by Calista Skye
"Peyton. Okay? My name is Peyton."
He'd said it matter of factly, in a way that challenged her a bit too boldly. It ignited the thoughtless part of her that fed on dares and risks only the most stupidly confident sorts took on. And he spotted it just as he woke it, his eyes flashing with that glowing green to match her own inner animal (though it wasn't an animal that had ever pushed its way into four-legged form or took over her body with its own). Hers just steered the vessel at her disposal. Sometimes, crashing her into walls and landing her in impossible positions... like so.
"Thank you, so much, for your hospitality, Remy. But I think I'd like to go now."
She was already a third of the way across the room before the words left her mouth, relieved to feel the strength in her legs coming back. She was healing, at least, from whatever toxin that vine had introduced to her bloodstream.
She could handle the rain, too, and whatever tunnels he spoke of... she could find them. She had some experience as a tracker, and it was a skill that involved paying close attention to one's surroundings.
Pressing her lips into a tight line, she craned her ears toward the sounds within the den and outside of the den, stretching her hearing to any sound that might reveal a hollow passage, pressing her hands to the walls to check for the rumble of waves. There might be a water line she could follow out of there. Water that wouldn't burn her hopefully.
"Where are you going?"
"Finding the exit."
"There is no exit while the rain is this strong."
Remy stood up then, looking very much like he would stop her from proceeding if he had to.
"I tried asking nicely, Remy. I can't wait. I have to go."
A stir of excitement tickled her gut at the sound of a slight echo when she tapped the far rock wall.
"You can't go that way."
"Why not?"
"It's not safe."
"Indeed, is anything safe on your planet?"
"Not truly."
The strangle of strain and anger in the bear man's voice stopped her in her tracks. It hadn't been the kind of tone that would come from anyone other than a desperate man. He hadn't seemed desperate at all before she'd inadvertently pressed a very telling button, but it was clear he was. Something had him at the edge of his wits.
He hid it well, but now he was faced with it.
"Is the... rain beyond this wall?"
His eyes slid closed, and she watched him swallow his reserve.
"It is... nearly everywhere."
So he was scared.
Fear was very clearly etched into the stillness his body had taken on, like he would try to force himself to leap after her if she continued on – but his body might not answer him. Whatever made him like this had been troubling him for some time. Maybe even since he was a child.
“Please trust me. I will see you to your pod. When it is safe to move toward it.”
Drawing a sharp breath, Peyton squared her shoulders and fought her way past the daredevil inside of her that whispered at the edges of her resolve to run for it. For once, she wasn't going to think with her adrenalin brain.
She just had to trust the acquisitioners didn't find her pod before she could get to it.
Seven
“If... we're overcome by undesirable guests, you'll need to do as I ask if you want to be safe.”
The bear man's words came out in barely a whisper.
The scent of something sharp and piney wafted from his breath, and Peyton realized he'd been drinking from a small tin. Looking away from the rain falling to the ground, sizzling against the terra, her eyes met his.
“What are you running from?”
He laughed, a dry, almost bitter laugh.
“Some tales have been done to death. You'd be bored with it. Believe me.”
“Try me.”
His eyes met hers, and she felt something pass between them that reminded her of her fanciful notions of the spirit world. The world just out of sight but ever-present. She felt something like it there between them, and as unaccustomed to it as she might have been, she couldn't deny that some part of her wanted it to linger.
Even the daredevil within had quieted down in the face of it.
Which was frigging surreal.
“I abandoned my duty,” he began with a sour sort of note that swiftly revealed itself for what it was. “My ideals are... too lofty. They get the best of me.”
“What sorts of ideals?”
Peyton leaned in, genuinely interested. Ideals she could understand. Rebelling against the status quo, she could relate to. It meant there was a pulse of life in him that hadn't been conditioned by his society. It meant his spirit was stronger than the rule of law. She couldn't help but be impressed by that.
“I do not believe that royal matings should be forced through the enhancement of science. Can you imagine? I believe we should allow our true mates to cross our paths. The King just wants to ensure his seed continues on ad infinitum, so no one else ever takes the throne.”
Royals? The King? What in the-
“I do not want to be the Warrior King if it means my Queen is bio-locked to my genetic sequence through force-matching. I would never force a potential queen to be with me using any method.”
“I can understand that.”
The bear man perked up, his interest in her deepening.
“Can you?”
He seemed a little too interested, but he'd been drinking...something, so she indulged him, even as she noticed him inch a slight bit closer.
“Well, yeah. Why would anyone want to take on a simulated connection? If you're not meant to be with someone, you're not meant to be. Royal stuff... I don't know a lot about. But it sounds a lot like the political world.”
“And you know what about that?”
Peyton shrugged.
“Enough to know it's a shiny trap, but a trap all the same.”
Remy leaned back from her then, a small smile touching his mouth as he averted his eyes.
“I believe that mates are not a hindrance. And I think the King knows that well enough.”
“What makes you think he knows? Maybe he's convinced otherwise.”
“There are... old stories, about power. The power of two.”
“Oh?”
Her fingers wrapped around his flask, and he stopped a moment to search her eyes before releasing it to her. The way she saw it, she might as well enjoy a little buzz while she waited for it to be safe enough to travel to her pod.
“What does this power entail?”
Seeming to shake from his thoughts, the bear man looked her over, searching her a long time before claiming the flask from her fingers and gently tugging it loose.
“It should be safe to leave in an hour or two. You can change clothes in the lower spring.”
Was he... sending her off to bathe? She was tempted to sniff herself. Then she thought better of it. A quick dip in a hot spring would help her relax, and she certainly needed some form of calm to cleave to while she waited to return to the crashed and dented in hunk of metal she was barely sure she could resurrect.
Let alone in time to make the market.
But there was no time for defeatist thoughts; was there?
Rising up from the wall she'd leaned against to watch the rain fall and heat the terra, she took a panning glance around the bear man's den, almost beginning to feel a bit of odd nostalgia.
With any luck. It would be the last good look she'd take.
Eight
“We must hurry.”
“What-”
Peyton covered her bare breasts, the water waving off in concentric circles from her copious curves as she turned to the bear man with alarm. She saw the darkening in his eyes as he strained to politely look away from her. It was clear he wanted to look, but he was gentleman, or gentle bear enough... to respect her privacy.
“We have company.”
The seriousness of his expression warned her to be quick.
/> The shifter turned as she pulled herself from the spring and rested at its edge a moment, gaining her bearings enough to pull her feet beneath her. The spring was luxuriously warm. And if she was being honest, she really didn't want to leave the comfort of it so soon, but if it meant they'd get her back to her pod sooner than later: she was ready.
She'd wasted enough time already.
Throwing the long cape around her, she hoisted up the bag the shifter had packed for her. She could wash the dirty clothes he'd stuffed in there when she got the electrical system on the pod working properly.
Searching the side pocket as she slipped her feet into her boots, her fingers grazed a charm that sent a jolt of electricity through her. Her eyes met the shifter's immediately with question.
“An old charm. It won't matter unless you need it, and it will only help if it is meant for you.”
More cryptic words.
Okay.
Following his rhythm, she took into a healthy half-jog beside him.
“Who we running from?” She whispered, leaning into him conspiratorially.
“Friends of the King.”
“So not... your friends then?”
“They would tell a different tale. But no. We are not friends. Not of the same cause at least.”
“Ah.”
The conversation descended into a silence that engulfed them entirely, the distant sound of fire rain pelting the rock face surrounding the small tunnels, seemingly far off from them though it was the sole reason they traveled the mountain's innards to cross over to whatever piece of land her pod rested on.
“I... appreciate that you're escorting me.”
“Did you doubt I would?”
“I was impatient. I don't know that I truly doubted anything.”
“I read that impatience.”
“Oh, did you? Am I so obvious?”
He grinned.
“Fairly. But your scent is... the most telling.”
“Oh? That's how your kind read others? By scent?”
“It is not usually clear beyond the obvious. But with some... connections, there is an intrinsic understanding.”
Something like a chill passed through Peyton, and she hugged her arms to herself uncomfortably.
“What kind of understanding?”
His eyes found hers as she looked to him, and she quickly looked away, like she almost knew what he would tell her next.
“There are some connections that reveal nearly all to us.”
“Oh.”
Intuiting her reserve, apparently, the bear prince left the matter at that and allowed the silence to engulf them once more.
It wasn't until the sound of fast-rushing water nearly surrounded them that he broke the silence, gritting his jaw all the while.
“Take the tunnel branching off to the left and wait for me. I won't be long.”
“I don't-”
“The charm will hide you. It will at least do that.”
A kind of disappointment wrung his voice.
“Go. Now as I asked you. Please.”
That desperation again. It thrummed through her, and her feet answered his plea before she'd even had time to wrap her mind around it. The daredevil within bristled at the idea, though. She could feel trouble in her bones, despite the bear prince's confidence. Whatever... whoever had been following them... he was going to confront them.
And he believed he would win if his promise of return was any indication.
It didn't sit right with her, though, walking away.
It almost hurt, in fact. The more her steps increased her distance from him, the more it pained her. Like earlier. Only more strangely exaggerated now.
Gritting her teeth against it, she stepped just into the tunnel branch he'd asked her to and waited, keening her ears to the sound of approaching footsteps.
Nine
“Brother, the wilds are not treating you so kindly.”
The voice was arrogant. Assuming. And Peyton bristled instantly hearing it. Whoever it was didn't sound like a friend, even if he was truly a “brother” or some other form of relation.
“It is far kinder than falsehood.”
The tsk of teeth.
“You've descended into madness, Remy. I'd hoped for more from the heir-apparent.”
“Surely, I've been skipped in line by now.”
A deathly silence followed, only broken by the sharpest blade of words.
“The King will have who he will have. We both know that. Have your pick of the royal litters. He will make you a Queen.”
“As bees make theirs? It is not our natural way, Ferran.”
“But it is the way our King has commanded us to live, brother.”
Peyton's heart thumped as silence descended again, and the circle of footsteps drew her deeper into the mystery unfolding only a tunnel away. Her mind began to calculate the possible future that awaited the moment to pass. She fought against the thought that this would not end well.
The words exchanged between the rivals was icy at best, even if it was wrapped in royal pageantry and niceties.
She nearly jumped at the sound of a sniff.
“You smell different. Why is that?”
The question had a sinister ring to it, and Peyton's gut clenched a little with knowing. Somehow, she knew the question was in direct response to her. That, perhaps, her scent had been picked up, too.
Of course, it would be. They were shifters, after all. She had no idea what to make of whatever awaited she and her royal hero in the next few moments with her presence detected.
As it surely was.
“New soap, perhaps,” Remy answered with a monotone delivery.
“Yes. Perhaps that.”
A warning growl escaped one of them, and Peyton instinctively clutched the charm in her hand, surprised to feel it warm in her palm like a small fire burned at its center. What in the...
“Perhaps that, if you were bathing in a woman.”
“Go back to your King, Ferran. You do not belong here.”
“To the contrary, I do. He wants you to come home. Even insists.”
“He has plenty of sons to choose from, Remy. Tell him, I say: choose one of them.”
“Oh, he wouldn't have such insolence.”
A stretching growl struck the air, and Peyton's feet instantly took over again until she realized she was just at the edge of the tunnel the, apparent, prince had rushed her out of. Her heart thumped in her ears, and blood pumped life into her veins, making her head clearer than it had been in days.
It wasn't until his eyes turned to meet hers that she realized what he'd probably known all along. They were bound by something deeper than the attraction she'd been fighting, and even as he knew it, he had allowed her the freedom to figure it out on her own.
Even if granting her that freedom meant that she might take off before the impossible truth dawned on her: this... heir apparent, this prince, was in her heart already.
She barely knew him, but her cells responded to him like they shared the same blood, as if they always had in fact. A part of her that was buried deep beneath the emotions and disappointments of old sparked to life then. Something she hadn't felt in a good, long while.
The child in her. The one who believed in impossibilities.
And it was the child within her that rushed forth bravely, somehow knowing that her realization would empower him as she watched him morph into the form of his bear, under the subtle waves that took the air and lined him where they shaped him.
She did not fear as she took a stand several feet behind him, watching.
Her hands closed tightly around the charm as the bears lunged at one another, several other men behind them maintaining their human forms as they watched with jealous interest. Like politicians, royals seemed to have the same spirits: competitive and intent to find an angle of entrance into the next big opportunity.
They seemed to watch the struggle of powers with an eye on potentially taking the side
of the victor. Their gazes followed the bears as they veered towards one another, crashing into each other's pelts with raucous roars and thrashing impact.
But one of the bears was just a bit stronger, his force knocking the other back several more steps each time they crashed into one another.
A sort of glow surrounded him as he did, and at the final blow that sent his opposer falling to the ground, he took a step back that told everyone in the room how much strength he'd had to draw to keep from delivering a killing blow.
All went quiet as the slight breeze coming in from the adjoining tunnels lifted the edges of the fallen bear's pelt and sent it rippling in the air like that of a near dead thing.
“Hear me,” Remy roared as his human form came into view under the air's reshaping trace. “Your King would have us become synthetic things. I am not this. You are not this. And do not have to be. Tell him to sit another on his throne. For I will never 'make a Queen.' Not when one was born to stand at my side by the universe's own deeming.”
Swallowing her nerves, Peyton shivered when he turned to meet her eyes, then.
“I will not ask you to stay if you wish to go. But I'll not claim another, Peyton.”
Ten
Running, the pair ducked the thick drops of fire rain as the pod loomed into view. The air was pregnant with anticipation, but necessity won out, driving them forward past the questions and roar of desire flaming their bellies.
They crashed into one another against the smooth, moon-metal of her pod. Hormones raging with a might that neither could defy, shifter eyes glowing green, part-Kalion eyes hazing pink and violet, pregnant with star-bespectacled nebulae.
Peyton's breath stuttered as the shifter intuitively sought the screwdriver, searching her person with smooth, searching caresses until his hand found the prize. His eyes never leaving her, he wedged the door open and lifted her up, wrapping her legs around him as he entered the broken ship.
He sought her then with a hungry mouth, only parting with her flushed lips momentarily to glance the room and find a place to lay her. He moved her lounger with haste, his gut firing with passion and an obvious angst to relieve her of her cloak.