Authors: Marla Therron
It matched.
“Uh oh.”
***
“The monster that attacked us looked like two different creatures mashed together because that’s what it
was
.” Rae handed Garr his knife back.
“A domé didn’t create it. Someone used this lab. Recently. And that squid beast is what came out.”
Garr shook his head. “It’s impossible. I tested it while you were inside, and I can’t enter if I wanted to.” He lifted a hand, stepped past Rae, and a flash of blue light filled the air. It coalesced into a translucent wall, which his hand pressed flat against.
“It’s reading your DNA and stopping you from entering,” Rae said. “Amazing.”
“So only a human could have used the facility.”
Rae shook her head. “Someone found a way around it. They used this lab to fuse that creature together. Sometime in the last week, they created it specifically to hunt us in Lyr’s territory. I think someone might be trying to kill you.”
“Or you,” Garr said. “When Vaya brought reports from Earth, I mentioned to my council that I was interested in you as a mate. It’s possible someone on my council or anyone who heard the rumors in my homestead would send a beast to assassinate you.
It was you who the beast most explicitly attacked, and you who Lyr ultimately had to use to coax it out of hiding.”
Rae remembered something and cool dread pooled in her stomach. “Sylla found grave berries on my clothes. So not only did someone create this monster, but they found a way to key it to attack me by sabotaging my clothes.” Rae swallowed.
“The only person besides you who was in Lyr with me was… Vaya. But how could she have created the monster if she was with you the whole time?”
Garr’s face went stony and blank. “She was sent to scout ahead on Earth and arrived at the tree house before any of us. She had more access to this site than anyone else, and went back and forth to Earth twice before I ever left.” He sighed.
“She could have bred the creature in advance. She… may have been able to thwart the scanners that bar me access using some kind of human technology stolen from Earth.”
Glancing back at the waterfall, he added, “If she betrayed me, she’s probably still nearby. I doubt she went back to Kaython’s Mouth with the sample at all. She’ll be waiting to ambush us—to finish what she started.”
Chapter Thirteen
They rappelled down the cliff and made quickly for the tree house, where Garr checked every room for Vaya before leaving Rae in the observatory with Sylla.
He assured her the room’s glassy skin was largely impenetrable, and Rae meditated on the qualifier “largely” while Garr searched the surrounding forests for his quarry.
She wound up pacing, antsy, hoping Garr and Vaya would return with an extraordinarily logical explanation. They would laugh at the misunderstanding and have drinks together.
While Vaya had irked her at times, the giantess had been an often-friendly presence during a difficult time.
Sylla provided her warm tea to soothe her nerves. After sipping it, the strong herbal brew took the edge off and Rae collapsed into a chair with Sylla opposite her. The dryad’s enormous, amber eyes were filled with concern.
“How well do you know Vaya?” Rae asked.
“Not well.” Sylla folded her hands over one knee. “I’ve only served in domé Kaython a short time.”
“I didn’t even know Ythirians could trade their domé for another.”
“Oh yes. Cultures can differ between domé, and friendly domé often trade their members to increase everyone’s happiness. I am from Tanu, to the far south, and was traded to Kaython for one of her omegas.”
“So you haven’t known Garr long?”
“No. Prime Garr rotates new omegas in and out of tasks, to acclimate us to the domé. I was selected for this journey. Prime Garr is most equitable and fair.” She bowed her head.
“Yeah, he’s swell.” Rae’s limbs felt more exhausted than her racing mind, a likely product of the climb and the fact someone was hunting her. “Do you think Vaya is trying to kill me?”
“Most assuredly not.”
The words prickled Rae’s skin and she glanced at the tea, her vision unfocused.
A terrible idea slithered into her mind, and she assembled the disparate pieces into a horrifying picture. Staring at Sylla, she tried to speak, but no words came out.
“Something the matter?” Sylla stood and fetched the teacup, sniffing it.
“You drugged me.”
“It’s taken effect faster than I’d anticipated. Human anatomy is less hardy than Ythirian, I suppose.”
“It was you.” Dread pooled in the cold cellar of Rae’s stomach. Her lethargic limbs were nonresponsive and she could not stand, let alone run. “You made the monster.”
“I have a knack,” Sylla whispered, absorbed in that tea cup.
“How did you get into the lab? You’re Ythirian, aren’t you?”
“We all have our gifts. From a young age, I realized I could fool the domé and cloak myself from them when it suited my needs. I passed into that ‘lab’ much the same way.
For instance, right now I’m broadcasting false information to Kaython. The drug in your drink disabled your own connection, so our domé now believes we’re sitting together in companionable silence.”
“Why would any domé give you such a dangerous gift?”
“Some gifts are not given.” Sylla smirked.
“Our species adapts naturally, even without domé to guide us.” She went to her teapot, emptying the fluid into a planter bed. She overturned it and spilled the head of a serpent from the pot into her hand.
Unwinding its coils from the pot, it had sharply ridged scales and three eyes. Each of its terrible eyes was orange with rectangular pupils like a goat’s.
“The scales of a ridgeback adder secrete paralytic venom. It’s quite immune to boiling water, since they live in geyser vents. Warm it with your tea, and it makes a nasty brew. Its bite, of course, is more fatal still.”
Rae watched in horror as Sylla approached with snake in hand.
“Garr will be so unhappy to find his mate dead in the observatory where he left her.” She handled the serpent with care, keeping its venomous snout dangling in front of her.
“Alas, it turns out the potted soil was the perfect hiding place for this creature—no doubt released in the tree house by Vaya a few days ago.” Her grin was pure malice.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Do you really think I’ll let Garr mate with a weak, barely-fertile, genetically dead-ended alien?” She huffed.
“He’s a prime of pure and unmitigated strength. The strongest in many cycles. To have him sullied by Earth trash?” She snorted derisively.
“It can’t be that. You must have started building that monster right after Garr read those reports from Vaya, the moment he showed an interest in someone else.” Rae narrowed her eyes. “It’s not even about me. This is because you want Garr, isn’t it?”
She chuckled. “He’ll come to see me as his mate eventually. We
were
98 percent compatible.”
“You’re Yahlalla?”
She grinned. “Sylla was from Tanu, but she was tragically killed during her journey to our domé.” She allowed an assuring smile.
“Oh, don’t worry. I didn’t kill her. I merely came upon her remains. So, with access to the genetics lab, I elected to take her place. I needed more time to convince Garr that he belongs with me.”
This creature’s gift had let her slip between the cracks of Ythirian society, deceiving primes and domé alike. “I’ll bet you were never even a 98 percent match. Not really. You altered your genes to fake a higher score with Kaython, didn’t you?”
“It’s not
fake
!” she hissed. “Garr and I were always destined to be together. He only needed to be convinced.”
“How do you expect to get away with this? Vaya will tell him the truth, and he’ll believe her. Then it’s only a matter of minutes before they put together who really did it. And if I die here after Garr left me locked in a room with you? He’s not an idiot.”
“All men are idiots,” she snapped. “Especially after I let the adder bite me. With the lab’s aid, I’m nearly immune to its venom, but I’ll be sick enough that suspicion will slide right off me. That’s all you need to do to win a male—they’re attracted to weakness. It makes them feel strong when they prop us up.”
Lowering the snake so that its forked tongue flicked inches from Rae’s nose, she whispered, “And all the while, a clever female steers her mate precisely where she wants him. You don’t have the strength of character to lead from your mate’s shadow. I will be more suitable for the taliyar of domé Kaython.”
“You’re sick. This whole world has your head twisted around. You don’t need to be like this, Yahlalla.”
For a moment, Yahlalla paused with the serpent in her hands, as though considering Rae’s words. If she were being honest about not killing that poor girl from Tanu, this was the first time she would actually murder someone.
“My only regret,” she said, building up her rage, “is that I couldn’t let this snake slither into your bed and bite you, the same way you slithered into Garr’s and poisoned him with your pathetic, human charms.”
The horrific vision played out for Rae: her cold and pale corpse. Garr’s rage, directed entirely at Vaya thanks to Yahlalla’s lies. Then Yahlalla slipping closer to him.
Since Garr was no fool, he’d probably find out—but if Yahlalla sensed he was onto her, how long until she tried to dispose of Garr too? That filled Rae with the most profound terror.
The snake coiled to strike, starlight glinting off the dewy beads of venom gathered at the tips of its fangs.
A door banged open one or two floors below them and Garr’s indistinct voice called out, probably for Rae.
Realization flashed in Yahlalla’s eyes and she gently swung the snake forward, urging it to strike.
Summoning every drop of strength left in her drugged limbs, a surge of adrenaline gave Rae just enough oomph to heave herself from the chair. She collapsed to the floor, the serpent’s fangs cracking into the hard wood of her chair back.
Rae tried to crawl. “Garr!”
The prime shattered the floor hatch to the observatory, tossing the mangled wood to the side. Vaya surged up the stairs behind him.
Yahlalla sank her fingers into Rae’s hair and yanked her up to her knees. Through reflections in the dark windows wrapping around the room, Rae saw how Yahlalla crouched and used her as a human shield while holding that snake by its head. Its mouth open, she brandished its fangs like a weapon near Rae’s throat.
“Sylla,” Garr growled, the threat in his tone deadly serious and his body bunched with the readiness of an unsprung pounce. “Get your hands off my mate.”
“She’s not right for you, Prime Garr,” Yahlalla pleaded. “She’ll despoil your lineage! Vaya, explain it to him. You know this is folly. You’ve
seen
the human world. He must choose a Ythirian female.”
Vaya fanned out from Garr and positioned herself closer to Yahlalla’s opposite flank, nodding and holding two hands up in a placating gesture.
“Of course, it’s folly. But killing her won’t solve anything. Put the serpent down and let’s talk about it together.”
Sylla crept back a pace from her crouch, dragging Rae with her and angling her more toward Garr and Vaya both. Her attention flitted between the two. “Back slowly from the room,” the mad woman insisted.
“Or I’ll give her just enough venom to leave her brain ruined and her body still alive.”
The threat chilled Rae, and Garr seemed ready to rip someone in half.
Vaya kept her two hands in the air. “Easy, easy.”
Two hands.
The other two were behind her back. Everyone in the room knew, of course, that Vaya had four. But in the heat of the moment, they had simply lost count.
The reflections in the dark windows proved that one of the hands behind Vaya’s back was wrapping around the hilt of a long knife.
I need to draw Yahlalla’s attention.
Working her mouth to be sure it would function, Rae ignored the thundering of her heart in her chest, and said, “We can work it all out, Yahlalla.”
The name shocked Garr and Vaya at once, but it was Garr who reacted first: “
You?
I should have guessed. You disappeared to mourn my refusal to challenge for you—just when ‘Sylla’ came to our doorstep.”
He stalked forward, enraged. “If you killed that poor Tanu girl, I’ll see you delivered to them on a platter.”
“Uh uh, darling.” Yahlalla’s voice was singsong now, and she squeezed the adder’s head to widen its mouth, beaded fangs so close to Rae’s neck that she wormed, afraid they’d prick her by accident. “Is that any way to treat your future mate?”
“We will never be mated,” Garr barked.
“Perhaps! But come now, do you really think the human was going to become your mate?” Yahlalla tilted her head to the side, attention on him. “I suppose we’re both fools in that way, Garr. The truth is, your only hope of finding a mate is if I kill the harlot now.”
Vaya’s hand flew from behind her back. The knife streaked through the air.
Garr moved in the same breath, on exactly the same page as Vaya. Between the two—the knife and Garr—it wasn’t clear to Rae which was the faster.
She heard the meaty thump of the knife hit Yahlalla’s flesh, and for a terrifying moment expected the snake’s fangs would prick her exposed throat. But Garr was there, dragging Rae from Yahlalla’s grip.
The snake struck for Garr’s eyes. His free hand snatched it from the air, holding it wriggling in his fist.
Yahlalla stumbled away, but Vaya was there in a blink. It was more than a one-two punch combination—more like a three-four combination, followed by a knee. In less than a blink, she’d hit Yahlalla at least five times and dropped her to the floor like a sack of flour.
Garr glanced disdainfully at the snake in his hand and gave a flick of his wrist, snapping its back with casual ease. He tossed the limp viper onto Yahlalla’s unconscious form. “Take her from my sight.”
Vaya cracked her top and bottom knuckles in tandem. “My pleasure, boss.” The giantess hefted Yahlalla over one shoulder and also carried the snake out in a bottom hand.
The tide of emotions came on Rae all at once, adrenaline replaced with realization that she’d been a hair’s breadth away from dying. Horror and herbal poison in her blood made her thump weakly into Garr’s chest. She sobbed.
Garr stroked his long fingers through her hair at the back of her head.
“I almost died,” she whispered.
“I know.” There was sorrow in his voice. “But you’re safe now.”
With Vaya gone and the two things that had nearly destroyed her out of sight, the immediacy of Rae’s fear diminished. Or perhaps, it was the way Garr wrapped her up in his arms and dragged her so close they were collapsed almost together.
Rae cried, and she let Garr hold her, and he never let her go until she fell into a drugged sleep.