The sights and sounds of home wrapped around him. He didn’t care that he left his herd behind, he felt more at ease than he had in a decade, trying to conform to rigid expectations. He felt more aware of his wild surroundings and more alive.
He felt more.
Mads caught a familiar scent. Another reindeer. His herd? Instinct told him to join his herd, to surround himself with the safety they provided, but a steady voice told him he returned to Earth alone. He had no herd, but that couldn’t be true because he left his heart on Earth twelve years ago.
The four-legged reilendeer form cast a gray veil over his memories, keeping them distant and just a bit numb. Longing, guilt, anger, and frustration poked through the veil, piercing the numbness with vivid emotion, but the distance remained. In his two-legged form, he felt those emotions keenly. They had grown stronger as his journey brought him closer to Earth.
To his mate.
The raw emotions emitted from humans coupled with his own need to seek out his mate threatened to overwhelm him. His uncle advised Mads to shift into his four-legged form as quickly as possible until he reached an equilibrium.
The shift didn’t help. The ache of separation from his mate had only grown over the years. At first, when a misstep on ice caused him to bite and taste her blood, he barely felt the bond. Distance convinced him that he imagined the faint mate bond but at night, when he had nothing else to occupy his mind, the tug of it kept him from sleep. He threw himself into his mandatory military service, physical exhaustion being the only way he could quiet the bond.
By the end of his compulsory service, thoughts of Odessa consumed him. She was his first thought, a constant yearning, and his last desperate wish before oblivion finally claimed him. Exhausted and a preoccupied mess, reilendeer mates, once bonded, could not tolerate such a lengthy separation.
Last year he had applied for temporary leave, just long enough to journey to Earth and ease the pain of the neglected mate bond, but his request had been denied. His superior officers informed him that a mate bond was impossible with a lesser species. What he felt for the human female was a product of his imagination.
Lesser species.
The phrase tasted bitter and wrong. Humans might not have the technological advances of the reilendeer, but they were not lesser. True, they were still closely tied to their emotions, a trait many on Reilen considered primitive, but the bright, sparking emotions from humans appealed to him. And no human had a brighter light than Odessa.
He feared too much time had passed. He had wanted to explain his departure to her all those years ago but found he could not break the First Edict, which prevented him from revealing reilendeer presence on Earth. And what did he expect would happen if he told? That she would wait for him?
When he imagined her sitting and waiting, growing older as life passed her by, his heart hurt. That was not the fate he wanted for his spark. She would never sit idly by, passive and meek. She would have found a mate and had calves.
He should hunt for her. Find her. Beg forgiveness for decisions he had no part in. If he could just see her lopsided smile, so human and so perfectly flawed, he’d die a happy male.
And then what? Shake hands with her mate? Give an affectionate pat on the head to her calves?
His uncle warned him. Pity dripped from the older male’s every word. Karl did not have to accept Mads back into the herd, but he did, even if Mads’ bond to a human female offended him.
Odessa might never forgive him for leaving. She might have a human mate. She might have no room in her heart for a childhood friend. He needed to accept that. Currently, that knowledge was swaddled in the gray veil, distant and incapable of causing hurt. Soon enough he would walk on two feet and the realities of his exile would return.
He was alone in a herd that despised him and a mate who couldn’t feel their bond.
The mate bond would never fade for him. Odessa had sparked feelings in him like no other. If she could not forgive him and would not accept the reality of their mate bond, he’d find a way to live—even a dull, colorless life—away from his spark.
Unconsciously, his hooves took him back toward his house. His mate might reject him but he would still bring courting gifts to her door. The first he would leave on her doorstep. He could sense her aura, even at a distance, and it pulled him toward the neighboring house, so the first offering belonged there.
A black velvet bag sat on the back porch. Gently, he lifted the bag with his teeth.
A twig snapped and his ears flicked, locating the sound. The lynx?
No. Heavier. Footsteps. A human.
He approached the thin growth of trees that separated his house from Odessa’s. Curiosity and excitement filled the air, generated by a calf out exploring in the cold. He remembered doing the same, marveling in the rich color and sounds of the mountain. The Earth was so vivid, so alive. Every creature, from humans down to the tiniest little bug, shouted its existence.
He chose this. Returning to Earth, being surrounded by the amplified emotions that humans generated so easily, embracing despairing loneliness inside him—it was better than an easy and comfortable life on cold, gray Reilen.
He remembered tromping through the forest when he was a calf. There was so much to see, so much to discover. Back then, he did not have mastery over his shift and his antler ached with growing pains. Wearing his antlers while in his two-legged form had been the only way to tolerate the constant throbbing and headache.
The calf stood at the edge of the lawn, holding a pinecone in one hand. She held it up to the fading light, frowning.
He watched her from the trees, studying the riot of red curls and the cavalier way her knit hat perched at the back of her head, ready to tumble to the snow.
She gasped, finally spotting him. For a moment, it was as if he fell back in time and young Odessa found Mads in the forest for the first time. This had to be Odessa’s calf. The resemblance was unmistakable, beyond the red curls.
He approached slowly, picking his steps carefully in the snow. His four-legged form resembled an Earth reindeer, albeit larger, close enough that a child would not suspect an alien shapeshifter.
“Do you work for Santa?” the calf asked, hazel eyes focused on the velvet bag dangling from his clenched teeth.
Well, that’s convenient.
He lowered the gift to the ground and retreated.
“Wait! Come back,” the calf called after him. She searched the trees but could not find him. She dropped the pinecone and picked up the bag and dusted off the snow.
Chapter 4
Odessa
Ruby thrust out her hand—no glove, that kid lost so many gloves—and proudly revealed a cut-glass star. A milky white iridescent color shimmered over the surface as it caught the light. A thin loop of glass attached at the top, designed to be threaded by the ribbon. The ornament was a gorgeous piece of craftsmanship.
“Where did you find that?” Odessa asked.
“The reindeer gave it to me.”
Mads
The fire pearl sat on the window ledge. The last of the afternoon light turned the lumpy rock translucent, revealing a warm golden heart. He found the rock while on a mission—he had picked up the habit of collecting stones some time ago—and polished it but never shaped it. The specimen was particularly fine with the mineral deposit located at the core of the stone. Veins of minerals usually ran through fire pearls, giving the stones a colorful striation. For one color to be localized was unusual and he waited for inspiration to whisper to him what the stone’s final form should be.
Until then, he let the fire pearl play in the light. Perhaps one day he’d see what the stone yearned to be. He hoped his skill at carving would be up to the task.
On the nightstand, a red light blinked on the communication unit, indicating that he had a waiting message.
No doubt his handler, wanting an update. It could wait.
Mads stepped into a shower, the hot water soothing his aching muscl
es. He hated to wash away the scent of the forest, but he needed to remove the dust and exhaust of the city.
A week ago, he arrived on Earth and had been deposited on the outskirts of a metropolitan region. He contacted his uncle, who made arrangements to rent a house and have it stocked with basic foodstuffs, then journeyed back to Shepherd’s Creek.
He heated a can of soup. With bowl and spoon in hand, he finally checked the message.
“Requesting a status update on the rogue scientist.” The message was from Svallin, his handler but also his friend. They served together in the Reilen military, having been randomly assigned to the same unit. They scrubbed floors together, learned hand-to-hand combat together, and did thousands of pushups together when Mads couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
Svallin had ambition and excelled at the ass-kissing aspect of military life. He climbed the ranks quickly with an eye on ultimately winning a seat on the Reilen Council, while Mads had been diverted for more specialized missions. For the last few years, Mads had been dispatched to high conflict zones for strategic resolutions.
He hunted troublemakers.
Reilen, while only one planet, laid claim to several planets and vast swaths of territory. Conflicts occurred at the borders but also within, on colonies poor in resources but rich in unrest. That the Reilen Council used its military against its own people disgusted Mads. He witnessed such casual cruelty on Reilen that it should not shock him anymore, but it did.
He had a gift for assessing combat situations and adapting quickly. While not the biggest or the best shot, he had the lack of respect necessary to ignore orders when the mission went sideways. He brought his targets in, without fail. The commanding officers claimed they wanted their ridiculous orders followed but really, they wanted to hit their goals. Did it matter how?
For now, the military and the Council tolerated Mads’ sloppy attitude. He knew that would change the moment he stopped being useful and became a problem.
He had eliminated enough problems to know his fate if he stayed on Reilen. His mate bond to a human already marked him as defective. He did not need to paint a larger target on his back.
He typed a reply. “Earth has a population of nearly eight billion and the scientist in question does not want to be found. I will check his last known location and report my findings.”
The rogue scientist was his uncle, Karl. His research dragged Mads and his father to Earth all those years ago. He had a bounty on his head for a decade, but no one wanted to collect due to the Earth’s distance and primitive reputation. Officially, Karl was a wanted criminal. Unofficially, everyone had been content to forget the bull.
Mads hadn’t forgotten him, though. He contacted Svallin to pressure the right people to assign him the bounty. He knew the planet, the customs of its people, and spoke the language fluently. There was no one more qualified to bring Karl back. All he needed was transportation.
Bureaucracy moved slowly but Mads ultimately got his ticket home.
He removed a second communication hub from a duffle bag. The older model sat next to the new Council-issued device. Paint had worn away from years of handling, giving the device a grubby appearance, but it operated on frequencies no longer used by the Council, thus it was unmonitored.
“We need to talk.” He hit send, not expecting Karl to respond. The bull had yet to reply to any of Mads’ messages.
He had no intention of sending Karl back to Reilen, but he needed to meet with the male and evaluate his threat level. Perhaps Karl was a danger to reilendeer and human alike. Most likely, the old bull wanted to be left alone and forgotten.
Mads sympathized. He needed Reilen to forget about him, too.
Chapter 5
Odessa
Odessa woke with the sensation that she was not alone—spoiler, she was—and with a low-grade headache that hung around all day. The overhead lighting and the noise in the store didn’t help but she kept it at bay with coffee and an over-the-counter painkiller. The forecast called for snow and storm fronts rolling in triggered her headaches. Barometric pressure headaches, her doctor called them, and consoled her that there wasn’t much to be done but cope until they passed.
Easier said than done. Thanksgiving was days away, which meant her work and personal life were about to be kicked into overdrive. The store had grown increasingly crowded since the weekend rush and she couldn’t keep the canned organic pumpkin on the shelves. The locally grown sugar pumpkins were long gone.
“Mommy!” Ruby crashed into Odessa’s legs, backpack and coat falling to the ground. “I was good at school and Grandpa let me have cereal and now can we pick out our tree? Please?”
“Thanks, Dad,” Odessa said to her father, Gerald. Her work schedule allowed her to drop Ruby off at school in the morning and her parents handled the afternoon pick-up. They entertained the little goblin until Odessa’s shift ended at five.
“We’re gonna get the biggest tree,” Ruby announced.
“How big should it be?” Odessa asked.
“This big.” Ruby held up a hand above her head and stretched on her tiptoes.
About three and a half feet, then.
Gerald frowned. “You shouldn’t get such a large tree. The ceiling is high but you don’t have the floorspace.”
“I know, Dad.”
“You got that big spruce and we couldn’t even get it in the door.”
“Ten years ago, Dad. I know what size tree to get.” Odessa did not appreciate being spoken to like she was still a child. Sure, the first year her parents trusted her to pick out a tree, she got a big seven-foot spruce, confident it would clear the ceiling, and forgot about how big around a seven-foot tree would be. She hadn’t made that mistake since.
“I’ll take the truck,” Gerald said with a nod, the issue already settled in his mind.
“I have plenty of space in my Hyundai.”
Gerald snorted. “That dinky thing?”
That dinky thing was an all-wheel-drive SUV and plenty big enough for the modest tree Odessa had in mind. She bought it used and took excellent care of it. Despite her car getting her around town in the snow for years, Gerald didn’t trust it because he hadn’t gone with her to the dealership when she bought it. He still expected the transmission to drop to the ground or all the wheels to fall off.
Her father treated her like she was still a kid and it wore on her nerves.
One condom breaks and suddenly your parents think you’re incapable of making any responsible decisions.
Odessa had been twenty-two, not sixteen, when she became pregnant, not that she would have been happier with her parents’ behavior had she been a teen pregnancy. She’d understand it more, though.
She took a breath to calm herself. The headache lay at the root of her grumpiness, not her smothering, overly critical parents. Gerald and Patricia were fantastically supportive and adored Ruby. They never second-guessed any decision Odessa made regarding the store and that level of trust went a long way to smoothing over the more prickly aspects of their family dynamics.
“You’ll need someone to help carry the tree inside,” Gerald said, not giving up.
“Sure, Dad, why don’t you come along? I’ll let you lift heavy things,” Odessa said with a sigh.
They went to a tree lot on the edge of town, set up in the parking lot of the local hardware store. Oversized Christmas lights were strung across the lot along with tinsel candy canes and snowflakes. Holiday music played, distorted by aging speakers. It was gaudy and wonderful, and Odessa loved it.
“I want this one!” Ruby ran straight for a massive Douglas Fir that had been flocked with artificial snow.
“That’s too big,” Odessa said.
“More room for presents.”
Odessa laughed at her little goblin’s audacity. “Santa doesn’t bring you more presents if there’s more room under the tree.”
“Because he doesn’t know, Mommy,” Ruby said with the tired seriousness of a seven-year-old who was exhaust
ed from explaining the obvious to her mother.
Gerald caught the attention of the lot attendant and explained what they needed. Setting up an artificial tree would be easier—and Ruby could have her say in choosing a ridiculous color—but Odessa loved the scent of fresh pine. The holiday season wouldn’t be the same without the rich, earthy scent settling deep into the house and she’d tolerate vacuuming up needles for that alone.
Getting the tree before Thanksgiving would be pushing the lifespan of the tree, she knew, but her schedule didn’t have a lot of wiggle room. She had to buy the tree today so she and Ruby could decorate the day after Thanksgiving, otherwise, they’d have to wait until closer to Christmas Day. Odessa tried that last year and Ruby drove her crazy with questions, worried that Santa would skip their house if they didn’t have a tree. So, to make her life easier, she would rather have a slightly dry tree shedding needles all over the floor than an excited child begging to decorate. Ruby’s desire to put up stockings and the giant inflatable Santa and reindeer in the yard began the day after Halloween.
Odessa admired parents with multiple kids to wrangle and kept the Christmas hype under control. The more she wanted Ruby to chill, the more the little goblin worked herself up into a frenzy. At her wits’ end, she told this ridiculous story about a government agency that regulated when Christmas decorations could be displayed. Odessa didn’t want to break the law or make Ruby an accomplice in her decor-related crime spree.
Ruby swallowed the story without question.
Parent of the year, she was not. Odessa did the best she could with what she had.
Ruby held her grandpa’s hand, happily swinging it wildly as if she couldn’t contain her excitement. Odessa knew from experience that Ruby would have a hard time settling down to eat her dinner. They’d set the tree up in the stand when they got home. She could let Ruby pick an old sheet from the linen closet to use as a tree skirt to catch needles. Hopefully, all the activity of the day would have drained Ruby’s batteries enough to let her sleep.
The Alien Reindeer’s Bounty (A Winter Starr Book 6) Page 4