Chapter Fourteen

Rachel remained alert, her senses wide open. It would be too easy for her to fall into the habits of the last two weeks, when she’d had a big, bad shifter by her side. She didn’t need to be told that Aidan’s presence had kept most of the Green’s deadly inhabitants away. Other than in the swamp—where it seemed the denizens feared nothing and no one—having him roaming above and around her kept all but the most vicious predators off their backs. With Aidan gone, she needed to be hyperalert, but not so much that she made herself a nervous wreck. That kind of anxiety could be just as fatal. She simply had to remember that before she’d arrived on Harp, she’d been the big, bad presence on her treks.

The thought made her smile, and she reminded herself to tell Aidan about it when they met up again. Which shouldn’t be too much longer. Admittedly, she didn’t know the Green the way a native would, but she was confident in her map skills, and she’d been verifying her position several times a day to avoid getting off track. Navigating by the sun wasn’t as reliable as a good old-fashioned compass, or even the stars. But of course, a compass wouldn’t work, and she wasn’t familiar enough with Harp’s night sky to use the very distant stars, even if she’d been able to see them above the canopy. The sun, on the other hand… One didn’t need to see the orb itself to know where it was. She’d also climbed to the treetops once or twice to take a look around and judge her position relative to geographic features on her map. But the effort involved in getting up that high and then back down again was substantial, so she limited herself to once a day, at the start of her morning.

She glanced around, noting the growing shadows under the trees. She’d have to stop soon. She’d taken to sleeping in the trees. It gave her a solid trunk at her back and reduced the number of attack vectors she had to worry about, plus not everything on Harp lived in the trees. She sighed. Damn, but she missed Aidan.

She’d just begun to study possible nighttime perches when the forest went perfectly quiet. Experience told her what that meant. There was a predator in the area, something big enough to scare everything else into silence. Her first thought was Aidan, but he was far away by now. Eventually, their paths would converge at the second ship, but not yet.

She came to a slow stop, unhooked her crossbow from the loop on her backpack, and nocked a pair of bolts. Putting a broad tree trunk at her back, she scanned the branches overhead to be sure there was no obvious threat from above, then shifted her attention to the surrounding area.

“Don’t shoot,” a male voice called.

She frowned. In her experience, bad guys didn’t typically announce themselves. And in the Green’s deep forest, with shadows all around and the thick foliage overhead, it made no sense, especially since her unseen visitor was probably a Harp native, which immediately gave him the advantage. On the other hand, with that second ship out there somewhere, she wasn’t going to take any chances. “Show yourself. Slowly,” she added.

A crashing of branches several yards ahead of her told her he was coming from overhead and dropping fast. As fast as Aidan did, although with a lot more noise.

Keeping her finger on the trigger of her crossbow, she watched as a tall, muscular young man emerged from the forest, dressed in loose clothing and filled with the same cocky confidence that Aidan wore like a second skin, although he was quite a bit younger and so on him it was adorable, rather than devastating. Or maybe Aidan had just ruined her for every other male in the universe.

“Santino Devlin, at your service. You’re Rachel?”

He didn’t offer to shake hands, which spared her the need to refuse, since she wasn’t giving up her weapon yet. “Aidan sent you?”

He nodded. “We’re cousins.”

“Seems like you all are,” she said, though she hadn’t actually met anyone other than Aidan. She’d just seen them from a distance during the attack on the first ship, and she really didn’t want to talk about that. Deciding to skip ahead, she said, “Is Aidan okay? He had a long way to go.”

He gave her a flat look. “He’s a shifter. He can handle a run like that and more when he has to. And from what he tells me, it doesn’t get more serious than this.” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “He also said you were supposed to wait for me at the hut.”

She snorted dismissively.

“And he said you wouldn’t. Which is a good thing, because we have a problem.”

Rachel stiffened at the serious note in his voice. “Did something happen?”

“There’s a bad fire in the Green. I got word of it after I started after you, but from what Aidan told me, it’s right where we’re headed.”

She took her finger off the crossbow’s trigger, lifted the bow, and un-nocked the bolts. “Fire,” she said solemnly, thinking about the tactics Ripper and her crew had used to lure Aidan into the open. “It’s got to be connected. Can you show me where…” She stuck a hand in the outside pocket of her pack. “I have a map.”

“Once I see where we’re going, we won’t need a map.”

“Talking to you is just like talking to Aidan.”

“Thanks.”

She hadn’t necessarily meant it as a compliment, but then, from the smirk flirting around his lips, she was pretty sure he knew that. “Whatever. Look, the sun’s setting, and I don’t see as well in the dark as you guys, so we either have to check the map right now or wait ’til morning.”

“Let’s do it now. You have one of those cool little LED flashlights like—” He cut himself off, but Rachel caught it.

“Like Amanda’s, you mean?” she asked, trying to sound like it was no big deal. “Yeah. Probably exactly the same. They haven’t changed much in the two years she’s been gone.”

He didn’t bite. “Let’s take a look at the map then decide what to do. I’m guessing you don’t travel well in the dark.”

“I can, if the moon is bright enough.”

Santino shook his head. “No more moon for a while. Are you hungry? Do you need a fire?”

“Not unless you do. I cooked some fish before I left the Leeward Stream. I’ve been eating cold and sleeping in the trees.”

“You have trail experience. Aidan told me.”

“He’s way chattier with you than he is with me,” she muttered.

He shrugged. “Not really. He just had to pass on a lot of information in a short amount of time.”

“Okay, hunker down here, then.” She dropped her pack to the ground and pulled out the map, which was beginning to show the wear and tear of the last few days. He crouched next to her and immediately realigned the map, just as Aidan had done that first day. She grimaced but was happy, at least, to see that she wasn’t that far off, which meant she hadn’t been going in circles since Aidan left her. “This is where we’re going.” She pointed at the second ship site.

Santino made a wordless humming noise, then said, “Your map’s missing a lot of detail.”

“I know,” she admitted. “It was the best I could get on short notice.” She glanced up at him. “You know how to get there?”

“Of course,” he said absently, his gaze on the map, before he glanced at the darkening sky. “We’ll hunker down here for the night, then start first thing in the morning. You want dinner down here, or”—he pointed at the tree over their heads—“up there?”

“Might as well climb while there’s some light.”

He gave her a curious look. “You weren’t joking about that? You really can climb?”

Rachel tsked in disgust. “Like shifters are the only people capable of climbing a fucking tree,” she muttered.

“They are on Harp.”

“I bet your loggers can climb.”

“Not the women.”

“You’re digging that hole deeper and deeper. Just remember, I’m armed, and you have to sleep sometime.” She secured her pack and started climbing the tree.

…

The next day was significantly cooler, with gray clouds looming too far in the distance to give any real hope of rain. Rachel didn’t know the statistics for Harp, but a lush forest like the Green didn’t get that way without a lot of water. Santino had shifted the previous night, just before making one of those jaw-dropping leaps from the ground straight up into a tree. She almost teased him about shifters’ seeming inability to climb in human form but thought better of it. For all she knew, they could climb in either form, and, besides, why the hell would they bother with hands and feet when they had paws and claws.

A cup of hot tea would have been welcome against the cold, but that would have meant delaying long enough to light a fire, and she was too aware of time running out. No one knew what or who had caused the fire they were running toward, at least not that they’d told her. She was sure Santino would have learned if they knew more, via whatever telepathic or other unusual link shifters all seemed to share. Another secret Aidan had kept from her. But she wasn’t blind or stupid. It was obvious they had some form of communication.

She feared the crew from the second ship was using similar tactics, only with fire as their weapon this time. But even if the fire wasn’t part of their plan, the attack had to come soon. There might have been a delay in Wolfrum discovering that the first ship had been destroyed, depending on what manner of information transmission the two ships had been using. Maybe he didn’t know anything about the first ship. Maybe the plan all along had been for each of the ships to attack independently. He had to have known going in that they had a limited timeframe. On a planet as sparsely settled as Harp, the invaders’ plan had been too “loud” to escape notice for long. Even if it had worked perfectly, which it obviously hadn’t.

She’d packed up her gear, taken her usual morning read on the sun’s position, and started walking, not waiting for Santino, who she figured was up in the trees somewhere and would make himself known eventually.

They’d been traveling most of the morning, and she was reaching for one of Aidan’s trail bars, when every tree seemed to move at once. She stopped and leaned back to study the dense canopy. This was the first significant wind she’d experienced on Harp, and given the clouds and humidity, she thought they might be in for some rain. But then she caught a ripple of movement, darker against the gray sky, and recognized it as birds taking silent flight. She watched, more curious than alarmed. In all her travels, she’d never visited a planet with such silent birds. To be sure, prey animals everywhere went quiet at the first sign of a predator, but avians frequently had a warning system with at least one guard cawing to alert the others before they all took off in a noisy flurry of wings. She was thinking she’d love to do a necropsy on one of Harp’s birds, when an eerie wail shattered the silence, repeating over and over, calls coming one on top of the other. It was obviously a troop of whatever predator had sent the birds into flight.

She dropped her pack and swung her crossbow into position, nocking two bolts and sliding two more into a side pocket for easy reach. The animals weren’t in sight yet, but there were a lot of them, and Harp had already taught her to expect the worst. She’d just backed up to one of the Green’s hugely thick trees when the distinct yowl of a hunting cat cut through the noise. The eerie wailing changed abruptly, some of the calls remaining the same, while others changed pitch completely, becoming deeper and more aggressive to her human ear.

Santino appeared a moment later, dropping to a branch that was close enough and low enough for her to see him. He shifted in a whirlwind of golden sparks, his gaze intent and his voice mostly a growl when he nodded at her crossbow and said, “Can you use that?”

“Yes. What are they?”

“Banshee. Like Earth monkeys but much more deadly. Shoot to kill, and don’t miss.” He met her eyes, as if wanting to be sure she understood. “They’ll see you as the weak link. Prove them wrong.”

She gave a sharp nod.

He gave her a final penetrating stare then shifted and was gone in three seconds flat.

Rachel didn’t waste time trying to follow his progress. Her heart was thundering, adrenaline flooding her veins, but her hands were steady, her thoughts clear. She and Aidan had survived that damn swamp to get this far. There was no way in hell she was going to let Harp defeat her before they took down fucking Wolfrum and his gang.

She stood with her back to the broad base of the tree, her pack close, but around to one side, to avoid tripping over it. The wailing had all but stopped, which should have been reassuring, but she wasn’t fooled. Maybe Santino had the pack on the run, maybe he’d killed the pack alpha, and the others had scattered. But she didn’t believe in fairy tales, and she wasn’t going to bet her life on “maybe.”

She was concentrating on everything and nothing at the same time, trying not to focus one sense so hard that she blew out the others, and she nearly missed it. The banshee came down nearly on top of her, dropping out of the tree she’d been standing against. Some sixth sense warned her at the last minute. She spun, taking a quick step away from the tree, cutting it so close that his swiping claw scraped over the top of her head like an iron bar, cutting into her scalp and scraping bone. She ignored the pain, her crossbow already in motion, her finger on the trigger. The banshee was dead before it hit the ground, but Rachel didn’t stop to admire her kill. Experience with pack animals had her spinning around, her back to the tree once more, just in time to catch the next animal coming at her from one tree over, leaping from high up, deadly claws distended, ripping teeth bared in a feral snarl. She shot it in the chest, then stepped away and grabbed two fresh bolts. Two bolts down, two left. She hope it would be enough.

Back against the tree once more, she fought for focus against the pain pounding in her head, the warm trickle of blood down her cheek. Santino’s howl broke through the roar of noise in her head. She turned toward the sound, knowing she was moving too slowly. She had to stay sharp, had to fight the pain, the blood loss. She could do it. She’d done it before. A high-pitched wail, louder than the others, sinister, undulating… Too close. She twisted as the third beast rushed her on the ground. The animal was too close and her aim too high. It braced itself to leap. She kicked it in the head and then spun one more time as a much larger, obviously male banshee made a twenty-foot jump heading straight for her, only to be struck and knocked out of the air by a blur of shifter fur and fangs. Santino landed on top of the stunned animal, enormous claws digging into the creature’s chest, flipping him over, before his fangs closed over the banshee’s neck and tore out its spine.

There was nothing but silence for a frozen instant, and then Santino shifted, just as Rachel put a crossbow bolt into the head of the banshee she’d kicked. She didn’t know how resilient these fuckers were, and she wasn’t taking any chances.

“You’re bleeding.”

She lifted her hand to the blood on her cheek, then up to her head. “Yeah,” she said, fighting the urge to vomit or maybe pass out. Neither would do her reputation any good.

He walked closer. “Sorry about the clothes—”

She waved that away. “No offense,” she added as an afterthought.

He grinned then reached out and took the heavy crossbow out of her hand. “You should at least let me clean it some. You have antibiotics in that big pack of yours? I’m told you Earthers don’t have any resistance to our bacteria.”

“Yeah,” she said and would have bent to pick up her pack, but he stopped her.

“Sit down, Rachel. Aidan would never forgive me if something happened to you.” He grimaced. “Well, if something else happened to you. Not even my cousin would hold me responsible for a banshee attack.” He brought her pack over. “Sit,” he repeated.

Rachel unzipped her pack and handed him the spare set of clothes she’d stashed in there for Aidan. Santino took them from her with a small laugh, pulling them on before crouching down next to her once more. “Okay, your virtue is safe. Now let me take care of this. Head wounds bleed like a motherfucker.” His gaze jumped to her, his eyes wide.

Rachel laughed, then groaned. “I’ve heard the word,” she whispered. “In fact, I’m pretty sure it came out of Aidan’s mouth.”

“Probably. His mother despairs of ever making him into a proper gentleman.”

She gave him a cynical look. “And you?”

“I’m young. I’m still growing.”

She smiled, then winced when Santino sprayed antiseptic on her wound. “Fuck.”

His eyes crinkled with amusement. “No wonder you and Aidan get along.”

“Just slap a bandage on there, kitty cat. Tell me something, was this attack typical banshee behavior?”

“You taking notes?”

“Something like that. I study animals, and Harp is unusual.”

“You can’t take any scientific notes with you when you leave Harp. The fleet embargo won’t permit it. And even if they would, we won’t.”

“So maybe I’ll hang around until I’ve learned everything there is to know. There’s no law telling me what to remember, is there?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. You’ll have to ask Aidan, or maybe Rhodry.”

“Rhodry, your clan leader.”

“Aye, and my cousin.”

“Of course. Everyone’s a cousin. You about finished—” She hissed as he placed a pressure-sensitive bandage on the cut and, well, pressed.

“We should really shave your head.”

“Try it and die.”

“I figured that. About your question, though…the banshee behavior. No, that’s not typical. They’re carnivorous, and they will attack lesser prey, but my presence should have kept them away.”

“You said they’d see me as a weak link. Maybe that’s why.”

“Maybe. You smell a lot like a norm, and you’re female. But four separate animals attacked you. That’s not typical. I’d have expected their survival instincts to kick in and send them running after you’d killed two at most, especially in a coordinated attack—”

“They do that? Coordinate their attacks?”

“Sure. But the point is, they should have stopped once you’d proven you were a threat. One of the first to attack was almost certainly the alpha female. When you took her down, the others should have turned tail and run.”

“So, what do you think’s going on?”

He leaned back on his heels, clearly considering what to say. “I think whatever that ship is doing out there?” He jerked his head in the direction of the second ship. “It’s got every animal in the Green running scared.”

Rachel met his eyes, her gut twisting with fear over the lives that could be lost, the damage done. And with guilt, because she hadn’t seen through Wolfrum’s twisted scheme soon enough. “I can walk, Santino,” she said firmly. “There’s no reason to delay here.”

“Rachel, you lost—”

“Blood, I know. And I’ve got this to help me recover.” She held up a small vacuum-sealed pack of nutrients that were designed to aid short-term survival after traumatic injury. “We can make another two, three hours before dark. I’ll rest then.”

He gave her a doubtful look, but she could tell he was wavering. He wanted to be where the danger was, wanted to be standing with his cousins to defend their world, not escorting Aidan’s woman.

“Okay,” he said finally. “But if you start to feel weak—”

“If I’m too weak to walk, you’ll know when I’ll fall over.”

“I get why Aidan likes you. All those city women are no challenge. But you—”

Rachel was curious about Aidan’s many city women, but that would have to wait. She raised her hand when Santino stood, letting him pull her to her feet. She hung on for a moment, not too proud to let her head stop spinning. She had no desire to fall over before they ever got started.