Page 44 of Beauty and the Alien Beast
Good, she remembered the cyborg, with his covered face and horrific, misshapen arm. “Yes.”
She nodded and shivered, and I held her with my lower arms as I focused on the path ahead.
Brax caught a whiff of something ahead that he didn’t like and slowed down, a low growl rumbling in his throat.
Coaxing him to stop in a nest of brush, I dismounted. “Stay. I check.”
This strange Earth language had some unusual words, but Ella nodded, watching me wide-eyed as I walked away. She didn’t try to follow.
There was a narrow valley up ahead that was filled with grassy meadowlands. We were still at least an hour’s ride from the edge of pack lands and would have to cross it to take the most direct route. If my instincts were correct, it was the most logical place to expect an ambush, and Brax’s growling had only made me more certain.
I moved to the edge of the tree line at the top of the ridge and looked down at a straggling line of hoverbikes hanging low over the valley floor.
Curse it. There are too many to try sneaking us through their line.
I withdrew slightly, burning with anger and frustration, but not all that surprised. Looking along the ridge, I noticed where it joined with the slope of a gentler hill farther on, it was so densely covered with brush that life sensors would not be able to penetrate it.
I could hide there with Ella while Brax goes without his gear back to the sector with our message. Without his saddle and tack, he’ll look like yet another feral beast. They’re all over this region.
I had thought this plan a bit mad when I had first come up with it, but now, forced to put it into action, I couldn’t afford to think that way. I had to believe it would work, even as I prepared for the worst.
Ella sighed with relief when she saw me. “Bad men?” she asked in her language.
“Yes.” I pointed down the ridge toward the wooded slope, then hopped onto Brax. “We go.”
Now, instead of running, I had to keep Brax down to a rapid walk. He panted and whined impatiently now and again, and I gently but firmly got him to settle down. He wanted to run again, and I couldn’t blame him.
I was already starting to fight some primal urges of my own… again. I tried to ignore the feeling of my loincloth shrinking around me, but I found myself shifting uncomfortably as my barely restrained erection rubbed into the small of my sheleki’s back.
Keep it together. I cannot afford to lose focus now.
The rain intensified as we crept along the ridge through the thin trees, and I heard another crash off in the distance.
Voices started to crackle over the comm unit again, and I turned it down to keep anyone but me from overhearing it.
The cyborg muttered, “There’s little in this direction besides Gladiator territory, unless they’re going past it to Tarsis.”
I was getting too used to that soulless growl of a voice, and I ground my teeth as I kept listening in.
“But, sir, we still can’t breach Gladiator lands without permission.” Whoever the male was, he sounded nervous and exhausted.
“Since when have we ever let those filthy animals’ laws stop us? I don’t care if those beastly creatures outnumber us. We have better technology and a right to retrieve our stolen property.”
I stifled a growl.Property? My mate is not yours. I’ll kill you and all your warriors for hunting her—us—like prey.
I stared coldly out at the gaps between the trees as we made our way across the end of the ridge, barely able to make out the faint glow of the hovercraft lights far below us. Their chatter grew more sporadic; maybe they decided to hunker down in the rain. The group that had been following us had to break off for just that reason.
Finally, hard, stinging hail began to fall, and Brax ran the last hundred yards, galloping all out toward that thick patch of trees. Over the communicator, I could hear cursing and Belland’s shouted orders.
That’s what you get for relying on hover vehicles in a region known for its storms. Fools. There’s a reason we use dogs.
But their leader didn’t seem to care about the danger he was sending his men into or ordering the reinforcements to get into position in the valley below us. This cyborg was not a man with honor. And when I killed him—and I would kill him—I would rip him apart, leaving his body for the wild animals so he would have more good use in death than he’d had in life.
We finally reached the dense patch of forest, and I steered us inside and brought Brax to a stop. I had chosen a small bower within a ring ofshantrees, their dull red fruit hanging within reach. Some were still whole, and I made a note of them for later when we were calmer.
The canopy was so thick that the water barely dripped on us. Now and again, though, a big enough hailstone made it through and slammed into the ground or bounced off one of the nearby trunks. I could feel Ella trembling in my arms, and I brushed my fingers through her hair comfortingly. My Wulfaen was irate and distressed by the scent of fear that clung to our female… and so was I. My beast clawed me from the inside, fighting to get out—to shift—to go after the cyborg and his team. And destroy the source of our mate’s anguish.
Swallowing over the lump of rage that threatened to consume me from the inside out, I growled, “We hide here.”
