He swore softly. “Fuck. Look, it’s not—”
“What the hell, de Mendoza. I’m gone five minutes and you’ve got her crying?” Fionn strolled into the room, letting the door whisk shut behind him.
“It’s not everyone,” Rhodry said in a quiet voice, staring at her intently. “It’s not even most of us.”
Fionn gave him a sharp look, but Rhodry ignored him as she studied his face, trying to decide if he was telling her the truth this time. She swallowed hard, letting anger replace the hurt. “You’re not the first mods I’ve seen, you know. It’s not like you’re anything special.”
Neither one of them bought that. They chuckled smugly, far too much the alpha males to deny their own superiority.
She curled her lip at them, which only made Fionn laugh harder. “Of course we’re special,” he said, then leaned closer, as if confiding a deep secret. “You are too, aren’t you, Amanda? I won’t tell your secret if you don’t tell mine.”
She jerked away, staring from him to Rhodry—who was giving Fionn a very unfriendly look—and back to Fionn. “What do you mean?” she asked, her breath tight in her chest.
Fionn laughed. “We know you can hear the trees,” he crooned like a lover.
“You’re crazy,” she said, forcing a fake smile. “I don’t know—”
“Now who’s lying?” Rhodry demanded. “We’ve both seen you do it. Besides, the forest was fairly humming with it the day you arrived. We all heard it.”
“We all who? What are you talking about?”
“Shifters, darling,” Fionn said cheerfully. “Men who’ve been listening to the forests for generations, and who understand it far better than you ever will.”
“Well, fuck you too,” she came back, irritated.
Fionn just laughed again. “You are feeling better. Look, I know you’ll miss me, but you’ll have to settle for Rhodry here. By now, Tonio will have reported in, and my father won’t be happy. I have to get back to the palace before he skins the lot of us and makes some nice rugs.” He took two steps toward the door, then turned around, gave her a considering look, and came back. “They’ll probably release you from here tomorrow. Will you go to the crew quarters at the science compound to recuperate?”
She scowled up at him. “No,” she insisted. “I’ll be perfectly fine in my own place in the city.”
“Good,” he said slyly, then leaned in and put his mouth next to her ear. “Leave your window open, darling,” he murmured, “and I’ll show you exactly what a shifter’s capable of.”
She started to push him away, but Rhodry grabbed him first, shoving him toward the door.
“Go brief your father, asshole.”
“Touchy,” Fionn said, shaking away Rhodry’s hand with an amused look. He pulled the door open, but turned back to regard her, all humor gone from his face. “Leave Harp her secrets, Amanda. Forget what you saw today.”
Rhodry scowled at the closed door as if waiting to be sure Fionn was gone, staring so intently that she wondered if he could actually hear the other man—the other shifter, she reminded herself—walking down the hall. Eventually, his face cleared, and he sat on the bed next to her. She wanted him to touch her, to hold her hand the way he had earlier.
Even more than that, she needed to know.
“How many of you are there?” she asked quietly.
He sighed at her persistence. “Not very many, just those of us in the Guild.”
“The Rangers Guild?” She frowned. So, he’d lied about that, too. It all made terrible sense now. Why he’d been so careful to brush aside the existence of the Guild as unimportant. She should have seen it. She’d been so focused on exploring the forest that she’d ignored the men all around it. And, damn it! Those big cats she’d seen prowling among the trees? The ones who were always around but who never bothered her? They were all shifters. Son of a bitch!
“Can all of you hear the trees?” she asked in sudden understanding.
He shrugged. “Of course. All of the shifters, I mean,” he clarified.
“Of course,” she echoed. “How? I mean, how is any of this possible? That colony ship was human.”
He drew a deep breath, looking across the bed and out the window, to where a soft wind was causing the ever-present trees to sway gently. “What’s the saying?” he said thoughtfully. “Adapt or perish? Well, the colonists were definitely perishing, and so they adapted. They took some Harp DNA and spliced it into a human…embryo, I guess. I’m not a scientist.”
“Are you all cats, or are there others?”
“Just cats. The indigenous donor was a chameleon, a big cat who could blend in with his surroundings to become almost invisible.” He gave her a brief smile. “When I was little and would misbehave, I used to think I could become invisible too, if I only tried hard enough. It never worked.”
“Much to your mother’s relief, I’m sure.”
“My mother never saw me misbehave,” he said, laughing suddenly.
And for a moment, she forgot to breathe. Even scowling, he was a handsome man. But when he laughed? He left merely handsome so far behind, it was a faint memory. He was beautiful. Unfortunately, it didn’t last.
His gaze shifted back to her, abruptly serious. “Humans couldn’t survive on Harp without us shifters. Not then and not now. We make it possible. No one knows the forests like we do, no one can hunt safely, or hear—” He stopped short, frowning. “Except you.”
He didn’t look very happy about that.
“No one? There’s never been anyone before, someone who wasn’t a shifter?”
He shrugged. “Not that we know of. There’s no record of it at least. Don’t worry, though,” he added smugly. “Most of us don’t believe you can do it either, or at least we don’t think it will last. You just don’t have the right DNA.”
“But you said—”
“Fionn and I have both seen you do it, yes. And the trees sing about it. That doesn’t mean you’re hearing what we hear. It’s pretty unlikely, but it doesn’t matter anyway.”
“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?”
“You’re not Guild, and that means the forest is still mostly closed to you. We’re the only ones with free rein throughout the Green, it’s just too dangerous, even for you.”
“Does everyone in the Guild have to be a shifter?”
He gave her a dark look. “What difference does that make? No one but a shifter could possibly—” His beautiful eyes narrowed. “Don’t even think about it. You could have been killed today, and that’s just a small taste of the dangers to be found out there.”
“But I wasn’t killed.”
“Only because Tonio and I showed up.”
“You don’t know that. I’d already killed the male Wyeth, and the female was pregnant. She would have bolted soon enough.”
“And how did you plan to get back to the city leaking blood the way you were? You’d have drawn every predator for miles.”
She shrugged. And immediately regretted it as her back protested. “Maybe. And I’m grateful for your help. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have made it home on my own, and it definitely doesn’t mean I’m giving up. If gaining admission to the Guild is the only way I can explore the Green, then that’s what I’ll do. I love a challenge.”
“It’s not a challenge, Amanda, it’s what we were born to do. There are shifters who never make it through the Guild trials. You’re a norm who wasn’t even born on this planet.”
“Norm,” she interrupted. “You make it sound like a bad thing.”
“It’s not good or bad. It just is. And it means you don’t stand a chance out there. There’s a hell of a lot more to being Guild than hearing a few whispers in the trees. You’re only going to get hurt. Or worse.”
She had no comeback to that. He’d already made up his mind, but so had she. Rhodry thought the Green should belong only to shifters. He was wrong.
When she didn’t say anything, he stood up, kicking the chair behind hi
m. She thought he’d storm out—instead he regarded her for a long moment, as if memorizing her face. As if he didn’t think he’d see her again. A slow look of resignation shaded his expression, and for a moment, he seemed almost sad. Then he drew a deep breath and said, “Good-bye, Amanda. We’ll check on you later.” And then he left, shutting the door behind him.
She stared at the closed door, her chest tight with emotion. Turning her head, she stared at the gently moving trees outside the window, opened herself to their song, then lay back and let it soothe away the pain.
“Don’t have what it takes?” she said softly. “Don’t put any bets on that, de Mendoza.”
Chapter Ten
Amanda jogged through the early morning streets of the city, the system’s sun barely a thought on the horizon. It would have been nicer to run under the trees, weaving in and out, listening to the forest come awake, but it was never a good idea to run in the Green, especially unarmed. It made you look like prey—and that was one thing you didn’t want the beasts of Harp to think of you.
Somewhere beyond the trees, the sun crested the planet’s edge and a shaft of light speared through the trees. She’d spent time on any number of planets in her twenty-five years and seen innumerable sunrises. And yet, three months after bidding good-bye to the fleet, she still wasn’t immune to the beauty of a sunrise on Harp. There was just something magical about seeing it through the filter of thousands and thousands of trees. She couldn’t see the horizon from here, the trees were too tall and too thick. She could feel the difference in the song of the Green, though. There was a rustling wakefulness to it when the sun rose, as if the giant trees were stretching their limbs after a long night’s sleep.
She laughed at her own musings. That was an unforgivable anthropomorphism—comparing the trees to a waking human. It was fairly apt, however, because while Harp’s trees were definitely not human, they were absolutely aware of their planet and everything that affected it. She didn’t know exactly how yet, but she intended to find out, which was why she was jogging through the streets at sunrise.
She hadn’t needed Rhodry’s warnings about the physical demands of the Guild trials to know they’d be rough. She had only to look at the shifters she encountered almost daily, especially now that she knew what to look for. They were some of the finest male specimens that she’d ever seen, every one of them taller than human norm, big and beautifully muscled. And, yes, they were all male. No one had been willing to discuss it with her, but there were definitely no female shifters. Apparently, there never had been. She’d gotten that much out of a local shopkeeper, with whom she’d become friendly. He couldn’t tell her much more than that, although it was obvious that the shifter trait was sex-linked. After all, they’d been created in a genetics lab for the sole purpose of defending the colony. A kind of super soldier. It would have made sense to make them male, given the greater potential for strength and aggression.
The Guild trials were designed to challenge even the physical perfection that was a shifter, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do it, only that she’d have to try harder. Nothing motivated her more than being told she couldn’t do something, and in this case she had an additional reason for pushing. She didn’t believe it was random that the trees had chosen her to be the first non-shifter to hear their voices. There was a reason. And she’d never find out what that reason was if she was confined to the city.
Besides, Harp was her home now. The idea of leaving was…painful. And if the trees needed her somehow in order to defend their shared home, then she would do her best to make that possible.
She reached the end of the narrow street. It dead-ended into a dirt path that ventured into the forest. She paused briefly, bent over, hands on her knees as she caught her breath. She was going to need her strength for what came next. This was the tail end of her morning jog, and she was hot and sweat-soaked. It was early fall, but here in the planet’s equatorial belt, the days were still warm. She started out every morning before sunrise, timing it so that by the time the city was really beginning to stir, she was back home and in the shower. She didn’t need or want an audience for her runs. Regular Harpers—norms as the shifters called them—had found her morning exercise routine something of a novelty when she’d first started. They seemed to find the demands of everyday life enough to maintain their physical health. They didn’t understand that Amanda wasn’t running for health, she was running for strength and stamina. Two things she was certain she’d need during the trials.
The shifters around her hadn’t said a word, for the most part, though their silence spoke volumes. She didn’t understand why they were so opposed to her candidacy. It seemed a simple matter to her. If she could survive the trials, then she was an asset to the community. And if she failed, then she was the only one hurt by it.
Of course, she wasn’t completely naive. The shifters would have resented anyone trying to encroach on their sacred turf. Though it seemed unlikely she’d be starting a trend or anything. Norms weren’t exactly breaking down the door to get into the Guild. In fact, in the nearly five hundred years that humans had lived on Harp, there hadn’t been a single non-shifter who’d even attempted the trials, much less one who succeeded. She’d checked.
Despite the shifters’ instinctive resentment, however, she still believed they would eventually come around to the idea of her candidacy—if only so they could be there to gloat when she failed. Not that she had any intention of failing. And so far, she hadn’t done anything except check into the legalities involved, and find out everything she could about the trials themselves so she’d know how to prepare. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.
The initial step was straightforward, nothing more than formally registering to participate in the trials. Sign-ups were held one day each year, and that day was today, with the first part of the trial taking place in five days. That would be a straightforward written exam to test the candidate’s knowledge of the Green’s life forms—not only the animals, but the plants. The candidate had to show near-perfect knowledge of each animal’s characteristics and behavior, and in most cases how best to kill it, since almost everything out there would be trying to kill you first. For plants, it was identification, along with knowledge of any beneficial use, and a basic understanding of what was safe and what wasn’t. The latter being a much longer list.
Her training had begun as soon as she’d been released from the hospital. Slowly at first, as her leg healed, but she’d been in excellent physical condition already and it wasn’t long before she was training as hard as ever. It wasn’t the physical demands of the trials that worried her, though. It was the enormous amount of new data she’d had to absorb in order to be ready for whatever she’d face out there, and for the written exam, too. Even for someone accustomed to dealing with the vast amounts of information that came into the fleet’s science center almost daily, it was a lot to learn in a short amount of time.
And today was the day, the first step, and she was ready. She was also tired of waiting, which was why, instead of rushing home to shower this morning, she was going to swing by the Guild Hall and sign up first thing. If she missed today’s registration, it would be another year before she could try again, and it had occurred to her that some of the shifters might try to stop her from putting her name on the list. She didn’t expect anyone to ambush her on the pathway or anything physical. However, she wouldn’t put it past them to make her jump through some bureaucratic hoops in hopes of delaying her registration until it was too late. She figured by getting there at the crack of dawn, she’d at least have all day to play their little games.
She straightened, stepped off the street, and started down the narrow dirt path that would take her to the Guild Hall. If the shifters had been decent about her candidacy, she would have made a point of showering first, and shown up looking and smelling all nice and proper. But she was still angry about a group of teenage shifters who’d expressed their displeasure in a very aromatic wa
y when she’d first made her intentions known. She’d already moved her living quarters into the city, renting a two-room apartment on the edge of town above a busy clothing shop. The teenage pranksters hadn’t dared pull their little stunt there, but her office was another matter.
They’d begun visiting the compound every day after dark, when no one was around to catch them, and using the ground just below her office window as their personal urinal. She’d stopped that practice short—quite literally. She’d installed a series of pressure plates along the outside of the building. The equipment was standard gear for planetary landings into unknown environments, usually part of a small perimeter set up to safeguard the human encampment against animal intrusion. The plates were designed to deliver a small, harmless, electrical shock, just enough to make the average indigenous life form decide it was too much trouble to keep going.
The sensitivity of the plate could be heightened, and the electrical jolt could be amped up, however, to accommodate larger and more dangerous animals. Put those two adjustments together and they were capable of producing a more, um…dramatic result.
She’d slept in her office the next night in order to monitor her security enhancements, and now she smiled, remembering the panicked shriek she’d heard when the first little pisser discovered his urine stream was highly conductive to electricity. The resulting arc had probably felt like his dick was being burned right off, and his yowl had given her the best laugh she’d had in a long time. Not that he suffered any permanent damage. She’d been careful about that. The asshole was probably peeing painlessly after just a few days. But not beneath her office window. Not anymore.
She left the shelter of the trees as the Guild Hall came into view, straddling the line between city and forest. Some of the trees here were far older than the building itself. Others were newly grown as if trying to reclaim the slender strip of land the Hall sat upon. It was the oldest construction in the city, dating back to the landing itself. Originally, it had served the colonists as a little of everything—hospital, school, administrative offices—and that early utilitarian history was reflected in the many smaller out-buildings huddled around the main lodge like chicks to a hen. If one knew where to look, there were even parts of the old colony ship to be seen in some of the exterior walls.
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