Amber studied him. “You don’t have to do it alone. We’re a team.”
Arno cocked an eyebrow at her. “You’re a fraction of my size. I’ll do the hauling.”
Amber shrugged and shouldered her axe again. Arno slung a makeshift sling over his shoulder and hooked the other end around the log they just cut. He leaned his great mass into the sling, and the log slid over the crumbly loam underfoot. Amber stood out of the way, and Arno took step after step toward the edge of the forest. The log slid after him.
Amber marveled at his strength. She had to admit she wasn’t looking forward to hauling the timber out to the lake, and now he took the job off her hands. She took up her position in front of the next log and swung her axe to cut it up.
Her axe thumped into the solid wood, and she hoisted it over her head again. Every hit sent a satisfying reverberation through her body. Her muscles already ached from the work, but she wouldn’t stop now. Months, maybe even years, of lying motionless in the regeneration beds left her weak and restless. All that calm and peace couldn’t replace good old fashioned work for clearing the mind and tiring out the body.
She chopped at the wood, and her mind drifted away. Memories of her early life in Canada came back to her, of collapsing exhausted, but happy, after a hard day clearing timber with her father in the northern woods along the Kingsmere River. The river didn’t look much different from this lake. She could almost convince herself she was back there now.
Wood chips flew into her face, and she half-closed her eyes. Her body knew how to chop wood. The regeneration bed hadn’t robbed her of that. The pungent smell of sap prickled her nose, and dust stung her skin. She let out a deep breath. It was good to be home, and she had Natalie to thank for this.
All at once, she snapped alert and her axe blade stuck in the log. She stared straight in front of her. An Eblian male stood at the end of the log. He watched her with his sparkling green eyes. He was smaller than Kyan, and his skin was smoother and brighter green. Kyan was the only Eblian she’d ever seen before, but this one was younger.
She stared at him, and he stared back at her. She swallowed hard, but she left her axe sticking in the tree trunk at her feet. Better to let him think she was harmless. She could pull it out in a second if she had to defend herself. And Arno would be back in a minute. She could hold her own until he knocked this munchkin flying.
He didn’t move, though. He just stood there and stared. She regarded him without fear. Then she made the first move. “Hello.”
“Hello,” he replied.
“I’m Amber.” She couldn’t take her eyes off him, so she inclined her head toward the lake. “I’m one of Kyan’s friends. Do you know him?”
“I know all about you,” he replied.
She hesitated. “Kyan went to his village to meet his people.”
The Eblian nodded. “He’s there now.”
Amber’s eyes widened. “Did you see him there?”
He nodded again. “I saw him, and I talked to him, and to his Earthling mate, too.”
“Natalie?” Amber asked. “Are they all right?”
A slight smirk touched the corners of his mouth. “They’re fine. They’re stuffing their faces with his sister’s food right now.”
Amber’s eyes flickered toward the lake. Where was Arno? “If everything is fine, what are you doing here?”
“I came to see what you were doing,” he replied.
“I’m cutting up this log to make a shelter for us,” Amber told him. “We don’t have anywhere to spend the night, and our friend can’t travel.”
“I know all that,” he shot back. “What I want to know is why you’re cutting it up.”
She opened her mouth and shut it again. “What else would I be doing with it? It’s too big to haul out of here as it is, with all those branches and leaves still attached to the other end.”
“But it’s part of the forest,” he told her. “If you take all the trees, there will be nothing left. Then what will my people do?”
“But it’s dead,” Amber pointed out. “That’s why we chose this one, so we wouldn’t damage the forest.”
“But the forest needs the dead trees, too,” he told her. “This tree will rot and become soil for the other trees. If you take the dead trees, the soil won’t support the living trees. Don’t you know that?”
Amber swallowed again. She had no answer for that. “Then what do your people use to build your houses? You don’t live in the bare branches, do you?”
“We cut branches from living trees,” he replied. “That way, the trees continue to live and grow and make new branches where the others were cut off. We build our houses on living branches, and we use living branches as our walkways. You should do the same thing, if you care about our people and our planet as much as your friend thinks you do.”
Amber brightened up. “Okay. I’ll do that. I didn’t think of it, but now that you mention it, it makes perfect sense. I’m sorry if I damaged your forest. I didn’t mean to.” At this sign of hope, she cast a glance over her shoulder, but only empty forest separated her from the lake. “I’ll explain everything to Arno, and we can bring back the log we hauled out to be food for the living trees.”
The Eblian frowned. He didn’t brighten up at all at this sign of understanding. He clenched his teeth. “Just like that? You’ll do what I say with no argument at all?”
“Why would I argue?” she asked. “I only want what’s best for your people and your planet.” She paused. “What do you think we came here for?”
He didn’t answer.
Amber pulled her axe loose from the log and hoisted it over her shoulder. Then she looked around. Finally she looked straight up. “How do you get to the smaller branches, to cut them for your houses? They must be hundreds of feet off the ground. These ones down here are way too big.”
“We cut them from above,” he told her. “We climb down the tree from the top until we find a branch the right size and in the right place to keep the canopy intact.”
Amber stared at him. Then she shook her head. “You’ll have to show me how you do that. I don’t understand what you mean by come down the tree from the top. The canopy must be miles high.”
He put his head on one side. “Kyan must have told you we build our villages in the treetops.”
“He did,” she replied, “but I didn’t think they would be that high. I thought they would be like tree houses, built off the ground, but within sight of the ground. No one could see a house in the very top of the canopy from down here.”
“That’s the whole point,” he told her. “We prefer to keep out of sight.”
Amber blushed. “Kyan told me that, but....”
He waited for her to finish, but when she didn’t, he made a clicking noise with his mouth. He reminded her of a tree frog with his big blinking green eyes.
“What’s your name?” she asked. “My name is Amber.”
“You said that before,” he returned.
“So what’s yours?” she asked again.
His eyelids snapped. “My name is Wink.”
She bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud. “Wink?” It was the most perfect name for him she could imagine. “Is that short for something?”
He frowned again, but Amber only laughed at him. He looked so comic. “Okay, Wink. Do you want to show me how to get some branches to make a shelter for the night so we don’t freeze out here?”
“You don’t have to,” he replied. “There’s a shelter here already. You can use that.”
Amber craned her neck to look around. “Where is it? I don’t see anything.”
“You wouldn’t see it,” he told her. “It’s designed to remain hidden, but my people use it when we come to this part of the forest. We don’t have any houses here, so we use the shelter. You can use it tonight if you want.”
“Will you show me where it is?” she asked.
He cast a glance over her shoulder toward the lake. “Will your Corelia
n friend use it, too?”
“Arno?” she asked. “I’m sure he will. I don’t think he wants to sleep out on the gravel beach.”
Wink hesitated. He stared at the spot where Arno dragged the log away. “He’s very big. I don’t think I’ve seen a Corelian so big before.”
“Have you seen others?” she asked. “I didn’t think any Eblians left this planet. Kyan said he was the only one in this part of the galaxy.”
“He was the only one in this part of the galaxy,” Wink replied. “But my brother and I joined the Paramilitary Corps. We were stationed in the Omega Sector for five years before we decided to come home. We saw more Corelians there than you can count, and none of them was as big as your friend.”
Amber nodded. “He’s the biggest Corelian I’ve seen, too, and I’ve seen hundreds.”
Wink listened with all his attention.
Amber kept her eyes down. “I....I belonged to the Toom. Maybe you understand what that means....”
He interrupted her with a short bark. “I understand what that means.”
Amber’s cheeks burned. “Then you understand how I could have seen hundreds of Corelians up close. But I’ll tell you something. I’m glad we have Arno here. He’s a good, kind man, and he genuinely cares about Tina. That’s our friend who can’t travel. He helped rescue us from the Toom, and he came here to help her—and all of us. I wouldn’t be without him for all the tea in China.”
Wink frowned. “What’s China?”
Amber laughed. “Never mind. Show me where this shelter is. If you don’t want to stay with Arno, you can leave after you show it to me and I’ll bring my friends there.”
He didn’t move. “And if I don’t want to leave?”
Amber froze. “You don’t? Well, then you would be more than welcome to stay with us. We all want to meet your people as soon as possible. We only stayed to take care of Tina. But if you stay, we can talk more.” She eyed him. “Would you like that?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I wanted to see you and find out about you, too, but you’re not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?” she asked.
He nodded toward the log. “I expected you to take what you wanted and hang what the Eblians thought was best. I didn’t expect you to stop what you’re doing and change to do things our way just because I said so.”
“We don’t want to step on anybody’s toes,” Amber told him. “If you tell me the way you want something done, I’m more than happy to do it. I’m glad you told me about cutting the living branches. I never would have thought of that on my own. Back home, we....” She stopped.
He waited for her to continue. “You what?”
She waved her hand. “I know it’s stupid. I used to wonder myself why we did it that way, because it destroys more good forest than anything. But we would cut the living trees down for wood and fuel. We would clear the whole forest and then replant it. I never understood it.”
He stared at her with his mouth open. “You....you what?”
Amber shook her head and turned away. “Let’s not talk about it anymore. I don’t want to do it that way. I want to do it your way. Now come on. I’m getting cold standing here. Let’s get the others into the shelter, and then we can talk more.”
Chapter 5
The morning sun twinkled off the lake. Kyan set Natalie down and disappeared into the trees to get Melanie. Natalie soaked in the beautiful scene with a satisfied sigh. Then she stiffened when she noticed the lake shore deserted. Her friends were gone.
She restrained herself from rushing down to the shore to search for any sign of them until Kyan and Melanie stood at her side. Then she pointed. “They’re gone. Where do you think they could be?”
Before anyone could answer, Amber strolled out of the woods. She grinned at the party. “Good morning. Where have you guys been all night?”
“I could ask you the same question,” returned Natalie. “I thought you were going to build a shelter out of logs from the forest. Did you hide it in the trees?”
At that moment, Arno broke through the underbrush. His burly shoulders snapped low-hanging branches, and he ducked to protect his face. He carried Tina in his arms, and he set her down on a rock at the water’s edge. She didn’t acknowledge any of her friends. She went back to staring out across the lake.
Then another figure stepped out of the forest, but he stopped just inside the treeline. He didn’t come out to join the group. Natalie recognized him from the village. It was the young observer, the one they called Wink.
Natalie stared at him, but Melanie narrowed her eyes. “What’s he doing here?”
Amber beckoned him forward, but he didn’t move. “I met him in the woods while I was cutting logs for the shelter. He told me a few things about how his people build their houses, and he convinced me to do it differently. Then he took all of us to a shelter the observers use here in the woods. We spent the night there.”
Melanie turned on her. “You spent the night there….with him? How could you do that?”
A scarlet blush spread over Amber’s cheeks. Even Natalie noticed it. She spent the night there with him, all right. They couldn’t have done anything serious with Arno and Tina around, but she read the evidence of attraction on Amber’s face as plain as day.
Amber waved her hand toward Wink. “He’s a really nice guy. You should get to know him. He really wants to help us settle here, and he’s going to show me all over the forest. Arno will stay here with Tina, and we're going off together right after we have something to eat. He's going to show me how they build their houses in the trees, and then he's going to introduce me to his mother and his brother. Isn't that great?”
“Don’t you know he wants to drive us out of here?” Melanie snapped.
Amber’s eyes flew open. “No, he doesn’t. He’s the nicest guy I’ve ever met and he...”
“He and his brother interrupted a very pleasant meeting between us and the village elders,” Melanie interrupted. “He said the Eblians should isolate us from the rest of the population and forbid us from mating with any Eblian males. He said you were destroying the forest, and we wouldn’t stop until we took this planet for ourselves. He’s the one person on this planet who doesn't want us here. And you had to go and spend the night with him!”
“That’s not true!” Amber cried. “He doesn’t want that at all. You don’t understand!”
Natalie sighed. “She’s right, Amber. He and his brother said all that and more when we went to the village. It was only through the kindness of Kyan’s father that the elders welcomed us.”
Amber squared her shoulders and faced her friends. “He might have thought that when he met you at the village, but he changed his mind when we started talking. He said he wasn’t expecting us to change our ways to accommodate the Eblians. But when I agreed to put away my axe and learn their way of building, he changed his mind about us. He’s willing to accept us, and he's going to talk to his brother about me, too… I mean, about all of us.”
“And you believe him?” Melanie asked.
Amber waved to Wink again, more forcefully this time. “You can ask him yourselves, if you don’t believe me. He’ll tell you.”
Wink watched her waving, but he still didn’t move. Natalie regarded the young Eblian with a sinking heart. “He doesn’t look all that enthusiastic about talking to us.”
“That’s just the way they are,” Kyan explained. “They’re shy. They keep to themselves. If he did tell Amber all those things, and he did change his mind about accepting us, he wouldn’t charge right up to shake our hands. He has to keep his distance. He'll come to us in time if we don't push him.”
Natalie softened. “Okay. We’ll play it his way.”
Melanie turned away. “It sounds to me like he spun you a nice little yarn, Amber. Maybe he told you what he knew you wanted to hear, just so he could cozy up to you in his nice warm shelter last night.”
Amber shook her head. “You’ve got him all wrong, M
elanie. He never made a move on me last night. We stayed up all night long, talking about everything under the sun. We talked about Earth, and he told me all about his people. I can’t wait to get to know them, and to learn their way of life.” She beamed at Natalie. “I can't thank you enough for bringing me here, Natalie. This is going to be the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Natalie smiled at her, but Melanie pursed her lips and turned away. “Every single one of the Eblians we’ve met has been kind and considerate and welcoming—except those two. I don’t care what he told you in the dark last night. I don't want to have anything to do with him.”
She walked away to the lake shore and started talking to Arno. Then she squatted down and said something to Tina. Natalie gazed after her. “You may have had a wonderful time last night, Amber, but I can’t blame Melanie. Those two young men couldn’t have come at a worst time, and they said some really hurtful things about us to the elders.”
Amber watched Melanie with a cool expression. “I understand she’s upset, but I won’t give up my happiness for anybody. I love you, and I hope we can all find happiness here. I'm going with Wink now. I'll see you guys later, I hope you have a good day.”
Without another word, she set off toward the trees, and in an instant, she and Wink vanished behind a curtain of green. Natalie let out another deep sigh. Just when everything was going great, this had to go and throw a wrench in their plans. The last thing they needed was any strife between their party and the Eblians. An instant connection between Wink and Amber was just what the doctor ordered, but any hostility between them and Melanie could spell doom for their whole project.
She cast one last glance toward the place where Wink and Amber slipped away. She’d never seen Amber so happy. A pure golden light shone out from her heart, through her eyes, and lit up the world around her. Natalie would have been jealous if she didn’t feel the same way about Kyan. Could Melanie be hiding her jealousy over Amber's happiness behind her tough exterior?
Melanie stood with Arno near their luggage. Natalie couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer. She joined her friends. “If you show us where this shelter is,” Melanie was saying, “we can store our gear there until we get a chance to bring it to the village.
Alien Romance Box Set: Eblian Mates Complete Series (Books 1 - 3): A Sci-fi Alien Warrior Invasion Abduction Romance Page 18