Chapter 1 #2
I realize how stupid I was all at once, how foolish, how rash. Thinking I could live like a ghost, that because in six months they had never come close, I could live on these lands for good.
If they catch me, they would never let me out of these walls. If the Mating Rage drove them to ruin me, one after another, then my testimony would be their death. They could never let me outside the walls. Ever.
I grab my climbing spike, pressing it into my belt.
The bell stops ringing now that I’m no longer struggling in their trap, and the silence is only worse. They know they caught me, and they know I’m loose. I start towards the wall in a jog I know I can sustain until I get there, then slow.
They know my patterns. Know I come to this orchard when my traps are bare.
Do they know where the walls are weak, where I scramble over?
Are they watching now?
I swallow and listen for the awful hum of their Reaver rising above the trees. If they take it up tonight, I’ll have no chance.
I steel myself. Tonight is going to get ugly. I need to mask my scent, even if the cold water freezes me through.
The river.
I rush through the forest, breaking ferns, scattering red leaves behind my bare feet, breaking every rule that has kept me hidden inside these walls. It is not speed that will get me away from them. It is skill.
I slow myself down, choosing my steps carefully. I land on exposed roots and flat rocks where I can, stepping where the ground is too hard to hold a footprint. The sound of the river starts to fill my ears, growing louder ahead.
Then I turn right, needing to know.
I know an old drying terrace further along the slope, a broad shelf paved with flat stones where grapes were once spread beneath the sun. The forest has swallowed its edges, but little grows through the stone at its centre, leaving a clear view uphill towards the estate.
I need to know if they are rushing towards the walls, if they are spreading out, or if it is only the hunter chasing me. I need to know if their Reaver has risen.
I keep low as I move through the last trees, remaining hidden at the edge of the old terrace as I look uphill.
The warship remains grounded beyond the low white-stone estate, white and gleaming against the deepening sky.
Then I see them.
All three giant aliens stand upon the upper terrace.
The leader stands at the centre, perfectly still.
The hard-faced one is several paces to his left, his attention moving across the forest below.
The brute stands ahead of them. He has pulled his work shirt back on, though it hangs open at the throat, the sleeves shoved above his forearms and the hilt of his Orb-Blade secured at his waist.
The three silhouettes are pure white against the setting sun, the very last light glowing against their marble skin, their bodies forged by hundreds of years of war and training, huge, aloof, exuding dominance and pure control.
Anyone who sees them knows they are the masters of this place, and any place they enter.
It was my secret pleasure to know they could not touch me, that I was a shadow in their world.
Now it all crashes down, all my foolish pride and stubbornness making my stomach roil as I imagine them chasing me down, their huge hands gripping my ankles, pulling me to them, ripping my clothes like tissue.
I am still hidden among the trees, but the big one who felled the tree earlier today somehow locks his eyes on me. I can see the cold slate-grey even from this distance.
He raises one hand to his mouth.
“Give yourself up, thief, or it’ll be all the worse for you.”
His voice booms across the distance, carrying over the terraces, and birds flutter from the trees.
A surge of panic rushes through me.
The Reaver is still grounded. They do not want to hunt me by air. Perhaps they want to make a game of this, to see if they can catch me.
The big one breaks into a sprint towards me. His huge legs eat up the ground with each massive stride, barrelling down the hillside, beelining towards me.
The leader and the hard-faced one move in opposite directions, each heading towards one of the wall crossings I use most often.
Then I know I am not getting out of this place tonight.
My only chance is subterfuge.
I turn and break into a full sprint.
A sick thrill shoots through me. For five years, I’ve lived easily on this land, with no one daring to come inside the walls, more game than I could hunt and abundant fruit, nuts and chestnuts in the autumn, all of which got me through each winter more easily than the last. I only had to go to the village when the whim grabbed me, and I could have spent the rest of my life never seeing another living soul.
Then they came, and the cat and mouse game made every second have this addicting tension to it, knowing that no matter how big they are, how strong, I could slip away from them, that at night, I could watch them through their windows, see them when they had no idea I was there.
My pace slows as my mind races.
It’s not speed that will get me out. And if I don’t get away from them, I’ll never see the other side of these walls.
They didn’t set up their home far from the city to obey the laws of the Empire.
But I know this place better than them.
Ahead, there is a thick stand of trees rising between the old terraces, planted long ago and tightly together, in the path of the wind that whistles down the slope.
Neglect has turned them into a wall of trunks, saplings, dead branches and thorny vines.
I rush to it, not bothering to hide my tracks, and the gaps narrow until I have to wriggle sideways, twisting between trunks and ducking under branches.
Thorns prick at me, and a branch drags hard against my skin, but I barely feel it. I feel so fucking alive.
My ears are pricked, waiting to hear him forcing his way through even as I continue onward, deeper into the mess of trees.
Somehow I know that he isn’t going to draw the hilt at his belt and cut them down with his Orb-Blade, even if it would mean catching me.
He has some kind of sick rules about the hunt.
Maybe he needs to beat me, catch me on equal footing, or maybe there’s something else in his twisted mind I do not yet know.
I learned all the animals of this place, their habits, their patterns, and he’s just one more on the list.
A heavy snap cracks through the forest behind me, as loud as breaking bones, making me flinch. His huge bulk must have cracked a fallen limb that I scurried over. Then branches, breaking underneath, the quick staccato of snapping wood, of trees pushed aside as he barrels through them.
He’s nearer than I expected, and a surge of fear twists in me. A low, furious growl carries between the trunks as he forces his way through.
My mind races, and before I know exactly what I’m doing, I reach down, under my tunic, and press my fingers against myself.
To my shock, there’s a tiny trace of wetness, and a sensation of something I can’t place rushes up and down my spine.
I press my glistening fingers against the bark of a tree to my left, then rush right, ducking under branches, the wind at my back.
I twist between two trunks, circle a knot of thorny dead growth, and double back until I can see through the windbreak from the other side, back into the forest where movement is easy and quiet.
The big one is there, one hand against the tree where I left my scent, staring left, searching for my trail.
He leans in, and his nostrils flare as he tastes me, and I know I should run while he’s distracted, but it’s like I’m frozen, seeing him this close in all the brutal immensity of him, like a statue of some ancient titan brought to life.
His eyes roll back as he draws my scent into his nostrils, knowing me.
A movement beneath his trousers drags my eyes down.
His cock gives one heavy throb beneath the dark cloth, already pulsing hard against the material.
A dark wet spot spreads over the broad head where it presses above the line of his belt, making the cloth cling tightly enough to show every hard line of the enormous length beneath.
He straightens to his full height, well over seven feet tall. A few narrow planes of blue-grey light filter through the thick leaves and fall across his marble skin, making him seem almost luminous between the dark trunks.
His eyes catch on something low between us.
He steps towards a branch, and I see the thin line of blood shining across it. I look down at the sting I’m suddenly aware of on my thigh. There’s a fresh cut.
As if by instinct, his head turns to me.
His chest is heaving beneath his open shirt, the cloth pushed apart over slabs of muscle and thick curls of brown hair, sweat shining against his marble skin.
He locks his eyes on me like nothing else exists.
He doesn’t rush me. The Mating Rage is boiling through his veins. He’s got my scent on his tongue, his muscles corded and his veins pulsing, but he drags in a heavy breath, stares at me and does not move.
I can’t understand why he isn’t crashing through the trees straight towards me, forging a path through the bramble. He has me in his sight, but it’s like he’s waiting for something.
A horrible feeling crawls over me.
The other two.
I listen, my ears at full alert, with the horrible realization that they could be right behind me. It’s as if I can feel their eyes on me. But there’s no sound. Aurelians can move almost like ghosts, but even they are not totally silent.
The bearded one starts forward slowly, and the crunch of a branch under his heavy boots breaks me from my paralysis.
I bolt for the river.