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But it was too late. The venom was already circulating through Hruk’s veins like liquid fire.
His weakened fingers dropped the human, and she hit the ground with a thud.
Hruk’s head swam. The world seemed to spin around him. He lost his balance and toppled to the ground with a crash.
A moment later, Serenity was hunched over him, shouting his name and trying to shake him awake, but Hruk felt himself slipping into unconsciousness.
What the hell had a zlorge been doing so far out in the wastelands? Normally the slimy little buggers only stuck to the forests and mires. It was his curse, of course. That was the only thing that could explain it. Luckily, Hruk had intervened in time.
Only this time, instead of losing someone he cared for, Hruk himself was going to die.
The curse had been broken at last.
This thought gave Hruk a feeling of contentment as his world disappeared behind an impenetrable black fog. All that was left was Serenity’s voice shouting his name over and over, but soon even that faded into silence.
CHAPTER 21: SERENITY
“Hruk! Hruk, please wake up!”
Serenity was kneeling in the shade between two boulders where Hruk had fallen. She bent over the ukkur, shouting his name and patting his broad scruffy jaw. She was desperate to rouse him back to consciousness.
It was no use. The ukkur’s eyes rolled back and his lids pulled shut.
“Hruk, please!” Serenity screamed.
Her heart was racing, and tears were filling her eyes, blurring her vision.
She was terrified.
Part of it was selfishness. Without Hruk, Serenity would be all on her own out here. She knew how to survive the streets of Chicago, but when it came to this vast and inhospitable wilderness, she was at a loss.
If the ukkur died, she knew she would be soon to follow.
That was only part of Serenity’s anguish, however. The greater part of her terror and pain stemmed from the fact that she actually cared about this ukkur warrior. He may be frightening and half-feral, but Serenity felt a connection to him that she could not deny. After six months of bitter loneliness, she didn’t want to lose that.
She turned her attention to the creature that had caused all this trouble.
It was some kind of weird alien slug. Serenity had never seen anything like it before. Hruk had managed to squish it with his foot before he keeled over, but not before Serenity had gotten a brief glimpse of the thing. The slug’s dun-colored upper surface had been textured to resemble a stone, but underneath it had been hiding a sharp thorn-like fang. It must have injected the ukkur with venom.
And if the big guy had not saved her, Serenity would be the one sprawled out unconscious on the ground right now. If that little bit of venom had knocked a massive ukkur out, Serenity shuddered to think what would have happened to her.
“You little bastard,” Serenity growled at the dead slug.
Her panic and concern shifted to anger, and she was about to lash out and kick the splattered remains of the dead slug, but she stopped herself.
What the hell was she doing?
She was acting irrationally, that’s what.
She needed to get her emotions under control
A big part of her training as a cop had been learning how to deescalate a fucked up situation. That involved reining in her emotions, staying calm, and thinking about the situation logically.
Serenity swallowed a big gulp of air, held it for a second, then exhaled, releasing all of her tension and confusion with the outbreath.
Already, her head felt clearer.
Now, the first order of business was to secure the immediate area. She needed to make sure there were no more of those nasty little stone-slugs sneaking around. If she got stung too, it would be game over for both her and Hruk.
