Soren took a deep breath as he picked up Vicca and reclined on the bed of furs. He let Vicca drink from a bowl as he rubbed her back. “I don’t know what state the ship’s in now. The cockpit separated from the rest of the wreckage. The hull was crushed. There were grass fires all around. It’s probably burned.”
“What happened to my eyepiece?” she asked.
Soren frowned, his dark expression saying far more than his colorful eyes. “It fell off. I’m sorry I was too busy trying to revive you to save your blighted eyepiece.”
“Take it easy, I’m just trying to assess our situation,” she defended, wiping some sticky juice from her chin. “What do you have against my eyepiece anyway?”
“I can’t see your face when you wear it.” He picked up a large oblong nut and crushed it in his hand.
“Soren?” She slid off the stool so she could look him in the eye.
“What?”
“Where are the drugs?” she asked.
He let out an aggravated breath and fed the crushed nut to Vicca. “I don’t know.”
“How long will the drugs in your system last?” She tried to keep her tone soft and comforting. He was on the edge, and she didn’t wbefore we harm ourselves.”
Kaln nodded appreciatively. “If our young men chose to influence each other with calm, instead of provocation, perhaps there would be less broken noses here as well. You come from a highly evolved people, Soren. Come, I hear that there’s a boar roasting in the men’s house. Your woman will be surrounded by other women, so you can rest easy for now. Eat with me. If the pig isn’t done, we can comment on the quality of the fire, and make suggestions on how to tend it better.”
Soren laughed openly. He felt warmth expanding his heart. It made him feel larger, whole.
He spared a glance at the women’s house as he walked with Kaln and wondered if Cyani would ever find humor in her situation. She just needed someone to help her sort through this new world. How long would it take before she let him help her?
AFTER FOUR GOURDS OF SOUR MELON WINE, SOREN FELT FAR HAPPIER THAN he could ever remember feeling in his life. Kaln joked with the other men as Soren drank. He laughed freely and with abandon, enjoying the feeling of his spirit growing strong again. He wished Lakal were there, drinking wine and sharing stories of hunting on the savannah and seducing bare-necked women. This was the experience that kept Lakal hopeful and strong, so Soren did his best to use it to honor his friend.
In the corner of his eye, Soren saw a man raise a gourd in salute. He turned, but no one was there.
He must be drunk.
Oh well.
It felt good. It felt free.
“Soren?” Kaln pulled a stool up opposite him. “I’ve been thinking about our conversation earlier. Do you know how our mating rituals work?”
He would have to bring that up. Without warning, the image of Cyani dancing with wild abandon on a sultry night with her back to a veil of flames flooded his mind. He had to force his reluctant attention back to the prince. The Lankana, Lakal had called it. What did he remember about the ritual?
“I know some. I know that you have fertility festivals four times a year. The women dance and the men give them necklaces signifying a bond. If the woman gets pregnant sometime before the next ritual, the pair remain bonded until the child is weaned.”
“That’s right,” Kaln commented. “But if a woman does not get pregnant, in the infertile time before the festival, she is free to return her necklace and explore new relationships before dancing in the next ritual.”
Soren was confused. What did this have to do with anything?
“In the next few days, that time of freedom is upon us. Those women not wearing a necklace can be pursued by those men with a necklace to give,” Kaln explained.
Then it hit him.
Cyani.
She didn’t have a necklace, and by the tribe’s standards, she would be considered free to be pursued by any unbound male. They couldn’t touch her. The deep red in his blood ignited once more. He would not let them touch her.
“I’ve heard things,” Kaln whispered to him.
“What did you hear and who said them?” Soren roared as he rushed to his feet and spilled his wine on the sand.
The crowd of men in the large building stilled and stared at him. He could feel a hesitant collective push to calm down.
Kaln placed an arm over his shoul matter what I heard or who said it,” Kaln confided. “Those who speak aren’t the same as those who act, but I’m concerned for Cyani. Stay close to your woman. In the next few days, keep her by your side.”
Soren shook off Kaln’s arm and marched across the village toward the women’s house. He knew he should have been grateful for the warning—he was—but at the moment only one thing mattered. He had to find her. An irrational panic fueled by his possessive nature and the wine spurred him on. In the distance the last lingering glow of the setting sun faded on the horizon, throwing the village into a murky dusk as a pair of young men stoked the large fire in the center of the village. Thunder rolled from the dark clouds on the horizon.
“Where’s Cyani?” Soren demanded of the young pregnant woman standing at the entrance of the women’s house.
The queen emerged with an expression of cool concern. “She left here hours ago. She was exhausted and wanted to sleep. My daughter escorted her to the hut you share.”
Soren stormed toward their hut. He had an ill feeling in the pit of his stomach. He threw back the cloth hanging over the door. Vicca stood on her cast and barked at him. The fox was alone.
“Blight, pestilence, and rot!”
He ran to the village gates. “Did the star flyer pass through here?” he asked the men guarding the entrance.
“No, we did not see her.”
“She must have scaled the wall.” Soren ran a hand over his face.
Of all the blighted things to do
. . . She went back to the ship.
Kaln ran up next to him. “What’s going on?”
“Cyani wanted to return to the wrecked ship to send a signal to her people. She left alone. She’s out there unprotected.”
“Let’s go. I’ll get Lhiri. We’ll find her.”
HOW DID THEY EVER SURVIVE THIS?
Cyani dropped into the crushed cockpit and let her eyes adjust to the dimming light. Dried blood coated the walls, giving off the sickly sweet smell of death, while broken glass crackled beneath her sandals. Soren managed to free them both from their sideways harnesses and lift them out through the hole in the top of the wreckage.
She could barely turn without cutting herself on jagged metal and glass. The acrid scent of the charred ship burned her eyes and lungs. She had to be careful and get out of there quickly. She found her eyepiece under the overturned pilot seat. Where were the drugs?
Soren’s seat hung in midair, as the cockpit came to rest on its side. Everything had fallen toward the pilot seat. She used a thick shard of broken glass to sift through the rubble.
Her heart leapt with hope as she uncovered the corner of the silver case that contained the drugs. She abandoned the shard and dug into the glass and debris, not caring about the scratches to her hands. Her flash of hope quickly faded to despair as she realized the body of the case had been crushed flat, pinned between two chunks of metal.
The drugs were gone.
There was only one way for Soren to survive. He had to find a mate. She had to get him home.
Taking her eyepiece in her hand, she carefully pulled herself out of the cockpit. Her skirt caught on a bit of rnd. It was all that remained of her com. Hopefully it would be able to upload the codes into a beacon. It was too damaged to wear.
A low howl haunted the open savannah as towering clouds rumbled in the distance. She scanned her surroundings from her perch on top of the cockpit. The last thing she needed was a hungry pack of wolves on her tail. She didn’t have her scout, and her ear set could only enhance her hearing. Without the eyepiece, she couldn’t see danger coming. She listened to the soft rushing of the grasses and the distant crackle of the burning fires. Hopefully the fires scared off most of the predators in the area.
Cyani pulled out her flick knife. It was her only means of protection. It was the only protection she needed as long as nothing surprised her.
She leapt down from the cockpit and hurried to the main body of the ship. The Garulen kept beacons on stingships. They used them to mark the locations of captured slaves for the transport ships. A beacon might have a strong enough signal to reach the Union base. If she could hack the signal with the com in her eyepiece, she could recode the message to a Union distress signal.
She stopped and listened. The hull of the ship provided shade from the scorching savannah. The damaged craft would be inhabited; any shelter on the open savannah would soon be inhabited by something. She had to get in and out as fast and carefully as she could. Ducking into the wreckage, she held her breath as she looked up at the side of the ship that became the ceiling above her.
“
Shakt
,” she whispered under her breath. She paused to listen once more then climbed the support struts of the wall. Once she reached the ceiling, she swung hand over hand, gripping old piping until she reached the panel she needed. Hanging by one arm, she tugged on a panel door with the other.
It burst open. Using her well-trained reflexes, she snatched a beacon out of the air before it plummeted to the ground.
The rest of the beacons clattered against the broken ship, the sound echoing in the empty black cavern.
She winced in pain as the sound amplified in her ear. She swung her legs up and hooked her toes under a pair of support struts, then shimmied back to the wall and leapt to the ground.
“Gotcha.” Cyani smiled, turning the beacon over in her hand. “And in a skirt, too.”
She rushed outside and crouched in the shadow of the hull. Twin moons rose through the threatening clouds, lighting the savannah in a soft silvery light. Using her flick knife, she pried open the beacon and set to work connecting it to the com of her eyepiece. Once she had it synced up, it took a minute to hack into the programming before she could order the computer to relay the Union signal.
The top of the beacon glowed with a bright green light as it came to life.
“Yes,” she whispered.
A slow tingle raced down her neck. She froze, listening. She heard a soft exhale.
Cyani grabbed her knife and whipped around, leaping in the air just as a dark leopard landed where she’d been kneeling.
The cat wheeled, the epitome of predatory grace and speed. Cyani watched its muscles, gleaning its next move as it lunged toward her with its razor claws unsheathed.
She ducked and rolled out of the way, the claws catching the edge of her skirt and ripping through the fabric. She spun to hha. warrior as Soren’s kiss made the world swirl in a new spectrum of iridescent light. She could see heat rising off the warrior’s shoulders, and a strange firelike aura pulsing with the rhythm of his heart.
“Leave her alone,” she demanded.
The Makkolen sheathed his knife.
“Kaln didn’t mean any harm, Cyani. Get away from the cat before she wakes up.” Soren offered her a hand, but she refused to take it.
Instead she stood on her own and heaved the large cat onto her shoulders. Cyani swayed under the beast’s weight. The cat was as large as she was. With staggering steps, she carried the mother leopard into the hull of the ship. The soft fur of the cat’s belly pressed in around Cyani’s ears, enveloping her in the scent of sun-warmed dust and sweet milk. She couldn’t leave the cat exposed on the savannah. She would be eaten. She had to return her to her cubs.
Cyani found them in the back, deep in the shadows. She gently placed their mother next to them, and rubbed their fluffy spotted heads before she turned and left the ship. She could hear the cubs purr as they snuggled in close to their brave mother.
She turned the vol
ume on her ear set down. Now her ears could naturally hear things she hadn’t heard before, and her nose alone could smell danger before it struck. She moved the beacon next to the cockpit, so if a landing party did arrive, they would stay clear of the hull of the ship. She gathered debris and made an arrow in the direction of the village then turned to face Soren.
He didn’t say a thing.
Lightning flashed across the savannah, and reflected in his dark eyes.
“We must return to the village as fast as we can. Plains wolves come out at night.” The Makkolen warrior placed his hand on the head of his large pet lioness, and began the journey back to the village.
Cyani followed him. She could feel Soren’s gaze burning into the back of her head. What was he thinking? She knew he was angry, but his eyes had never flared so blue. Blue was the only color she couldn’t read. It was the only color that frightened her.
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