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Kaelum smiled down at me when we turned, and I wrapped both arms around one of his. “There is nothing to fear, my Lucas. The terrapad is designed to balance the creatures upon it. It will not allow you to fall.”
Terrapad. Right.
I glanced around at the air whizzing past us and frowned at him. “You’ll forgive me if I worry about putting my life in the hands of unfamiliar technology.”
His beatific smile almost made my heart stop, but his words made sure it beat faster instead. “I will forgive you anything you require, my Lucas.”
Jesus, the guy couldn’t know that. What if I was a secret serial killer? He wouldn’t forgive that.Shouldn’t. But there he was, smiling at me like I was something wonderful and special—a way none of my previous boyfriends had ever looked at me.
Previous?My brain asked, not willing to take any of my shit.That implies the guy you met less than a week ago is your boyfriend. The guy who’s claimed you as property.
And damn my brain, it wasn’t wrong for a change.
When the disk—terrapad—landed, it was in the middle of the jungle, and my first instinct was to cling to Kaelum even harder. “What the hell? You remember that there are murderplants everywhere on your planet, right?”
His laughter was deep and resonant, and it made the tightly wound coil of terror inside me loosen a little. He’d been nervous in the garden, when I hadn’t realized that the plants were evil. He was not nervous now.
Instead he smiled and waved a hand around. “This is... what would humanity call it? A nature preserve, perhaps? Nothing formal, but we track what exists where, and know where the dangerous plants and animals lurk. Nothing in this area will harm you, that I promise.”
And that, my friends? That was when the giant fucking sabertooth cat came out of the undergrowth. Black and red and the size of a pony, with teeth almost as big as my forearm, it was literally the most terrifying thing I’d seen in my life. It was like a tiger on LSD.
Or, like, a tiger ifIwere on LSD, I guessed.
But it didn’t growl, or pounce, or eat us both in two bites.
Instead, it made this little sound deep in its throat that sounded like something Donna Meowble did when she wanted my attention. Then it cemented that image, as it marched right up to Kaelum and rubbed its face up against him, like a housecat marking its human property.
He grinned and reached up with both hands to scratch its head, murmuring soft nonsense syllables to it that the interpreter implant couldn’t make sense of, so I assumed they amounted to “pspspsps, who’s a good kitty? Yep, you’re a good kitty.” That was the look on Kaelum’s face, anyway.
I suspected the look on my face was something a little more like “oh fuck, we’re gonna die.” That feeling was exacerbated when they both turned to look at me, and I was sure, for a second, that I was being sized up for dinner.
But then the cat was marking me too, making a sound that might have been its version of a purr, or might have been that it has swallowed a refrigerator. And somehow, even though this cat was big enough to snap me in half accidentally, that purr was all I needed to relax. It was just like Donna. Well, as long as I was with Kaelum, it was just like Donna.
I hated to imagine what damage such a creature could do if it weren’t on my side.
But instead of dwelling on that, I smiled at the cat, scratched its chin, and let myself have the moment. Sure, maybe the giant space-cat would eat me in a minute. But right now? I was on an alien planet, petting a cat bigger than my first car. How fucking cool was that?
CHAPTER14
KAELUM
“Does he have a name?” Lucas let the zintar nuzzle into the small space between his chin and shoulder, and the beast sniffed him curiously. Perhaps he smelled as sweet to the creature as he did to me.
“He calls himself Deadliest Fang.”
His hesitation disappearing, Lucas reached to scratch along Deadliest Fang’s jaw. “Can I just call him Fang, for short?”
I asked the zintar himself, and he let loose an amused rumble that had Lucas swallowing nervously.
“He says that is acceptable. You may call him Fang.”
Lucas’s smile returned, and for long moment, he coddled Fang while the zintar purred. In time, Fang lost interest. The zintari were solitary hunters. But we followed him as he stalked through the plants toward the edge of the river.
Toward the cliff face, the waterfall fell in a sapphire rush. Lucas’s breath caught, and he stared with wide-eyed longing.
“Would you like to swim?” I asked, watching Lucas from the corner of my eye.
“Can we?”
