She forced a careful smile. “We’re going to be here a while, but we will eventually get out of here. You need to stay strong.”
His head swung back toward Mercury and his gaze landed heavily.
Mercury frowned. “The low-noise.”
Carn’s head dipped to hang down from his shoulders. “It never stops.”
She’d been right. Pain. It sat heavily on his shoulders but the big lug wouldn’t say the word out loud. “I’ll get a pain blocker—”
Before she could get to her feet Mercury appeared in front of her. He crouched next to where she sat, his knees brushed hers and his broad shoulders dominated her field of vision.
“No drugs.” His face was tight, leaving no room for discussion.
“Okay.” She touched his thigh, some instinct driving her to reassure him—and nodded through her frown. “Is there something else?”
His face softened. “No, courra. We’re used to pain. He’ll be okay.”
She scowled. “He doesn’t look okay.” Mercury’s thigh muscle hardened under her hand as he slipped one of his knees between hers. A move guaranteed to focus all of her attention on him.
“Leave him to me. We take care of our own.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, we’re back to that. I’m the outsider again.” She tried to move away, prepared for a good rant, but he gripped her hips and pinned her in place. He said nothing but the frustration still etched into the brackets around his mouth made it clear he had no interest in the fight she offered. It hit her then, the deliberate way he gently squeezed her hips and the measured distance, or lack of, he’d kept between them.
Samantha stroked along that tense thigh muscle under her hand. Was he feeling unsure of her because she’d ignored his offers of early morning sex? A part of her wanted to soothe away his concerns, but her head reminded her some distance might be called for.
“So what’s up with this low-sound?
“Our hearing is different from humans. We can hear in a wider range. Carn is hearing a low pulse.”
If quiet sounds made them ill, they’d all be sick all the time. “When you say low, you don’t mean not loud, do you?”
“No,” said Mercury. He tapped a spot near the bottom of his breastbone and growled out a bass note. “Low here.” His eyes shifted to Carn and back. “I think this one is like a small tap.” He lifted one had to brush a line down her nose then tapped three times lightly on her forehead. “Even a soft hit will cause pain over time.”
“And he’s been getting tapped since?”
“Since we arrived here.”
She turned to Carn. “Sorry to be talking about you like you aren’t here, but stars you big lug, shouldn’t you go lay down or something?”
He laughed. Carn laughed. The rich sound eased the tension that has been thick moments before. Without a word he got to his feet and headed toward the shelter.
Across the campsite, Lo leaned with his but against a boulder—half sitting, half standing. He looked fine. Tightly wound, but that was Lo.
Samantha squeezed Mercury’s thigh. “But you and Lo are okay?”
He nodded. “We aren’t all alike in our abilities…or physiology.”
His voice trailed off as if the uniqueness of their genetic make-up was disconcerting or maybe just a reminder of their genetically engineered status.
Samantha wrapped her hands around his jaw. “Maybe I should call you snowflake.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Well, I’ve only seen them once. They were beautiful. Millions of them. Ice crystals that fall from the sky. My father told me each flake of crystals is unique, but when you look at them together after they’ve fallen, they all make this uniform blanket of white that’s spectacular.”
Mercury kept silent, but his eyes had widened and they sparkled with wonder as he met hers.
“I hope I get to see them some day.” Lo’s voice drifted across the campsite like a lazy stroke. She looked up to see him staring at her as if she were the snow.
“Me too.” She smiled hesitantly at him before turning back to Mercury. “I think you’re talking about what I’d call low frequency or infrasound. You can make those kinds of sounds too, can’t you?”
He frowned.
“Back on the ship, I detected a low frequency sound coming from the cargo-hold.”
The wonder left his eyes and his checks flushed. She didn’t bother to tell him that she’d somehow felt it. That part still didn’t make sense. Sure she’d always been more sensitive to the vibrations ships made, but no way could she hear low frequency.
“Yes,” he said. We can make them and Lo and I can hear them, but Carn’s abilities in that area are much stronger.”
“So, what are we going to do about this?”
“I don’t know, courra. If it’s part of this world, what can we do about it?”
He’d only ever been on Roma before and inside a habitation-dome, so it shouldn’t have surprised her that he might think something like this was natural. “I suppose a planet could have a low frequency background noise for some reason, but you said it’s a steady tap. That doesn’t sound natural to me.”
“You said the planet was uninhabited.” Small frown lines creased Mercury’s forehead and his thigh muscle tensed beneath her hand.
“As far as I could tell. I didn’t see any sign of civilization. But somebody terraformed this world. That means someone was here at some point, even if it was just the terraforming crews.” He seemed to be following and his frown lines had started to disappear, so she didn’t stop to explain terraforming. “It could be some old piece of machinery causing the noise.”
“Something we could stop,” he said.
“Yes. And if Carn’s this sick after two days…”
A look passed between Mercury and Lo.
Mercury put a finger under her chin and his eyes locked on to her face. When he looked at her that way she had no idea what he saw. All she knew was that he wasn’t thinking of her as a hated human and it wasn’t lust either.
The moment stretched out until she had to fight not to lean into him.
Lo shifted and made a chuffing noise. “When do we leave?”
“Carn needs to sleep,” answered Mercury. “We should hide the supplies. We don’t know how long we’ll be gone or how long the whip-master will decide to wait before he comes looking.”
“You could travel faster without me.” Samantha did want Carn’s pain to stop as soon as possible, but she didn’t really want to stay behind.
“We stay together.” Mercury’s answer came quick as lightning. No hesitation. No indecision. “I have a feeling you’ll prove useful.”
She couldn’t help but grin. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
He looked skeptical. “Because you enjoy long hikes on unknown planets.”
“It might just be some wreckage or space junk, but if it is something left behind by the people who terraformed this place, it’s been here a long time. And the terraforming platform we ran into…it didn’t look like any design I’ve seen before. I’m curious as a sand-cat about who they are and why they’ve left this place to sit so long.”
He tapped her nose. “You do realize if we find it, we’ll be destroying it?”
“Yeah. Of course.” She sobered. “I don’t want Carn to suffer any more than you do.”
It hurt that he could doubt that. Setting them free may have earned her some acceptance, but that didn’t make her one of them and she needed to remember that. Right now they needed her. Maybe Mercury even wanted her. But things could change. She’d learned that the hard way. They were smart and strong and they had each other. When they adapted to their new-found freedom, got off the planet, they might not need her. When they had a choice, their gratitude wouldn’t bind them to her.
Samantha went through the supplies and pulled together what she thought would serve them best. She planned to distribute them between the packs they’d taken from the escape-pod. Fir
st, she distributed everything else among the indestructible, meter square cargo cases, making sure each case held a variety of supplies. That way, if some of the cases were discovered and stolen while they were gone they’d still have the things they might need. Mercury and Lo carried the cases into the woods in different directions while Samantha filled up their packs and turned off the cargo-drop’s beacon. There was no real way to hide the bulky drop, but they worked together to pull limbs over and around it to make it less visible.
Samantha used the sleeve of her shirt to wipe sweat from her face. “At least they won’t be able to spot it through the trees. They’ll have to stumble across it.”
Lo swept a small branch across the ground to scatter leaves and obscure the evidence of their efforts. “Even if they do, it will do them no good.”
Mercury lifted the packs and slung them over his shoulder. “It is better that they have fewer clues for finding our supplies or setting a trap.”
Lo growled softly in the back of his throat. “The whip-master would be a fool to try to take us now.”
“Yes,” agreed Mercury. “But we don’t know how long we’ll be gone from here. By the time we return others might have joined him and brought weapons. Never underestimate the opponent.”
Lo scowled, his lips pulled back to display his prominent canines. “You use his words?”
“He’s no fool and what he taught us is no less true now that we’re nearly free of the man. It would be senseless to set aside those teachings now.”
Lo humphed, transforming his face back to the less threatening Lo she’d been learning to appreciate. “True, but I don’t need his words from your mouth just now. Reminds me too much of how badly I want to rip out his throat.”
There was a brief moment of silence that made Samantha feel awkward and in the way. Mercury had to feel the same as Lo. Only he didn’t say it because she was there. There was something wrong in that, but she wasn’t sure exactly what. Did she think he was wrong to hate Drake? No. Drake deserved their hatred. Was it that she thought their easiness with the idea of killing made them evil? No, but she wasn’t exactly comfortable with it either. She knew she couldn’t expect them to think about things as she did.
Mercury’s breath on the back of her neck pulled her out of her thoughts and focused her attention on the shiver of pleasure that skated down her shoulders.
“You’re thinking too hard. Unless you are thinking of letting me pleasure you before we leave, it might be better to return to camp and help the others break down the shelter.”
She looked around and realized they were alone. She hadn’t noticed when Lo left and she hadn’t noticed Mercury moving to stand behind her either. She turned to face him and looked up into those stormy eyes. The skin at the outside corners crinkled with humor. Sweat glistened on his skin. Just looking at him made it harder to breathe. She had to fight instinct to keep her hands at her sides when all she wanted to do was follow the contours of his muscles with her fingertips.
When she spoke her voice was less steady than she’d have liked. “Camp.”
He put a hand out to indicate she should go ahead of him. She took her time climbing the slight incline to avoid the need for him to steady her. She could feel the weight of his gaze with every step.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Arena Dogs Campsite, Planet G-45987
Earth Alliance Beta Sector - Gollerra Border
2210.161
Mercury measured the path of the sun across the sky as Samantha had taught him. Midday. They’d been traveling for two days and those days felt as long as any he’d known in his life under the dome of Roma. Carn still lead the way, though both he and Lo could hear the pulse now. Even Samantha, who claimed not to hear the noise, clearly suffered its effects. The pain in her head etched tiny lines in her normally smooth brow. She’d claimed to have detected his moans of pain on the ship. Seeing her wince with each step, he knew it had been more than her machines that had detected his cries of pain.
Samantha stopped to catch her breath, putting her hands behind her head as she inhaled deeply. “Is it me or is Carn looking worse?”
Mercury looked down into Samantha’s face. “He’s lost much of his color.”
“And I can’t remember the last time I saw him hold down food or water.” Her small hand rested on his arm as it had more and more through the morning. He laid a hand over hers.
“His physiology can handle the dehydration better than a human.” Longer than one small female. But Carn couldn’t fight off the inevitable dizziness and loss of consciousness forever. His steps were already clumsy.
Samantha accepted his judgment of Carn’s condition and tilted her lips in a pained smile. “At least the ground here is level.”
After a day and a half of steady climbing, they all welcomed the more level terrain. There were fewer trees and the underbrush was more sparse making it easier footing.
She looked in the direction they’d been travelling as if she could see a clear path instead of the next rise less than a day’s walk ahead. “Seems like some kind of plateau.”
“A plateau?”
She turned her attention back to him. “Sometimes I forget you’ve lived all your life on a flat rock under a dome. A plateau is a place in a mountainous area that has…well, level ground.” She laughed. “Probably sounds silly to give it a special name, huh?”
He shrugged. She could call it whatever she liked. He cared little. But her smile put a salve on his worry over the fiery flush that dotted her cheeks and ringed her neck. He pressed the back of his hand to her cheek and found it several degrees too warm. “You need rest.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “I’ll be fine. And don’t even think of offering to carry me.”
Her gaze drifted to Carn and her smile faded. He knew she was thinking that she was no longer the one slowing them down.
“Carn grows weak, but so do you, courra.” He cupped her cheek and forced her to meet his gaze. “We should turn back. You didn’t feel the effects of the pulse back at camp.”
“But Carn did.”
He could see in her eyes that she understood the truth. Turning back might alleviate her pain, but only going forward to disable the pulse would help Carn. He knew, too, that she worried for his brother. Worried for them all. He wanted to tug her close and rub his face against her cheek. To press his nose behind her ear and fill his lungs with her scent.
“It was wrong of me to ask this of you.”
“You didn’t ask.”
She stepped in close, so close he could feel the heat of her fever before she rubbed her cheek against his arm.
“Then I shouldn’t have allowed it.”
“What would you do?” She looked up at him, so close he could see the striations in her bright green eyes. “Would you sit back and watch him get worse every day? Maybe die?” She pulled her hand out from under his and twined their fingers together. “If you could do that, watch a friend die, you wouldn’t be the man you are.”
He’d never known a female with such a generous spirit. The submissive females of his race, like Hera, obeyed and served because they knew no other way. Their spirits were more broken than soft. The gladiatrix females among them knew the same bonds of loyalty as the males but they were few. He’d not even spoken to one since forming his pack.
One moment he was reaching out to pull Samantha into his arms and the next the ground shook under his feet. He bolted toward where Carn had stood seconds earlier.
He’d heard Carn’s inrush of breath, his panicked scramble, and he’d reacted on instinct. Lo had responded much the same. Mercury passed him only a few paces before he reached the edge of the level earth, where the ground had opened up and swallowed their brother.
The ground beneath his feet gave way. Instead of fighting against the fall he dove into it. He caught his breath as he slammed, head first into the funneling brush and let it drag him forward. His heart beat like the swell of a blood thirsty crowd on arena night.
The earth closed in around his waist as he burrowed his arms deeper into the freshly loosened soil. The reassuring sensation of Lo’s grip closing on his ankle kept him searching blindly for any sign of Carn long after his air had run out.
No! His mind raged as his body panicked at the lack of oxygen and he began the work of digging his way free. The moment he surfaced he sucked in a lungful of air, breathing deep. His gaze skittered across Lo and settled on Samantha. She lay at the edge of the collapse, one arm wrapped around Lo’s leg. “Spread your weight out.” Samantha strained with effort.
Mercury wanted to crawl up Lo’s body and drag her away from the danger, but fear pinned him in place. He copied the arms and legs spread position that Lo, who’d likely already gotten this instruction, had assumed.
Mercury growled up at Samantha. “Get away from the edge.”
“I will, if you’ll climb back up,” she bargained.
He had no plans to give up on Carn so quickly. He just needed to know she was safe.
“You need the rope.” She started to edge back, as if she fully expected him to obey.
“She’s right.” Lo’s eyes were dark with worry.
“Move slowly,” Samantha shouted down. “And keep your weight as spread out as you can.”
When he looked around him he saw nothing but freshly disturbed ground. Vines. Rocks. Branches. They all twisted up from the fallen earth like the skeletons of the restless dead. Carefully, he climbed upward, Lo moving beside him with equal care. When they reached the top, Samantha shoved the pack into his hands.
“He’s alive,” said Lo. “I can hear him.”
“Conscious?” Mercury dug into the pack for the rope.
“I don’t think so.”
Despite the answer, Mercury called out using both standard and low sound. There was no response. Not even a moan.
Samantha, put her hand on his arm. “We have collapses like this in the dunes outside Haverlee. The dirt had to go somewhere. There’s probably a void below us. Carn could have ended up in one.”
Stealing Mercury (Arena Dogs Book 1) Page 13