Page 44 of Stealing Mercury
He put a hand out to indicate she should go ahead of him. She took her time climbing the slight incline to avoid the need for him to steady her. She could feel the weight of his gaze with every step.
Chapter Thirteen
ArenaDogsCampsite,PlanetG-45987
Earth Alliance Beta Sector - Gollerra Border
2210.161
Mercury measured the path of the sun across the sky as Samantha had taught him. Midday. They’d been traveling for two days, and those days felt as long as any he’d known in his life under the dome of Roma. Carn still led the way, though both he and Lo could hear the pulse now. Even Samantha, who claimed not to hear the noise, clearly suffered its effects. The pain in her head etched tiny lines in her normally smooth brow. She’d claimed to have detected his moans of pain on the ship. Seeing her wince with each step, he knew it had been more than her machines that had detected his cries of pain.
Samantha stopped to catch her breath, putting her hands behind her head as she inhaled deeply. “Is it me or is Carn looking worse?”
Mercury looked down into Samantha’s face. “He’s lost much of his color.”
“And I can’t remember the last time I saw him hold down food or water.” Her small hand rested on his arm as it had more and more through the morning. He laid a hand over hers.
“His physiology can handle the dehydration better than a human.” Longer than one small female. But Carn couldn’t fight off the inevitable dizziness and loss of consciousness forever. His steps were already clumsy.
Samantha accepted his judgment of Carn’s condition and tilted her lips in a pained smile. “At least the ground here is level.”
After a day and a half of steady climbing, they all welcomed the more level terrain. There were fewer trees, and the underbrush was sparser making it easier footing.
She looked in the direction they’d been traveling as if she could see a clear path instead of the next rise less than a day’s walk ahead. “Seems like some kind of plateau.”
“A plateau?”
She turned her attention back to him. “Sometimes I forget you’ve lived all your life on a flat rock under a dome. A plateau is a place in a mountainous area that has... well, level ground.” She laughed. “Probably sounds silly to give it a special name, huh?”
He shrugged. She could call it whatever she liked. He cared little. But her smile put a salve on his worry over the fiery flush that dotted her cheeks and ringed her neck. He pressed the back of his hand to her cheek and found it several degrees too warm. “You need rest.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “I’ll be fine. And don’t even think of offering to carry me.”
Her gaze drifted to Carn and her smile faded. He knew she was thinking that she was no longer the one slowing them down.
“Carn grows weak, but so do you,courra.” He cupped her cheek and forced her to meet his gaze. “We should turn back. You didn’t feel the effects of the pulse back at camp.”
“But Carn did.”
He could see in her eyes that she understood the truth. Turning back might alleviate her pain, but only going forward to disable the pulse would help Carn. He knew, too, that she worried for his brother. Worried for them all. He wanted to tug her close and rub his face against her cheek. To press his nose behind her ear and fill his lungs with her scent.
“It was wrong of me to ask this of you.”
“You didn’t ask.”
She stepped in close, so close he could feel the heat of her fever before she rubbed her cheek against his arm.
“Then I shouldn’t have allowed it.”
“What would you do?” She looked up at him, so close he could see the striations in her bright green eyes. “Would you sit back and watch him get worse every day? Maybe die?” She pulled her hand out from under his and twined their fingers together. “If you could do that, watch a friend die, you wouldn’t be the man you are.”
He’d never known a female with such a generous spirit. The submissive females of his race, like Hera, obeyed and served because they knew no other way. Their spirits were more broken than soft. The gladiatrix females among them knew the same bonds of loyalty as the males but they were few. He’d not even spoken to one since forming his pack.
One moment he was reaching out to pull Samantha into his arms and the next the ground shook under his feet. He bolted toward where Carn had stood seconds earlier.
He’d heard Carn’s inrush of breath, his panicked scramble, and he’d reacted on instinct. Lo had responded much the same. Mercury passed him only a few paces before he reached the edge of the level earth, where the ground had opened up and swallowed their brother.
The ground beneath his feet gave way. Instead of fighting against the fall, he dove into it. He caught his breath as he slammed head first into the funneling brush and let it drag him forward. His heart beat like the swell of a blood thirsty crowd on arena night.
