Page 85 of I Married A Syllen

“Yes, my mate,” I replied, briefly looking at her before returning my attention on the human. “There is such a thing as a Crimson Datura. And it does what this man claims, but not just on cancerous cells. The question is why are you in this area if that’s what you truly wanted? There is none to be found here. They grow much farther to the north.”

A glimmer of panic flashed through his gray eyes.

“Really? Then we were given the wrong coordinates. That explains why we didn’t find any,” he said nervously.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“If you didn’t find any, why are the bags the three of you carry all look so full?”

This time, his face not only blanched, but he also seemed downright terrified, as did the brown-haired male. The older man in the middle was too lost in pain to pay attention to the conversation.

“It’s… it’s…” his voice trailed off as his mind failed to come up with an appropriate lie.

As Nym marched towards him, he started fighting his restraints, thinking she was coming to kill him.

“Nooooo!” he screamed when she pulled out the dagger from her belt. But she merely cut the strap of the bag so that she could retrieve it.

Breathing heavily, the man half wept when he saw her moving away from him and towards me. While walking, she opened it to peer inside. A frown creased her forehead as she stared at its contents with confusion.

Drannor and Mirella moved closer to also get a look.

“These resemble miniature pinecones,” Mirella said pensively.

Nym reached for one of the brown objects that vaguely reminded me of a multi-petal wooden flower. Before she could touch one, Mirella caught her wrist with surprising speed. The shocked and disbelieving look my mate gave her had all of us immediately feeling tense.

“You can’t touch this until we know what it is!” my woman said as if it was self-evident. “People have been trying to harm you. We cannot take any risks.”

Nim bowed her head in concession while dropping her arm. However, I didn’t miss the glimmer of respect and gratitude that flashed through my Oshea’s eyes. It also meant the world to me to see my Mirella be this protective of my people... Or rather, of her new people.

She activated the scanner on her bracer.

“Oh, my God!” she whispered, horrified.

My mate jerked her head towards the black-haired young man and stared at him with murder in her eyes. Terrified, he began shaking and muttering unintelligible words that I assumed to be apologies.

“What is it, my mate?” I asked, bracing for what would follow.

“These are sterilization pods,” she said angrily, still looking at the human.

“WHAT?!” I exclaimed. “They’re trying to sterilize us?!”

She hesitated, glanced at the pods, and then peered at me with a troubled expression.

“I can’t say for sure until we perform further testing,” Mirella said carefully. “But the chemical inside is commonly used for us to eradicate parasitic species that threaten an ecosystem. Once eaten, it spreads through the food chain and through the creature’s wastes. That specific chemical is particularly potent. The flora and soil also absorb it through the fluids of the creatures that ate them directly or of the predators that fed on the creatures that ate it.”

“So it would get to us through the crops we harvest and the animals we eat if they were part of that food chain,” I said, fury boiling inside me.

“I think there would only be traces in your crops,” Mirella sent pensively. “It would be the most concentrated and effective through the animals that you eat.”

“That makes little sense,” Drannor argued. “They must know that we’re mostly vegetarian. We eat a very small amount of meat. Even seafood represents a small fraction of our diet. Does that mean they’re targeting our fauna?”

“I don’t know. Like I said, we need further testing. Unless these charming gentlemen want to tell us what this shit was for?” Mirella asked, glaring at the three men.

“Look, we’re just grunts,” the third man with light-brown hair said in a shaky voice. “We don’t know anything about the science or the functionality of any of this. They paid us big money just to dump this shit in the forest.”

“Dump it?” I asked menacingly.

“Yeah. We were told to scatter them around the forest by the trees,” he said fearfully. “Just to drop them every three meters or so.”