Hunted: BBW Alien Romance (Warriors of Karal Book 4) (2 page)

“You are only saying that because you have to wait longer for your own female, now you are no longer a deep space pilot,” Garth said.

Trumin sighed. “You might be right. I was ready to take a woman to my bed, to live with her out among the stars, but now I have to wait until the missions are over and I am free to go back home.” He drank his cup of fetu and set it down on the table. “Good luck, friend. I hope you are successful in your mission.”

“Thank you, Trumin. I will see you on my return.” Garth got up, leaving his half-full cup on the table. “I have no wish to have a bad head tomorrow, so excuse me for not finishing my fetu.”

“I will drink it for you, Garth.” Trumin picked up Garth’s cup and drained it in one, his colours skimming his skin as the fermented liquor hit his nervous system. “That is my limit.”

Garth laughed. “I didn't know you had a limit.”

“Neither did I.” Trumin looked up. “You have a visitor, I should go.”

Trumin got up, his legs a little unsteady, but he managed to keep his colours under control as he walked away from the table. “Okil.”

“Trumin, good to see you relaxing in your downtime,” Okil, the Karalian in charge of the deep space missions, said.

“Okil, what can I do for you?” Garth sat up. Although Okil wasn’t a warrior, he had some kind of rank over them, although no one could figure out what. The general view was that he was here to spy on the warriors for the Hier Council. And it didn’t pay to get on the wrong side of the Council.

“I wanted to check in, see if everything was OK?” Okil sat down at the table, instantly making Garth wary. He had never sat down with Okil, never spoken to him except in passing.

“Is there a reason it wouldn’t be?” Garth asked, thinking back to how Trumin had his mission taken away at the last minute because the woman he was supposed to have as a mate was taken ill.

“No, not at all.” Okil looked around the mess hall, and then at his hands.

“Speak, Okil, what you say in here is private. Unless we are talking treason, of course.” The warriors were private people, independent, but their oath was sworn to the Council.

“I will be coming with you to Earth tomorrow. You will leave an hour earlier than planned, pick up your lottery bride, and then wait for me to return,” Okil said quickly, before looking around the room once more.

Garth took a sip of his fetu, more to give his brain a chance to process what Okil was saying and gauge whether he was acting outside of the Council’s rule.

“Is this against the Council’s wishes?” Garth asked, at last.

“No. Well, the Hier Ruler knows, the rest of the Council do not.”

“The Hier Commander? Does he know?”

“No.” Okil shook his head. “It is not what you think. This is a personal task. One that the Hier Ruler has asked me to keep quiet. It is not treason, or against the Council’s wishes. It is more … well, it is not important … yet.” His voice faded off as he finished, piquing Garth’s interest. However, from Okil’s behaviour, he knew it was fruitless to ask.

“I will be ready an hour before schedule.” He got up, not wanting to be part of anything that might tarnish his name within the warriors. “I should sleep; tomorrow is the start of a long mission.”

“Good night, Garth. Thank you.” Okil stood too, and then turned abruptly and walked away. He looked tired, and once more, Garth felt the urge to ask him what was wrong, but didn’t want to know—it was best not to know. But Garth liked puzzles, and this was one he would like to know the answer to.

Waiting a moment before following Okil out of the mess hall, he headed for what served as his home here in the old breeding house. It wasn’t much: a small set of rooms, comprising a bed-sitting room, a bathroom, and a kitchen dining room. Everything he needed was there, small, compact, and easy to maintain. Yet he had begun to miss his home, miss the peace and quiet of the slopes of Mushta. The mountain gave him peace, it was so still, unchanging, as he wished the planet of Karal could be.

Yet he knew as much as every other Karalian that things had to change; the females had to come here so that the new generation could be born. It was the same for every generation, but still he wished the search for females wasn’t necessary, that he didn’t have to have a female chosen for him.

But those were the times they lived in.

Tearing himself away from those thoughts, he turned instead to Okil’s secret mission, but try as he might, he could not fathom what the Hier Ruler could be up to. What information was he keeping hidden from the rest of the Council, and yet he trusted Okil with?

Undressing, he slipped into bed, the cool sheets soothing him; and in the way of a warrior, he switched off those thoughts that tumbled around and around in his head, and went to sleep, knowing he would need his strength tomorrow, when his life would change forever with the arrival of his female.

“Where are we heading to?” Tamzin asked Sybil. They’d packed up all their belongings and headed out of the small town where all the
sand shifters
were based. It wasn’t much of a town, not much apart from a bar, which was only ever full on payday when some of the men spent a coin on a drink of simulated beer, that they swallowed down because it was cold and gave them a temporary buzz, which blocked out the pain of the truth that their coins would never be enough to provide a decent standard of living for their family.

There was also a supply shop, where hard-wearing clothes were sold, the kind that took months to wear in, and chafed your skin terribly, but kept out the worst of the sand, and a food store, which also housed the lottery terminal. It was probably the busiest store, because every eligible woman in town visited the store everyday just to enter the lottery in a bid to escape their living hell.

But it had been a place Tamzin had called home for the last ten years, since her mom had brought her here after her father’s death. Her mom had known Sybil well when they were younger, and Sybil had agreed to take them in when they had nowhere else to go.

“I thought we would head to Crintha. Thomsk said he heard they were hiring—only seasonal work, but it will get us through the summer.” Sybil looked up at the sky, and the threatening back clouds. It was a long walk to Crintha, the next town on the sand strip. “You have your tarp? I think we will be feeling some acid before long.”

Tamzin looked up at the sky and said, “Maybe we should wait.”

“No, we packed quickly to be in front of the next wave of those who will be leaving this godforsaken place. We go on.” Sybil hitched up her pack, tightened her grip on her stick—which she used to test the sand for deep pockets that could swallow you up so fast no one could save you—and struck off into the desert.

Tamzin followed, feeling uneasy about the whole thing, but knowing Sybil was right. Still, as she looked behind her, at the small group they were traveling with, she wondered if they would all make it to the next town. As if to reflect her mood, the sky overhead darkened and she swore she felt the first spot of acid on her face.

Upping the pace, despite the protest of the two children with them, they headed north, hoping to hit the harder ground which would make walking easier and faster before the rain came. With each step Tamzin found herself hating the whole situation more and more. She wanted some way of escape and her thoughts turned to the lottery.

If only she could win, she could go and live on a distant planet, where she doubted they had acid rain, or sand,
bloody damn sand
. She hated it: it got in your eyes, even with goggles on, it got in your clothes, and she could hardly remember the last meal she ate that didn’t contain sand; it crunched as you bit into dried bread, and the water always had a few grains floating on the top.

In fact, she was sure she had a pound or two of sand in her body. It probably lay on the bottom of her stomach, and it was most definitely in her lungs. As if to confirm this, she coughed, and the dread of death filled her.
But it is just a cough
, she reminded herself.

“We’ll have to stop shortly, the children are exhausted,” Thomsk called from the back of the group. He had one child grasping each of his giant hands, and he was partly dragging them with each step as the soft sand tried to drag them back.

“OK,” Sybil called. “We should find hard ground, though.”

But when Tamzin looked around, there was none, and now she was sure the rain was coming, the tell-tale pitter-patter on her pack making her nervous. Sybil looked up at the sky and then at Tamzin, and her fear was palpable.

“What do we do?” asked Tamzin.

“We walk on until we
have
to stop. A little farther maybe we will find hard ground.” A few more spots told them they would not get too much farther before they would be forced to take shelter under their tarps.

We should have stayed in town
, Tamzin thought, but it was too late now; she knew and understood all too well their reasons for making the choice to travel. There were not enough jobs for all of them and Thomsk knew that his children would starve if he didn’t find work quickly.

Thoughts of her mom, so bravely trying to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, came to her. Why was it so hard to survive?

“I’m going back to help Thomsk,” she said to Sybil, and dropped back before the older woman could protest. Sybil had looked out for her since her mom’s passing, treating her like a daughter. She would have told Tamzin to stay out at the front of the group, but she couldn’t leave Thomsk to struggle.

A cool wind seemed to descend on them from above, a sure sign the acid rain was imminent, but Sybil pushed on. Wordlessly, trying to avoid swallowing the sand that was whipping up around them, Tamzin took one of Thomsk’s children, and gripped his hand tightly.

“How’re you doing there, Sam?” she asked as the small child stumbled.

“Sand in my eyes,” he gasped, squinting.

“Here.” She took off the scarf she used as a muffler around her mouth and put it over Sam’s eyes.

“Now I can’t see,” he protested.

“I know, which is why you are going to hang on to my hand and your dad’s hand, and then you don’t have to see.” She gripped his hand tighter and the four of them plunged on through the sand, fatigue building up until she couldn’t think.

One foot in front of the other, left right, left right. It was the only thing she concentrated on, it was the only way she could ignore the bigger raindrops splatting on her back, and then on her face, the sting of them telling her she would look as if she had the measles by morning.

“We have to stop,” Thomsk said.

“Sybil wants us to get to hard ground,” Tamzin gasped in reply.

“Ain’t happening,” he said, and then with the last of his strength he yelled, “Sybil, we have to stop!”

The group came to a halt, gathering around Sybil, waiting for a decision, but they all looked so weary, there was no decision, no choice.

“OK, let’s get huddled. Tarps out!” She looked up at the sky. “Double them up, people. When this comes down, it’s going to be bad.”

Tamzin didn’t like the tone of Sybil’s voice. She had lived out here for a long, long time, and was used to what the desert could throw at them. If she thought it was going to be bad, then they were about to feel the wrath of a vengeful Earth. And the way humans had treated her, this Earth had every right to be vengeful.

Tamzin dragged her tarp out, and placed it down on the ground. “Here, you two.” She beckoned to Thomsk’s kids. “Sit here and stop my tarp blowing away. OK?”

“Yeah, come on, that’s it, sit here like Tamzin says.” Their dad looked sick with worry, but he hid it well.

They got the two children seated and then they set to work patching the tarps together, making sure the least worn were on top, and those that were frayed around the edges were around the outside. Then they positioned themselves underneath as the rain became heavier.

This was a drill they practiced often; it was one of the few safety precautions the desert dwellers insisted on. You couldn’t necessarily escape the sand, but getting your skin peeled off by the rain, that was something totally preventable.

Yeah, that’s what they were told anyway. But occasionally the rain was so bad it burnt through the tarps.

We’ve doubled them up
, she reminded herself.
It’ll be OK
.

Thomsk gathered his kids up and they crawled underneath, everyone giving way so they could sit in the middle where it was safe. As Sybil and Tamzin, the last two people to get under the cover, sat down, a gust of wind threatened to rip the tarps off their heads, and then the real deluge began.

Silence, from under the tarp at least; no one spoke, they just all listened as the wind flipped the edge of the tarp, trying to get its fingers under it and drag it off them. The rain gradually got louder, drumming so hard they bowed their heads under the force.

It went on and on, never ending as the dark night covered them and their hope began to fade. They were in trouble, and not from the threat of losing the tarps; instead, they were in danger from the downpour that was puddling around the edges of them and making the sand turn wet, like quicksand.

If this lasted much longer, they would sink, and die.

No one spoke of it, but they all knew. Death was all around them and they had no escape.

“Are you ready, Okil?” Garth asked as the Karalian came and sat beside him. “You are late.” Garth had been sitting in the cruiser on Karal, waiting, for more than half an hour.

“Sorry, Garth, I got tied up. Yes, launch when ready,” Okil said buckling up his seat belt and looking worried, as if he had a great weight on him. The colours skimming across his face told Garth he was agitated, and this worried him. If Okil had lied and the Hier Ruler didn’t know about this trip, Garth would suffer the consequences too.

“You look terrible,” Garth said as he radioed for clearance.

“Thank you. I have had several sleepless nights in a row. Well, nights when I had not time to sleep.”