Page 19 of Warrior Enchanted

Then I’d sat on the branch and watched with fascination as Jakar used a sharp blade and the soap to shave off that beginning beard. There was something sexy about how confidently he moved such a big sharp knife over his skin without ever once cutting himself.

Back in the hollow, I ate and brushed my hair at the same time while Jakar packed up everything except the last lantern. He’d given me the leftover meat from last night and the remaining berries, which I really liked. Devouring four of the ration bars he’d packed in quick succession on his own. No wonder as he had to burn massive amounts of calories to maintain the kind of physique he had, not to mention the climbing he’d done while carrying me.

I was kind of dreading the climb back down, but he’d promised me we’d walk the first stretch until I got tired. It was pretty obvious he didn’t think I’d last very long, and he was probably right, but I was still determined to prove him wrong. I didn’t want to be carried home like a damsel in distress, not all the way, at least.

Curled up against his chest, my legs around his hips, and my arms around his neck, I was trying to focus on the feel of his body against mine, and to remember all those lovely things we got up to last night. I still didn’t like the thought of having to hang off him all day like this, but I had to admit that it was the only way down. “Ready,” I told him, and out of the hollow we went, only one arm cupped below my ass to support my weight.

I looked over his shoulder, ignoring the soft strands of his hair brushing against my cheeks. The forest was beautiful, green, huge, and alive. Jakar and me moving through it hardly seemed to disturb the wildlife, either because of Jakar’s way of moving, or because they were just not scared of two strange beings like us. It was beautiful and I should enjoy it, especially the way the early morning light was brushing across it all, making it look soft and mysterious.

Dread curled in my belly, a feeling I couldn’t shake, no matter how hard I tried. I wasn’t sure if it was dread over returning to the Vagabond or something to do with my new, budding relationship with Jakar. Maybe it was worry over what everyone would think if we returned and they realized I’d been screwing their favorite buddy. They’d been warning him to give me space. What if they were only doing that because they didn’t want him to make a mistake, and wind up with someone as screwed up as me? I’d stabbed an alien in the eye, after all. What did that say about me? I was a psychopath for doing that.

Maybe the dread had something to do with the feeling of being watched. I’d felt it a few times before while we were traveling and I felt it again now. It was hard not to imagine that someone sentient was watching us from the trees. That it wasn’t just some alien monkey but an actual person. I hadn’t brought it up with Jakar because I felt so silly for even thinking it.

Jakar’s body jolted as he leaped the last bit to the ground, the breath whooshing out of me on a startled squeal with the rough landing. I wanted to snap at him again, tell him to warn me next time, but I bit my tongue. The last time I did something like that, he’d obeyed so completely, so tenderly… He was still doing it each time he started to climb or moved to pick me up, warning me with a teasing note in his voice. Hmmm, maybe I should tell him. I kinda liked it when he teased me like that.

“We’ll walk from here, this way,” he said with a grin, and then a hand reached out behind my ear and pulled out a flower, seemingly out of thin air. “But first, a gift for you,” he added, and he tucked the beautiful pink bloom into the strands behind my ear with tender fingers. Damn it, Jakar, why did you have to make me melt every time?

I was still smiling like a loon when I trailed after him into the woods, blindly trusting him to have picked the right direction. He had one of his hands around mine, his grip warm and firm, and I just let him be my guide, leading me wherever he wanted to go. The moss springy beneath our feet and the air filled with this thick, loamy scent that felt a little heavy in my lungs.

One moment everything seemed normal and quiet, the forest rustling with gentle life around us. I imagined little rodents and birds, the leaves whispering in a breeze. The next moment all hell broke loose, sound exploding as an entire flock of birds took to the sky under loud screeching. Jakar froze in front of me, his body jerking wildly, and then he went to his knees and planted face-first into the mossy ground just like that.

I was left to stare at an unknown Kertinal male standing across from me, a weapon in his hand and the gleaming metal shape of a vehicle partly hidden behind the thick trunk of a tree. Oh shit, that was bad. Who the heck was this? Why did my luck always seem to run out just when things started to look up?

*

Jakar

I woke up with a start, my mouth filled with a foul taste, and my body was ready for a fight. Sitting up, my head bumped up against a hard roof almost immediately and I collapsed onto my back again in confusion. Where was I? What was going on? And where was my Meena?

As if she’d heard my thoughts, I felt her hand on my shoulder, “Jakar, lay still okay. You’re hurt.” She was here. She sounded calm; that was all good. Okay, with Meena unharmed, I could start to figure out the rest. I didn’t think they actually hurt me. Despite the disgusting taste in my mouth, I wasn’t injured. I knew what the taste was now as well, I’d been shocked by a shock stick at a very high setting, causing instant paralysis. I hadn’t even seen it coming.

Whatever place they locked us up in, it was small, and it was completely dark. I couldn’t see a thing because, unlike Fierce, my eyes weren’t adapted for total darkness like this. As I checked my body with my hands, I tried to figure out what supplies or weapons I still had on me, and then my hand bumped into Meena’s knee, and I forgot about supplies. Drawing her closer to me, all four of my hands got busy checking each inch of her body by touch to make sure she was unhurt.

A nervous laugh burst from her mouth. “Oh God, Jakar, I was so worried. You didn’t move for ages. I thought you’d never wake up.” She didn’t appear to have any physical injuries, and she was still fully dressed. I had to assume that the Kertinal male I’d only tied up had escaped and gotten reinforcements somehow. But how had they located us in the woods? This place was enormous… Then I shamefully had to admit that going to the only true landmark was probably a stupid move, all things considered. What if this was their meeting point too?

“I’m fine, just got zapped pretty hard,” I said. “We need to get out of here. Did you see what they put us in? How many were there?” I had no weapons right now. They’d taken Meena’s knife and anything I’d been carrying. Not great, but I’d been a hand-to-hand specialist in the arena; I could deal with the lack of weapons. I had always been good at improvising.

Meena shuddered, her arms around my middle, her head tucked into my chest. I could feel wetness against my skin; she was crying. I hated that I’d failed her again. I should have seen that attack coming. I should have been more careful. What kind of mate was I? That I’d let my Meena get kidnapped twice? After what she’d already been through…

“I saw two of those guys with horns, the Kertinals. I think one was one of those that first kidnapped me from Rakex City.” She managed to sound steady and calm as she spoke, even if I could hear the tears in her voice. Such a brave woman. Then she described the hover vehicle they had loaded us into, which had been hitched with a small trailer. That’s what this box was, and I couldn’t risk bursting out of it until we’d landed. A crash at the speeds a hover vehicle went… Definitely fatal for my mate.

She was pretty sure there hadn’t been anyone else, and then she mentioned that she’d heard her captors talk about meeting someone with hover bikes. “I’m sorry Jakar, I should have remembered that. This is a stupid mistake! I think I must be cursed or something…” She had remembered. I distinctly recalled that she’d mentioned it; I just hadn’t considered that we’d run into them again. The forest was vast after all, and they wouldn’t have access to a biosignature scanner as precise as the one Akri had made for me.

I found her chin with one of my hands, cupping it to angle her face toward mine, even if I couldn’t make out a single detail in this dark. “No, this isn’t your fault. We surprised them as much as they surprised us. I think this was just really bad luck. If anyone failed, it is me. I must be the worst mate in history, letting you get kidnapped three times!” I said the words with a teasing note, trying to poke fun at us and our situation by including her first abduction from Earth. We both knew I couldn’t have done anything to prevent that and secretly I was intensely grateful that it had brought her here, to me.

She huffed a little laugh that was half-annoyed, half-sob, but she nodded her head. Then she settled trustingly in my arms and I felt a rush of relief. She still wanted my nearness, even though I had failed her. I’d gotten surprised and hit with that shock; I felt like I should have seen it coming and done something. Pretty sure Sunder would have just kept on going after a shock like that. His skin was super thick, just like Ziame’s… And Eoin? He was not much older than me but he was probably the best warrior around. He could pull up armor on a whim. I was just good at hand-to-hand, but that didn’t help against getting shocked.

“Do you think they’re still taking us to Exka?” Meena asked quietly, “I studied what I could on the Rakex City and the woods… I didn’t think to learn about the rest of the planet.” The question worried me as well. Rakex City was one of the few there were and Exka was the only other city with a decently sized port. I think they couldn’t deviate from that plan; their way to smuggle her off the planet was probably there. They wouldn’t have any reason to deviate either, because if we’d been able to reach out for help, they knew we wouldn’t have been where they caught us. We’d have called for a to be picked up.

“Yeah, probably. We have to try to escape before we get there.” Once we left the forest, I’d be out of my element again and our survival would become much harder. I didn’t want to admit it, but the cities daunted me. They were noisy, crowded, and all so unpredictable. I really hoped I could get us out of this before we reached Exka but I didn’t think we’d be so lucky. At the speeds these hover bikes went, we were probably already almost there.

Once we hit the port, it would get much harder to hide… Though I assumed we could hit up the authorities there and ask for help if we could evade these assholes long enough to get to them. I was worried that in Exka there would be many more males to deal with. If this was the guy that had sent that horde of green-uniformed males after us on the Yengar Station, he had deep pockets.

“They took my knife,” Meena huffed against my chest, no longer sounding scared or weepy. She’d gathered her wits and now she was firmly in warrior mode; I appreciated it. It helped me focus. No matter what, I would find a way to get her out of there. Filled with determination, I set about figuring out the constraints of our current predicament. I felt every nook and cranny with my fingers, tested the strength of the locked trapdoor above our heads, and when nothing budged, I made sure my muscles remained limber and ready for action, even in this small box.

Meena clung to me during most of that, her breathing a little too rapid for my liking. I knew that meant she was scared but she was trying hard to hold it together. From my experience, I knew that showing kindness now would make her unravel, so I didn’t pry. I focused on keeping her distracted, so I talked about my days as a gladiator to her, telling her about some of my more memorable fights. Sometimes those stories made her laugh like I had intended. Sometimes she just became even more quiet, but at least it seemed to keep her distracted from her own fears.

It still felt like a long time before the mild rocking motion of the trailer we were in ceased. I was coiled like a spring beneath the hatch, ready to grab the first one who opened it. Light pierced our prison and I leaped, catching the notched horns of a Kertinal murderer with my upper hands and his shoulders with my lower hands. I didn’t give a shit about anything but Meena’s survival and my own, so I yanked, and with a crack, the male’s neck broke.