Page 33 of Saved By the Alien Hybrid
Rentir’s focused gaze cast around the forest. His head tipped back to take in the towering tree above them. “Into the boughs. My map does not show any cave systems nearby, and we need to get off the ground before nightfall.”
Her hair stood on end at the ominous declaration. “Why?”
He contemplated the question, eyes flicking back and forth over her face. He shook his head slowly. “You will see.”
CHAPTER 15
Rentir grabbeda flimsy lower tree limb. Somehow, it managed to bear his weight, and he began to climb. Reluctantly, Cordelia followed his path up the silvery tree. Each reach above her head pulled at the wound in her side. By the time she was fifteen feet from the ground, she panted with pain and exhaustion. Rentir climbed back down, using his tail to anchor himself as he stood on a precariously thin branch.
“We are not high enough yet.” He didn’t have the decency to sound even slightly winded. “You must keep climbing, Cordelia.”
“I can’t,” she wheezed. She pressed her forehead against the branch above her, clinging to it for dear life as her muscles trembled.
He hesitated, then leapt gracefully to her branch, making the whole thing sway. She yelped as he crouched beside her, wrapped one arm around both her thighs, and abruptly rose.
“Climb,” he said, urging her onward.
She grabbed the closest branch and ignored the burn in her side, struggling to drag her weight higher. She flinched when he palmed her ass and gave her a boost of momentum, shoving her up and over. They repeated the sequence until she was high enough off the ground that the view spun menacingly when shelooked down. She shuffled back along the thick limb she was standing on until she could dig her fingers into the bark of the tree trunk, sliding down until she was sitting.
The sky was more visible from this high in the tree. It had passed through every shade of orange, pink, and silver, and now the blanketing deep purple was being overtaken by the stark black of night. Animal calls grew louder and more numerous. And, wonder of wonders, some of the foliage was beginning to glow. The purple leaves on the silver-barked trees were turning fluorescent blue, as vibrant as a blacklight in a bowling alley. She laughed in amazement, distracted as Rentir swung up onto her wide branch.
“You are amused?”
“It’s beautiful.” She gestured toward the forest. “Hardly anything glows like this on Earth. It’s incredible.”
“You like things that glow?”
“Yeah, I guess I—oh.”
He crouched in front of her, his eyes glowing green. The darker spots over his nose and high cheekbones were fluorescing bright purple. She could see the movements of his hands in the dark as the smaller spots there glowed. His tail shone like a beacon as it swayed back and forth.
“You glow!”
He grinned, flashing his sharp teeth. They shone eerily under the glowing leaves, adding to that strange feeling that she’d fallen down the rabbit hole. “I do.”
She looked out over the forest, full of flickering blue lights, then back at him. “You’re the wrong color.”
His pointed ears twitched. “Ah… yes. Does it displease you?”
She did a double-take at that. “What? No, of course not. It’s just curious.”
He blew out a breath, nodding. “I see.” He sprawled out in a comfortable position across from her, leaning back on his hands.“Haerune glows like this—blue. He believes his majority donor must have come from a world like this one, whereas mine…”
“Majority donor?”
His glowing eyes turned on her. “Yes. Though we’re all an amalgamation of different species, we tend to have a dominant set of traits from a single species donor. We all share a baseline of auretian genetic code—the rest is fine-tuned by the geneticists until we present the traits they want in us.”
She chewed on that. “What happens if you grow up and you don’t have the traits they were trying to give you?”
Rentir’s body went tense, and he looked away from her. “It would not be cost-effective to keep hybrids who cannot be utilized effectively for the Aurillon’s needs.”
Her stomach turned over.
“Of the forty hybrids born to my batch, only twenty-eight made it planet-side. The rest…” His mouth thinned, and he shook his head. A lock of his dark hair fell into his eyes.
Impulsively, she leaned forward and brushed it behind his horn. He stiffened, eyes widening, and stared down at her without breathing until she sat back again.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice husky. His tail rasped over the branch to reach for her. He seized it in his hand, dragging it into his lap.
