Hunted Read online

  “No, nothing. Just an itchy knee.” She smiled up at him brightly. “So…can we call everyone back home—er—at the Mother ship and tell them we made it through okay?”

  “Certainly.” Sylvan activated the com on the viewscreen and got Baird in a matter of moments.

  “All well, brother?” Baird growled and Sylvan nodded.

  “We’re through with no problems. We brought a small asteroid with us but nothing else of consequence.”

  “That’s good.” Baird nodded. “I’ll tell Olivia.” He looked at Sophie. “She sends her love and Kat does too. She wanted to stay up and speak to you but I convinced her she needed her rest.” He touched the pale blue flower which he was wearing in the buttonhole of his front pocket. “Carrying a son can be very tiring for a female, even in the first quadmester.”

  Sophia looked surprised. “Stay up and speak to me? But it’s only a little past noon.”

  Sylvan shook his head. “It’s more like midnight at the Mother ship. We lost a few hours in the fold.”

  “Oh, well…” Sophia appeared disappointed not to see her sister but she shrugged. “Well, Liv never was much of a night owl. Tell her I love her. And Kat too.”

  “I will.” Baird nodded again. “And now we should go. Transmitting across this many light years takes enormous energy.”

  “Goodbye then. We’ll speak to you again if we have anything new to tell you,” Sylvan said. “And please contact us if anything changes.”

  “Will do. Goodbye, Brother.” Baird winked out and the viewscreen showed the growing grayish-white curve of Tranq Prime again.

  Sophia cleared her throat and looked at him. “So we’ll be landing soon. Tell me what to expect. Where are we staying?”

  “With my kin.” Sylvan hoped they wouldn’t mind—he hadn’t had much time to give them warning he was coming. “The mother of my sister,” he clarified for Sophia’s benefit. “She and her mate and their daughter live in Lanash, the main grotto on Tranq Prime.”

  “Uh, grotto?” She frowned. “You live in a cave?”

  “We dwell underground on Tranq Prime—the weather conditions are much too harsh to live on the surface,” Sylvan explained. “In fact, I never saw the sun above until I was nine and my father took me on a hunting trip.”

  “Really? What did you hunt?”

  “A vranna.”

  “A what? Sorry, I thought I knew your language now.”

  “You know the grammar and syntax and the basic sentence structure but there will still be a few words that are unfamiliar to you,” Sylvan told her. “A vranna is…” He tried to think how to explain. “Imagine something that’s a little like one of your grizzly bears but as tall as a giraffe covered in green-blue fur. They’re quite fierce.”

  “I bet.” Her lovely green eyes were wide. “Did you kill it?”

  Sylvan shrugged. “It was my manhood hunt so I was allowed the first thrust. With my shale—it’s like a long spear, twice the height of the male who carries it. And a blade on the end as long as my arm.”

  “So in order to become a man you had to kill an abominable snowman?”

  “A what?”

  “Never mind.” She shook her head. “It’s just…that’s amazing.”

  “It’s the way of my people. We can be very direct in some ways. And not so direct in others,” he finished, frowning.

  “Are you trying to tell me to watch my back?” she asked frowning. “I mean, even Baird seemed to think you really need to keep your eyes and ears open down there.” She nodded at the frozen white globe which was growing larger in the viewscreen. “Do I have to worry about being eaten by one of those abominable vranna things?”

  Sylvan frowned. “You have nothing to fear as long as I am with you. And we won’t be on the surface anyway so you would never be in danger from any of the larger predators.”

  Her eyes widened. “Are there worse things than giraffe-sized grizzly bears wandering around?”

  “Certainly. And since it’s spring time now, a lot of them will be coming out of hibernation. A very long hibernation, since winters on Tranq Prime can last for dozens of your Earth years.”

  “Spring time, huh?” She sounded doubtful. “I know what that means to me—flowers blooming, birds singing…”

  “We have those things.” Sylvan nodded. “Maybe not in the way you think of them but we have them. Remind me to take you to see the snowdrop trees in bloom. They only blossom for a short time in spring. In fact, we may be just in time for the Snowdrop Festival. There’s a feast and a dance—it’s quite a big deal.”

  “A festival? That sounds like fun.” She smiled. “You know, I was kind of apprehensive at first but now I really want to see your home planet.”

  “Really? Are you interested in other cultures?”

  “Just yours, mainly,” she said and then blushed.

  Sylvan wished she didn’t looks so bewitchingly pretty when her cheeks turned that soft shade of pink. It made him want to drag her into his lap and kiss her until she couldn’t breathe. Until she bared her neck for him and begged for his bite… Never going to happen, he told himself roughly. Get over it. Move on.

  “Well, you’re not ready to see my planet yet,” he said, more abruptly than he’d intended.

  “I’m not?”

  “No. If you set foot on the surface in what you’re wearing you’ll freeze to death in moments. Go to the back of the shuttle and look in the upright locker.”

  Sophia did as he asked and came back wearing an oversized green-blue fur that dragged the ground. “I’m swimming in this thing.” She motioned at herself, the furry arm of the coat flopping.

  “Yes, I’m sorry. It’s actually mine,” Sylvan apologized. “I had no time to get any in your size on such short notice. But I’m certain my mother’s sister can find you something once we get below the surface.”

  “But what about you?” she objected. “You’ve only got your blue uniform shirt. I don’t want to take your coat—you’ll freeze.”

  “Not nearly as quickly as you will.” Sylvan set the shuttle’s landing sequence on autopilot and turned back to her. “Blood Kindred have twice the number of red blood cells that humans do. They carry more oxygen and keep us warmer. Besides, we only have a few hundred yards to go from the landing area to the grotto entrance.”

  “Uh…what about shoes?” She looked down at her woefully inadequate footwear. Two little straps went between her first and second toes and attached to a flat pad at the bottom, leaving her entire delicate foot exposed. Sylvan thought they were called “flop-flips” or something equally ridiculous. He couldn’t help noticing, though, that her toenails were painted an innocent shell-pink which was somehow devastatingly feminine.

  “Those won’t do at all,” he told her sternly. “And I don’t have any boots that will fit you. I’ll just have to carry you.”

  “Oh no, I don’t want you to have to do that. If it’s just a few yards like you said, I’m sure I can manage.”

  Sylvan felt his heart knot like a fist. “A few hundred yards,” he corrected her gruffly. “Is there some reason you don’t want me to carry you? Remember I swore to leave you alone so you don’t have to worry that—”

  “No, no!” she said hastily, cutting him off. “No, I just didn’t want to…to burden you.”

  “You could never be a burden to me, Talana.” The endearment slipped from him before he could help it. Clearing his throat, he tried to cover his mistake. “Besides, if you don’t want to lose your pretty toes to frostbite, you’ll have to be carried whether you like it or not.”

  Sophia went pale. “It’s that cold?”

  He nodded. “It’s that cold.”

  She bit her lush lower lip, another gesture that made him want her so much he ached. “Then I would like it very much if you would carry me, Sylvan,” she said in a low voice. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Truth be told, despite the biting cold he knew they would encounter, he was looking forward to th