by Izzy Shows
It shouldn't have caused my heart to contract. I shouldn't have cared about her life so deeply, but I did.
Because I need her for information.
Liar.
The thoughts warred inside my head, but I pushed them away. The middle of a goddamned fight was not the time to be thinking about these things.
Just then, I felt a small shove at my back. Xiva had bucked against me, and I heard her saying something…encouraging? It sounded that way, anyway.
She bucked again, repeating the phrase, and I realized that she meant for me to leave her.
The tension in my gut said not to do it, but I had decided to trust her.
With a roar, I launched myself through the air, concentrating hard on not allowing the gene modifications to surface. They were literally a part of my DNA, and they were keyed to ensure my survival, which meant that in any kind of combat situation, the scales wanted to come out and enclose me in their protective armor.
To keep me alive so I could keep fighting.
But I couldn't risk revealing that right now, not in front of Xiva—and I didn't know if Walter and Mercy were going to peek out of their tents and catch sight of me like that.
It was too risky, even if it meant I had to risk myself in the fight.
Besides, it wasn't as if I didn't have regular protection. My tech suit was damned good armor. It could take blaster shots with no problem and could stand up to almost any blade. I didn't need to worry about it being pierced. The only thing I actually needed to worry about was them piercing my oxygen mask.
If it splintered, driving glass into my eyes, that would be bad enough, but it would also mean losing my source of oxygen. I would be left to strangle in the alien atmosphere. I couldn't risk that, couldn't leave the others unprotected.
I had to be careful.
One of the pirates dove to the ground, rolling to the side at the same moment that I made contact with his buddy, driving him to the ground with the weight of my body. I stayed on top of him just long enough to pistol-whip him on my way up. I brought my leg to the side as I rose, slamming into the chest of the third pirate, and whirled to face the original who had ducked away from me.
He had his blaster trained on me, but his hands were shaking, and the smile on my face was vicious.
I was on him in an instant, absorbing the blaster shot to my chest, bringing my hand down to bear—the one with the knife—finding that soft, vulnerable spot just above his collarbone where his armor met his oxygen mask and left him vulnerable.
He went to the ground, my blade still in his neck, little gurgling sounds escaping his mouth as he fell.
I heard the sound of a blaster charging and whirled to face the new threat, but as I moved, I felt a sudden rush of air around me.
What the fuck?
Before I knew it, Xiva was rolling to her feet a few paces in front of me, with one of my spare blasters, which had been holstered against my thigh, in her hand. She took aim and fired in the same smooth move, seconds before she reached a kneeling position on the sand.
She spat a word in her language that sounded like a dirty insult, and I couldn't help the chuckle that sprang to my lips.
Grudging though it was, I had to admit she was a damned good fighter. And she could handle a blaster like she'd been born with it in her hands—damn if that wasn't sexy as hell.
We flowed together through the rest of the fight, like an intricate dance that we had practiced all our lives, each of our moves feeding off the other's prior attack or defense. There wasn't a moment that she wasn't beside me in some way, shape, or form, and I had to admit that it was fucking nice.
I had fought with a lot of people before. I’d fought with all my fellow Raiders at some point or other, especially the ones in my crew, but there was no doubt in my mind—I had never fought with a single person in the way I was fighting with Xiva. She was perfection. Ruthless, determined, yet she pulled the whole thing off with a sort of elegance that I doubted anyone else could have commanded.
She was like a damn war goddess, and it would have been my privilege to worship at her feet.
At last, the final pirate fell—at Xiva's hand. She stood over his body, one foot on his chest, blaster still aimed at his face. I watched her steady inhale and exhale as she waited to make sure the man was dead.
She wasn't panting, wasn't dragging in air like a dying woman; in fact, she looked like she hadn't even broken a sweat.
Seemingly satisfied with his death, she took her foot off him and whirled the blaster on one finger, then clipped it against her waist. She must have had some kind of securing device on a belt that I hadn't seen before; I didn't know how else she could have managed to hold it there.
Not that she hadn't done other things I hadn't figured out, but I doubted this was anything mysterious.
How is she so unaffected by the battle?
She didn't even look like she'd been in a fight, save for a stray strand of pure white hair that she calmly put back in place. My blood was raging in my veins, adrenaline was pumping through me, and I felt an intense desire to pull her into my arms.
Almost against my will, I closed the distance between the two of us, but I regained control just barely in time. I extended a hand to her, a brilliant smile on my face.
"You fought well," I said. "Damned well."
Her skin flared, not just once but three times—and did my eyes deceive me, or did she shudder? No, I could have sworn I saw that delicate movement trail down her spine.
But when her eyes flicked up to mine, they were as hard to read as ever. There was no warmth there, no camaraderie.
I felt something lock inside me, like I'd slammed a window shut and drawn the curtains, and the smile dropped from my face to be replaced by a firm line.
Fine. That's how she wants to play it?
She made me feel like an idiot, like I had somehow done something wrong, and I hated that. I gestured at the blaster on her hip.
"That's mine," I said flatly.
She looked down at the gun, then back at me, frowning. She gestured at the pirates on the ground, talking rapidly in her language, then pointed up at the sky. She flattened one hand, lifted it high above her head, and brought it down in a smooth movement—mimicking a plane coming down, I was sure. Then, with her other hand, she mimed figures coming out of the ship.
I knew what she was getting at. If more of them came, she needed a weapon to be able to defend herself. But she’d done just fine without the blaster at the beginning of the fight.
I felt like a small child demanding his toy back because she'd upset me.
Maybe that's because that's how you're acting. Grow the fuck up.
I shrugged, the movement tense, and turned my back to her to go back to the pallet I had set up for myself to sleep on.
Just then, Walter and Mercy peeked out of the tents.
"Is it safe to come out?" Walter asked, his voice high.
Mercy didn't say a word. She just stared at me with eyes that gave nothing away, and again I felt that sixth sense that I couldn't trust her.
"No point in coming out," I said. "They're all dead, and it's fine to go back to sleep."
"What if there are more?" Mercy asked.
It was as if she'd put on an entirely different face. Her eyes were wide, and her lower lip was trembling like any woman afraid of combat, but I couldn't forget that she'd been perfectly calm a second ago.
"We got all of them, no runners. If anyone else shows up, we'll take care of them, too. I told you why I wanted to sleep out here, and you'd better be damned grateful for it now. You know what I am. No one's getting the jump on me." Like her or not, I couldn't look at a frightened female and not try to comfort her.
A relieved smile took hold of her face and she nodded at the same time that Walter let out a muttered prayer of thanks.
"Go on back to bed, guys. We’re getting an early start tomorrow morning. I want to get where we're going as early as possible."
&nb
sp; They said their goodnights and popped their heads back into their tents.
That handled, I set about the ugly business of getting rid of the bodies. I grabbed two of them by their collars and started to haul them away, and was surprised when I looked back to see Xiva doing the same. She had one body slung over her shoulders, one hand up to balance him, and was dragging a second with her free hand.
I didn’t know why it was so surprising—she'd fought with me, after all, so it stood to reason that she would take care of the aftermath as well, like any good warrior would. But, somehow, I hadn't expected it of her.
Maybe it was because I was a closet sexist at heart, as she was starting to make me feel. It wasn't that I thought women weren't capable of battle, of taking care of themselves, of heavy duty manual labor.
It was that I didn't think they should have to.
We set about the business of getting the bodies all hauled away from the tents, and then when they were piled together, I started hunting through my pockets to see if I had anything incendiary on me. But I couldn't find anything.
It's probably in my pack, I thought, and started to turn back, but Xiva held up a hand, shaking her head.
She thrust one hand forward, towards the pile of bodies, and muttered a deep, dark word. It was almost entirely a hiss, the sound of a snake about to strike, and suddenly the bodies burst into flame.
I stared at her in horror.
What the fuck was that?
I wasn't ready to deal with that. Couldn't possibly process it right now. Without waiting for the bodies to finish burning, I got the fuck away from her, making a beeline to my pallet as if the hounds of hell were on my heels.
She didn't need a fucking blaster, I thought as I got down on the pallet and tried to find a comfortable position. She was terrifying, and the idea of her having a weapon as well made me a little anxious. But I couldn't ignore the logic of her having a weapon. She deserved to be able to protect herself through any means necessary, if another threat arrived. I didn't know how her energy worked—and, fuck, I didn't want to even think about it right now; it gave me the creeps—but it was possible it could tap out. And then she'd be left with nothing in the middle of a fight.
So, yeah, she should probably have a gun.
Except she might be dangerous. She's proved herself twice now to be a deadly weapon in her own right, and for all I know, she's taking us on a damned suicide mission to get rid of us and set herself free, so she can attack the base later on.
I had to remember that I couldn't trust her, that I didn't know a damned thing about her, and that for all I knew, she was the enemy. I couldn't let myself grow soft around her just because she had a laugh that pierced my soul and a body that was disturbingly appealing.
That's how all women entrap the enemy. This is a dance as old as time, and I need to step the fuck out of it.
I heard rather than saw her go back to her tent, but it was only because of my enhanced hearing. And even then, if I hadn't been lying perfectly still, with nothing else moving around us, I wouldn't have been able to hear her. Her footsteps on the sand were feather-light, and I thought that if I were to wait until she was inside her tent and then go look at where she'd walked, I wouldn't find so much as a single track leading to her tent.
Leading anywhere, for that matter. She'd walked all around the goddamned oasis, but had I seen a single track?
I hadn't been paying attention. There were tracks all over the place, but those could be from the three of us, the humans on the mission. Had she left any kind of indication that she had ever been present?
The thought made me uneasy, but I didn't know why.
Just forget it. There’s no sense in thinking about all of this tonight. Just go to sleep. You need to make up for those days you spent watching over her.
It took a while, but slowly my eyelids grew heavy, and I felt sleep coming to claim me.
Just before I drifted off, a sluggish thought crawled through my mind.
The pirates didn't even try to get to the tents.
But I was under before I could pursue the thought any further.
Xiva
The past two days had passed in silence, from the warrior, at least. Walter and Mersssssee had been very talkative—Walter in particular had practically exploded with conversation the morning after the attack by the new aliens.
They hadn't looked like these creatures. Walter, Mersssssee, and the warrior all had a similar build to them, with bone structure that was different enough to tell them apart, but they had underlying qualities that marked them all as the same species. And while the warrior's skin was a deep tan, Walter and Mersssssee both had pale skin that was turning bright red beneath their little masks.
I wondered what had caused that. It was a new development that had started on the second day of our trip, and it worried me a little. Had they been injured in some way? They didn't seem particularly concerned about it, though they had grown a little more surly of late. Mersssssee in particular had gotten very short with the warrior every time he tried to say even a single word.
I felt bad for the warrior for being on the outside of the group, but wasn't it his fault? He wasn't making much an effort to be a part of things, and Walter was trying to engage him at every opportunity.
What was interesting was that he responded to Walter in tones that I had started to learn were, for the most part, positive. He seemed to be a gruff man, not given to many words in comparison to the other two, and it was no wonder that during my first interactions with him, he had seemed a very hard man. But the way he interacted with Walter, and the way Walter responded to the warrior's demeanor, told me he might have a fondness for the learned man.
That belief warmed me to the warrior in a way. I had grown fond of Walter over the course of the trip, which wasn't surprising considering how pleasant he'd been from the very beginning, and I knew I wouldn't like anyone who was cruel to him. The warrior had a difficult way about him, but it was becoming more and more obvious that he was at least making an effort to be kind to Walter.
That was good. For now, it was enough.
For now? Are you planning to spend a prolonged amount of time with these creatures?
I didn't know what they were doing on my home world. I didn't know how long they intended to stay, but my heart had always had a deep-seeded longing for companionship.
I had never found that in any of my fellow people, the Stryx. Not in any of the commoners, though they had loved me in their own way, and not amongst any of the members of the Aelodhari, either. I had been High Priestess of the Aelodhari, the leader of the Stryx, and I had tried to rule with as fair and giving a heart as was possible.
That had shown in the way my people had responded to me, despite the fear they held in their hearts for me because of my relation to Zvarr even before he had been Chosen by Nytoc and set on the destruction of our entire world. Despite all of that, they had allowed themselves to love me, even tentatively. Amongst the other members of the Aelodhari, I had been grudgingly respected, though I'd had to earn that through blood, sweat, and tears. The initiates had never respected me in the way that they should their High Priestess—not until I stepped into the training ring with them and showed them I was worthy of my position.
They were always so hotheaded, so eager to prove they were more than they seemed, but I had put each of them in their place and demanded their respect in turn. It had been given to me, though not freely.
That was not to say that my time amongst the Aelodhari had been bad in any way. They hadn't treated me poorly; they had welcomed me with open arms and given me a life worth living. It was just that I had caught the way they looked at me when they thought I wasn't watching, and I had heard their thoughts when they were thinking so loud that it spilled over my mental barriers.
They had feared me, worrying that I would turn out like Zvarr had.
So, no, I had not had companionship before I'd gone into the ground. I had always wanted it, had yea
rned for it in such a foolish, childlike fashion, but I had never known it—not outside of the bond I'd had with Zvarr, before he abandoned me.
A sharp pain lurched through me at the thought of the good times, before everything had gone to zut.
Zvarr and I were twins, and we were never a step out of sync throughout our childhood. He was my other half. He completed me, and I had loved him with all my heart in a way that only another twin could understand. It was deeper than the love I suspected a sister would have for her brother, though I had no other siblings to judge that by, but of course it could not be rivaled by the love one had for their chosen mate, or the love one had for Vivoth or Nytoc.
One must always love Vivoth and Nytoc above all others; anything less was simply unacceptable.
But our lives before Zvarr had left me had been good in a way. Oh, he had always been a difficult child. He had gotten into trouble every second of his life, and he'd been…
He was cruel his entire life, and you turned a blind eye to it.
I didn't want to admit it, but looking back on it now, it was hard to deny. Zvarr had never been a kind child, not even to our mother, and I had always made excuses for him. I had cleaned up one mess after another, always made amends to the people he hurt or offended, always slaved to make things right after he made them so wrong.
That had been my life, and even at the time, I had known I was miserable. So many times, despite my great love for my twin, I had wished I didn’t have to live that way. I had wished for just a day when Zvarr would behave and be kind to another soul so that I wouldn't have to run myself into the ground to make it all OK.
The gods had punished me for that, I thought, for Zvarr had turned from me at last.
I shuddered, unwilling to think of the final act of defilement Zvarr had committed so that he would never be welcomed back, in order to force me to give up on him.
But I hadn't. Even then, I had been a fool with rose-colored glasses. When you look at the world through such lenses, all the red flags just look like flags.