Knees jellied, I collapsed.
‘Indira,’ Bhyr said again from behind me, his voice laden with command. ‘Move back towards me. Slowly.’
‘Can’t feel my legs.’ A tremor ran through my frame. ‘Can’t feel anything.’ My body recognised the danger and immobilised me.
I sensed Bhyr ease closer.
He pulled up short somewhere off to my side.
He cursed. ‘Do not blink.’
Uneasy, the bull grunted.
A plume of breath rushed from its broad muzzle.
So many teeth.
The beast imprisoned me with its bloodshot glare; fixated on me with killing intent.
‘I want to look away. I can move if I close my eyes.’
‘No!’ Bhyr paused, spoke again with forced calm. ‘Do not break eye contact. The moment you do, the tuskbeast will charge.’ He slinked forward another step. ‘I am not close enough yet.’
The wind swept fresh pollen into my nose. ‘Achew.’ I blinked, calcifying with horror.
The tuskbeast trumpeted.
Mucus flew from its frothing mouth as its hind leg scratched at the ice with an ear-splitting screech. It launched into a leaping bound.
18
Indira
Bhyr struck, a lightning bolt.
I was motionless, then flying, steel bands caging my limp body, evading the charge.
The bull tossed its head at empty air. It stomped and danced, fixing its beady eyes on the spot where I stood.
I swayed, bewildered by the sudden location change, my back pressed against the vertical rock face.
Bhyr crouched in front of me. Guttural clicks of warning slid from the tense line of his throat, rolling into a single note that sent primal chills skittering down my spine.
Springing forward on liquid joints, the bull’s hooves shook the earth. A tonne of carnivore hurtled towards us with crushing force.
Bhyr swept me aside.
Rough stone scraped off the skin on my palms.
The bull head-butted the wall where we’d stood. Bellowed its fury. The impact rattled my bones, and I braced my legs as the earth quaked.
Bhyr’s chest squashed my breasts. His arms rose to cover my head from falling rocks.
One arm holding me pinned, he spun, his other hand snapping out to grab the bull by its antler. He heaved. The animal whinnied as Bhyr flung it into the air then slammed onto the ground.
Hooves cartwheeling, it tried to rise, but he gripped both branches of horns and yanked to the side.
A crack as loud as a gunshot popped from its neck.
The bull slumped, phlegm-coated tongue lolling, eyes rolling back.
Bhyr let it drop with a dull thump. ‘A waste.’
Doubled over, hands pressed to my chest, I gasped for air, my heart trying to climb out through throat.
The pitiful bleat of the newborn made my skin goose pimple with shivers.
Bhyr stalked past me.
‘Wait.’ I reached for him, but he ignored me.
The bleating died, and the warm smell of freshly spilled blood misted into the air.
‘You didn’t have to kill it. I would’ve cared for it.’
Bhyr turned, furious. ‘It would only nurse from its sire’s maw.’ His mouth opened to continue his rant then snapped closed. He stared.
I pushed off the wall. ‘What? What is it?’
I heard it then.
The low rumble. A sound so loud, my ears refused to grasp it. I did a slow about turn while tipping my head back. My eyes rounded, unconsciously expanding my field of vision, trying to understand why the mountain bled.
Face as alarmed as I’d ever seen it, Bhyr bent to push a shoulder into my middle. He straightened, taking me off my feet and left me dangling over his shoulder. He planted his arm over my thighs to keep me secure as he ran. I jounced until I used his back to push up.
It looked like a mist, a billowing smoke cloud.
An avalanche thundered down the slope, crashing into the plateau where the bodies of the alien bull and calf lay. The flood swallowed the world behind us, pursuing as if sentient.
‘Must go faster.’ My shout was lost in the roar.
A red tide lapped at Bhyr’s heels as we approached a narrow crevice. He jumped. We soared thirty feet into air that whistled past my ears.
Weightless, my stomach dropped. The moisture in my eyes dried, and my terror built to unknown heights, a shriek locked behind my teeth.
Free arm and legs windmilling, Bhyr landed hard.
My eyes watered.
He ran faster than the fastest land-based creature from Earth, but his speed wasn’t enough.
Bhyr lifted me off his shoulder into a bridal carry just shy of a stranglehold. His muscles bunched, gathering strength. He leapt towards the mountain face scrolling past us.
‘No, no, no.’ I cringed into his chest, my body suffering a phantom impact, but he used the vertical rock as a steppingstone to launch upwards.
The snow reared up and ploughed into us.
The cold was an open-palmed slap, a knockout punch to every molecule of flesh. We tumbled and spun in a tumult, lost in a world washed in black and red. Muffled yet deafening sounds subsumed everything else and set my ears ringing.
Bhyr collided with something solid, and his viselike grip on my body slackened.
My sense of him vanished as the deluge ripped me away. Just gone. I tried to shout, but gargled, sucking in snatches of air, shoved by slushy ice. My feet arced over my head more times than I could count.
The avalanche ebbed.
It left me suspended in the chunky snow.
Motionless despite the frenzy of my nervous system, I struggled to catch up mentally to the handful of minutes my body experienced physically. Snow crusts formed around my eyelashes, and I blinked them away. I was nose-blind and everything was black. I panted for air and tried not to succumb to claustrophobia. My ragged gasps froze my lungs and icy flecks stung my lips. Tempted to close my eyes and stop moving for a while, I pinched the thin webbing between my thumb and forefinger. Panic? I didn’t have time for that nonsense. There was only so much breathable air entombed with me. I didn’t want to waste it.
Legs trapped beneath me, I sprawled in awkward angles, my back twisted. Nothing was broken. Only bruised and battered. My head felt stuffy as if it were filling with blood.
Am I upside down?
Or the congestion was a residual trauma.
I moved my arms.
It was like dragging them through deep water.
Again the urge to freeze swept over me. I thought of suffocation, frostbite and necrotic tissue to beat back the numbing shock. I folded my arms over my chest, then shoved at the loosely packed snow until a half bubble formed around my face and upper torso. Darkness surrounded me. A burning sensation razored the exposed parts of my skin. I strained to listen, to catch any trace of noise.
Nothingness.
Which way is up?
I shivered, more from fear than the temperature. I needed to decide which way to go, fast, but the biting cold made it difficult to concentrate on anything but a numbness creeping from my fingers. I wriggled them as I extended my arms in random directions, compacting the snow to add to my air supply and hoping my fists would punch through the surface.
A faint scuffle came from behind my head.
I stilled.
My name–shouted.
‘Bhyr.’ I yelled through a fog of pain. My throat was sore from screaming. ‘I’m here.’ I pounded the flat of my palms against the bubble.
Rhythmic scraping sounds started. I felt their vibrations in the snow surrounding me.
Teeth chattering, I shouted as loud as I could to encourage him. I now understood why he’d jumped before the avalanche hit us. He’d needed us to be higher, so if the snow separated us, I wouldn’t suffocate before he found me.
A shovel-sized palm punched through and clamped around my wrist. It let go, then a shaft of light lit the cramped space.
‘Here!’ I reached an arm up to widen the hole.
‘Stop. Stay still.’ His face appeared, eyes wide, skull ridges white. ‘Too much movement, and you might fall further. The tunnel will collapse. I may not find you again.’
I stopped thrashing, terrorised by the thought of getting sucked deeper.
It took hours.
He dug at a shallow angle to maximise the surface area he lay on, but using his bare hands, Bhyr freed me.
When he exposed enough of my torso, I kicked to turn myself right side up. I lurched upwards as Bhyr hauled me towards his chest. He rolled us away from the hole he’d dug, hands roaming my body. ‘You are safe.’
‘Mmhm.’ I wedged my face into his neck, greedy for his delicious warmth.
Scooping me to his chest, Bhyr carried me back to the nest, keeping me tucked close as he strolled over terrain I’d had to leap and clamber over. His stamina was a thing of legend.
I felt wrecked, and I’d done nothing except get tossed about and carried.
Fat flakes of rust-coloured snow blanketed the ground by the time we made it back, third sun a cool sliver on the horizon.
Bhyr shook off ice and snow. He placed me on the bed, cocooned me in the thickest furs then went about heating the space around the nook.
Bone rattling shivers became painful tingles as my skin thawed. It amazed me I hadn’t suffered a serious injury. Hypothermia should have been a given. Overheated, I struggled from the furs like a swaddled infant and attempted to do something with the tangle around my shoulders. I hated the cold strands of hair dripping ice water down my spine.
Around this time, I noticed Bhyr’s agitation.
‘What was it thinking?’
Back to being called it.
‘I did not realise it had wandered so far from safety.’ He paced a line at the foot of the bed. ‘No, it did not think. What intelligent sentient would be so stupid as to leave the nest and trek unprepared into the wild–into tuskbeast territory!–hoping it would mean anything but a swift, savage death?’
Savage was right.
The bull would have torn me to pieces, fed its young, and then gnawed on my bones.
‘I didn’t realise the danger.’ My hands covered my face. ‘I come from a place where it’s safe to go for a walk. I was reacting, not thinking.’
He twisted to face me, vibrating fury. ‘That male need not die. That breed of beast is rare and protected under my Law.’ His eyes widened hugely. ‘Do you understand the severity of what you did? Speak!’
‘How could I know?’ I cried and opened my arms. ‘This isn’t my home. This isn’t my place.’
His enraged roar made my heart leap. ‘Its place is where this warrior says it is. We look upon what we own.’ He gripped my thigh, a length of flesh as thick as his arm. He dragged me down the pelts. ‘There is no escape from us.’
Since he seemed disinclined to accept I hadn’t been trying to escape insomuch as take time to recover my composure, I didn’t protest my innocence. Instead, at the forefront of my mind was the knowledge he’d saved me. He’d rescued me after I’d run headfirst into danger when he’d made it clear the perils of this planet were no joke. He could have let it happen. Could have shrugged off my loss and found another, more biddable human breeder. But, deep down, I knew without doubt, once he’d discovered me in danger, he hadn’t hesitated to throw himself in harm’s way.
A hand fisted in my hair, pulling my head back to expose vulnerable throat.
‘I take you now.’ The rumble in his chest reminded me of thunder. His feral expression was bright and stabbing, his voice a violent susurration. ‘Willing or not.’
I shuddered and stared.
‘You saved me.’ I wished I could think of something, anything else to say that would explain the complicated emotions I felt. I touched him. My fingertips smeared gritty paint. When had he put that on? Why? What ritual did he perform now? Or had he meant to hunt me down as he had during the Testing?
I quivered.
The boom of his alien heart beat against my palm.
‘Ah, you tremble, human. Good.’ Spiced breath melded with my hot pants as he spoke in the hairsbreadth between us. ‘The Horde will not understand this nor will they forgive it, but you have bewitched me.’ Bhyr’s mouth bruised mine with a cold kiss. My back arched. He broke free, and his eyes glowed like frosted pearls. ‘I have decided to keep you.’
‘Keep me?’ What he said made little sense. He had me. Where else was I going to go?
Nowhere, I thought.
I was going nowhere, so things had to change between us.
‘Don’t call me “it”.’
He glowered.
I glared. ‘I mean it. Don’t. You’re uncomfortable with the dynamic between us. I am too.’ I mumbled the last bit, reluctant to confess how I’d softened towards him.
It was impossible not to when he’d risked his life to save mine. Granted, it was his fault I was on this planet to begin with, but how long could I hold that against him without doing myself harm?
‘Denying how things are changing won’t help,’ I said. ‘Neither will backtracking to what it was like before. To what you were like before.’
‘You told me you would not kill yourself.’
19
Indira
‘Kill myself?’ Taken aback, I blinked. ‘I wasn’t going to. I was mad, Bhyr. Scared.’
‘Scared of me.’ He eased back until he knelt on the floor.
Remorse lurked behind his stony facade.
I huffed a sad laugh, shook my head. ‘You reacted to what happened in a way that shocked me. It made me act like an idiot.’
I swallowed, tongue dry.
A memory of heat spreading through my body had sweat popping from my pores. Even now, exhausted, hungry and suffering from shakes, his proximity made my insides liquefy. ‘I ran because I didn’t recognise myself. The rest was unfortunate, but it wasn’t intentional. I swear. I was already on my way back.’
He bobbed his head, shoulders a rigid line as his eyes scanned my face.
‘What happened, Bhyr? Why did you act like that? Say those things?’ I hesitated, wondering if I wanted him to answer my next question. ‘Do you want to go back to those first days? Because I don’t.’
His jaw clenched.
Tired of the argument, I sat on my heels, slouched.
‘I want to believe I can have this,’ he said. ‘That despite my people’s history, and the teachings of those who know better, I can have you as a mate.’ His chin dropped to his chest. In a voice near inaudible, Bhyr said, ‘It is wrong of me, but I want you to want to stay.’
My head lifted, so I could stare, astonished.
At his half-defiant, half-terrified expression, my brows rose. ‘Oh.’ I wasn’t going through whatever this thing between us was alone. I knee-walked closer and patted the metal encasing my hips. ‘Take the Keeping off me, then.’
‘Indira….’
I laced my hands at the nape of his neck and pressed my forehead to his. ‘Please take it off.’ My hands slid down to press against his chest. ‘It’s the right thing to do. You know it is. That’s why you’re fighting so hard against it. Because if you start with this, you’ll want to dismantle the rest of what’s not working between my kind and yours.’ I leaned back to meet his wary gaze. ‘I won’t lie. Taking it off won’t make me want to stay or make everything square between us, but it’ll be a good start.’ I made myself mean it. ‘A fresh start.’
‘You will run.’
‘I tried that. Look what it got me.’ I brought my hand up to touch his jaw. ‘Where would I go? Hmm? I’m stranded here until you say otherwise.’
Bhyr’s nostrils flared then contracted until I struggled to make them out in his face. He held his breath. The tough plates shielding his knuckles clacked as his fingers flexed.
He reached down in a jerky motion and tapped the leathery pad of his third finger over the side of the Keeping.
Wit
h a faint click the single piece split at my hip and lost rigidity. Thin seams appeared across its smooth plane.
I wriggled out of it and tossed it across the room. My body was mine again.
The relief was indescribable.
Bhyr stared at the jumble of metal, thunderstruck.
I gripped his arm, anxious to draw his attention from it. ‘You good?’
He lifted his chin in one of his curt micro mannerisms then shifted away, eyeing me like a rabid creature.
I studied him back, amused at his uneasiness.
For the first time, I looked at my tormentor while setting aside the trauma of my abduction. It wasn’t a shock to find Bhyr was handsome in his alien way. Sexual tension had been a problem between us from the beginning. After everything he’d done to me, it stunned me how alluring I found him. I dragged my teeth over my upper lip. It was possible my attraction was nothing more mental hiccup like Stockholm syndrome, but I liked the way his eyes tracked me, alight with wolfish intensity. How did you resist someone who couldn’t take their eyes off you?
I set my confusion aside.
He allowed himself to acknowledge me as a individual, one with value beyond his indoctrination, and his efforts to understand me impressed me more than his masculine beauty. It allowed me to feel less conflicted over how I wanted him emotionally as well as physically.
My eyes swept over his broad shoulders, ripped abdominals and brawny legs.
All that was mine.
Nipples erect, I squeezed my thighs shut, the tingles between them sharp.
I edged closer until I pressed against his side, my breaths coming faster.
Moving before I overthought it, I kicked up a leg and straddled his lap. It was harder than it looked with him coiled on the edge of the squashy mattress.
‘What are you doing?’ His arm crept under my bottom.
‘You deserve a thank you.’ I stroked the sides of his neck. ‘I hated that thing.’ Nervous, I didn’t dwell on what I did next.
I curled over to kiss him.
It was chaste, a dry scrape of parted lips.
He shuddered, straining against me. His muscles were stone beneath my thighs, and a steely erection prodded my ass, making my sex clench.
Bhyr Page 17