Oblige (3 page)

“As the terms have been accepted and agreed to, if the hart will drop the silk, the hunt will begin.”

Lilia nodded and lifted her pack, settling it on her shoulders and cinching it around her waist.

Madame Zel challenged the Almoss matriarch. “Did you wish to search the pack?”

“No, Madame, I am sure that your heir is adhering to the letter of the arrangement.” The subtext was that there was nothing Lilia could do that would counteract Xeric’s skill in the woods.

Lilia hugged Briel, and Madame Zel kissed her on the cheek. With a deep breath, Lilia removed the silk from around her neck, tucked the medallion on the ribbon into her shirt and dropped the silk onto the stone. Without looking back, she ran down the hill, whistling low and listening for the beat of a heavy gait. When she heard the thuds of familiar feet, she smiled. It was the sound of hope coming toward her.

* * * *

Xeric walked with his family toward the stones, and he lifted his head to take in the scents of the women on the crest of the hill. There was a bright and wild scent that he wasn’t used to in the gathering of women.

He glanced at his mother and walked slowly behind her as they climbed the hill. Her sudden, desperate, call to him was now making sense. There was a new player in the mix, and it was throwing off the normal balance.

Xeric tried not to judge his brother for bribing their cousin to impregnate the Zel heir. The Almoss family was not doing well, and Xeric had not realised how bad things were under Lemko’s influence. What had been a thriving business was now a faded empire that was hemorrhaging money. Gaining control of the forest was their last attempt to recoup financial footing.

The pale alien was a surprise. To Xeric’s senses, she should have been all the colours of the brightest flowers. Instead, she had soft peach skin, white hair and bright blue eyes. The only colour to her was the eyes and a full curve of deep pink lips. Her clothing was sensible and deep green to blend in with the forest, but her hair and skin would stand out in the living shadows. Xeric was almost ashamed that it would be so easy to track her.

He kept that smug confidence of his win until he watched Lilia run down the hill and he heard the whistle.

Riding Liako was not a common practice, but he knew the sound. When the alpha male came at her call, Xeric knew that he had more than just a woman in the woods to deal with. She pulled herself onto the beast with grace, and when her mount stood, he called his herd and they pounded away into the woods.

Xeric looked to his mother. “It will not be as easy as you thought.”

She looked at the timer in her hand and gestured for him to take the scarf. “Nothing easy is worth winning.”

He took the scarf and held it near his face. The wild, sweet scent was definitely the woman who had just run down the hill.

Ten years of being a forester across the world had left him with a keen appreciation for the property that surrounded his home. The Zel family had always been good neighbours and their sharing of the guardianship had been a generous offering to the Almosses. Xeric sighed and looked around. When he tracked and caught the hart, he was going to have to go back to his home and try to salvage what his brother had squandered. His time of law enforcement in the forests of Wralik was over. It was time to get back to the family concern.

He waited out his time as the two matriarchs discussed their heirs and representatives. When the time was up, he checked his blades and supplies and headed down the hill. He would find the hart and bring her back in under the day and a half. His family was depending on it.

* * * *

Lilia crawled through the brush until she was at the stone crevice, pushing her pack in front of her and moving in behind it. The pungent scent of the leaves and boughs around her should work on dampening her own personal traces. The herd of Liako that were in front of her hiding place were definitely helping her camouflage.

She crept into the crevice, her belly and shoulders scraping the stone as she fought her claustrophobia. The crack turned into a larger space, and she sighed as she was able to get to her feet at long last. Stretching was suddenly a delightful indulgence. This was her hiding hole for the next day and a half.

She covered the entrance to her oubliette with the green fabric and dug into her pack for the sedative. She didn’t want to spend the time in the cave going crazy, so sleep was what she needed. The tiny glow stone inside her pack showed her what she needed, so she took the sedative and swallowed some water.

Huddling in the dark, she curled up on her pack as best as she could and tried not to think of Earth as she slipped into sleep. Home was out of reach. She had made this bed and she was lying in it. It was really not comfortable.

* * * *

It was long after moonrise when Xeric found the herd of Liako. Their scent was overpowering, but a thin tendril of Lilia’s bright pheromones curled through the air. He crouched against a tree and dozed. If anything in the clearing moved, he would wake and the hunt would be on.

The warmth of the late morning woke her, and Lilia slugged back some more water before taking down the curtain and creeping toward the light.

Lilia tried to move silently, but she could hear stones clattering as she twisted through the crevice. When she made it into the dim shadows of the forest, she stifled her groan of relief. Instead of making a sound, she stretched like a cat in the small space between stone and brush.

She moved slowly toward the meadow and paused when she saw the dark hulk of Xeric across the sunny meadow, lazing in the shadows.

Mentally cursing, Lilia backed up the way she had come as carefully as she was able to. She kept her gaze fixed on her pursuer and decided that if she was getting out, she was going to have to go with plan B.

She was almost out of the brush when a twig snapped and the shadow under the tree moved. She froze and watched as he stepped into the sunlight, his grey eyes scanning the area, looking for the source of the sound.

She crouched down and relaxed. Waiting.

Her heart pounded in her chest, she could taste the sedative in the back of her mouth and sweat curled down her spine. When he lifted his head and sniffed the air, turning to face her, she ducked back into the stone and wiggled in as far as she could as fast as she could.

She had just tumbled into her safe spot when she heard his low voice.

“Consider yourself caught.”

Lilia cleared her throat. “You have not laid hands on me; therefore, I am not caught. A hound does not simply tell a hart that it has been captured, it has to bring it down.”

She heard a scratching at the mouth of the crevice, and she realised that he was settling in. Her light was gone.

Bastard.

With no light except the small glowing puck in her pack to guide her, she ran her hands along the wall until she struck dirt. This was her escape route, but she had to be careful. It would bring her up and out into a thorn thicket.

She clawed at the dirt until she felt roots and slowly tugged the ball of roots down and inside her tiny hidey-hole. With quick movements, she tied her dark-green fabric over her head to hide her hair and minimize dirt. She kept going until she could see light again, and she inched her way up through the dirt until she was in the middle of the thicket on the opposite side of the hill that Xeric was sitting on.

Summoning her Liako was out of the question, so she moved carefully through the thicket and crept into the forest. Covered in mud and dark fabric, she was pretty sure she didn’t resemble the creature he thought he was chasing.

With the sun high in the sky, she only had to dodge him for another six hours. She was confident that she was going to try.

Her clothing was shredded and she was exhausted, but the sky was turning pink. He was herding her. She wanted to feel resentful, but she was too busy trying to get away.

Lilia looked around as she neared the edge of a cliff and found the only place she could go. Up.

Climbing one of the swaying trees wouldn’t normally be on her list of activities, but since her hands were bound in shreds of fabric, they couldn’t get any more damaged. She heard him coming and climbed faster.

When she was as high as she could go without bending the trunk, she gripped the trunk and branch under her, sitting as comfortably as she could manage, thirty feet in the air.

“Will you concede that I have caught you?” Xeric wandered slowly into view through the tangle of branches.

“At present, the tree has caught me.”

The tree shuddered under her as he started to climb. “You are a very stubborn woman.”

Lilia made a face that he couldn’t see. “I am fighting for family honour.”

“So am I. This is the Almosses’ last chance to turn their finances around, and having you caught is the first step.”

Lilia looked down as the tree continued to shudder at his climbing. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that while I was across the world, my brother was spending the family fortunes into the ground. We haven’t come up with a new product in four years. Our parents didn’t inherit the family skill for scents.” He stopped when the tree swayed violently.

Lilia frowned. “I can see your problem. I could think about letting you catch me if you swear to skip the three days of servitude.”

He was about ten feet below her, looking up. “Based on your current condition, you wouldn’t be good as an intimate companion. I think skipping the three days might be an acceptable compromise if you come down.”

Lilia smiled. “Excellent.”

She twisted and started climbing down the tree with as much dexterity as she could manage.

She was nearly to him when he asked her, “What do you do at the Zel company?”

She paused just outside of his reach. “I run the company, more or less. Do the accounts, make sure suppliers are paid, that kind of thing.”

He chuckled. “How about you serve your three days helping me make a business plan for the Almoss family?”

“Why would I want do to that?”

Xeric lunged upward and caught her with one arm, slamming her against him as they fell and he caught them on the lowest branches before lowering them to the ground. He looked her in the eye and kept her held fast. “Because I have caught you.”

Fighting while within a few yards of a cliff was not a smart proposition. “I thought we were making a deal.”

“It was never cemented with mutual agreement. There was no contract, verbal or otherwise.” He grinned.

She waited until they were away from the edge of the cliff, and then, she kicked out, tangling his knees and knocking him down.

Getting up after the breath-stealing fall was hard, and she was rolling to her hands and knees when he gripped her ankles and hauled her back. “Easy, Miss Zel.”

She grunted when he pulled her up against him and winced when he took her head covering and used the shredded remains to tie her wrists together.

“Since you are not inclined to come peacefully, you are not leaving me with a choice.”

He tore a strip off the hem of her shirt and tied her ankles as well. With her trussed, he stood and lifted her in his arms.

He smiled. “Now, on your first day with me, we are going to need to come up with a plan. If you were me, where would you begin?”

She blinked in astonishment. “You can’t be serious.”

“We have a two-hour walk to get back to our families. We may as well get to know each other, and I am curious to know how you think I should start.”

Lilia gave him an evil look and muttered, “Full inventory. Always start with a full inventory and complete audit.”

He nodded and walked through the woods with ground-eating strides. “I see. Where did you learn this?”

“I took business courses on Earth, but the only job I could find was that of personal assistant, so that is what I focused on.”

“You are an employee of the Zel’s?”

“Not anymore. Now, I am the official heir of the family. I am guessing that I will be disowned the moment we get back.”

He shook his head. “No, Madame Zel would not do that. I have known her all my life, and she is not one to make a decision lightly. If she chose you, adopted you, she knows you can do what is best for the family.”

Lilia closed her eyes and leaned against his shoulder as he walked. “Sure. I just lost them the access rights to the forest. Will your family grant them the rights contract that they are looking for?”

“I will be taking charge of things, so I will make sure that a fair rate is granted for access. If you are truly as fixated on business as you say, would you mind consulting with me from time to time?”

She couldn’t believe he was trying to give her a job while she was hogtied in his arms. “You are joking.”

He shrugged, and she rocked with the motion. “Not really. My family concern has been coasting by on the efforts of my grandmother and grandfather. I am having to start over, and it seems that you have done well with the Zel family business, so why not see if you are willing to oblige?”

“What do you mean?”

“A little research on the family to see who my parents were setting me against brought out Briel, but there was also a sudden surge in profit that began about five months ago. How long have you been on Wralik?”

She muttered, “Six or seven months.”

He smiled. “Then, you are the cause of the sudden stability. Would you bend your skills to the Almoss family?”

If she had her hands free, she would have pinched the bridge of her nose. Instead, she buried her face against his chest and mumbled. “This loss has probably cost me my time on Wralik. The Zels will have no reason to keep me here since I have failed them. I am here at Madame Zel’s request. I am guessing that transportation off world will not be too far behind my arrival at the stones.”

“Did you really think you could escape me? My kind can feel the heartbeat of the forest; we live and breathe the natural world around us. You stuck out like a plexi tower in the forest. The cave trick was nice. It took me a while to spot it.”