by Lili Zander
“Come on,” Cax says grimly. “The Lowlands aren’t safe, especially at sundown. We can argue about what you’re going to do later. Right now, we’ve got to go after her.”
6
Bryce
Stupid, stupid me.
Cax and Hurux are talking about blockers. About scientists and drugs. About the testing.
You know what they’re not talking about? Me.
I listen as Hurux calls the Draekons savage, dangerous animals. I listen as he admits to imprisoning Sofia. I listen as he insists that he doesn’t care that he’s Draekon; he’s still going to force me back to Earth.
Draekon or not, this guy isn’t going to call off his soldiers laying siege on our Dsar Cliffs home. He isn’t going to let us go.
Then Cax mentions a youngling, and I want to be sick. Cax already has a mate. Children of his own. What the hell am I doing ogling a married guy?
I already know the mating bond isn’t perfect. Sometimes, wires get crossed. Back when half of us were in one Draekon camp and half of us in another, Olivia had two sets of mates wooing her. Thankfully, things had ended up working out for her. One set of guys turned out to be complete dicks, and the mates she’d chosen—Liorax and Zunix—are great guys.
But there are no guarantees in life. Happily-ever-after is sometimes reserved only for fairytale princesses. Sometimes, someone gets dealt a shitty hand, and that’s just the way it is.
The two Draekons are not paying any attention to me. I get to my feet, as stealthily as I can, and tiptoe away. Fuck this shit. I’m not letting Hurux imprison me, the way he imprisoned Sofia. I’m not going to roll over and play dead.
I don’t particularly enjoy them, but I’ve been on hunts. The Draekons have shown me how to move silently. How to watch my footsteps. Avoid the twigs. Tread softly. Become one with the jungle.
It takes me less than five minutes to reach the spot where I pitched camp. Still no sign of Fluffy, but right now, I have more pressing concerns. I break down my tent efficiently and throw it in the back of the skimmer. Getting in, I wrap my fingers around the joystick-like control.
Just as I’m about to take off, I hear shouts from behind. “Bryce MacFarland,” Cax yells out in English. “Stop.”
Damn it, they’ve found me. The chase is on.
You know that scene in the Return of the Jedi? The one where Leia and Luke are chasing after a pair of Stormtroopers on Endor?
That’s us. Except this time, the good guys aren’t chasing the bad. No, I’m quite clear who the villains of this scene are, and it isn’t me. It’s the two powerful, trained soldier-types who are now in pursuit.
Draekons are faster and stronger than humans. The only reason I was able to escape was because I had the element of surprise.
If they catch me, I won’t get away so easily again.
I zoom as fast as I can, weaving between tree trunks, dodging out of the way of fallen branches. Every nerve ending is alive. My heart thumps in my chest and my palms are damp, but I dare not lose my grip on the joystick long enough to wipe them on my pants.
This part of the Lowlands is familiar to me. I head northwest, past the waterfall, past the wreckage of the Fehrat 1, past Janet’s hastily dug grave. Each landmark goes by in a dizzying blur of color and sound and speed.
What’s the plan, Bryce?
I’m not sure. I can’t head back to the Dsar Cliffs, not with Hurux giving chase. There’s no way I’ll be able to scramble through the ventilation vent without the Zoraken discovering the weak spot in the shield. I can’t put the lives of all my friends at risk.
A dull hum fills the air, and my viewscreen fills with giant yellow and black birds. Shit. The hairus swarms are out. Another obstacle, this one doing nothing good for visibility. Still, with any luck, the hairus will disrupt Cax and Hurux as much as me.
Nope. They’re gaining. Dariux’s skimmer is sixty-five years old. Cax’s model is much faster. In no time, my early lead evaporates. Even worse, Cax’s skimmer is making some kind of eerie wail that makes the hairus swarms give him a wide berth.
Crap. Crappity-crappity-crap.
Think, Bryce, think. Where can you hide?
The Na’Lung Cliffs. Our old home. There are caves on the bottom, caves that are hard to spot. Caves where I can shelter while I figure out what to do next. All I have to do is figure out how to give Cax and Hurux the slip long enough to sneak into them.
I never get the change.
It only takes an instant of inattention. I clip a thick branch. If I were traveling at a normal speed, I might have been able to keep upright, but of course, I’m not traveling at a normal speed.
The skimmer careens out of control.
Everything happens in slow motion.
The skimmer flips.
My belongings fly everywhere.
I realize that I forgot to buckle my safety harness.
I hurtle through the air and land hard on my wrist. Agonizing pain shoots through me, and my vision swims.
Then I’m tumbling, rolling down a slope. My clothes snag on branches and rip, but that doesn’t slow me down, not enough to matter.
My life flashes before my eyes.
Then, darkness.
The sound of hoots wakes me up. I open my eyes to find myself in the middle of a nightmare.
At least ten dwals surround me, claws extended. Above me, there’s a Bryce-sized hole in the roof.
Fuck. You have got to be kidding me.
I appear to have crashed into their den. I have no idea why I’m not already mincemeat.
I freeze in place. I had a knife strapped to my thigh. Slowly, I grope for it, but I feel nothing. I must have lost it in my fall.
The black-gold jackal-like animals, each as big as a pony, hoot again. Stamping their feet in unison, they bare their teeth.
I am absolutely screwed.
Looks like Liam was right. I am too impulsive. I shouldn’t have run from Cax and Hurux. I should have stayed and dealt with their rejection like a grown-up. Don’t get me wrong; their rejection stings, but it’s a damn sight better than getting torn to shreds by the black-and-gold predators in front of me.
The hoots increase in volume. Arax calls this the attack song. “If that happens, how do we escape?” Olivia had asked once.
Ryanna had shuddered. Of us, she’s the only one that’s shot one of the creatures. “You hope like hell you have a gun,” she’d replied.
No gun. No knife.
No chance of making it out of here.
A small object falls into the den. “Bryce, cover your nose,” Cax yells, sounding frantic.
Thick white smoke fills the den. Two men jump through the hole in the ceiling, guns blazing, utterly fearless.
Cax and Hurux.
Swoon.
They’re still naked, by the way.
They’re not erect—come on, it would be seriously disturbing if they were sporting huge ass boners in the middle of a gunfight—but still, wow. These Draekons are packing meat.
Cut that shit out, I tell myself sternly. One of the guys you’re ogling is married. And the other guy is having a mental breakdown at the idea of being a dragon. Not to mention that he wants to imprison me and take me back to Earth.
Except Hurux doesn’t seem to be having a mental breakdown right now. Nope. What he’s doing is methodically killing the dwals. He’s fast and he’s lethally accurate, and so is Cax.
After a second of shock, the dwals shift their focus onto the two guys. “Get her out of here,” Hurux shouts to Cax. “I’ll cover your retreat.”
Cax nods. He moves to my side, and before I can blink, throws me over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. Then, he leaps for the roof, his fingers scrambling for purchase on the crumbling ledge.
I don’t know how he makes it. I’m not as light as a feather, not even close. The den is at least ten feet tall. But make it, we do. I fall on the grassy hill, landing on my wrist once again, sending a fresh wave of pain through me.
Cax’s gun is in his hand. “Come on,” he calls to Hurux. “Time to go. Dwals live in colonies. The entire pack will be here in a few minutes.”
Hurux’s teeth flash in a grin. “Just when it was getting interesting.” He leaps just as easily as Cax and pulls himself to safety. As soon as he’s through, he rolls to his feet and fixes me with a glare. “Don’t ever do that again,” he snaps. “You could have been mauled to death.”
I straighten my back. “Thank you for rescuing me,” I force out through stiff lips. My wrist is killing me. The pain is making me faint. The jungle seems to swim around me. “Also, fuck you. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
He hears my words; of course he does. But his sharp jade-green eyes see more than I want him to. He moves to me, steadying me before I fall. “You broke your wrist in the fall?”
Cax’s brow furrow with concern. “Show me,” he orders.
“Show me, please, Bryce,” I mutter. “I guess whoever taught you English forgot to teach you words like ‘please’ and ‘thank-you.’”
His lips twitch. “Yes, there’s a very regrettable gap in my education.” He takes my wrist in his hands, his touch gentle. “Hurux, there’s a med-kit in the skimmer.”
Hurux retrieves it. “This will sting a bit,” Cax warns me. “Hold onto me.”
I curl my left hand around his bicep. He’s still naked, and this time, he’s sporting an erection. The moment I see it, I drop his hand like a hot potato. He’s married, for fuck’s sake.
Cax gives me a puzzled look. “Are you okay?” His eyes follow mine. “Ah. Well, you are a very lovely woman. My reaction can’t be a huge surprise.”
Huge is one word. Massive is another.
“What would your wife think?” I snap. I don’t like guys who cheat.
“Wife?” He powers the med-kit on and aims it at my wrist. Fuck. This shit hurts like the devil. “I don’t have a bondmate.”
“No?” Color me skeptical. “No youngling either?”
His gaze caresses me, slow and sexy. Every nerve ending in my body flares to life. I’m very aware of his touch on me. My insides tighten. “No youngling, Bryce MacFarland. I’m completely unattached. I’m entirely at your disposal.”
Nope. Nope, nope, nope. I tell the lust to take a hike. “You said that you understood why Hurux’s mother had given him blockers. You said you’d do the same thing for your youngling.”
“Ah.” His gaze clears. “The translator doesn’t do a very good job with Zor nuance, does it? I would do the same for my youngling. If I had one, which I do not.”
Oh. Okay.
Hurux moves back into my line of view. “We should go before those things come back.”
Those things could be either more dwals or another hairus swarm. For obvious reasons, I’d like to avoid them both.
The pain’s receding. The med-kit has done its magic and fixed my wrist. “Thanks,” I tell Cax, rather grudgingly. “I’ll be on my way now.”
“I don’t think so,” Hurux says. “You think that after what just happened, we’re going to leave you alone? Sorry, Bryce MacFarland. You’re not going anywhere without us.”
I lift my chin. “Where are we going then? Because I don’t trust either of you. Not even a little bit. I’m not taking you back to the Dsar Cliffs so you can imprison all my friends.”
Hurux smiles, and it transforms his face. Holy fuck. When he smiles, he looks roguish and sinfully wicked. My insides start to do fluttery stuff. “To be quite fair to Cax,” he says. “It’s only me that wants to imprison your friends.”
“Yeah. Whatever. Not letting it happen.”
“You don’t have to take us to them, Bryce,” Hurux replies. “We’ll break through the shield on our own. We’re going to my camp.”
Cax shakes his head. “Sorry,” he says to Hurux, sounding genuinely regretful. He’s speaking Zor this time, and the translator is doing its thing in my ear. I’m so used to the split-second delay that I hardly notice it. “ You don’t think we’d allow you to hold on to three Adrashian cloakships, do you? My soldiers have already overrun your camp. There’s nothing left.” He turns to his skimmer. “We’re going to Ashara, all of us.”
Wait, what?
7
Cax
My suggestion is not greeted with unrestrained joy.
Hurux explodes first. “What do you mean, your soldiers have overrun my camp?”
Seemed pretty self-explanatory to me. “Hurux,” I say patiently. “You know those creatures we just killed? There are more. Can we get into my skimmer and debate what we’re going to do while we’re on the move?”
Hurux nods grudgingly. I turn to Bryce MacFarland. “What if I don’t want to?” she asks defiantly.
She’s fascinated me from the instant I set eyes on her, but here, in person, inches from her? She’s so much more alive, more vibrant. Her eyes, green and grey and every color in between, sparkle in a way that no monitor can capture. When she touched me, her hand wrapping around my arm, warm and soft, my dragon had purred in pleasure.
“I’m not offering you a choice,” I reply. When she jumped into her skimmer and took off, there was a part of me that was annoyed about the way she was throwing herself into danger, but there was also a part of me that loved it. That loved how brave and fearless she was.
I can’t stay here and protect her. I have to go back. There is a traitor in Ashara. My city has already been attacked, and I have a duty to protect it.
“I’m a prisoner then.”
My body wants Bryce. My dragon wants Bryce. I’m wondering what it would be like to not have any responsibilities. To be free to court her, the way the exiles courted their human mates.
But I can’t. As Silu pointed out, the Senate is divided in their opinion on what to do about the human women. There’s a faction—a strong one, gaining strength each day—that believes that we should stand by and let the Zoraken capture Raiht’vi and return the human women to their homes. Sofia Menendez’s appeal to the Senate didn’t shift allegiances like I hoped it would.
Could you stand by and watch Bryce be taken away without her consent?
My heart says ‘No.’ Of course I can’t watch Bryce MacFarland be returned to her home planet against her will. I want her to be happy.
But it’s not that simple. Six thousand people live in Ashara. If I can’t find the person responsible for lowering our shields, I will be putting everyone who lives there at risk.
The human women might have to go back to Earth, no matter what my feelings about it are.
I force myself to shrug. “Call it whatever you want,” I say callously. “You’re coming with me.”
We climb up the hill in silence. I grab a pair of pants from the back of my skimmer and hold it out to Hurux. “Shifting’s tough on clothes.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Hurux replies, taking them from me with a nod of thanks. Grabbing another set of pants out of my pack, I put them on, and look around for Bryce.
She’s moved away from us. Her shoulders are slumped, and her eyes are averted, and she picks up her strewn belongings silently.
All of a sudden, I feel like a horrible person. Bryce MacFarland crash-landed on an alien planet. She’s away from her home, from her loved ones. Despite all this, she’s not moaning and groaning, feeling sorry for herself. No, I’ve watched her for months. Bryce is unfailingly cheerful and good-natured.
She’s never despondent. Until now. Until she met me.
Instead of telling her that she’s special, I’ve made her feel unimportant. I’ve told her she’s a prisoner. I’ve been thinking only of myself.
Hurux takes in Bryce’s stiff back. “I fear,” he murmurs. “That we have been less than thoughtful.”
That’s an understatement. I have acted deplorably.
I go over to Bryce, helping her pick up the scattered contents of her pack. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For being high-handed, for starters.”
A reluct
ant smile curves her mouth. “You are high-handed,” she agrees.
When she smiles, it lights up her face. “I’ve been accused of that,” I say ruefully. “More than once.” I pick up a thin, translucent piece of fabric—some kind of garment?—and hand it to her, and her cheeks go red. I’m about to ask her about it when I hear the distinctive sound of another hairus swarm. “Let’s find shelter and make camp for the night.”
Our scouts have mapped Trion VI well. I look at my navigation guide and set course for a cave halfway up the nearest mountain. It’s not much—my own cave retreat on the outskirts of Ashara is much nicer—but Bryce looks around appreciatively. “I never knew this was here. Then again, Dariux’s skimmer wouldn’t have made it up that cliff face.”
I get a fire going—this high up in the mountains, it’s a little chilly—and then pull a flask from my pack. “Drink? It’s ten-year-old sarinth liquor.”
Bryce sits down on the ground and warms her hands by the fire. She eyes the clear flask dubiously. “What is sarinth liquor? What does it taste like?”
“Sarinth liquor is the best idea Cax has had so far,” Hurux replies. He takes it from me and takes a long sip. “It’s impossible to describe the taste. You’ve got to experience it. I assume it’s safe for human consumption?”
“Yes, it is.” Bryce raises a questioning eyebrow, and I offer her an explanation. “We’ve hacked into the ThoughtVaults. We know everything about Earth that the Zorahn know.”
Hurux just shakes his head in reaction to that.
“If you could hack into their systems, you have technology,” Bryce guesses. “What’s your city like? Why are you interested in us? What’s really going on?”
Those are all good questions. I gather my thoughts. How much do I want to tell them about Ashara? I’m happy to tell Bryce everything I know, but Hurux still considers himself Zorahn. A soldier of the Empire, ready to follow its commands and do its bidding. He is an enemy.
She gives me a wry smile. “Let me guess. You’re thinking of something cryptic to say.” She reaches for the flask and tips the sarinth down her throat. “Ooh.” Her eyes go round. “What is this stuff? It tastes like sunshine.”