Chapter 17 #2
Pushing aside her naughty thoughts to focus on her task, she plucked the flowers by their stems. Once she and Telok had cleared the patch, they rejoined the others, adding their harvest to Ayali’s basket.
Garahk soon called for them to make their wild den near a vineroot tree.
Though it wasn’t nearly as big and tall as many of the other trees, its roots, which ran over the ground in long, twisting tendrils, covered a large area around it.
Utilizing both the natural features of the landscape and hastily collected branches, the thornskulls created a barrier to protect their camp before passing out baskets.
They split into small groups. Lacey found herself paired with Telok—to no one’s surprise—and Okkor. Cole and Droztar remained near camp to collect vineroot seeds while everyone else set out to forage.
After walking for a few minutes, Lacey’s group came across a thicket filled with bushes, fern-like plants, and several varieties of flowers with colorful petals.
She paused to study the vegetation. With so much color and so many leaves, the tiny hints of crimson underneath were difficult to discern, but they were there.
“Looks like a good spot, right?” she asked.
“Much good,” Okkor agreed cheerily, moving off to begin his search.
Telok caught Lacey’s arm before she could step forward. “With care.”
She chuckled. “I know.”
Of everything she’d witnessed on this alien world, the firevine violently attacking her friends might’ve been the most unsettling, and she wasn’t keen on becoming plant food.
Using her spear to shift the plants and prod the ground in front of her, Lacey advanced. Telok’s hand fell away, but he lingered nearby, his hesitation thickening the air, before striding away to search a different part of the thicket.
Every time she uncovered a hidden Hunter’s eyes, Lacey did a happy little dance in her head as she bent to pick it. With her basket’s handle looped over the crook of her arm, she trekked onward until she brushed aside a plant with big, fanlike leaves to reveal a large cluster of red flowers.
Telok hadn’t been kidding when he said Hunter’s eyes liked shadows.
“Score.” She knelt and set her basket and spear on the ground beside her. The vegetation was cool against her knees, which her shorts did not cover. Bending forward, she began plucking the flowers and tossing them into the basket.
There was a flapping sound overhead, followed by a soft rustle and a musical warble.
Lacey straightened and turned her head to look at the larkhet, which now sat on a winding tree root sticking out of the ground. “Well, hello again.”
The bird sauntered closer until it was standing on the end of the root and cocked its head so far that it was nearly upside down.
She chuckled. “Curious little thing, aren’t you? Is it true that if I give you food, you’ll call your friends?”
The larkhet perked, crown feathers rising.
Lacey glanced toward Telok. He stood several yards away with his back toward her, bent low as he deftly swept through the vegetation in search of red flowers.
She looked back at the bird and lowered her voice to a whisper. “If you can keep it a secret between you and me, I’ll give you a little treat.”
Shifting on her knees to face the larkhet, she removed her backpack and pulled it in front of her, opening it to dig inside.
She found one of the leaf-bound bundles and peeled back the leaves, removing a thin strip of dried meat before tying the bundle back up.
Setting her bag aside, Lacey lifted her head to find the bird watching her intently.
“See this?” she wiggled the strip of meat. “Food.”
The bird’s attention immediately caught on the meat, and it released a series of excited chirrups.
Tearing off a small piece, Lacey smiled. “You can’t tell the others, okay?”
She tossed the meat in front of the bird. The larkhet launched off the branch and caught it in midair with its beak, wings flapping as it landed gracefully on the ground. Its head tipped back as it swallowed the food. Then it returned its eyes to her, giving another chirrup.
She chuckled. “You’re really not acting very scared about getting close to me.”
When she peeked in Telok’s direction, he was already looking at her.
Shit, did he see?
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She smiled innocently. “Oh, we’re just talking.”
His eyes flicked to the larkhet and narrowed. “You are…okay?”
Something in his tone made her think he wasn’t asking if she was hurt.
“All my marbles are accounted for and securely in their bag.”
Telok’s mandibles twitched, and he canted his head.
“I’m fine,” Lacey said with a chuckle. “Really.”
He huffed, keeping his eyes on her for a few heartbeats before he turned his attention back to his harvest.
As soon as Telok’s back was toward her, Lacey cast a sly grin at the larkhet and said in a quiet voice, “That was close. Want more?”
The bird let out a warbling sound as it bobbed its head.
“Since you’ve kept your promise, you can have the rest. I need to get back to work. Don’t want the others to think I’m slacking off.” Lacey tore the jerky into smaller bits. “I wasn’t supposed to feed you, so don’t get me in trouble, okay?”
After throwing the meat toward the larkhet, Lacey turned back around to resume her task, but she paused at what she saw.
There was something within the tall, thick bushes ahead of her, partly obscured by shadows.
It looked like…gems. Blue cat’s eye gems, defined by the faintest reflections of light, with two larger ones at the center and smaller ones symmetrically trailing out and upward.
She tilted her head. She was sure they hadn’t been there before…hadn’t they? Otherwise, how could she have missed them? Staring at the gems, Lacey subconsciously leaned closer. They were hypnotically beautiful.
They blinked.
She started. And that’s when she took in the sight before her more fully. Those…those were not gems. They were eyes. Eyes!
Lacey’s own flared.
The blue eyes shifted closer, unveiling the face they belonged to. A face with light gray skin and mandibles, which were covered in white fur and tipped with black fangs, tucked against the cheeks.
It was a vrix.
“Holy shit,” she rasped as fell back onto her ass.
The vrix’s eyes also widened, and it quickly put a finger to its mouth as though to tell her to shush.
Lacey blinked, and her brow creased. That was…such a human gesture.
The vrix glanced past her before it slipped a gray clawed hand out and gently moved aside some of the vegetation, revealing three of its legs and some of its body.
A male. But a small male, who looked like he couldn’t have been much bigger than Lacey. He clearly was neither a shadowstalker nor a thornskull, and he definitely didn’t match Callie and Urkot’s description of spiritstriders either.
He beckoned her with a curl of his fingers and whispered, “Come with me, human.”
Lacey gasped. “You know English?”
“Shh!” He pressed his finger over his mouth again, glancing in Telok’s direction. “They’ll hear. You must come quietly.”
She shook her head, rattling around the million questions that now filled it.
She was talking to an unknown vrix, five days’ travel away from Kaldarak, who was hiding in a bush and telling her—in English—to go somewhere with him. Her stranger danger alarm was blaring, but her curiosity and shock were just as loud.
The vrix eased forward, reaching for her. “I’ll take you somewhere safe.”
Lacey drew back. “No, I—”
A shriek from the larkhet rent the air.
The bush rustled as the vrix snatched up a spear that had been hidden on the ground beside him and readied it.
Lacey’s eyes rounded, and she threw up her hands. “Wait!”
Getting stabbed certainly hadn’t been on her list of things to do today.
But he wasn’t looking at her. His attention was turned to the side.
A big, powerful hand caught the back of Lacey’s vest and yanked her off the ground, making her grunt. Telok swept Lacey aside, inserting himself between her and the stranger, snarling and brandishing his own spear.
“Ven’dak zok!” the unknown vrix shouted as he held up both of his lower hands, palms out, but he did not put down his weapon.
Do not attack.
The larkhet shrieked again as it took to the air, coming at Telok with beating wings and slashing talons. But when the pale gray vrix made a sharp chirruping sound, the bird immediately altered course, flapping away to land on a nearby branch with its plumage ruffled.
“I mean no harm,” the stranger said in vrix. “I do not want to fight.”
“You threatened what is mine,” Telok growled in the same language.
His?
Despite the situation, a slow, pleased grin stretched across Lacey’s lips.
The gray vrix shook his head. “I made no threat.”
Okkor’s heavy steps crunched the brush beneath him as he hurried over.
The gray vrix flicked his eyes toward the green thornskull, who came to an abrupt halt beside Telok, spear leveled at the new threat.
Though the stranger was outnumbered and clearly outmatched by the much larger hunters, he remained surprisingly calm.
Lacey noticed only then that Telok’s leg hairs were standing.
“There are more of you,” Telok said. “How many?”
“More than three,” the gray vrix replied. His gaze shifted from Telok to Okkor and back again. “We will not harm you and yours if you will not harm us.”
Okkor grunted, eyeing the surrounding jungle warily. “Ours have not come to give war.”
“Neither have we. We only want to protect our Nedrayas.”
Lacey placed her hands on Telok’s hindquarters, giving him a little shake. “Telok, he knows English!”
A low, uncertain buzz sounded in his chest. In her language, he said, “He cannot know.”