SnaredbySaber (11 page)

“My skin is tight, a bit sore.”

“Rest here. I’ll be back soon.”

“No! Don’t leave me!”

“Quiet, they’ll be looking for us. I want
to lay a trail for them to follow, one that leads them away from here. If you
stay quiet, you’ll be safe.”

A soft honk at his back made Saber smile.
Bluebird was weird in appearance, reminding him of an ungainly dodo bird with a
bit of goose thrown in. Not the prettiest creature, but he was one kickass security
bird.

Eva bit her lip, her eyes filling with a
sheen that foretold tears. Understandable, given her recent ordeal.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

A tear tumbled down her cheek and she
ducked her head. Saber’s heart turned over. He wanted to scoop her into his
arms and comfort her, never let her go.

He stood abruptly and shifted to feline.
After one quick scent of the air, he moved away from Eva, even though his heart
protested with every prowling step.

Now that she found herself safe, tears
rolled down Eva’s cheeks and refused to stop, no matter how hard she willed
otherwise. Her skin felt dry, tight and hot, and sweat poured off her, between
her breasts and in other uncomfortable places.

She tried not to think about the alone
part, the roaming tribesmen, the big-ass birds, the ribbons of moving fire and
the fact that she was on Tiraq instead of Dalcon.

But the tears kept coming, her throat
aching.

Frying fungus
. Time was running out and they seemed no closer to the resort. Every
dangerous situation she stumbled into just delayed them further.

She’d never get rid of the Dearbhorgaills.

She’d never avenge Pryce’s death.

She’d failed.

* * * * *

Once he’d checked things out and made an
obvious trail in human form for the cannibals to follow, Saber shifted back to
cat and went to find them. They were following the false trail, although it was
obvious the underlings weren’t enthusiastic. Their steps lagged and the one at
the front barked commands to hurry them along.

Saber slipped noiselessly through the
undergrowth until he was ahead of them before letting out a hair-raising
shriek. The jungle went quiet, and Saber snickered silently. He crept back to
where the cannibals stood, frozen in position.

The obvious leader, a tall dude with a bone
threaded through his nose, gave a sharp order. The troop moved again, but the
ones at the rear twisted their heads all around, surveying every inch of the
tangled profusion of plants surrounding them.

Saber smirked and let rip with another
feral feline scream. The troop jumped and two at the back broke ranks.

How many roars would it take to break the
leader?

Saber slunk closer, until he was almost
level with Bone Nose, and let rip.

The blue-faced man leaped a foot in the
air, gave a high-pitched screech and turned in the direction of their camp,
almost knocking down the rest of the troop in his race for safety. When they’d
all picked themselves up and scuttled in the direction of the camp, Saber gave
a feline grunt of satisfaction. Only three. No challenge at all.

He checked the trail for signs of danger
then made a quick detour to a sandy desert area he’d discovered earlier. Things
to do. Places to go.

A mischievous woman to deal with.

* * * * *

When he arrived back at the tree where he’d
left Eva, Saber had been half expecting to find her gone. To his relief, she’d
stayed and was now asleep. When he crept closer, he saw she’d been crying, the
dried tracks of tears staining her cheeks. Regret surged through him and
tightened his chest.

This was his fault, yet if he were honest,
he wouldn’t do things much differently.

He set down the fruit and the plants he’d
been carrying and absently petted Bluebird when the creature pressed up against
his side.

“Eva, wake up.” He shook her shoulder,
ready to slap his hand across her mouth should he startle her. “Wake up,
kitten.”

He had to talk to her, persuade her not to
run away again because it wasn’t safe.

Then another thought occurred. Maybe his
dual nature scared her. She hadn’t acted with distaste, but maybe…

She didn’t give away much in her
expressions, not unless she wanted to, and pasted on emotions with
deliberation.

“Kitten.”

Her eyelids fluttered and she came awake,
her muscles going tense.

“It’s me,” he murmured. “They’ve returned
to their village. I don’t think they’ll be bothering us again. Are you hungry?”

She shuddered. “I can’t think of food at
the moment, not when I-I…” She trailed off, a violent tremor spearing through
her body.

“We’ll save it for later. How is your skin?
You’re lucky they put you in, clothes and all.”

“I don’t think they’d worked out that they
came off. They probably thought to…ah…remove them later.” Another tremor shook
her slight frame at the idea of being dish of the day for cannibals.

“Think on the bright side. At least you don’t
have to walk buck-ass naked through the jungle.”

Her brow wrinkled but she pushed hard for
humor. “And my clothes are clean.” She didn’t quite pull it off, although he
gave a faint grin and ran a gentle hand over her head.

“Let me check your feet. I have a plant
that might help ease your burns.” He removed her socks and hung them on a
branch. “Lift your T-shirt. Ah, it’s not too bad. Your skin is a little pink.”
He broke the long leaves and spread the thick sap within over the pinked skin
with gentle fingers.

The tension bled from her muscles until she
lay relaxed in front of him. He doctored her then replaced her socks and shirt.
“We need to move. By my reckoning it should take us another two days to reach
the mining village. We’ll be able to get transport from there.”

She nodded.

“I’ll carry you—at least until it becomes
too dark to travel.”

“I can walk.”

“Kitten, you’ll slow us down. I can make
better time carrying you.”

“What was that stuff you put on my skin?”

“I don’t know what it’s called here, but the
plant looks like aloe, one we had on Earth.”

“The advertising for the resort mentions
that most of the employees are from Earth. Why did you leave?”

“A virus was killing off our species. There
were many deaths…including my fiancée, Lori.” Saber was quiet for a few long,
painful moments. “After that, we made the decision to leave and find a new home
where we’d be safe.” He lifted her into his arms, deciding to carry her in
front of him, even though it was more awkward. Piggyback style was practical,
but given her injuries, he thought this way would work best. Bluebird would
alert them to any dangers.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said
quietly. She sighed. “So…which way are we going?”

“A process of elimination. The cannibal
troop is that way. The lava trail extends all the way down the side of the
volcano. There’s another in the direction I went this morning, so we need to go
into the jungle again.”

“The lava is on the other side of the
village too.”

“Then definitely jungle it is,” Saber said.

* * * * *

Full darkness had descended when he decided
to halt for the night. He stopped by a patch of ferns, checked them for safety
and made a quick bed.

“How are you feeling?”

“Much better,” she said.

“Do you want some fruit?”

At her nod, he handed her a red apple-like
fruit and one that seemed cousin to an Earth banana, despite its vivid pink
color.

“I need to reapply the plant juice,” he
said.

She nodded again, and her quietness
disturbed him. He preferred her sassy insults, her quick mind, even her escape
attempts to this silence.

He tended to her then decided to do a quick
reconnoiter before he rested. He stood and took only a few steps before Eva
stopped him.

“Wait! Where are you going?”

“I want to check the vicinity, make sure
there isn’t anything dangerous in the area. I can hear water. If it’s safe to
drink I’ll bring some back for you.”

“You won’t be long?”

“I won’t be long,” he promised.

* * * * *

Eva started at every creepy jungle noise,
and there were a lot of them. Give her the marketplace with its thieves and
vagabonds any day. She could cope with the dangers in the market, was used to
them even if they sometimes scared her. But this? In this place there was a
different danger lurking behind every tree and bush. Weird creatures. Enormous
creatures. Hungry creatures. Way too many beasties for her peace of mind.

At this point, she was only alive because
of Saber. True, it was his fault she was in this situation to begin with, but
he’d tried to keep her safe. If it weren’t for him, the big bird would’ve eaten
her the first day. One of the big birds.

Beside her, Bluebird gave a whispery snore
and she petted him, comforted slightly by the creature’s present. But she was
still wide awake and mostly terrified when Saber returned. One moment he wasn’t
there and the next he was. She jolted, almost letting loose a screech of
terror.

“Kitten, it’s me. It’s all right,” he
crooned, his hand sliding over her head in a gesture of comfort.

He was petting her again like she was
Bluebird. The tension bled from her muscles. It felt good. Safe. “Sorry. I’m a
bit jumpy.”

“Understandable. Want some water?”

“Please.” He was still tending to her. The
thought brought back the need to cry. No one had ever looked after her before.
Not
even Pryce
, her traitorous mind muttered.

He held a makeshift vessel to her mouth,
and the water was cool as it slid down her throat. “I’ll take you to the
waterhole in the morning,” he said once she’d drunk her fill. “The cool water
will help your skin and you’ll feel better after a wash.”

“Thanks.” Still looking after her—which
didn’t make sense if the Dearbhorgaills were responsible for her kidnapping.

Saber settled beside her and she snuggled
close to his warmth.

“Why are you so desperate to get back to
Dalcon?”

Eva swallowed. She might as well tell him.
She was having trouble deciding if he was good or bad, especially when he took
such care to keep her alive. He’d saved her from Bone Nose. He could have left
her to her fate.

“I grew up in the market, and was lucky the
people who looked after me were decent. Instead of working as a pickpocket,
which I was lousy at, I toiled in a restaurant from an early age. I met Pryce
at one of the market restaurants.” She let out a sound that masqueraded as
humor. “That’s what the owners called it. The place was a single room with four
rough tables and even rougher clientele. The saving grace was the food. The
wife of the owner worked magic when she cooked, and she taught me.”

Eva paused to marshal her thoughts, the
darkness making it much easier to tell her tale. “I’d worked there for several
years, waiting tables and cooking. The owners let me sleep in the restaurant
after hours. I was safer than I’d been as a child, and while the work was hard,
I was happy.

“Pryce came into the restaurant one night.
Although he’d dressed the same as our regular customers, he was different. His
speech. His mannerisms. He stayed for hours, ordering and trying the entire
range of dishes on our meager menu. When we were ready to close, he was still
there. He asked to speak to the owners and offered to buy them out. He said he
wanted to create a chain of restaurants, and they could continue running the
place, but he’d want their help with the menus and food in the other
restaurants. We were suspicious at first, because it was obvious he was
wealthy, but even
we
were shocked when we discovered he was the son of
the Dearbhorgaill family. We thought he was playing us, but the deal he offered
was too good to refuse.”

“You grew close,” Saber said.

“Apart from Casey, he was the only friend I
had. He kept his word and the new restaurant he opened became very successful.
He improved the original restaurant and made us all wealthy. Pryce had such
plans. His parents pretty much ignored him until he became rich in his own
right. They arranged a marriage for him, but he refused to go through with it.
When they wouldn’t relent, he asked me to marry him. He said he loved me, had
intended to court me properly, but marrying him quickly would both make him
happy and get his parents off his back.”

Eva paused, the quick slice of guilt a
familiar one. Why couldn’t she have loved him? Pryce had deserved more.

“He was your friend,” Saber said. “I’m sure
you wanted to help, and I bet you were loyal, never cheated on him.”

“No, I never cheated on him. His parents tried
to accuse me of infidelity, but he didn’t believe them. He never believed
anything they said about me. Pryce was a special man. He was also ambitious. He
started negotiating to purchase a third restaurant. We had to organize a loan
because it was a large-scale project.”

Eva took a deep breath and sighed. “Before
the documents were signed, Pryce was murdered in the market. They never caught
the murdering bastard, but I know the Dearbhorgaills had something to do with
his death. They told everyone it was because Pryce was wandering through the
market at nightfall. That was a lie. No one in the market would touch him. He’d
become one of us. He helped everyone. Brought us together in a way we’d never
experienced before. He’d married me, yet he never expected me to change, to be
anyone other than who I was.”

“What about his family? I take it they’ve
caused trouble since their son’s death? It’s in your tone.”

“They tried to take his money, his
restaurants, but Pryce had prepared for that. Unbeknownst to me, he’d put
everything in my name, and I was to be awarded full control should he die under
mysterious circumstances.”

“They didn’t like that, I take it.”

“No. They took me to court, but the judge
tossed out their case. I wanted to complete the formalities on the new
restaurant, but the bankers had
mislaid
the paperwork. We did new
paperwork and they rejected my loan. Every official banker refused to loan me
money. I found a private facility willing to complete the loan, but despite my
research before signing, I failed to discover the Dearbhorgaills owned the
company.”

“I bet they had fun informing you of the
fact.”

Eva recalled the smug, superior expressions
on their upper-class faces and cringed. It hadn’t been her best day. “The
second loan payment is due next solar week. If I don’t make the payment, I’ll
lose everything. Pryce worked so hard for those restaurants. All his sacrifices
will be wasted.”

“You worked hard too.”

She shot Saber a swift glance. “I owed
him.” But it was the truth, she realized. She’d put all her energies into
Pryce’s vision. She’d discovered she had a head for business, the killer
instincts that made for success—except when she’d signed that loan document.
But she’d been worried, out of her mind with grief. She still missed Pryce. His
intelligent mind. His ready smile and good humor. His friendship and the way he
listened to everything she said.