Arik: Alien Adoption Agency #7 Read online

  “We’re certainly rested after the early stop yesterday,” Lucy agreed.

  They settled into a companionable silence as the caravan set off, with Lucy studying the horizon for potential obstacles.

  Following the river meant that they were veering away from the mountains. Lucy tried not to let it get her down. The safest route was obviously the best route when there was so much at stake.

  Up ahead, one of the bison began bouncing around, kicking his back legs up.

  “Is he okay?” Lucy asked.

  “That’s odd,” Arik said. “I think they normally do that during mating season.”

  Another of the bulls head-butted his neighbor. The victim gave out a high-pitched honk of surprise and wandered away, weaving slightly on the snowy plain.

  “What the hell?” Arik said.

  Before the words were out of his mouth, a fourth animal fell over sideways, its body stiff.

  Three other bison chose that moment to wander off from the herd.

  Chaos ensued as the animals went from being a herd to something more like a random assortment of bison spreading across the horizon.

  “Stop the wagon,” Lucy cried.

  Miles rode up and whistled to the dogs, and they slowed to a stop.

  “What’s wrong?” Lucy asked. “What are they doing?”

  “Seems like they got into something,” Charley said, riding up and looking furious.

  “What could they get into?” Miles asked. “The ground was so frozen we had to feed them dry stock and vitamins.”

  They both turned to Lucy.

  “I just splashed a little on each bale of hay, like you told me,” she said. “I didn’t give them anything else.”

  “Splashed?” Charley echoed.

  “Well, you didn’t give me a measuring cup,” Lucy said. “Should the amount have been that exact?”

  “No. But the vitamins are a powder mix,” Miles said softly. “Was the container you used filled with liquid?”

  “It smelled bad,” Lucy realized out loud, nodding as guilt threatened to eat her alive.

  “You gave it to them even though it smelled bad?” Charley asked.

  “They gobbled it up,” Lucy said miserably. “All vitamins smell bad. And in case you hadn’t noticed, they don’t smell that great themselves. I didn’t know.”

  “Hey,” Miles said, looking her right in the eye. “You were trying to help, Lucy. Everyone makes mistakes.”

  Arik frowned.

  Maybe this was more than just a mistake.

  “Are they going to die?” she asked.

  “Die?” Charley asked. “No, not unless they wander off and get into trouble. They’re drunk as skunks though.”

  Lucy surpassed a sigh of relief.

  “If the vitamins got wet, the rest of our supplies could be ruined too,” Charley realized out loud. “I’ll check the supply wagon. Miles, you start rounding up the cattle.”

  “We’ll help as best we can,” Lucy declared, handing Flora to Arik so he could place her in Lucy’s back-strap sling.

  “Just try not to get in the way,” Charley said, already heading to the supply wagon.

  “You’ll tell us if we’re in the way?” she asked Miles.

  “Of course,” he said. “Just try to encourage them to stay between you and the river. It’s a natural barrier. And keep away from any that are acting violent.”

  Just then, a bovine scream pierced the air. The bull that had head butted the bison next to him was at it again.

  “Let me deal with him,” Miles said. “Before he pushes that female into the river.”

  Lucy shuddered at the thought.

  “Why don’t you and the baby stay here,” Arik suggested when Miles was gone.

  “We’ll just provide a barrier and keep them from getting farther away,” Lucy said. “I’m going to have to learn how to do this anyway, baby and all, and I won’t always have hired hands to do the hard part.”

  He nodded, but his lips were pressed together tightly, like he was trying not to say what he wanted to say.

  Well, he was a handsome guy, and had helped her avoid a panic attack last night. But that didn’t make him the boss of her. She knew damned well that if she didn’t learn how to handle the beasts, the next time something like this happened, it could mean the loss of Flora’s entire herd.

  She hopped onto the snowy ground and headed upstream toward the bison.

  Several of the big creatures were already moving way out into the plain, too close to the ice swaths for comfort.

  Lucy headed after them, moving as fast as she dared. The sound of Arik’s footsteps behind hers was comforting.

  Whatever he thought of her decision, he had her back.

  10

  Lucy

  Lucy was sweating, which was pretty impressive, given that she could see her breath pluming in the frigid air.

  But with Arik’s help, she had managed to keep the cattle from getting too far from the caravan. Now that they were on the far side of the cattle, it was only a matter of coaxing the big animals back toward the river.

  Back at the caravan, Charley had managed to tear the whole dry storage wagon apart. Colorful containers spread out across the tundra. But whether their contents were fine or spoiled would be a mystery to Lucy and Arik until they returned.

  “Lucy,” Arik shouted.

  She turned to him. He was pointing at something further out.

  A single bison stood in the distance.

  Lucy was amazed the animal had even gotten that far.

  “Should we let it go?” Arik asked.

  “No way,” Lucy said, eyeing the nearby beasts. “These guys seem relatively calmed down. We have to go after her.”

  Arik nodded once.

  They set off quickly, boots crunching on the snowy terrain, the wind mercifully at their backs.

  Without having to coax cattle along with them, they could move fast. But before they reached the bison, they came to an area that was bright green. A few inches of water lay over the exposed grass.

  “A hot spring must have opened from a crack,” Arik said.

  He dipped a foot into the water.

  “It’s warm but not enough to do any damage,” he said. “That’s why she was able to cross it.”

  Lucy looked down at her suede boots.

  “They’re treated,” Arik assured her. “You can walk in water, snow, whatever you want. Just retreat them when we get back to camp.”

  “Perfect,” Lucy said, easing one foot into the water. Just because it wasn’t hot to Arik didn’t mean it wouldn’t be too hot for her. If the stuff in his flask last night was any example, hot meant something different to him than it did to her.

  But the water felt pleasantly warm around her foot, so she stepped in, and they began walking across.

  “Try not to splash,” he warned her. “Your clothes will freeze solid.”

  “Good point,” she said.

  She slowed her strides a bit, and at last they came to solid ground again.

  The bison was close now. She had her head down as though she had found some exposed grass to nibble.

  Just as they jogged almost close enough to touch her, Lucy realized the bison wasn’t alone after all. There was a calf as well.

  It squealed at their approach, and scrambled away from them, back toward the caravan.

  “I’ll catch him,” Arik said.

  Lucy nodded and headed for the mother, who was nipping at a few shoots of green grass that poked out of the snow.

  “Hello, pretty girl,” Lucy said, placing a hand on the mother’s flank.

  The cow lifted her shaggy head and observed Lucy with large, sad brown eyes.

  “I know, you were having an adventure,” Lucy told her. “But—”

  She was interrupted by a crack as loud as a gunshot. The ground under her feet seemed to sway and a slight scent of Sulphur wafted through the cold air.

  “Lucy,” Arik cried out.

  The cow let out a plaintive moo.

  The earth had split between Lucy and Arik, separating the humans from each other, as well as the cow from her calf. The jagged wound in the tundra spread several feet across, and stretched as far as Lucy could see.

  She had never experienced an earthquake firsthand, but her training kicked in immediately.

  “We’re moving back,” she told Arik. “Go back to the caravan for help.”

  She urged the cow to move with her, farther from the opening chasm.

  But the poor creature was separated from her baby, and didn’t want to budge.

  Across the divide, Arik lifted the baby calf and placed him around his neck in something like a fireman’s carry, so that the calf’s front legs were over his right shoulder, hind legs over his left.

  The baby bleated for his mother, and the mother lowed back.

  But instead of turning to head back for camp, Arik stepped backward a couple of feet.

  It was happening before Lucy could get her head around it.

  Arik was sprinting for the chasm, his eyes determined.

  She didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away as he leapt with all his might.

  Maybe he could have made it on his own, maybe. But with a calf as big as a man over his shoulders?

  For an instant Arik and the calf seemed to hang in the air.

  Lucy’s heart skipped a beat. Her chest felt like it was tearing to pieces. She barely knew this man, but for some reason, she suddenly knew to her soul that if he got hurt, she would die.

  Then Arik landed safely on the other side in a crouch, and Lucy let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

  “Arik,” she sobbed as he placed the calf back on the ground with its mother.

&nb
sp; “Let’s go,” he told her, looking to the sky. “We have to get to higher ground.”

  Somehow, it had started snowing again, and she hadn’t even noticed.

  She felt her heart begin to clench.

  But the snow wasn’t cold on her cheeks, and it didn’t melt.

  “It’s ash,” Arik said, as if sensing her confusion. “The earthquake must be part of an eruption. We have to move, now.”

  He slapped the cow’s flank, and she began to plod and then to canter. It was as if the animal could taste the danger in the air. And now that her baby was with her, an instinct for self-preservation had kicked in.

  “There,” Lucy said.

  Ahead of them, in the near distance, was a ridge, with a rocky overhang about halfway up it. It wasn’t much, but it would shelter them.

  “Perfect, as long as it’s not too steep,” Arik said.

  “How can we tell from here?” Lucy asked.

  “We can’t,” he said. “But it’s our only option. Worst case, we’ll climb up without the bison.”

  Please don’t let me lose them on our second day, Lucy prayed as they moved toward the ridge as quickly as they could.

  But her concern for Flora’s beasts was quickly being overshadowed by her worry for Flora herself.

  She would get to that shelter, no matter what.

  11

  Arik

  Arik surveyed the area around the overhang. All things considered, it was a good place to shelter.

  It had taken them what felt like forever to make the climb, and even longer for him to coax the cow up the ridge to the overhang. He’d finally had to swing the calf back up on his shoulders and head up without her to make her follow. He knew that was cruel, but it was better than leaving her to the elements.

  By the time he reached the top, Lucy had already done a quick check for animals and found none. She had even discovered a small ledge halfway up the overhang that provided even higher ground for them, though the bison wouldn’t be able to follow.

  “Do your comms work from up here?” Lucy asked. “We should send word to the others that we’re okay, and that we’ll need help crossing that divide when the seismic activity slows down.”

  “Good thinking,” he replied, pleased yet again that she was so cool under pressure. The storm last night really had been an exception.

  He wondered again what her fears were based on. How could a snowstorm be scarier than a volcano and an earthquake?

  He ducked out from under the overhang and sent off a quick comm, hoping for the best. It was an open field, hopefully the ashen air wouldn’t interfere. He didn’t get a response, but he didn’t know if that meant it hadn’t gone through, or they just had their hands full back at camp as well.

  When he came back into the shelter, Lucy was sitting up on the ledge, holding Flora with her little back against Lucy’s thighs. The two seemed to be having an actual conversation.

  “Buh, bah, buh,” Flora said, smiling so hard her twinkly eyes were almost closed.

  “You do?” Lucy asked her.

  “Bah, BAH, buh,” Flora yelled back. Her small voice echoed in the cavernous space, and her eyes got big.

  “BAH,” she tried again. It echoed back and she laughed so hard she was practically shrieking. That also echoed, which sent her into another waterfall of laughter and chattering.

  “Nice echoes,” Lucy laughed.

  Arik chuckled as he swung up to the ledge to join them.

  “I guess no one here is too traumatized by the day’s events,” he said.

  “Oh, Flora had a great time,” Lucy said, walking her fingers up the baby’s belly and tapping her on the nose with her index finger. “You weren’t kidding. She really is down for adventure.”

  “Well, she’ll be down for a nap soon, if I know her,” Arik said.

  Flora yawned, as if on cue.

  “That’s a relief,” Lucy said. “I was afraid you were going to say she would be down for a meal, and I didn’t bring anything like that.”

  “We’ll be out of here before we have to worry about it,” Arik said with an air of false bravado.

  Lucy nodded, and he could see that she was choosing not to challenge him, though she was far too smart to think they had any control over timing.

  He felt an odd twinge in his heart, and was surprised to find it was gratitude.

  As a dragon warrior, he had always known that he might one day form a mate bond. But the truth was, it had never been something he craved. An irrevocable physical bond with a woman not of his choosing felt like servitude or obsession, not like love.

  But the more he got to know Lucy, the more he respected her, and the more he realized this mating wasn’t just going to mean a reprieve from twenty standard years without sex.

  It was starting to feel like he might have found a true partner and a friend - the kind of woman he might have freely chosen to spend his life with, even without the magnetic power of the bond.

  Lucy had Flora cuddled to her chest now. She was rocking back and forth slightly.

  “Can you get her wrap off my back?” she asked Arik quietly. “I’m thinking we can get her to sleep if she’s nice and warm.”

  “Good thinking,” he said, moving to loosen the furs from her back.

  She smelled so good that he couldn’t resist lowering his face to drink in the scent at the nape of her neck as he worked.

  The dragon groaned in his head, almost pushing out all other thought.

  Patience, he told it.

  Lucy began to sing, a winsome ballad about a boy who loved a dragon.

  Arik was charmed, and even the dragon inside him calmed.

  Lucy sang on, completely unaware that he was watching her, mesmerized.

  “I think she’s asleep,” she whispered at last, turning to him.

  Arik blinked back, trying to escape the spell.

  “Are you okay?” she asked him, her brow furrowing with concern.

  “That ballad,” he said. “It’s so… sad.”

  “You haven’t heard it before?” she asked nodding. “Yes, it’s a popular Old Terran song, about a child growing up.”

  Arik nodded, unable to reply over a lump in his throat. Flora would grow up one day, and then she would not need her dragon anymore either.

  “You know it’s different with real children,” Lucy said, snuggling the baby into her furs and setting her down oh-so-gently in the rear corner of the ledge, where a few stones would keep her from rolling out of her nest. “And with real dragons. Flora will always need you, Arik, even when she grows up. Twenty standard years might seem like a long time, but believe me, it won’t be enough.”

  There was his opening. Even through waves of the strange, wistful emotion, he could see that now was his best chance.

  “Twenty years doesn’t have to be all,” he said carefully.

  “But you’ll have to return to active duty,” she said, frowning.

  “All Invicta who raise Imberian young have the option to retire after our obligatory service to the child is complete,” he said.

  “That’s wonderful,” she said. “You’ll be able to stick around for her.”

  “And for other reasons too,” he told her. “How much do you know about dragons?”

  “Not much,” she admitted. “On the Terras, we mainly have Cerulean soldiers sent by the sector when we run into difficulties - not Invicta warriors.”

  That made sense. The Terras were still new to intergalactic travel. Their status in the system wouldn’t necessitate any Invicta intervention, except in the most extreme of circumstances.

  “Dragons have abilities,” Arik explained. “Our skin tones give a hint about them.”

  “Fire,” she said softly.

  “Yes,” he said, smiling. “Fire is my element. I can shift into a very large dragon and use fire to protect my homeland. But it’s not something to be done lightly. The dragon is powerful, but can also be unpredictable.”

  She nodded.

  “We have other biological gifts too,” he told her, praying for the right words. “One of them is the ability to form a mate bond.”

  “Oh,” Lucy said, looking down at her hands.

  He could see the flush in her cheeks, though her dark hair covered half her face.

  “When we find our mate, we know it instantly,” he said, taking her hand.

  The surge of need he felt at that simple touch nearly disintegrated him.