"He's nearby. He should be back soon."
Arilani's clinical stare raked down Zara's body, lingering on
the portions of her anatomy not covered by her flimsy shirt.
Uncomfortable under the winged woman's stare, Zara tugged
at the hem of her shirt and squeezed her knees together.
"You wouldn't happen to have a spare pair of pants in your
pack, would you?"
Arilani ignored Zara's half-serious request and stepped
closer. Tall and slender, she towered over Zara who, for the
first time since Caleb had spirited her away, felt short and
unattractive next to the stunning, naked brunette.
"Dr. Abbott, I'm so sorry this occurred. I'll be happy to fly
you back to the research station myself, right now."
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"I'd rather wait for Caleb. He can take me. We've decided
the best course of action will be to go to the royal aerie. Caleb
is concerned that—well, his symbion is afraid of Dr. Danson."
Arilani blinked. She tilted her head and her lovely features
morphed into a curious expression. "The symbion is in charge
then?"
"Well, it was. He seems to be fine now, but—"
Arilani lowered her voice. "It won't last. I'm sorry to tell
you this, but Dr. Danson has reviewed the blood chemistry
analysis he did on both Dr. Faulkner and the symbion and he
found a minute discrepancy he missed before. He's
devastated by the error, as are we all."
"I know about the problem."
"Do you?"
"I know there's an additional factor Dr. Danson hadn't
taken into consideration because he didn't know about it."
"Then you know unless the symbion is removed
immediately Dr. Faulkner will die."
Zara stiffened. No! No. She couldn't deal with any more of
this. "Please, Ari, oh God. What else could go wrong? We've
been trying to convince the symbion that it's safe to go back
to the station because no one will remove it."
"I'm sorry, Dr. Abbott. It's the only way to save Caleb's
life. He could suffer a massive cardiovascular episode at any
given moment. I believe Dr. Danson used the term 'stroke'."
Zara wobbled, and Arilani reached out to steady her. "This
can't be."
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"I'm afraid it is. We must get him back to the station, but
we cannot trust him to carry you. He could suffer this episode
during the flight and drop you. It's not safe."
Zara crossed her arms over her chest and shivered. This
couldn't be happening. Her blissful fantasy was crumbling
before her eyes.
Arilani offered her hand to Zara. "Come with me. I'll take
you back safely and return with Jidar. He will be able to carry
Dr. Faulkner back to the station."
"Oh, Arilani, can't we wait for Caleb to return? He should
be back any minute."
"He may have already had this 'stroke'. What if he doesn't
return? We need to bring others who can help him."
Zara's eyes stung. Caleb had been gone for a while. What
if he was lying injured at the base of an island and dying
alone with no one by his side? What if he was already dead?
She swiped at her tears and nodded. "Fine. I'll go with you,
but we have to look for him before we go back to the station.
I can't abandon him."
"Of course." Arilani grabbed Zara's hand and pulled her
toward the archway. "Let's hurry. The sooner I can tell the
others where Dr. Faulkner is, the sooner we can bring him
back to safety."
Zara hurried to keep up with the Icarian healer's long
strides toward the edge of the rock platform. She hadn't
given much thought to how she would feel about being
whisked off into open air again and now her fear hit her full
force.
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She'd have to close her eyes for this and just hang on until
Arilani set her down on terra firma. She prayed Caleb would
understand that she was doing this for him, for both of them,
so they could make the most of whatever time they had left.
"Arilani, should I—" A sharp pain shot through Zara's body,
radiating outward from a point just below her jaw where
Arilani had jammed the point of a medical syringe.
Electric ice burned its way down Zara's neck, racing
through her limbs at the speed of blood, pushing farther with
each frantic heartbeat. She went down on her knees, scraping
them raw on the rough stone. Her muscles went limp. No
longer able to support her bones, they seemed like flaccid
ropes, tying her body together but offering no structure to
help her move. She fell like a rag doll into Arilani's arms, dead
weight.
Each breath became a monumental effort for her, so she
was unable to scream or even gasp when her assailant lifted
her off the ground, carried her over the churning water so far
below, and dropped her.
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Chapter Thirteen
Caleb would have returned sooner. He should have, but
when his search for Zara's missing shorts turned up nothing,
he decided to be creative.
There were hundreds of abandoned aeries nearby. Some of
the larger islands had several multi-room dwellings that had
once belonged to large, extended families of Icarians. Many
had left belongings behind. Though they didn't wear clothing,
he hoped to find a decorative blanket or tapestry woven of
dyed alor that Zara could use as a skirt, partly to make her
happy and comfortable and partly to spare himself the
embarrassment of having to turn up at the aerie without his
own shorts.
He'd known he'd have to get used to not wearing clothing,
but considering the depth of guilt he felt over his deception,
he didn't need anything else to make him feel self-conscious.
A cursory search of ten islands had finally turned up a
length of soft, beaten alor fabric which had been colored
purple. It was long and wide enough for Zara to wrap it
around her body and fashion a sarong. Proud that he'd
salvaged a small measure of his battered dignity, he returned
to the nest his symbion had claimed, eager to show off his
prize.
Right away he knew something was wrong. The place
didn't feel right, and Zara's alluring scent had faded. She
wasn't at the archway to greet him, and she wasn't in bed as
he'd hoped, waiting to share another vigorous round of
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lovemaking before they returned to what passed for
civilization on this world.
He called her name, and something moved in the dim
interior of the aerie. Arilani appeared, moving slowly as if in a
trance. Her dark eyes held terrible sorrow.
"Ari?"
"Caleb, what happened here?"
/> "Where's Zara? What happened to her?"
"She's gone. Caleb. What did you do to her?"
"Do to her?" Panic constricted his throat, and he began to
search around frantically for any sign of his mate. "I didn't do
anything to her. She was here. She was waiting for me."
Arilani shook her head. "No, Caleb. I'm sorry. I just
arrived, and she wasn't here."
"She wouldn't have..." Dismissing the Icarian female, he
ran for the edge of the island and nearly catapulted over the
side. Footprints in the loose layer of soil there told him Zara
had run in this direction. "What happened?"
Arilani appeared next to him. "She must have gone looking
for you and fallen."
"No!" He didn't think, didn't consider. He just dove off the
side. Wings back, body straight as an arrow, he streaked
toward the jagged rocks below.
Only his symbion saved him from a crash landing, pulling
him up just short of the volcanic tumble and leaving him
hovering over the dangerous shoals. Here the surf churned
white, foaming against the rocks as it battered the roots of
the basalt column.
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The remains of symbion nests littered the rocks, and
tangles of seaweed, alor and droppings from other semi-
aquatic life forms made the boulders too slippery to stand on.
If Zara had fallen here, it was to her death. "No. No.
Zara!"
He screamed her name, flitting back and forth over the
battleground where the war had raged between water and
rock for centuries. How could she have fallen? Why would she
have ventured to the edge of the island before he returned?
Arilani swooped down next to him. With skill born of
decades of experience, she alit on a slick rock, steady and
surefooted as though she'd grown from the spot. "Caleb,
you'll never find her. The tide could have washed her body
away already."
"No. I won't accept that. She's not dead. We have to
search for her."
"No human could survive the fall."
Waves crashed around them, scouring the rocks and
nearly toppling Arilani from her perch. Caleb attempted to
land as she had, but a wave exploded between two rocks,
showering them both with hard pellets of water and knocking
him off balance. He plummeted, and Arilani lunged forward to
catch him.
"We can't stay here," she shouted above the roar of the
water. "We'll be injured."
"I don't care. I'm not leaving her." Caleb wrestled out of
Arilani's grip and launched himself into the air. He circled
around and dropped back, scanning the active nesting site for
any sign of life beyond the few adult symbions who remained
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to watch over the territory. The winged creatures watched
him from their conical nests. Neckless, they had to swivel
their oblong bodies to keep the intruder in their line of sight.
Fortunately, they didn't consider him a threat and remained
still while he swooped in to investigate the broken shell of a
symbion egg, which resembled a human head. Nearby, thick
ropes of alor vine looked, for a moment, like a tangle of tan
limbs, and pale seaweed could easily be mistaken for human
hair. Unfortunately nothing he saw led him to Zara. She was
gone.
Finally, at Arilani's urging, he let his symbion carry him
straight up to the edge of the platform. He dropped to his
knees, exhausted, cold and dead inside. "How could she have
fallen? She was too smart, too cautious to go near the edge."
"The wind is strong this time of day, Caleb," Arilani said,
placing a hand on his shoulder. "She could have easily lost
her footing."
"But where is she then? If she fell straight down—"
"The water is full of predators and the crevices between
the rocks are deep. Her body would not have remained on the
surface for long."
Caleb wailed in fury. He'd never felt this kind of grief in his
life. Not even when he'd received his fatal diagnosis had he
felt this raw or hopeless.
His symbion grieved as well, and the wound beneath the
creature's body where its siphon had pierced his spinal
column began to ache fiercely. He hadn't felt such intense
pain in more than a day, and he wasn't sure he could survive
it. "It's my fault. I brought her here. She had no way to leave
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and I left her alone for too long. She must have thought I'd
gotten hurt and tried to look for me."
Arilani stroked his back and his wings. The gesture, meant
to soothe, only irritated him, and he flung her hand away.
"I'm sorry, Caleb. Come back with me to the station, and
we can ask Jidar to send a team to search for her. We'll bring
her home, I promise."
"Zara ... God, I love you. I'm so sorry. Ari, I ruined
everything. I destroyed it all. Jidar should have me put to
death."
"No!" Arilani dropped to her knees beside him and wrapped
her arms around him. She was wet and her body was cold.
The contact was no comfort to him, but he didn't have the
strength to resist her fierce hug. "Jidar will not do that. He
knows you are the last hope we have for a breeding program.
He'll find a way to make this work for us."
Caleb shook his head. He would have argued, but forming
words was too much effort for him. He didn't care enough
anymore to make her understand all the reasons why he'd
single-handedly doomed her race to extinction. Instead, he
fell silent and sullen, lost in his own misery while she rattled
on about how she would fix everything and solve all his
problems.
Besides his overwhelming grief, the next sensation he felt
was a sharp stab of pain in his neck. Frigid heat raced
through his veins and out to the tips of his wings. His link
with the symbion extinguished like a flame, leaving darkness
where there had been light. For the first time in days he was
alone in his own body, alone in his mind.
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Numb obedience overtook him, and he sat nodding as
Arilani explained how his symbion had led him to violently
assault Zara and throw her battered body over the edge of
the island.
Next she entreated him to never tell another soul about
what he'd done and that she would keep his secret forever
because she loved him and couldn't wait to bear his child.
After that, he was airborne, flanked by Jidar and Namara and
sailing back to the research station where they carried him
into the lab and strapped him to a bed. There, his tortured
mind went blank and finally, he slept.
The world spun around Zara in a dizzying array of colors
and images. Her last foggy memory was of terrible pain and
the sickening sensation of falling from a
great height.
Now she lay looking up at a dark tumble of rocks. She was
wet and cold and her body ached all over. She tasted blood
and salt, and in addition to being slightly numb, her tongue
seemed too large for her mouth.
"Cleb ... cay-leb!" Her cry came out as little more than a
whisper. He would never hear her over the relentless
pounding of the surf.
Where am I?
A frightening realization hit her then. Arilani had dropped
her. Had it been an accident? No. The sore, bulging muscle in
her neck told her she'd been drugged. Slowly her memory
returned of slipping from the Icarian female's loose grasp and
plummeting to the roiling water.
Miraculously, she'd missed the rocks and slid into a crevice
between two boulders. She recalled looking up at the jagged
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basalt and realizing she didn't have the strength to claw her
way out of the surf. Inch by inch she'd descended until the
water began to seep into her mouth and nose.
Then there had been nothing.
Am I dead?
No. Death couldn't be so painful. She was definitely alive,
injured, groggy and amazingly, no longer trapped between
the broken rocks.
Who could have rescued her then left her ... where?
Moving gingerly, she attempted to sit up. The surface on
which she lay rolled and quivered, and she reached out in
panic to clutch thick braids of alor vines.
A net? She was lying in a net that stretched across a small
alcove of boulders. On either side of her, rising like small
volcanoes from the flat tops of the rocks, sat symbion nests.
Perhaps a dozen of them dotted the treacherous beachhead,
some bearing well-camouflaged symbions with blue and green
plumage. Others were empty.
The rotting net on which she lay had likely been placed
decades ago by an Icarian family who used it to provide
offerings of food to the creatures nesting at the base of their
island. Zara recalled from Caleb's research that Icarians often
fed the huge birds fruit rinds and crabs in order to forge
relationships with them that would facilitate joining.
With so few Icarians left, Zara wondered if the symbions
thought their once loving and attentive hosts had abandoned
them. Then she wondered if the carnivorous animals would
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