Under the Woods (Brave New World #2)

Chapter 1

Mr. Perfect Feet

How did it come to this?

The question popped up in my mind for the hundredth time as I tended to the underground garden. No matter how routine pruning and watering plants was, this place and its inhabitants felt surreal to me. I kept expecting to wake up any moment now and discover this had been a vivid nightmare.

But there would be no waking up. This was real.

The world as I knew it was gone. My job at the University Botanic Garden, my friends, and possibly my parents were gone.

Three apocalypses had devastated human civilization, and no one had seen them coming.

First zombies, then supernatural beings and, finally, aliens.

I didn’t witness the third apocalypse unfold.

Shortly before I got taken and brought here, my group of survivors heard about extraterrestrials on the scarce radio transmissions.

They were offering humans safety from the monsters, be these the living dead, vampires, werewolves, pixies, and whatnot.

We discussed leaving the Botanic Garden in the city outskirts–our hideout for months–and risking a trip to the beam-me-up coordinates.

Then I was taken. I later learned from other humans here that the extraterrestrials were no saviors. They were an apocalypse in themselves. To them, we were no more than lab mice and vessels for their tentacled offspring.

In that sense, I had lucked out by ending up with my cave-dwelling hosts.

All of us humans down here–women only, of all ages and walks of life–were fed and protected from the dangers on the surface.

A very important fact, given that the only weapon I was capable of using was hand pruners. We weren’t mistreated.

Still, we had to assist their gardeners by working crazy hours. After our shifts, they kept us under guard in another part of the cave, so we couldn’t leave. And not cooperating or seriously damaging plants meant a death sentence.

No one ever saw the executions. I suppose they didn’t want blood spilled in the sacred space of the underground gardens we were confined to. We just saw the rebellious woman get taken away, never to be seen again. I suspected the executioner used a bow, given our hosts’ weapon of choice–

“Up! No move! Eyes, ground!”

The familiar order, given by the guard in her bad English, made me stop pruning the azaleas.

I pushed up from my kneeling position in the moist soil and lowered my gaze like everyone else.

Though, I was curious to see who would be inspecting our progress in the flower garden so soon after the previous check.

Silence fell. The water springing from the cave wall to my left suddenly sounded deafeningly loud.

Then I heard the rustle of clothes. No sound of footsteps on the rocky threshold or muffled thuds on the grassy ground near the flower patches. No subtle sounds a person made unconsciously while walking. Just the faint whisper of fabrics brushing together.

No surprises there. The locals moved like ghosts, never to be seen or heard until it was too late for their victims.

That was exactly what had happened to me.

One minute I was picking apples for the others at the Botanic Garden, and the next I found myself face-to-face with a creature straight out of a fantasy book.

She had crept up behind me, and I hadn’t heard a thing.

I turned around to discover an arrow pointed at my heart.

I was too shocked to do anything except stare at the elf aiming at me.

Words being exchanged in Elvish brought me back to the present. A pair of bare feet passed by me. I kept perfectly still, hands clasped in front of me, head lowered. No one thus far had been executed for taking a peek at the guards or quality control personnel, but better safe than sorry.

The feet stopped, about to leave my line of sight, only to turn and stop again–right in front of me.

Silence reigned once more. My heart pounded in my chest like a trapped bird. I felt the elf’s eyes boring into me while he simply stood there, not saying a word.

I stared at his feet. I had no foot fetish, but this pair was hard to look away from.

It wasn’t because of the striking color: his feet had the polished silver hue of every Elf I’d seen so far.

It was because of their shape. Feet as well defined as these, with those delicate toes and pearl-white nails trimmed to perfection, could make any woman jealous.

Especially one who hadn’t had a mani-pedi in nearly a year.

The feet before me belonged to a male, though; I could tell by their size. And whoever he was, he was no guard or quality control elf. Not with feet as clean as these.

“The flowers,” Mr. Perfect Feet said, breaking the silence. “You care for?”

His voice was as melodic as that of any elf I’d met, but his English accent was outstanding compared to theirs.

I drew in a shaky breath and exhaled slowly to calm my nerves. “Yes.”

“Since when?”

“Umm… I’m not sure…” My voice trembled, both out of concern that I’d made a mistake with a plant and out of uncertainty what to say. “It’s hard to keep track of time down here.”

That was the truth. The only change in the light came when the mysterious glowing crystals on the cave walls were dimmed by our guards once our shifts ended. If that was any indication of a day’s end, I had been down here for twenty to thirty days, but who knew?

Mr. Perfect Feet asked something in Elvish, and a polite reply sounded from the entrance to the flower garden. I recognized the voice of the senior quality control elf.

“Moon cycle and half,” the newcomer said next, clearly addressing me.

I had spent a month and a half here already? Whoa.

“Vegetable garden also in your care.”

That didn’t sound like a question but since silence followed once again, I replied, “Yes. I assist both there and here.”

I didn’t specify that lately I’d been assigned to the flowers more often than the vegetables. With elves bringing in more humans to help with the crops and with exotic flowers requiring expert care, I had sort of undergone a work transfer.

And my mother used to say that studying botany was a recipe for unemployment.

“Look.” His tone, full of confidence that I would obey, told me this elf was used to getting what he wanted.

I lifted my gaze but didn’t dare look the high-ranking visitor straight in the face.

Now I could see he wasn’t wearing the green knee-length dress of a quality control elf.

No, this guy wore a long ivory dress that seemed to flow like liquid down his unusually large frame.

The gold chain belt around his waist was just as exquisite.

Mr. Otherworldly Clothing extended an arm, and a long index finger ending in a pointed nail pushed my chin all the way up.

His gentle touch startled me, but not as much as it surprised the other elves in the garden. Their shocked gasps confirmed what other captives had told me: elves found humans disgusting. Being in the presence of one was repulsive enough to them, let alone touching a human.

I was shocked, too, now that I was truly face-to-face with the newcomer.

The young elf’s broad chest was framed by well-toned arms. The deep V of his sleeveless dress’ neckline offered a tantalizing glimpse at hard pecs with small battle scars and tight abs.

His smooth face was masculine, too. There wasn’t a single sign of the willowy build that all elves I’d seen so far had.

Were it not for his silvery skin, pointed ears, and obsidian-black eyes devoid of pupils, I would have mistaken him for a human.

Actually, there was also his hair. Raven-black, perfectly straight, and brushing the backs of his knees, it had an ethereal look to it that no human’s could possess.

It shone in the wall crystals’ light, glossy and without a single hair out of place.

Delicate gold beads interwoven in his tresses completed the picture.

I couldn’t help it–I stared. And he stared right back. His light-reflecting eyes took in my chestnut springy curls, so different from elves’ straight hair. My large green eyes. My brown midi dress, secured with an iron pin over one hip, accentuating my wide hips. My bare feet covered in mud.

Those held his gaze for longer than anything else had, and I felt self-conscious.

“You seem well,” he noted, the inspection apparently over. “Yet hurt by sun. Why?”

“Umm… I don’t understand.” What on earth is he talking about?

“Your skin. Hurt. Too much sun?”

I let out a nervous laugh. A creature of fantasy found my appearance inexplicable? The irony.

Wondering how to explain my mixed heritage to an elf, I blurted out, “This is my natural complexion. Think of it not as a sunburn or good tan, but my tone always being soft brown, like a reddish brown ochre. Yes, like–like the French marigolds in this garden.”

Holy moly. Where did that description come from? No one needed those details. And there certainly wasn’t such a thing as a good tan for elves.

With them living underground and being so fair-skinned, prolonged exposure to the sun would probably burn them pretty badly. They didn’t turn into living torches like vampires did in sunlight, but they did hide inside until nightfall.

The newcomer cocked his head. His eyes fixated me under a pair of black eyebrows and impressively long, thick lashes. “French marigolds?”

“The bicolored ones, yes,” I confirmed enthusiastically. “Yellow and red.”

His full silvery lips curved ever so slightly upward. “Gentle beauty. Remarkably resilient.”

“Yes. Adaptable, too.” I felt a smile tugging at the corners of my lips. Not only that, but I also found myself wondering how he would look if he smiled. His overly attractive face combined with his knowledge of my favorite flowers had to be messing with my brain in my anxious state.

“You are well,” he declared. “Sabinem.”

That meant good in Elvish, as I had learned from the quality control elves.

“Can you transplant flower?”

“I–I believe so.” What is this about? “But it depends on the variety, the season, the new location…” I added the last bit as a precaution.

Knowing how overprotective of the flora and fauna elves were, I didn’t want to get executed over failure to transplant a flower that couldn’t possibly survive replanting.

He lifted a palm. “Good. Come.”

With those words, he headed for the exit. He stopped halfway and turned to look at me, still standing in my spot. “Fear not, come,” he repeated, this time in a more encouraging tone.

I did as asked, feeling as confused as the elves sounded when they addressed him next. If only I could understand Elvish. Whatever they told him was dismissed with a wave of his hand, and they moved out of the way.

He walked out of the flower garden into a corridor I had never seen. It led outside of the cave area humans were restricted to.

With my heart in my throat, I followed.