Precious Sacrifice (6 page)

“It means fibbing. Pulling your leg.” She smiled up at him. “Telling a lie.”

“Ahh. I understand. I just added that to my translation guide up here.” He tapped his head. “Shitting me. Check.”

She laughed then bit it off and reached up to touch his cheek grooves. The flare of lust took him by surprise and he caught her hand.

“If you want more story, don’t do that.”

“Why?” Her eyes sparkled with mischief.

“Because it’s making me want to tell you to hold still while I do things to you. And we agreed I had to say more than ‘fuck me now’. Shall I continue with my stories?”

“I guess.” With her tongue, she toyed with her lip. “Though ‘fuck me now’ is tempting.”

He shook his head slightly. If she was his, he’d be spanking her so often her rear end would glow.

“Story?” she asked softly. She drew him down and he let her do so. She wriggled into a better place and took a small fistful of the lapel of the coat he wore as if it were some talisman to keep her safe. “Tell me.”

When she put her nose to his coat and breathed in he felt his eyes watering.
Kak.
Warriors did not cry. But she was bonding, tight. It was so obvious. It had happened from their first mating.

Punishment, remember? It’s supposed to hurt.

But it’s hurting her too.

He cleared his throat. “Good. I begin.”

At first they talked of trivial things – what they liked and disliked. They talked of her family, and his. He was certain his family dynamics puzzled her as much as hers puzzled him, but they moved on, changing topics, laughing, being sad for the other when the story warranted sadness. The day moved on also.

The shadows of the trees rearranged, shrank, grew longer. A few times she stopped and went quiet, gave him an odd look. He heard her mutter
an alien
once but ignored it when she smiled. Or rather, he said nothing, in his head he was beginning to wonder why she was taking this so well.

With every tick of time, the secret he held wore at him, like some dark creature hidden.
She’s going to die.
With every passing moment, she drew him closer. Her laugh, the feel of her body, the curve of her lips – she fascinated him.

He’d done what many hunters did to provoke their prey into running – told her where he’d come from and that she was being artificially influenced. But she wasn’t scared. Wasn’t running. He’d been ready to use a
look
but he didn’t need to. Why?

Did it matter? He liked her.

“You’re unusual, Brittany?”

“Oh?”

The crinkling of her forehead meant worry so he caressed her arm with his thumb a while.

His curiosity stirred him to say more.

“I’ve told you that I have plans to make you mine, a pet. That I’m an alien.” He cocked his head, surprised at how tense he’d become. “Aren’t you worried?”

She shook her head slowly. “I know I should be crazily upset. I’ve seen enough scifi movies to be thinking that you might, any second, turn into something with eight furry legs and a need to tie me up in a web…” She raised her eyebrows at him. “You’re not going to are you?”

He snorted. “No.”

“Good. I can’t believe that anyway. Every bit of me just wants to be here, next to you, cuddling you.” She wriggled, huffed. “It’s damn weird with a big
W
. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I trust you! Is it what you gave me?”

Truth?
“No. At this stage it should make you feel very…” He searched for the word. “Very aroused, but it shouldn’t make us trust each other.”

“Uh-huh. Us?” She sucked in a corner of her lip and eyed him avidly. “Us? So it’s doing stuff to you too?”

She was fast.

“It is. I think.” He thought about elaborating but didn’t. Funny but trust was exactly how he’d sum things up. He trusted her to not hurt him. As if she could.

“But I can really feel this chemical making me want to jump you.” She poked his shoulder. “So if you do turn green and furry or something I’m going to be totally miffed.”

He turned down his mouth and nodded slowly. “I will make a note of that and not turn green or furry while you’re looking at me.”

When her body shook it took him a few seconds before he realized she was laughing.

“I like that you can make jokes,” she whispered. “I’m sure green aliens would have trouble with that.”

“Mmm.” He turned over to lie fully on his back and watch the sway of the tree’s leaves and branches. “Tell me more about you.”

In the quiet, she moved in closer and sighed heavily. He waited. Perhaps she too had secrets?

“How’s this? My boyfriend died over a year ago. He fell off a cliff. I should have saved him. I seemed to feel him die even.” She ran on. “I never tell anyone anymore about this so this is what I mean. I don’t know, at all, why I trusted you with that. I mean,
feeling
someone die. It was so awful though.”

He could hear tears in her voice. “Could you have saved him from death?”

“No.” She sniffed noisily and her words sounded clogged. “No, I couldn’t have.”

It appeared as if she was punishing herself over this thing of the past. He pulled her in closer with the arm that cushioned her head. “Then don’t say lies. That is a command.”

He didn’t expect that to do anything, but it frustrated him that he couldn’t fix her problem.

“A what. An order? You’re shitting –”

“No, I’m not. I don’t say lies.
You
don’t say lies. Don’t blame yourself for something you couldn’t do.”

“Uhh.” She relaxed and seemed to think a while, shifting her shoulders, looking up at the trees with him. When she spoke again, she had an odd tone in her voice. “This is ridiculous. I feel free of that for the first time. Soon after he died, I told so many people that and all I got was strange looks. But when you told me to not blame myself, it clicked. That horrible feeling in my stomach, that always comes when I talk about him, it went away. I don’t understand. I don’t…”

“It did?”

“Yes. Jadd. Damn, I should be scared of you. But I’m still not.
That
too should be scary.”

“Don’t be. Please. I don’t understand either, but I meant well. I wanted to help you.”

She shivered then shook her head, her straying hair brushing his cheek. “I’m good. Just hold me. My head can take a hike with its logic.”

“Sure.”

His command had worked. Now he was floundering. Why was this happening? Were earth people especially susceptible to the nano-chem?

He gave her a ration bar to chew on – laughing when she said it was delicious – then some sips from his emergency canteen. There were distant voices, dogs barking, but no one disturbed them.

Maybe if they stayed here forever, nothing would ever hurt her.

He gave in and told her the story of how he came to be on her earth and what Preyfinders did, and how the Hunt was a way of rewarding those who achieved greatness. Of how her people were also being assessed for star-faring capability. Slowly, he inched closer to his terrible secret. The urge to tell her built.

“If you adapt to the nano-chem, this planet becomes a Hunting Ground. If you don’t adapt, it will be demolished.”

“Fuck. I feel a sudden need for a tranquilizer addiction.”

It was a lot of potentially alarming information to take in at once. She was quiet but said nothing more, only nodded, then played with the buttons on his coat.

At least the thermal profile of the coat made things pleasant and shielded them from the heat. It was one of the few non-human artifacts they were allowed. In a pinch, if he sealed it properly at top and bottom, it could form a rigid cocoon and protect him from anything up to a small and very distant nuclear blast.

She hadn’t run. What if he said the rest? The need to tell clawed at him.

Was there something terribly wrong with him? Bonding went both ways, but the male held the control. This was so far outside his mission parameters that he’d probably be fed into the center of the nearest convenient sun if anyone found out.

Wasn’t it cruel to let her know?

He could cover his tracks, use a primal
look
on her, and make her forget. He wasn’t sure why this was important. Just, that it was. For these last days, hours, of life, she should know.

Speaking the first words was like having a mouth full of poison. “There’s more. Some worse information.”

Brittany turned to him. “Worse than earth being demolished? That idea’s so crazy it’s still rattling around in my head. What could be worse?”

Her eyes flicked back and forth as if she tried to decipher his expression.

“There’s someone stalking you who has killed before. I’m not going to be allowed to stop him. I wish I could but I can’t.” He held his breath, felt the ache all the way down through his chest.

“Fuck. Now you
are
shitting me.” She gaped at him then sat up. “No. You’re lying. You have to be.”

Why had he gone in this direction? The ache became a twist of sickness deep within. “It’s the truth.”

“No. I don’t believe you. You wouldn’t do that to me.” She shook her head, her brow furrowing. The air went hard and cold and her words distant. “Would you? Jadd?”

She trembled and he didn’t know whether to hold her, but he wanted to. Then she gathered her legs under her as if to get up and run.

He pulled her down, took her throat, and paused, staring into her eyes, his hand shaking, uncertain he could do this.

He had to.

Against the wishes of his soul and his heart, he used a
look
.

Flattened by the mind blow, she went limp. Her reddened face paled. The trace of tears outlined her eyes and he wiped the dampness away, gently. A small wind fluttered against him, blanketing his ears and shoving him sideways as if trying to make him fall.

Wrong, this was so wrong.

He bowed his head, wanting for the first time ever, to end his life. If she had to die why should he live? Life as a soldier meant his responses ran on rails. He couldn’t disobey. He couldn’t
not
allow her to be killed. Because it was an order. His body seemed filled with rusted mechanisms that were grinding against each other, slowing, moments away from shrieking to a halt and stopping forever.

This wasn’t the way of an Igrakk warrior. Though fumbling at first, he went through a meditation ritual in his head and managed to pull himself back together.

With his thumb, he stroked the pulse at the base of her neck. When her mind came back he could at least reassure her. He’d used the lowest intensity of the lowest grade of
look
. It would paralyze her by the smallest amount, remove the memories of her panic, and yet leave what he’d told her.

He’d done what he thought was right. What seemed the very best of the right things he could do and all he felt was this immense gut-twisting wrongness.

He stroked her again, seeing a fiery indignation surfacing in her eyes. She knew. She knew he had betrayed her. Why had he really wanted to do that? He was lost.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” He caressed her cheek, memorizing the contours. “All I know is you matter to me more than it seems possible. I always held Brask as someone I could use as an indicator, as advisor, to tell when I was off course.”

Brask had never been wrong before, but he was in this.

“It’s not right to let you die just to punish me.”

He wiped at his eyes, annoyed at how they watered. All the arguments about the universe knowing when you did right didn’t matter when he had a person in his arms who could
live
.

“Come.” He stood and helped Brittany to stand also, though on wobbly legs.

“Why are you crying?” she asked quietly, leaning on him, happily using him for support despite his treachery.

Exasperating girl. Trusting girl. She found his weak point unerringly.

“Don’t your men cry?”

“No. Not much.”

He twisted his mouth, frowning. He stared at his wet hand, felt the coolness on his face from the moisture. “Igrakk men don’t either.”

She provoked extraordinary reactions from him. For her, he’d dive into battle with weapons blazing. Why and when he’d decided this he wasn’t sure. Sometime during these past few hours. It felt good. He’d never wanted to protect anyone as much as he did her.

“What’s the word you use when something happens that’s sort of unexpected? Something you thought might be bad?” Was there such a word?

“Sucks?” Her voice trembled too.

He hugged her to him, kissed her hair. “Sucks. I like that word. Everything sucks. But I plan to make it not suck.”

“Good plan,” she whispered. “Jadd. I don’t want to die.”

“I know.” He swallowed down past the lump in his throat. He picked her up, feeling like a death merchant delivering a corpse. She was his. But she wasn’t. Not really.

The little dog followed them to her car and leaped in when he opened the door, even before he could get in. Then the dog sat on the seat panting at him. He’d observed it before in archived images from the reconnaissance of Brittany’s apartment building. It had been ever so ancient in those. Now it seemed like a bouncy young creature. Was that an anomaly? He shrugged. Clearly, he needed to study earth animals more.

The sparrow bird just circled them, and when he drove off, in the rear view mirror he saw it fly away.

What was it with earth people and their creatures? How had he missed seeing the section about them having so many creatures as pets?

What he saw as he went past another car made him wonder if he had acquired some odd Earth illness where people could reach in and twist his intestines with their evil thoughts alone.

The killer was here, sitting at the wheel of that car. His lean silhouette and beak nose turned as they slid past, as he watched them. How quiet everything had become, like the killer had thrown a cloaking device over them.

Was this his role in her life? To mate with her, discard her, and hand her over to become some toy for this human excrement to play with and pull to pieces?

No.

He’d bleed for her from a thousand wounds; he’d kneel before the winds of an oncoming firestorm. He’d lay down his life before he’d let that happen.