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LARIA
Years of dealing with unsavory elements had taught me to be a light sleeper. I’d gone to bed, my lips still tingling from Jardun’s kiss, thinking about how he made me feel, and certain I wasn’t going to get much sleep. Surprisingly, the two glasses of strong homemade brew I’d had with my meal had more of a relaxing effect than I’d expected. Even the slightest noise couldn’t penetrate my deep slumber. When my groggy mind registered there was a hand clamped over my mouth, my first instinct was to scream. The second was to reach for the blade tucked under the clothes I was using as a pillow.
“Shhh, it’s me,” Sloane whispered before I could grip the handle. “There’s something moving around outside.” She tipped her head toward the pane near her bed, then removed her hand from my mouth.
Apparently, I’d missed a lot while I was out, and silently swore to avoid all forms of sensory-impairing drinks until after this trip was over. The handles of the blades Sloane had jammed against the panes earlier rattled, followed by some heavy scraping along the exterior frame. It sounded as if someone was trying to pry one of the panes open from the outside.
I glanced toward Celeste’s empty bed and saw the small dish of crystals she kept nearby. Their natural soft glow wasn’t bright, yet gave off enough light to see the surrounding room. I never complained about them because I knew she used them to ward off nightmares. And, if I was being honest, I always found them comforting. “Where’s Celeste?”
“Over here.” She’d moved to the far corner and was reaching for her pants.
“What are you doing?” I couldn’t figure out why she was taking the time to get dressed when preparing for who was trying to get through the window seemed more important.
“Going to get the guys.” She finished tugging the pants to her waist, then headed for the door, grabbing one of her knives along the way.
Not a bad idea considering we couldn’t see outside and didn’t know for sure what was out there. The creatures Zaedon told us about immediately came to mind. After reminding myself they only inhabited the wastelands, I realized it had to be the males from the other building. And if it was the soldiers, then what had happened to the person from our group who was supposed to be standing guard. What if it was Jardun and something terrible had happened to him?
Since I’d tossed my timepiece in my bag when I’d stripped out of everything but my shirt before slipping into bed, I had no way of knowing what time it was or if one of the other males had taken over for him. If I hadn’t been concerned with bruising Jardun’s ego, I would have pushed him to let me help stand guard. Second-guessing my actions wasn’t going to change anything, so I concentrated on the current situation.
The knife handle rattled again, the pane closest to Sloane shaking hard enough to loosen the blade. The handle end made a downward slide along the glass, then dislodged and dropped to the bed.
“Crap.” Sloane grabbed the fallen knife, then climbed up on the bed and stood with her body pressed against the wall.
“Sloane, wait.” I rushed back to my bed to retrieve my blade.
As soon as I turned, one of Tarzel’s men shoved the wood panel closest to Sloane aside, then squeezed his large chest through the opening. I hadn’t heard the outside pane break and assumed he’d removed a portion of the exterior wood to slide the glass easily from the frame.
His gaze widened. The shock of seeing Sloane standing next to the window, and not asleep in her bed as he’d expected, wore off in an instant. He moved fast, grabbing her wrist and squeezing hard.
Sloane cried out but refused to drop her knife. “Let go of me, you slimy lizard.”
Because of her size, it was easy for him to wrap his other arm around her waist and pull her toward the opening. She grabbed the frame with her free hand and braced her feet on the wall, trying to remain inside.
No, no, no. I wasn’t about to let him drag my friend through the opening. I sprang onto the bed and sliced his arm. Not enough to cause major damage, but enough to cause pain and make blood gush across his skin.
The male jerked, his loud, feral roar hurting my ears, his glare full of menace. He refused to let go of Sloane’s waist, but released her wrist to swing at me. At the same time I dodged his hand, Sloane jabbed her knife into his chest below his shoulder. He bellowed even louder, then released Sloane and staggered backward as he gripped the hilt of the blade.
“What happened?” I heard Tarzel ask, then got a glimpse of him behind the guy who’d grabbed Sloane.
“The draeking females attacked me.” The male yanked the knife from his chest, then took a step forward as if he planned to come through the window again.
It didn’t take much imagination to know that sex was no longer the only thing they had planned for Sloane and me if they got us out of the building. I took a defensive stand on the bed’s padding and tightened my grip on the knife. “This female is going to do more than slice your arm if you try to come in here again.” I glanced at the lower part of his anatomy, ensuring he understood where I planned to start cutting if he was stupid enough to come after us again.
“Leave them,” Tarzel ordered. “By now, the other males are aware of our presence and will be coming. We need to go.” He took off without waiting for a response.
The male stood there clutching Sloane’s blade, his chest heaving. After a moment of glaring at us with indecision, which I was sure involved exacting revenge, he growled, then followed Tarzel into the darkness.
“Hey, asshole.” Sloane smacked the wall. “That was one of my favorite knives.”
I shook my head. Leave it to my friend to be more worried about one of her possessions than the possibility of being injured. Burke and Zaedon appeared outside the window. “What happened? You two all right?” Burke glanced at us, then at the damaged frame.
Anger and the ferocious glint in Zaedon’s dark turquoise eyes wasn’t a look I’d seen on the easygoing ketaurran before. A solarveyor engine rumbled in the distance, drawing his attention. “Stay here,” he told Burke, then slipped into the darkness with silent stealth.
Burke was used to being in charge but didn’t seem annoyed with the order. He’d probably reached the same conclusion I had. Even if Zaedon made it to the transport, there was no way he could stop it.
“Laria!” Jardun yelled from the corridor seconds before bursting into the room with Celeste on his heels. He froze, his gaze taking in the smear of blood I’d gotten on my arm during the struggle. “Where are you hurt?” he asked as he scooped me into his arms, then perched on the edge of the bed with me settled sideways across his lap.
His hair was mussed, his pants the only thing covering his body. It was hard not to be distracted by the contours of his bare chest or remember how much I enjoyed the kiss we’d shared earlier. If we’d been alone, would I have minded his attentive behavior? Probably not, and that was the problem.
My attraction to him was more than physical. I was starting to care. Dealing with Doyle was going to be dangerous and I needed to stay focused. There was no room for emotional ties on this mission or in my life afterward. I knew better than to develop a personal attachment to a guy I hardly knew and would be walking away from once we returned to the city.
Since everyone was curiously watching our interaction, I had no intention of giving them a show or encouraging any more attention from Jardun. “I’m all right.” I cupped his cheek to stop him from running his hands along my back and ribs checking for injuries. “It’s not my blood, so you can let me up now.”
His peered around the room, finally taking note of the others. “I...am glad.”
He slowly lifted me off his lap, then lowered me to my feet as he stood. The movement hiked my shirt up even farther. As soon as he released me, I grabbed the hem and tugged it back down.
“I’m fine too, in case anyone was wondering.” Sloane jumped off the bed and landed next to Celeste with a thump. They both grinned at me with one of their I-told-you-so looks.
I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t about to give them the chance to add a smart remark about Jardun’s attentiveness, at least not while he was standing in the room with us. “How’s the wrist?” I set my blade aside, then took her hand and studied the band of red marring her skin.
Sloane twisted her hand back and forth, then flexed her fingers. “It’s not broken or anything, but I’ll most likely have some bruising by morning.” She nudged my shoulder. “Oh, and thanks for the save.”
“No problem. I’m just sorry you lost your blade,” I said.
“What did I miss?” Celeste asked.
“Oh, the usual.” Sloane bobbed her head. “We got attacked by a bad guy, and Laria stopped him from pulling me out the window.”
“Yeah, but Sloane stabbed him in the shoulder, and the annoying male took off with her knife before you guys got here,” I added, then stepped around Jardun to grab my pants.
Celeste slapped her hands on her hips. “Well, darn, that’s twice in two days I’ve missed out on all the fun.” She glanced at Sloane. “Next time, you get to go for help.”
Burke leaned through the opening, then snorted. “You three can save the congratulatory recap for later. Let’s see about repairing this mess.”
“Hey, has anyone seen Garyck?” Sloane glanced around the room, a hint of concern in her voice.
“He was on watch.” Jardun turned to leave the room.
Sloane raced around him and collided with the hulking body now standing in the doorway.
Garyck placed his hands on her shoulders to keep her from falling backward. “Little one, you should watch where you are going.”
Sloane shrugged away from his hold. “And you should learn to make more noise.”
Garyck responded with a grunt, then turned to Jardun. “I was attending a fire near the outside of the storage building.” He gazed at the damaged pane and shutter, the furrow on his brow deepening. “I assume the males used it as a distraction.”
“As we suspected, they were after the females,” Jardun said.
Sloane crossed her arms and proudly stuck out her chin. “Don’t worry, Laria and I made sure one of them will have a couple of scars to remember us by.”
Garyck obviously didn’t find her comment amusing. He clenched his fists, radiating tension. “We should have dealt with them when we had the chance.” He snarled, then stalked from the room.
I had a feeling Garyck’s idea of dealing with someone involved bodily injury. Based on the interaction between Jardun and the soldiers when we’d first arrived, I assumed the males had broken one or more ketaurran rules. Coming after us had only made things worse.
“Is he going to be okay?” Sloane asked Jardun.
“He...” Jardun gripped his nape. “Yes, he will be fine.”
I moved behind Celeste to pull on my pants. Just as I finished, Zaedon appeared in the doorway. He seemed a lot calmer than he had when he’d gone after the other males. He took a few steps into the room and held out Sloane’s blade, now free of blood. “The male dropped this on the ground. Who does it belong to?”
“That would be me.” Sloane took the knife, then cradled it against her chest as if it was the only possession she owned. “Thank you so much.”
“You are welcome.” Zaedon’s grin was short-lived. He turned to face Jardun. “The other males left before I could stop them. But I am afraid we have another problem.”
“Which is?” Jardun asked, his tone laced with frustration.
“They disabled the energy absorption unit and the communication transmitter in our vehicle,” Zaedon said.
“Does that mean we’re stranded here?” Celeste asked.
“Stranded, no. Unable to use the transport to return to the city, yes.” Jardun held up his hand. “We can discuss travel arrangements later, after we have repaired the pane and secured the building.”
LARIA
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Celeste had her back to me and was standing on the building’s exterior platform near the open door.
“What’s wrong?” I pulled a thin strip of leather into a tight knot around the end of my braided hair and walked outside to see what she was complaining about. After the evening’s events, none of us had gotten a lot of sleep. My friend was even crankier than I was when she was exhausted.
Celeste threw her hands in the air and glared across the compound. “I can’t believe they expect us to make the rest of the trip on those things.” She pointed to the right where rows of fencing, cut from the thorny blue trunks of scaasean trees, were interconnected to form large pens. “They look like giant iguanas.”
Inside the nearest enclosure, Zaedon and Garyck were securing what appeared to be seats with long straps around the midsection of the creatures Celeste had been talking about. They were a much larger version, closer to the size of a two-seater transport, of the Earth lizard I’d learned about as a child.
Now that the storm had stopped, I could see the entire outpost and the surrounding area. The three buildings, staggered closely together, had been constructed on top of a flat area of land composed of reddish orange sand. A mountainous wall of rock bordered it on two sides and provided natural protection.
After we’d discovered the solarveyor had been disabled and Jardun told us he had an alternate form of transportation, this was not what I’d expected.
“They might look like overgrown lizards, but they seemed friendly enough. I don’t think you have to worry about them trying to eat you.” I draped my arm across her shoulder. “Just think of it as riding a horse, only they’re bigger and probably much slower.”
“I’ve never been on a horse,” Celeste huffed and bounced her hip off mine. “And not all of us are into the outdoor experience.”
“It’s too bad Cara didn’t come with us. She’d have the transport repaired and running in no time,” Sloane said as she joined us.
Cara was one of our friends who also lived in the settlement. She also worked for Burke and occasionally traveled with Celeste, Sloane, and me. She had amazing talent when it came to anything mechanical. There wasn’t anything on the planet she couldn’t fix. I hadn’t seen her in several weeks and assumed she was spending time with her parents. The older couple lived on one of the outlying farms. Cara occasionally stayed with them to help with chores, mostly during the harvesting seasons.
Burke came out of the building and walked to the edge of the platform. “Laria’s right. The chaugwai aren’t flesh eaters, so you’ll be perfectly safe.”
Celeste shook her head. “I don’t care about their eating habits, I’d rather walk back to the city than ride one of those things.”
“How do you think the soldiers got them to stay in the pen?” Sloane asked. “There’s no way they can’t crawl over that four-foot fence.”
“They fed them.” Zaedon stopped the two creatures he’d been leading by the platform’s edge. “As long as there is food, they will not leave the area.”
“Okay, but why would anyone want to keep them around in the first place?” Sloane curiously eyed the creature.
Zaedon tipped his head toward the rocky ledges in the distance. “They can travel where a transport cannot.”
“Speaking of transports, are you absolutely sure ours can’t be fixed?” Celeste wrinkled her nose when the chaugwas swiped its long, thin yellow tongue across Zaedon’s forearm.
“If we were able to make the repairs, using the transport would add additional time to the trip.” Zaedon rubbed the chaugwas’s forehead, earning him another lick. “If the weather does not cooperate and we have more rain, the vehicle’s energy will be drained, and recharging will cause more delays. Besides, it is no longer a good idea to travel the roads through the open areas. If Doyle has been warned about our presence, he will be monitoring the main access points and will see us coming.”
“Which means we need another way into the wastelands,” Burke said. “And these animals are good at scaling rocky ledges.”
“Hold on. When you say scale, what exactly do you mean?” Sloane asked.
“Guess you’ll see when we get there,” Burke said, then flashed us one of his smart-assed grins. He shrugged his bag over his shoulder and stepped off the platform. “Get your gear. We need to get going.”
I glanced from my friends to the chaugwai. “How bad can it be?” I tried my best to sound optimistic, but failed at keeping the wariness out of my voice.
“You mean besides the scaling thing? I’d say hours riding in those seats isn’t going to be comfortable.” Celeste crossed her arms and bobbed her head. “But hey, what’s getting a few blisters near our girl parts when you compare it to saving lives, right?”
Her sarcasm wasn’t lost on me, nor was the fact that she was still irritated with me for talking her into helping the ketaurrans. I hoped my zest for doing the right thing wasn’t going to get us all painfully hurt, or worse—killed. “We knew what we were getting into when we agreed to help.”
Sloane nudged Celeste from the other side, her gaze locked on Garyck. “I can think of something I’d much rather be doing with my girl parts.”
Celeste’s cough had me rolling my eyes and glancing from one friend to the other. “Okay, so we didn’t know about the giant lizards, but since we’re here, we may as well get going.”
I turned to go back inside to gather my gear, and ran right into Jardun’s chest. It was like bouncing off a sturdy wall of flesh. I grabbed his arm to keep from stumbling backward. I had no idea how long he’d been leaning against the doorframe listening to us. If I based my guess on his inquisitive smirk, I’d say he’d heard our entire conversation, girl parts and all.
The heat searing a path along my throat and cheeks got even warmer. While I contemplated my recently acquired lack of coordination, he placed his hands on my hips. My ability to concentrate had diminished, and it took me longer than necessary to realize he wasn’t letting go, and even longer to admit I enjoyed being held in his arms.
I forced the thoughts away, reminding myself again why caring wasn’t a good idea and why I needed to keep things between us professional.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready, or doing some leader-type things, instead of lurking in doorways?” I asked.
He pressed his head to my cheek and spoke softly into my ear. “Probably, but then I would have missed your enlightening reference to the female anatomy.” With a sniff of my neck, he released me, then stepped aside so I could enter the building.
What was it with the sniffing? I remembered how he’d done the same thing the first day we’d met. Ketaurrans had an enhanced sense of smell, and if he could smell my arousal, the last thing I wanted was for him to mention it loud enough for my friends to hear. Sloane was already relentless with her comments regarding him, and knowing how he affected me would just encourage her to increase her efforts. After deciding it was best not to ask or give my friend any additional encouragement, I rushed inside.
When I returned with my bag, Burke, who’d been helping prepare more of the chaugwai, was leading two more of them, and Garyck was following him with the other three.
“Do you suppose you could make the whatsa thingy move closer to the platform?” Celeste asked Zaedon as she waited for him to strap her bag behind the seat on the back of one of the animals. “I don’t want to ruin my boots.” She emphasized her request with a pitiful pout.
I was pretty sure I wouldn’t earn any points if I reminded her about the other pairs she had stashed in my transport. I tried not to laugh when Zaedon growled because Celeste missed his shoulder and ended up pulling his hair in her less than graceful attempt to mount the chaugwas without stepping in the sandy mud.
Garyck stopped in front of Sloane, a hint of a smile curving one end of his mouth. “Perhaps you should remain behind.”
Sloane crossed her arms. “Oh yeah, and why is that?”
“Because you will require constant assistance with mounting. We do not have time to waste helping a female who barely reaches the top of the chaugwas’s hindquarters.”
“Make one more wisecrack about my height and I’ll shave those pretty golden locks from your head,” Sloane sneered, then palmed the handle of the short-bladed sword sheathed on her hip.
“And how do you plan to do that, little one? You are not tall enough to climb on the chaugwas’s back, let alone reach my head,” Garyck said, then tapped her nose. Even standing on the ground, which was a good foot lower than the platform, he was taller than my friend.
Sloane rarely reacted the way anyone expected. Instead of getting angry, she tilted her head to the side and flashed him a mischievous smile, which I knew meant trouble. “You’ve gotta sleep sometime.” She smacked him in the chest, then spun on her heel and launched herself toward the overly large lizard. She kicked off the creature’s leg, then, in a graceful acrobatic move, used its neck to hoist herself into the seat.
She leaned forward and yanked the leather lead from Garyck’s hand. “Are you coming, or do you plan to stand around with your mouth hanging open all day?” She tugged on the strap and dug her heels into the chaugwas’s ribs, urging it to move forward.
Zaedon smirked, but before he could say anything, Garyck held up his hand. “Do not...”
After slinging my bag over my shoulder, I walked to the edge of the platform next to Garyck. He shifted his gaze away from Sloane long enough to acknowledge my presence with a nod.
It was hard to resist teasing the grumpy male, so I leaned closer and said, “Word of advice.” I also thought he deserved to know what he was dealing with. I knew Sloane well, knew she was devious and had a reputation for following through on her threats.
He grunted.
“Sleep with one eye open.” I chuckled, then stepped off the platform and plodded through the moist sand, following Jardun to the last two mounts.
