Boss Me Forever

by R. R. Banks

  "Rain?" Bannack asked, stepping into the room behind Pyra.

  Lynx realized that the others didn't have any idea what he had discovered about these people, the Light Ones as the Covra had called them, and he debated with himself whether he should tell them. He worried that if he let them know that he knew they were human, they would not be as inclined to help them. Even though several of the Denynso, Pyra included, had mated with humans, there was still deep-seated controversy about how much interaction and connection the two species should have. The thought that they had been living on the planet all along, and that Creia had either not known about them or had been lying to them, could cause them even more difficulty than they were already facing.

  Not telling them what he had seen, however, didn't seem like an option.

  "I saw her," he said carefully.

  "What do you mean?" Pyra asked.

  "When the Covra were in here, I touched her, and I could see what I think were the last few seconds before she was locked."

  "What did you see, Lynx?" Pyra demanded.

  The force behind the words made Lynx feel even more defensive and he straightened his spine, pressing his chest toward the larger, older warrior. Suddenly Pyra's eyes widened.

  "Lynx, you're bleeding," he said.

  Lynx looked down and saw trails of his own blood sliding down his arm and dripping onto the floor beneath his feet.

  Chapter Three

  "There's something wrong."

  Elianna jumped up from the chair where she had been sitting and rushed across the room to Eden. She dropped down onto her knees next to her and rested her hands on the other woman's rounded belly.

  "There's something wrong with the baby?" she asked frantically.

  There was still so much that they didn't understand about Eden's pregnancy and every tiny twinge or moment of worry could bring panic to the other women. This was the first pregnancy for this generation of the Denynso, and even though Eden had technically become one of their kind when Ciyrs had saved her from near death, there was much of her that was still humanlike and no one knew how much of her pregnancy would resemble each of the species.

  "No," Eden said, rubbing her belly as if to calm herself and the baby resting inside, "There's something wrong with Pyra."

  Elianna's eyes widened and Eden could see the fear in them.

  "What? What's happening?"

  "I don't know," Eden said, straightening in her seat. "I can't communicate with him."

  She concentrated hard on her mate, trying to make the connection that would allow them to speak to each other through their thoughts. It was a precious gift that the Denynso enjoyed with their mates, something that allowed them to connect in a way that was far deeper and more meaningful than the connection that they had with any of the others of their kind. She had learned, though, that this connection was not something that was always available. She couldn’t just glance into Pyra's mind whenever she wanted to. If he was concentrating too hard on something else, or purposely did not want her to be able to see into his thoughts, she would not be able to. She knew the same went for her, but she rarely closed him out. The fact that she could sense that there was something wrong with him but was unable to decipher exactly what it was, or to communicate with him, frightened her.

  "Try Ciyrs," Elianna said.

  Eden looked into her friend's eyes. She could see the lingering pain there that the small woman always tried to conceal, but occasionally made itself sharp and inescapably known.

  "You can't get to him?" Eden asked.

  Elianna shook her head.

  "Try him, please."

  This was another of the extraordinary things about Eden that made her stand apart from the other mates of the Denynso despite them all being quite close. She was not only the first of the human women to come to the planet and find her mate in one of the tremendous warriors who guarded the compound and waged war against other species throughout the galaxy. She was the first to find herself pregnant with the child of one of the warriors. And she was the only human that the Denynso healer Ciyrs had brought back from the brink of death after a gruesome encounter with one of the Klimnu. It was during that interaction that she had been turned into one of them, and in turn she had formed a link with Ciyrs that was just like the one she had with Pyra.

  It was the only such link that existed in the Denynso. Usually only the men and their mates formed the link that allowed them to speak through their thoughts and feel each other's emotions. Eden and the healer, however, had created that link and still maintained it. Their bond was nothing like hers with Pyra, or his with Elianna. It was not romantic, but rather she saw him as her most treasured friend, like a brother that she had never had during her time on Earth. The link had extended to her and Elianna, but they rarely used it. The fact that she and Ciyrs were connected in such as way was already difficult for their mates, even though both Pyra and Elianna had expressed time and time again that they understood that they didn't represent a threat to their bonds. Out of respect for their mates, however, Eden and Ciyrs agreed to stay away from each other's thoughts as much as possible, only entering them in times of emergency.

  Ciyrs?

  Eden sent out the call to Ciyrs, barely breathing as she waited for him to respond.

  Please, Ciyrs, talk to me. Elianna says that she can't get to you, and I can't get to Pyra. I know that there's something wrong. Talk to me.

  She got no response and the fear that had been building inside her sharpened to an almost painful edge. She hadn't wanted Pyra and the other men to go out into the rest of the planet to explore. The battles with the Klimnu were still so fresh and raw in their minds, and the death of Jem was still so painful. The thought of them leaving the compound, venturing outside of the boundaries for the first time of any of their kind, was terrifying to her, especially as she moved further along in her pregnancy. She was so scared that something was going to happen to them and that she would be without Pyra, a thought that made her feel empty and hollow inside. She had left everything that she had ever known on Earth to stay on Uoria to be with him, something that she would do again in a second if she had to make the choice, but the thought of losing him was far more difficult and painful than walking away from anything she had known in her life before him.

  "They've only been gone a day," Eden said, trying both to convince herself and Elianna that everything was fine, "What possibly could have happened to them? They are probably just sleeping."

  Even as the words came out of her mouth, though, she knew that she didn't believe them. She had reached out to both Pyra and Ciyrs when they were sleeping before and they had woken up immediately. She had learned to enter their thoughts carefully enough that she would be able to tell if they were dreaming, something she did with tremendous caution after some of the dreams that she had stumbled into when connecting with Ciyrs, and she knew that as forcefully as she had just tried to connect with both men, they would have woken up.

  "Where are the others?" Elianna asked, "Maybe they can get to their mates."

  "Zuri said that she, Leia, and Samira would be down by the water. They've decided to do more of their research while the men are gone."

  "They aren't going back to Earth, are they?"

  "Not for any longer than Samira and Ty's wedding," Eden paused, not wanting to say out loud what the worrisome little voice in the back of her mind was saying, questioning whether that wedding would ever actually come to pass. "But I think that it distracts them. Their whole lives on Earth were the university and their teaching or studies. Maybe it helps them not think about their mates."

  The two women had started out of the house toward the water and Eden could feel Elianna staring at her as they walked.

  "Do you ever miss your work?" Elianna asked.

  Her voice was low, as if she was trying to keep what she had said just between her and Eden, though the compound was nearly deserted now that the men were gone. The human mates still had little to no contact w
ith the Denynso women, except for the midwives, and for the most part the five of them existed on their own.

  "No," Eden said honestly, "That job, as proud as I was of it, was awful. My boss was… horrible."

  She realized as she said this that she had never really told the other women how she had made her way into the Denynso compound. As the first to become a part of the clan, she had watched the other women join them one by one, but she hadn't really opened up to them about her experiences before she made the decision to stay with Pyra.

  "What happened?" Elianna asked.

  Eden sighed. She had wanted to leave her past behind her, to keep it firmly on Earth so that she didn't have to deal with it any longer, but she knew that it wouldn't help her to pretend like none of it had ever happened.

  "My boss, Ryan, was not a nice person. He wanted what he wanted and he was going to get it, or make everybody's life miserable. I wouldn't date him, so he decided to send me on what he thought was a death mission."

  "What?" Elianna sounded horrified.

  "Yeah. A bit of an overreaction if you ask me, but that's what he decided to do. He knew that the Denynso had very strict rules about human visitors, particularly scientists, and he sent me here with the specific instructions to go against those rules."

  "What did he want you to do?"

  "He wanted me to bring back a sample of Denynso warrior blood so that he could analyze it and find out what makes them so powerful. Of course, that is the most serious rule that the Denynso have. To Ryan, either I would be successful and he would be able to get to the source of the Denynso power and possibly create his own race of superior warriors through genetic engineering on Earth, or I would get caught and they would kill me. Either way, he would get something that he wanted; success and fame, or revenge."

  "Where is he now?" Elianna asked.

  Eden glanced over at her. She honestly hadn't thought about him in the months that she had spent on Uoria. It was as if he didn't exist anymore.

  "You know, I have no idea. It's possible that the research lab thinks that I'm dead and they've brought him up on endangerment and espionage charges."

  The thought delighted Eden on a level that she didn't necessarily want to admit to anyone, and it made her feel a little less awful about herself when Elianna laughed.

  "That would serve him right," she said.

  Eden laughed.

  "It would. I'm sure that he would absolutely love a few decades in one of the prison tech camps."

  The thought of Ryan chained to one of the expansive computers in the technology prison camps, forced to work from morning until night working systems so basic they would drive him mad, was enough to assuage all of the anger she had for him, and she found herself smiling as they walked on toward the pond at the far end of the compound.

  Her smile faded, however, when she saw Loralia running toward them, her long braid bouncing on her back as she rushed down the dirt road, her compact held tightly in her hand. Suddenly Eden remembered why they were walking toward the water and all of the fear and heartache came rushing back.

  Chapter Four

  Pyra held Lynx down on the floor, pushing his arms down against the wood with nearly all of his strength. Even though the younger warrior was smaller, the ferocity that was suddenly pouring out of him was making it more difficult than Pyra would have imagined for him to control his thrashing. As soon as he had mentioned the blood dripping from Lynx's back, the other warrior had seemed to snap, suddenly becoming aggressive and violent toward him and Bannack. He was hissing in a way that was almost like the Covra, and no matter how loudly Pyra shouted his name, he stared back at him through eyes that looked dark and unrecognizable, as if they were not registering the meaning of the word.

  Behind him Bannack gripped a silver compact in his hand and stared into it. The compact looked like a larger, heavier version of the one that Loralia carried and Pyra wondered what Bannack could possibly be doing with it as he struggled to not only fight off Lynx's violent reaction, but to understand what was causing it.

  "Loralia!" Bannack suddenly gasped.

  "Bannack?" Loralia's voice came into the room and Pyra shot a shocked look at Bannack, "What's wrong?"

  "Something's happening to Lynx," Bannack said into the compact, "We don't know what's going on."

  "What happened?"

  "I can't get into the whole story right now, but he's been injured and now he seems like he's completely out of his mind. He's fighting Pyra and we can't get him to calm down. He looks like he's trying to kill him."

  "Show him to me."

  Pyra forced his knee into Lynx's chest to give him more control over him and watched as Bannack came closer and held the compact at an angle as if reflecting Lynx in the mirror.

  "What are you doing?" Pyra asked.

  "If anyone would be able to figure out what's going on with him, it's going to be Loralia."

  "How was he injured?" Loralia asked through the compact.

  Her voice sounded slightly strained, as if she knew something but didn't want to actually say it until she knew for sure that she was right.

  "We encountered another species…"

  "The Covra," Loralia said before Bannack could even continue his sentence.

  "Yes," Bannack said, "You've heard of them?"

  "Yes. A long time ago. I didn't know that they still existed. You need to get Lynx to Ciyrs as fast as you possibly can."

  "What's wrong with him?"

  "He's been infected by the Covra. They are fairly weak creatures. They have their talons, but their greatest form of defense is infecting those they are fighting. If they can get their venom into another creature, that creature forgets what it is and tries to kill anything near it. The effect lasts until the venom is removed, or the infected creature is destroyed."

  "I don't understand. If they can turn whatever they get near into killing machines, how are they weak? Why aren't they able to just destroy whatever comes their way?"

  "They used to, and then other species realized that it takes many, many years for them to reproduce, and that they have a very specific vulnerability. They were once feared more than anything on this planet, but several generations ago they came in contact with an enemy that took that power from them. They found that vulnerability and were able to stave them off."

  "The Light Ones," Bannack said.

  "I don't know," Loralia admitted, "I only know what my grandfather told me. He said that their numbers were greatly diminished and that they had to wait for the next generation to be born before they would be able to fight again. They haven't been heard from since."

  "You don't know what their vulnerability is?"

  "No, but you need to get Lynx help now. The longer you wait, the harder it will be for Ciyrs to remove the venom. If you wait too long, Lynx will kill until he is killed."

  "Thank you," Bannack said, "I love you."

  Pyra watched him snap the compact closed and look down at him. His arm muscles were starting to burn from forcing Lynx to stay in place on the floor and he was pushing down into his chest with his knee so hard that he worried he was going to break his ribs.

  "How are we going to get him to Ciyrs?" Pyra asked, "If I let up even a little, he's going to get off this floor and that dagger is far too close to him for my comfort if Loralia is right about him being infected."

  "You're going to have to hold him while I go find Ciyrs. Where did you last see him?"

  "He went into a building down the street. I don't know where he is now."

  Bannack looped the braid of Loralia's hair that held the compact back over his neck and ran out of the room. Pyra listened to his footsteps pounding down the stairs and fade as they left the house. He could only hope that he was able to find the healer in time to save Lynx. He didn't want them to lose one of their men on the first day of a trip that he was supposed to be leading.

  The blood was rushing through his veins so hard that Bannack could hear it in his ears as he ran out of
the house and back out onto the dusty street. He could hear the voices of the other men coming from the buildings and down the street, and he struggled to decipher Ciyrs's among them. He had heard the guilt and worry in Pyra's voice, but he felt like he was the one that should feel guilty. It was him that had first pointed out that the Denynso knew almost nothing about the planet that their kind had always called home, and that by never leaving their compound they had made it so that none of them knew what types of creatures might exist beyond it. It had been him that had first suggested that they should go out and explore. Pyra might feel like as the leader of the Denynso warriors, it was his fault if anything went wrong, but Bannack knew that if he didn't find Ciyrs in time, he was responsible for whatever horrors followed with Lynx.

  Bannack saw Ty coming down the street toward him and Bannack ran for him, reaching out and grabbing the other man's shoulders as soon as he was close enough.

  "Have you seen Ciyrs?" he demanded.

  "What?" Ty asked, "What's wrong?"

  "Have you seen Ciyrs?" Bannack asked again, staring intensely into the baker's eyes. "Lynx is injured and needs him now."

  Worry rolled over Ty's eyes and he shook his head.

  "I haven't seen him."

  Bannack let go of him and continued down the street. Around him he saw the other warriors streaming out of the buildings and coming onto the street from other areas of the settlement. Many of them had the vibrant green blood of the Covra streaked across their skin or soaked into their clothing. They all had confused, horrified expressions on their faces that told him that they were just as stunned by what had just happened as he was.

  "What the hell were those things?" someone asked from one side.

  "Did you see their legs grow back?" another voice asked.

  "Where did they go?"

  Bannack continued to run down the street, his heart pounding so hard that he could feel it in his throat and he felt like he was going to get sick. This isn't what he had in mind when he suggested that they go out onto Uoria and discover what was waiting outside their compound walls. When he first mentioned it, it was motivated by his painful emotional response to Jem's death and the fear that came from the fact that he died in a place that none of them even knew existed. When he went to Pyra and told him that he wanted to go with them, it wasn't truly out of a deep need to understand what was on the rest of the planet, but out of fear of his feelings for Loralia and his desire to escape from her. Through his haste and selfishness he had put the warriors in more danger than they had ever been in.