Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
Ethan
I might not have had Kaluma healing powers, but I did have the best healer on the planet as my doctor, and I did have some fancy medicine that worked better than anything on Earth.
I’d been shot twice. But within five days, my shoulder and calf were nearly pain free. The bruises had faded to a dull yellow, and I was concussion-free. I felt like a whole new human, especially with Goldie at my side.
She gave me a tour of the settlement, from their crops to their livestock, to their cafeteria and nearby stream. She introduced me to all the Kaluma females who poked at my skin with their claws until Goldie barked at them to leave me alone.
Zuri watched me closely at all times. When she wasn’t watching me, Sherif was. Any minute, I expected to be the victim of an accident that would result in my death. Goldie didn’t seem concerned for my well-being among her males, but she also rarely left my side.
And then there was Vray.
Vray was definitely going to kill me. Slowly. Painfully.
I often found him staring at me with ice blue eyes that promised murder. I honestly couldn’t blame him. I’d hate me too. Because Goldie was beautiful and perfect, and I’d tainted her with my evil human dick.
Goldie told me that they had talked, and that he was fine with her choice. And I believed that he told her that, but he was certainly not fine with fumbling Goldie to a human.
“He’s a good male,” Goldie told me one day as she took me on an expedition to gather herbs. Apparently she’d been doing the same thing the day my pod crashed, and that was why she’d been so far from her settlement.
In the distance, I could hear some of the warriors training.
Metal clanked, and Kaluma grunted. I’d be there one day, when I was fully healed.
Bosa had already promised a thorough hazing, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.
But I had to get fit. No way would I turn into some soft human and let the Kaluma warriors be the protectors of my own mate.
Speaking of warriors… grass crunched under large boots. I glanced up from my crouch gathering a plant Goldie called dano that helped menstrual cramps.
Vray approached warily, eyes on me. With him was another male I recognized as Bruk, the mate to Wensla and Gurla. I felt Goldie’s skirts brush my arm.
“Vray. Bruk.” she greeted them. “Is everything all right?”
Vray’s gaze shifted from me to her. I didn’t miss the way his eyes softened as he spoke to her. “You’re needed. Wensla’s oldest is hurt.”
Bruk’s fists clenched and unclenched. “We think she was bitten by a surfy.”
Goldie let out a small gasp and then nodded. “I’m sure she’s feeling very unwell, but I can help her.” She motioned to me. “Let’s go.”
“You can go,” I waved her on. “You said this dano needs picked today. I’ll do it and come home when I’m finished.”
Goldie tugged at her skirt nervously and glanced around. “I don’t know. Varins can sometimes lurk here.”
I resisted a shudder. Fuck those things. But I didn’t want to appear weak. “It’ll be fun. I’m mostly healed now.”
“Hara, you can go with Bruk,” Vray said, his gaze locked on me. “I’ll stay with your human, since he has no defenses.”
I glared at him. I had my laser gun with me, fully charged and everything.
Goldie, clearly, wasn’t aware of how Vray wanted to kill me, because she smiled brightly. “Okay,” she glanced at me. “Okay, Ee-than?”
This will be the last time I see you. I smiled back. “Of course.”
She hurried off with Bruk, disappearing behind a dense cluster of trees.
We were a few miles from the village, so Vray could kill me out here and no one would hear me scream.
Silence stretched between us as I remained crouched holding a dano stem in my hand.
Vray stood with his massive feet braced apart and his weapon—a curved blade—belted onto his waist.
Something chirped overheard. A creature rustled some nearby bushes.
I swallowed and dropped my gaze. “At least let me pick the rest of this dano for Goldie before you take my head off.”
He didn’t answer.
I plucked the stems at the base, right above the root, like Goldie showed me.
She used the flower and stem but left the root so the dano would regrow.
When I finished, I checked the ground for any I missed, and then carefully placed them inside a fabric sack.
I stood slowly and exhaled. Vray watched me.
When I held out the sack to him, he didn’t reach for it. I shook it. “Here you go.”
“You can take it back to her,” he said.
I lifted my eyebrows. “How am I going to do that if I’m dead?”
He huffed. “I’m not going to kill you.”
“Why not? You want to.”
“I do want to kill you. But I will not out of respect to Goldie.” He looked away from me then, and his hands fisted his belt. “She deserves happiness.”
I let my hand holding the sack drop back to my side. “She does.”
“I don’t know you make her happy,” he looked at me with a sneer. “But you do.”
“It’s a mystery to me too, buddy.” I shrugged.
He was quiet for a moment. “Even without you, she wouldn’t have been mine.”
The self-awareness was impressive. “No, I don’t think she would have been.”
“The warriors will never accept you as one of them.”
He probably wanted that to hurt me, but it didn’t. “Probably not. Because I’m not a Kaluma. But I’ll do everything I can to be whatever Goldie needs.”
“But that’s it,” he puffed up with anger. “You can’t give her what she needs. You are weak and fragile. She will soon see that you are not a suitable mate, and you won’t last—”
His next words were drowned out by a loud crack from overhead.
A dark object descended from the sky just as a tree near us seemed to explode.
A length of branch, about twice the size of me, soared right at me, and I was about to become Ethan splatter when Vray shoved me with a growl.
I went flying just as the branch slammed into Vray’s and crushed him to the ground flat on his back.
I scrambled for him just as the dark object hit the ground with a crash. A hatch opened, and as I scrambled for Vray, half a dozen met ran out, armed to the teeth led by—
Paul Holmes?
No, that wasn’t Paul. He was dead. But this man was nearly identical. Paul’s younger brother—John. “Find him!” The younger Holmes hollered.
Vray tried to speak. Blood bubbled from his lips. “What the fuck?” My hands hovered over him, unsure what the fuck to do. I couldn’t lift this tree branch. It was the size of a car. “Why would you do that? Why would you save me?” I was so tired of these fucking Kaluma hurting themselves for me.
“H-Hara,” he sputtered. His body from the weight of the tree branch crushing him. “She needs y-you. N-not me. T-tell her, I-I’m sorry.”
“Oh fuck no,” I spat. No way would I let Goldie go through the pain of losing someone she cared about, even if it was this guy. “You’ll tell her yourself, you dumbass.”
The men saw me, and so did John. “Where’s Paul, Hackett?” he screamed at me. “Where is my brother?”
“Fuck,” I muttered. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t leave Vray, but I was a sitting duck in this clearing. This was going to be ugly. I drew my gun as adrenaline pulsed through my veins.
And then… the men advancing stopped suddenly. They blinked at me. Vray let out a choked sound, and I glanced down at him to find his eyes wide as they rolled in their sockets. “B-blanked,” he murmured in awe. “You blanked.”
I stared down at my body. I was fucking invisible.
I had no idea why. Or how. I didn’t know how long it would last. So I took the opportunity and began firing.
I moved as I did so, bobbing and weaving as the men fired in all directions looking for me, but I was quick, and they were slow. I took out each one, until only young Holmes remained as he sprinted back to the ship.
My skin itched. I looked down to find I was visible again. John let out a gasp. I lifted my gun, and I said, “Guess your bloodline ends here.” And I fired a shot right into his forehead.
Turned out, this planet made me stronger.
Or maybe it was one of those emergency strength things, where people can lift cars off others.
Either way, I managed to get the tree branch off Vray and somehow get him to his feet.
One of his legs was likely broken, and his breathing sounded terrible, but he was alive.
With one of his arms around my shoulders, I dragged-carried him in the direction of the village.
The Kaluma had likely heard the crash of the Holmes pod, because halfway to the village, a group of warriors driving a hover tank—for real, it was insane—met us. They piled Vray and me into the tank and sped the rest of the way to the village.
As soon as the doors of the tank opened, Goldie was there, wringing her hands and pacing back and forth. As soon as she saw me, she leaped into my arms and buried her face in my neck. “I thought something happened to you.”
I patted her hair. “I’m all right, babe. But Vray needs you. He almost died saving me.”
She pulled back with a gasp as Bosa and Cravus carried a limp Vray from the tank. Immediately, she dropped to her feet and switched into healer mode.
In moments, we were in a special building used specifically for the sickest and most injured of the Kaluma.
A small girl sat in a chair in the corner eating something sweet on a stick, and I recognized her as Wensla’s oldest. Vray was laid out on a bed palette while Goldie fussed over him, applied salve and paste, and giving him something that smelled awful to drink.
He was barely conscious, and I worried his internal damage was too great for him to survive. But Goldie was calm and confident as she worked on him.
Sherif strode into the building, and headed right for me, face like thunder. He had his hand around my throat and my whole body pinned against the wall with a second. My feet dangled uselessly as I gasped for air. “You did this!” he roared in my face. “This is your fault!”
“Sherif!” Goldie cried. Her fists pounded his back. “Stop it!”
It was chaos then. Zuri was yelling. Bosa threatened to disembowel me. Wensla’s daughter was crying. Goldie was nothing but a ball of fury.
With a snarl, Sherif dropped me, and I hit the ground with a thud. I clutched my throat, gasping for breath, as Goldie crouched at my side. I gently pushed her away. “I’m fine. Tend to Vray.”
“He nearly killed you!” She hollered.
I didn’t blame him. This had been the fear that more human men would return, and that fear had been realized. Now one of their own was in bed, hurt badly.
The optics were terrible. I was surprised I wasn’t back in the cage.
Then Vray’s voice filled the room, deep and rasping. Full of pain. “Pardux,” he murmured.
Sherif whirled around and strode to his warrior’s beside. “Vray, don’t try to talk.”
“N-need to tell you.”
I rose to my feet to find Vray with his finger pointed in my direction. “D-defended me. Blanked. Hara’s linyx. S-saved me. N-not his fault.”
Goldie’s hand rested on my chest. “You blanked?”
I rubbed her back. “It doesn’t make sense, but I did.”
Zuri stood near Vray’s bed. “It does make sense.” She gestured to the human women clustered in the small room. “We all can. It’s an effect of the linyx bond.”
“How come no one ever told me that?” I said. “A heads up would have been nice.”
“We weren’t sure,” Goldie said, “if you would be able to.”
“Well, I can. So there’s that.” I rubbed at my throat. “I think that’s the last of those fuckers. There are only two Holmes brothers.”
Sherif hadn’t said a word. His gaze bounced between Vray and me. His hand settled on his warrior’s shoulder. “You tell the truth?”
Vray nodded and then grimaced.
“He saved my life too,” I said. “Took that branch instead of me. Would have killed me instantly. I know my body limitations.” I swallowed. “So, thanks, man.”
Vray’s pained gaze met mine. And then slowly, so very slowly, he lifted his arm to his chest with his forefinger and thumb splayed, the rest of his fingers tucked.
Sherif exhaled roughly. Goldie’s breath caught in her throat.
I didn’t know what this meant, but it felt significant.
“It’s a Kaluma greeting,” Goldie whispered at my side. “A sign of respect among Kaluma.”
My heart thudded. My eyes burned. I would never be one of them, but I could make a new, honest life here with my perfect Goldie. I returned the hand signal to Vray. His bloodied lips twitched. And I thought that just maybe, I’d made my first friend on a new planet.