I don’t know where the other women are, only that I don’t feel like being tackled. I’ve lost Sky in the mayhem and seen women snatched up by the waist, tumble into clouds of dirt, and fought over by alien males of all hues.
Snarls and growls echo through the hills as the most feral of the males fight for the right to claim women. I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t quite this. I’m used to negotiation. I thought this was more for fun, but it’s turned into a wild clash of instincts.
I finally make it to the bamboo forest, where I can slow to a walk and catch my breath.
My neck still bears the dampness of the lick from a Mindoran, and my sleeve is scratched open by a tussle with a scaly species I’ve surprisingly not met yet.
Thank the stars, I was able to crawl away from that.I shudder at the thought. I do not want either of them. Definitely not a Ginarigon, either.Seems he changed his mind.But the Leosanti must’ve just tripped. I could get with that. They’re high-tech intellectuals.A bit pretentious, though.
I was hoping for a soldier species, someone who gets what the universe is about.Nytheralian, maybe. Alustri or Klaphos would’ve been okay, too. Ferrim. Who were the green ones? Lazariot is what Elix is. His sister world has some left. Lazlion… Lazarlion? Lathlion? I can’t remember.
Definitely don’t want an Amphiran. I do not feel like death by electric shock sounds like fun. And I don’t have Jovie’s Faraday body cage.
Finding a bench, I sit down and lean back, taking in the light rustling of green leaves and the way the bamboo shelters mefrom the view of others.Maybe I’ll win the million because no one will find me back here?
I check my wristband and see there are still fifteen minutes left in the race before the winner can be called. But right as I feel calm again, the bamboo stalks knock together toward my right, in the direction of the river.
I get up and look. “Hello?”
A hulking shadow moves there, tall, light brown… And I swear I see wings not bound by ABR bands.
Oh, shit.I back down another path between the bamboo and start running. If what I think I saw was right, then aTalhuskinhas invaded the race.
The rustling becomes frantic.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
My heart pounds as the dark shadow moves faster after me. I bolt through the trail cut into the bamboo and race around toward the backside of the mountain.
Damn it! Where is a fucking cameradrone when you need one?
When I glance back, the male has gained on me. Wings open, dark and menacing. The male Talhuskin in battle armor flies toward me.
I frantically look for a place to duck and hide, but I’ve run myself out of the woods and into the rocky edge of the river, where a crashing waterfall fills the cavern with thunder.
No one will hear my screams here.
I stagger through the damp rock toward the mist. The only place I might be safe is behind the falls, where the Talhuskin would struggle to grab me because of the pounding sheets of water that would smash into his wings.
Then, out of the trees charges a shimmering figure, black and orange and red like hot liquid magma. He’s so fast that I barelyget a look at him before he bashes into the Talhuskin with bone-crushing force and a snarl so fiercethat it startles me.
I catch my boot on a rock and fly forward, smashing into the pool’s edge. Pain bursts in my cheek and my body. I push myself up in a mess of sandy river rocks and clamber away to hide behind a nearby boulder to watch.
The two males become a tangle of wings and fire and fists. They wrestle, pick up rocks, and smash them into one another. Their fight sends them staggering into the rocks at the base of the cliffs. And finally, I squint up through the sunlight at the hum of hoverpads and see cameradrones.
They continue tearing at one another, snarling and hissing. The magma male with dark red wings shoves the Talhuskin back with so much force that he collides with the rocky side of the mountain and curls forward. But he doesn’t go down easy.
I brace my pounding cheek and check my fingers for blood, but there isn’t any. I’m going to have a pretty bruise for the races.Great.
As the Talhuskin launches off of the ground and uses his wings to carry him into the Drath, whose wings are bound with ABR bands, I start to put the situation together. The red dragon male is here to race. The Talhuskin is not because they’ve been banned.
So he was here to either kill me or take me. A sickening wave of disgust makes me shudder.
I’m not sure the Drath was chasing me but perhaps saw the Talhuskin. I know they have unfinished business, but ABR is not the place to solve it. Still, I’m grateful he interrupted.
The Drath grabs the Talhuskin by the talons on the thumbs of his wings and picks him up with a rotary swinging motion and throws him toward the rocks with surprising force. The Talhuskin tries to catch himself with his wings but snags a tip in the water that throws him off balance and tugs him into the pool.He flops around in the water as the Drath hikes up the rocks not far from me.
Despite the mist, his wings still bound, the Drathious opens his hands and ignites fireballs within his palms. The Talhuskin gets himself upright, his wings dripping and body hunkered with predatory hatred.
