by Roxie Ray
It was her eyes that did it for me, though. They glinted like unsheathed steel, battle-ready. Warrior’s eyes. Thirsty for blood.
And on a female and small and adorable as Eve… with eyes like that, how could I say no?
“Fine,” I grumbled as I held out my blaster for her. “But if you shoot your eye out—”
“You’ll fashion me an eyepatch out of leaves and vines,” Eve said with a smirk. She snatched the blaster from my hand. “Come on, then. Let’s shoot.”
It’d taken me years in the fighting pits as a cub to even prepare for wielding a blaster. Even more years of training under my father’s watchful gaze to be able to shoot one well enough to fight with it. After his untimely death, I’d enlisted immediately. I was nearing a decade of experience as a soldier. Medals. Commendations. Hundreds of battles won by blaster and blade, and still, before every fight, I prayed to moons whose power I hardly even believed in that I’d shoot well and true.
It took Eve about an hour. Maybe even less.
“How was that?” She puckered her pillow lips and blew the smoke away from the blaster’s tip. On the other side of the clearing, the three pieces of fruit I’d set up for her to aim at had been blown to pulp. “Good enough for you?”
“Where’d you learn how to shoot like that?” I snatched my gun back from her. “Because sure as the moons are nine you didn’t learn it from me.”
“I worked in the mines as a kid in Sector Five,” Eve said with an innocent shrug. “The mining guns we had to use to blast away the rock were a lot bigger than your little blaster, but—”
“Little, is it?”
“Comparatively? Yes.” She gave me the sexiest damned smirk I’d ever seen. “Are you mad?”
“Mad. Pfft.” I threw my arm around her shoulders and guided her back to the ship. “I’m proud.”
“So I can come with you?”
I placed a kiss on the crown of her head, then pulled her to me and gave her another on her perfect lips.
“If you stay hidden unless I absolutely need you…then, sure. You can have Ronan’s blaster. Just this once.” I laughed to myself. “Cooking, healing, shooting…you would’ve been wasted as a breeding slave, you know.”
“I’m starting to think so, yeah,” Eve said with a little laugh of her own.
But the words I left unspoken—the words that I was thinking so clearly as I went to retrieve Ronan’s blaster—were words that I couldn’t quite bring myself to say. Not yet.
Eve’s talents would have been wasted as a breeding slave, yes. But as a wife…
Moons have mercy. With aim like that, she would have made a perfect wife.
13
Eve
“Blood. It’s not here.” Gallix picked up a rock from the ground and threw it across the scorched expanse of trees the Rutharian ship had flattened when it landed. It soared far across the clearing and disappeared into the jungle beyond, sending a wave of bright red birds scattering from the leaves. “Why isn’t it here?”
“You’re sure this is where Ronan found it?” I nudged one of the burned branches on the ground with the toe of the oversized boots Gallix had borrowed for me along with Ronan’s blaster. Even though we had laced them tight and stuffed the toes, they still didn’t fit properly. The backs of my heels would be blistered raw by the time our mission was done. “Maybe we took a wrong turn.”
“No. This is the place. I followed the trail of blood Ronan left us all the way here.” Gallix scanned the ground and let out a frustrated huff. “The bodies are gone too. Blood.”
“The bodies?”
“Ronan said he took down three Rutharians. Never known him to lie about a kill count.” Gallix shook his head. “Rutharians always honor their dead. They’ve gathered them and taken off. That’s not good.”
“Maybe they left Edon.” That wasn’t a very comforting thought, considering that as far as we knew, Marisa was still with them, but given the dangers of this place and the time that could be lost here, it seemed plausible. “They have a working ship.”
“It’s not like Rutharians to run from a fight. They’re impulsive baz-terds, Eve. If there’s promise of bloodshed, they don’t hide from it. They seek it out. Unless…”
Gallix turned suddenly, drawing his blaster and pointing it to the trees behind us.
“Unless what?” I pointed Ronan’s blaster across the clearing, guarding Gallix’s back. My heart was thumping so fast I could hardly tell one beat from the next.
“Unless they’re hiding for a reason. Planning something.” Gallix let out a low growl. “An ambush.”
Sure enough, the second after Gallix said the word, there was a heavy rustle in the trees to my left.
“Get down!” Gallix threw out a hand to push me back—hard enough to knock me to the ground.
Oh, I was down, all right.
He hadn’t given me a choice.
I hit the ground hard. The flattened branches beneath me broke my fall, but just barely. I spat out a mouthful of bitter pine needles and gasped for breath as I heard Gallix send off two shots. The first must have missed its mark, but when he fired off the second, it was followed by a whimper.
Then by a growl.
Not a Rutharian.
Another beast.
It shot out through the trees in a streak of deep orange fur. This beast was faster than the others had been—almost as fast as Gallix himself. He threw himself at it with a ferocious war cry, tackling it to the ground mid-leap.
Gallix could have moved out of the way easily. He could have ducked or rolled or leapt to the side.
But instead, he’d rushed the beast, knowing well how sharp its claws were. He’d put himself directly within biting distance of the beast’s teeth.
As Gallix rolled on the ground with the beast and his blaster was knocked away, my heart wasn’t racing anymore.
It had stopped completely.
For me. He’d done this to protect me.
The beast snapped and snarled, drooling and growling right in Gallix’s face. Gallix growled right back as he grappled with the beast’s front paws. In the low light of Edon’s moon, I could see the sweat on Gallix’s brow.
He was giving it everything he had, but this beast was larger than the others. From the looks of things, stronger, too.
I gripped Ronan’s blaster tight and scrambled to my feet. It didn’t matter whether my heart was thrumming like the wings of a scared little bird or frozen completely in my chest.
Gallix needed me. If I didn’t want to lose him, I had to act.
The first time I pulled the trigger, my hands were shaking so hard that the shot went wide. It disappeared into the darkness of the trees behind Gallix and the beast. I’d missed completely—and with every passing second, the beast’s jowls were getting closer and closer to Gallix’s neck.
I drew in a sharp breath and let it out nice and slow.
My first shot might have missed—but I’d be damned if my second shared the same fate.
As I squeezed the trigger, my mind was clear. Crystal clear. Clear as the water in the pool where I’d shared my first swim with Gallix. Clearer than it had ever been.
The blast shot out, bright and shimmering with heat. One moment, the beast’s sharp teeth were poised right over Gallix’s throat. The next, its eyes went wide as the shot hit perfectly between them.
Over Gallix, the night exploded into orange fur and dark red blood.
“Nine moons, Eve.” Gallix let out a breath, then shoved the beast off of him. “Nine hells too, for that matter.”
“You idiot!” I ran to him and threw my body on top of his. There was so much of him to touch, and I couldn’t get my hands on every inch of him quickly enough. I kissed his blood-splattered cheeks, his brow, his lips—over and over again. “You big—” Another kiss. “Stupid—” Another kiss. “Stinking—”
“Hey!” Gallix drew back, gave me a horrified look, then moved his nose to his armpit and sniffed himself. “All right. I may be a
n idiot, but I’m not stinking.”
“It could’ve killed you! You could have died!” I threw Ronan’s blaster aside and considered hitting him. I certainly wanted to. “What would I have done then?”
“Shot the damned thing then gone back to camp,” Gallix said, obviously perplexed. “It was me or you, vringna. I had to fight it. Don’t see why you’re so mad about that.”
“Because I could have lost you, Gallix! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” Then, I did hit him. Gently, in the chest—I was feeling pretty drained, and as Gallix laughed tiredly, I could tell he was too.
“Better me than you, bright eyes. Now, come here.” He pulled me down into another kiss. His tongue tasted like bitter iron and old rust, but his lips were warm, and his arms were around me. Holding me tight. Keeping me safe.
“Don’t do that again,” I growled against his lips. “Don’t ever put me before your life ever again.”
“Not gonna happen, darling heart.” Gallix chuckled, then turned his head to cough. “Good shot, though. Now, get off my ribs.”
“You’re lucky I don’t break your ribs!”
“I think our friend here beat you to that.”
I blinked twice, then gingerly rolled off of him. “Are you okay?”
“I will be,” Gallix assured me. He glanced over at the beast, who was now missing the better part of its head. “You reckon we could get it back to camp? Might be good eating—and I’ve always fancied the idea of having a fur cape.”
“You’re worse than the hero from my romance novel.” I rolled my eyes then crawled over to the beast’s corpse. Its body was still warm, but it stank like death. “I don’t think it’s worth eating, though. It smells…rotten. Like it was sick or something.”
“Probably for the best. It was the strangest thing, you know…” Gallix winced as he picked himself up off the ground, then offered me a hand.
I took it and pulled myself to my feet as well. “What was strange?”
“Its eyes.” Gallix rubbed the back of his neck, then shook his head. “They were red when it came at me, but right before your shot hit… could’ve sworn they were purple. As purple as mine.”
We made our way back toward camp slowly. This time, it wasn’t because Gallix was having to match my pace, though. I was having to match his.
“Here.” I lifted his arm and put it around my shoulder. “You’re injured. You can lean on me.”
“I don’t think so, vringna. I’ve broken walking sticks heavier than you.”
“Then lean on me a little. Come on. At least let me feel like I’m helping.”
“You helped enough when you shot that blasted thing between the eyes.” Gallix sighed but put a little of his weight on me. “I’ve only met one female that can shoot better than you, and she’s been training with the blaster her entire life.”
“Ex-girlfriend?” I asked, suddenly interested.
Not jealous. But…interested.
“Leonix? Moons, no.” Gallix looked disgusted at the very idea. “Leonix is pretty, mind, but, ah… I grew up in the fighting pits with her, see. Nearly took my ear off the first time we met—and about a dozen times since, for that matter. You’d like her, actually. You’ve both got the same spirit.”
“Where is she now? Married to some lord on Lunaria?”
“She’s…struggling on Lunaria, I’d say. Hasn’t gone into heat yet, and since she’s from a high house… Ah, best not to get into it. Somewhere out there, she’s just realized that I’m talking about her and gotten the strongest sense that she ought to break my nose for it.” Gallix raised his eyes to the moon overhead. “Though, given how many years must have passed on Lunaria by now…maybe she’s found someone. I hope she has.”
“Do you think we’ll ever get back? Is it…I mean, is it even worth it at this point?” I certainly didn’t see myself becoming some breeding slave now. Not after all that I’d been through here on Edon. After all that Gallix and I had been through…together.
“You called me the hero from your romance novel earlier.” Gallix changed the subject clumsily, but I wasn’t going to call him on it. Now that I was thinking about it, I didn’t really want to talk about going back to Lunaria either. “What was that about? Don’t tell me you can cook, heal, shoot and you’re a bard, too. Aren’t you only eighteen?”
“Those eighteen years were long ones,” I said with a laugh. “But, no. It’s not my romance novel. It’s…a romance novel. Only one I’ve ever read.”
“Yeah? What’s it called?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t know who wrote it, either. The cover and first few pages were missing. I think my mother tore them off before she smuggled it into the camp.”
“What’s it about, then?” Gallix stroked his chin. “This hero…he handsome?”
“They always are,” I assured him. “Tall, and strong, and dashing. It’s about a high lady and the low-born right-hand man of a deposed king.”
“Dashing, huh?” Gallix grinned. “I can work with that. Shouldn’t the king be the main character, though? That’d make more sense to me.”
“I think it’s from the middle of a series or something. But if you ask me, the king is a little too…serious for me. The hero from this one is funny and selfless. He’s supposed to escort the fancy lady to marry a mysterious lord—”
“But their journey is waylaid, and he finds himself falling for the lady instead?”
“Yes, actually.” I narrowed my eyes. “I didn’t realize that Earth was providing Lunaria with smut novels as well as women. Have you read it too?”
“Not a chance.” Gallix snorted. “But I think I’ve heard this one before.”
“Back in Sector Five, it was my only escape from…well, everything. I used to get a little upset sometimes, that I couldn’t live in the book instead of the life I had in the work camp. There was action in those pages—adventure—”
“You’ve had your fill of that by now, I hope.”
“Maybe.” I smiled up at him wickedly. “There was a lot more sex in it than this, though.”
“And your mother let you read it?” Gallix clucked his tongue. “Sinful. We can fix that, though.”
“Maybe when we find Marisa.” I bit my lip as heat rushed through my belly and settled between my legs anyway. With Gallix injured, Ronan just barely recovering from his own wounds, and Marisa in the clutches of some kind of evil alien race, this was hardly the time for love-making…but now that my body had experienced everything that I could share with Gallix, I was afraid I was turning into an addict. All this drama was the only thing stopping me from begging him for more. “And when your ribs heal. I wouldn’t want to crush them again.”
“You weigh so little, you barely crush the grass beneath those big, clunky boots we stole off Ronan.” Gallix glanced down at me with blue swirling in his eyes. “So, how’s it end?”
“The book?”
“No, Eve. The universe.” Gallix rolled his eyes. “Of course, the book.”
“I’m not sure,” I said with a shrug. “The last few pages are gone too. It cuts off with the heroine dangling off a cliff while the hero fights for his life. He’s trying to go to her, and she’s begging him to save himself—then, nothing.”
“That’s no ending.” Gallix scoffed. “Heard a bard perform in the king’s palace once. The love ballads always have to have happy endings—or else, they’re not love ballads at all. They’re tragedies.”
“I think it must end well.” I wrapped my arm around Gallix’s waist, careful to curl my fingers around his hip instead of his ribs. “I hope it ends well, anyway.”
“What do you think happens?” Gallix winked down at me. “If you can write as well as you shoot, I bet you can figure it out.”
“It’s a no-win situation, though,” I explained. “The hero can’t save them both.”
“Maybe he finds a way,” Gallix mused. “Or maybe, the heroine is as talented as you are. Maybe she saves herself.”
&nb
sp; “It would be a first.” I laughed at the very thought. “She’s kind of useless for most of the book otherwise.”
“Maybe there’s a miracle, then. They both get out alive. What happens next?”
“When did you get so interested in love stories, Gallix?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “When I first met you, I didn’t exactly take you as the romance type.”
“I’m developing a fresh interest in the genre.”
“I’m sure.” I knitted my brow as I puzzled out the answer to his question. “I think…well, I know how I’d like it to end.”
“Yeah?”
“They both live. Obviously. Then…they find some way to get married, I hope. The whole book they’ve been kind of teasing the idea that the fancy lady might be pregnant… so maybe a baby, too.”
“Steamy.” Gallix waggled his eyebrows at me. “Then what?”
“Then…happily ever after, I guess.” I shrugged. “That’s how my mother always ended the bedtime stories she told me. There’s not really a story anymore, after everyone’s happy and married with kids on the way.”
“Oh, that’s chickling-shit. No such thing as happily ever after.”
I frowned. Up until this point, I’d kind of been under the impression that we weren’t really talking about the romance novel. “There’s not?”
“Nah. After every battle, every big event of life…life always goes on, Eve. Look at, say… I told you about General Kloran and his wife, didn’t I?”
“Bria. The human one. I remember.” Only because I’m a little jealous of her—but that was a thought I was going to keep to myself. “They have a baby together, right?”
“Little Kaliope. Cutest thing I’d ever seen—until I met you.” Gallix smiled gently. “Not that you’re, ah…baby cute, mind. You’re, ah…very much a different kind of cute than that.”
“Gee, thanks,” I deadpanned. Mostly to hide the fact that I was blushing. Suddenly, I was deeply relieved that it was probably too dark for Gallix to see how pink my cheeks were.
“But Kloran and Bria, they’re married. Have a kid. And they’re still living—sometimes fighting, even. You should hear the rows they get into. I’ve never met a more stubborn female…” Gallix laughed. “Again, until I met you.”