her firmly.
She knew that. It didn’t help the guilt.
Asier carried her to a rocky outcropping, and crouched so that she could clamber off of him. Her hips ached so badly, she nearly toppled over.
“Ah, fucking hell,” she swore in he
r own language, folding over to stretch the tightness out of her legs. She looked absurd with one bare leg. Where the trouser leg had been cut away, the fibers of the flight suit frayed in a soft fringe around the top of her thigh.
Asier looked away from her, adjusting the bandana on his face, tightening the knot. “Can you walk?” he asked.
“Yes. I just need a minute.” She twisted and bent, arched and lunged, working away the soreness. Asier stood oblique to her, staring resolutely into the dense growth of the forest.
She tugged her bent knees up to her chest, one at a time, and finally ceded to the fact that her legs were going to ache for a while. Walking would help.
“Alright.” She touched Asier’s arm to let him know she was ready. Even through the tough weave of his jacket, a frisson of heat passed between them. Lyra resisted the urge to grab onto him, to climb him like a cat. Did some of his toxin still linger in her system? She couldn’t look at him without feeling a coil of desire wind through her.
She put some distance between them. The air was cool on her bare leg, but nothing intolerable. Yet. Asier had warned her that the planet had insane weather extremes.
“How far now?” she asked.
“Uncertain,” Asier answered. “We started at your pace, and then there was time lost when you were attacked…”
He trailed off as Lyra shuddered.
“Walk behind me,” he said. “I’ll break any loose ground.”
“So I should sacrifice you to the worms instead?”
He held out a heavy walking stick that he must have acquired while Lyra slept. He thumped it on the ground. “I’ve been cautious. And my skin is harder and thicker than yours. I don’t think they’d be able to injure me much.”
Lyra didn’t need much convincing. She fell into step behind him. His strides were far too long for her to step into each one of his footfalls, but she would follow in his wake. It was better than nothing.
Partly to distract herself from thoughts of the worms, and partly to keep herself from obsessing over the broadness of his shoulders and the strength of his big arms, Lyra said, “Asier. That name sounds Ravanoth.”
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