There were so many nesters.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen so many in one spot before.
The creatures were hunters, finding their prey by the smell of blood. But even as he flew towards them, he couldn’t see any fluid staining the sand outside the vessel. No blood had been spilled outside the pod. So why had they come up from their underground burrows?
And where was the human female?
One thing was for sure, though: she wasn’t outside the vessel.
There were no marks in the sand leading away from the pod and, now that he was airborne and could see even better, there were no signs of her anywhere close by.
That only meant one thing.
She was still in the pod. She had to be.
The screeches and hisses of the nesters grew louder as they worked themselves up into a frenzy. He knew they were only going to get louder till they sated themselves. And they weren’t going to sate themselves today.
Swooping down, blade unsheathed, his weapon moved through the air so smoothly, it seemed to cut the air itself.
The sand nester he’d targeted stopped its screeching abruptly and froze in mid-motion, its front legs raised and its claw-like mouth open.
It was as if it was frozen in time for a second while the others moved around it. In the next heartbeat, the nester separated in two, sliced clean down the middle, its purple blood pooling over the surface of the pod as both halves of its body fell in separate directions.
The smell of the blood of one of their own seemed to anger the rest of the creatures and their hisses increased in intensity.
Agitated, they raised their curved tails further into the air, exposing the barbs they hid under their scales—hooked sharp things that could easily puncture and poison prey.
He’d have to stay high, seeing as there were so many of them.
If they began spitting at him, he risked getting poisoned and being rendered motionless while they drained the blood from his veins.
Swooping down from the air again, Kyris took out two more of the creatures before climbing into the air once more.
His hearts were thumping hard in his chest and it wasn’t because of the exertion.
Why had so many of them come up from the sand?
And why was the human so quiet?
Swooping once more, he took out the last three nesters and the sudden lack of sound was almost jarring.
Landing as light as a feather, Kyris settled his boots in the sand, kicking part of a body of one of the nesters out of his path. These ones were freakishly large, about as long as his leg, and he frowned at the carcass as he moved past it.
Sheathing his blade, he moved over to the vessel.
Why was the human so quiet?
Was she scared?
They hadn’t had much time to get to know each other on the Elysium before the Hedgeruds had attacked. Before that, he reckoned she’d only become accustomed to him out of the sheer need for survival while she was locked in his cell on the Isclit slave carrier.
Everything must be so…strange and terrifying to her.
Hastening to stand over the pod, Kyris brushed away the light layer of sand feathering the transparent screen, his hearts thumping with increasing intensity as the sand cleared.
It wasn’t long before her face was revealed and two things hit him immediately.
First, another jitter ran down his spine at the sight of her and there was that surge of intense feeling within him again. But that didn’t last long because following right after was dread.
There, on her forehead and leading down to her cheek, was a thick red line.
It could only be one thing. Blood.
Dark lashes fanned over her round, rosy cheeks and her dark hair framed her face.
Dark hair…dark eyes…
In another circumstance and excusing the line of blood on her forehead, he’d have stopped to admire her strange beauty.
But at the moment, the line was all he could see.
“Song?” Her name rolled off his lips as he tried to control the slew of emotions suddenly coursing through his entire being.
“Song!” Her name sounded like something he’d been saying forever. It came so naturally and that was probably because he’d been repeating her name in his head from the first day she’d told him what she was called.
Song.
A name for which his translator sent images to his mind that meant music.
A beautiful, unusual word for a name.
Song.
The woman who’d held his attention from the first time he’d seen her.
Panic set in as he shouted her name again but it was as if she couldn’t hear him.
She wasn’t responding.
Was she…dead?
Kyris gulped, panic rising in his veins.
Had the impact killed her?
She was small. Delicate. Defenseless.
It was possible.
But he was shaking his head before he even realized he was doing so.
No.
Something inside of him snapped.
Slamming his fist against the pod, Kyris gritted his teeth, his eyes now wild as he stared at her peaceful face.
She couldn’t die…not before…
Not before what?
Where were these thoughts taking him?
Where were these feelings coming from?
He would have to investigate them later but at the moment he needed to give her some first aid.
But he couldn’t get into the pod without her activating the release button from the inside. That was the failsafe, in case one landed in a hostile environment.
Stupid qrakking failsafe.
The only way he could get inside was if he could find some way to pry the glass lid open.
Beads of moisture covered his skin and it wasn’t because of the heat from the suns.
He could feel the panic deep within him as he moved frantically around the pod, eyeing the round vessel, searching for a weakness. There must be some way to get in.
But even as he searched, circling the pod like a maniac, deep down he knew the truth.
There was no way to access the pod from the outside. All he had right now was brute strength—no tools, no other technology, nothing—and his strength alone wouldn’t work.
His gaze was focused on her face as he slammed his
