CHAPTER ONE
Margot was filthy.
Filthy, sweaty, and exhausted, not to mention more than a little confused.
It was a dense forest in which she now found herself wandering, alone and frightened, and possibly concussed. It was a forest all right, and it was very clearlynotone on Earth.
Her planet didn’t have burgundy and purple-leaved trees, so far as she knew, nor did it possess green vines with hints of turquoise wrapping around them. If that wasn’t enough, the small, six-legged fawn-like creature that scared her nearly as much as she frightened it when she stumbled upon it was all the verification she needed.
There was no denying it, much as she wished she could. But this was mostdefinitelynot home.
Something else rustled in the brush and she froze, listening intently, instinct overriding her racing mind.
Shit!
She was clearly not alone. The little creature bolted in a flash, its sudden movement making Margot’s heart nearly erupt from her chest. She jumped back, startled, but managed tokeep herself from running screaming into the unknown woods around her. Panic would only make things worse.
She forced herself to slow her breathing, calming her nerves, and the little critter seemed to do the same, eventually peeking its head out of the shrubbery it had darted into. Apparently, it had decided this odd bipedal creature was not a threat. Or, at least, not one that could catch it. That, and it had back up.
The rustling in the bushes as its mama stepped forth to defend her young sent a fresh burst of adrenaline through Margot’s body. At least she knew what had been making the noise, and this animal was magnificent. Magnificent, and much,muchlarger.
Like its offspring, it had six legs and a deer-like build. But this was a fully mature creature, and where the little one was weak and timid, this well-muscled animal was ready to fight to the death to protect its young. And judging by the scars on her flanks, she’d successfully done just that and survived on more than one occasion.
“It’s okay, Mama,” Margot said softly, her hands up and open as she stepped back slowly. “I’m not going to hurt you, so please, you don’t hurt me, okay?”
The animal watched her, alert and tense, but neither charging nor running away.
“I’m just going to go this way and leave you two in peace, all right? You just stay here and look after your little one.”
Amazingly, while it never once took its eyes off her, it seemed content to let her go.
Margot gingerly stepped through some prickling brush and over a large fallen tree limb, putting distance between herself and the animal. It may have seemed like it was merely protecting its offspring and would not charge her, but she knew what some animals back home could do in that situation. And not just the carnivores.
Moose, ormurder horsesas her ex had called them, were herbivores.Giantones, but they definitely wouldn’t eat you. Theywould, however, trample you to death just for the fun of it if they were having an off day. Or even not an off day. From what she could gather, moose pretty much just liked trampling things, and trampling was very much not something she wanted to experience. Especially not from an animal with six legs.
Fortunately, the creature seemed content with the interloper departing and after she put a little distance between them, Margot was pleased to note she had not been followed.
“Okay, definitely not that way,” she decided, heading back roughly in the direction she’d come from before altering course again.
It was shaping up to be a long and shitty walk, indeed.
She had been aimlessly wandering the woods, lost, dazed, deposited on this crazy world by a crashed alien vessel. Others had been aboard with her when they came hurtling toward this place, but when she woke beneath a pile of debris, her head pounding from the impact of the hard landing, they were gone, and where to she had not an inkling.
She had pushed the branches and dirt off herself in confusion when she regained her senses. Apparently, the hull had torn open as it crashed down through the incredibly dense canopy of the hardy trees, dumping shattered limbs and leaves into the compartment itself, much of it piling on top of her unconscious form. Given the situation, she couldn’t really blame anyone for leaving her. Hell, they might not have even realized she was still there, covered as she was.
But Margot had managed to escape relatively unscathed. Bruised and scraped, sure, but otherwise intact. It took a few minutes to shift the debris from on top of herself, but she was very motivated and found the strength to manage it.
“Oh, shit,” she mumbled as she took her bearings. “What the hell happened?”
There was some blood in the ruined craft, and it wasn’t hers. She made her way out of the torn hull and saw there was some outside as well. Whether that person’s injuries had occurred from the impact or from something attacking them after they landed, she had no idea. What did matter was that whatever had happened, she’d been left alone. And so she trekked off into the woods, only interrupted in her progress when she stumbled upon her first experience with thatveryalien wildlife.
“Now what?” she wondered as she looked around. It had been a few hours since she’d hiked out, and she was decidedlynotwanting to go back to the wreck.
She couldn’t really see the sun through the dense canopy above, not that it would have really made much of a difference in her situation. She was lost no matter what. Even if she’d had a compass or GPS unit, it wouldn’t matter. She wasn’t on Earth, and she didn’t have a clue what to do.
“I guess I keep walking,” she finally decided, picking a direction and forcing her legs to move.
She covered a fair amount of distance, given the situation. Swampy areas were skirted, the clear streams feeding into them crossed as needed. As for the big, rocky outcroppings dotted with dirt-crusted crystals embedded in them, obstructions that seemed to have almost popped up randomly, forced up through the ground tens of thousands of years prior in some tumultuous volcanic upheaval, she climbed them if they were small enough, or just went the long way around if they were too big or too steep.
