Page 26 of Charmed By the Alien Warrior

Every step I take is accompanied by the pounding of my heart, loud in my ears, but not loud enough to drown out thedark thoughts flying through my mind. Telling me I’m too late to save Mara. Telling me that all I will find is her crumpled body, if I find her at all.

A growl rises unbidden from my chest, startling a lisek flying overhead. No, Iwillfind her. No other outcome is acceptable.

And maybe—just maybe—Mara will be grateful. She’ll flash that dazzling smile that’s burned itself into my mind. She might even wrap her arms around me, press her lips—

I snort, shaking the thought away. She won’t do any of those things. Not the stubborn, sharp-tongued human I’ve come to know. She’ll probably roll her eyes in that maddening way humans do, the way that makes my insides twist. Then she’ll demand to know what took me so long.

My heart flutters in my chest as I grin to myself. I can almost see the exasperated expression stretched across her face, the small lines of hair above her eyes wrinkling, and her lips pursed in annoyance.

I breathe deeply as I finally leave behind the acrid scent of the forest and reach the Vex Grasslands.

Ahead of me the grasslands stretch far into the distance. With the sun gone, the shimmering bright green grass has been transformed into a glowing sea. Each blade emitting a pale yellow light, almost as if they absorbed the last remnants of sunlight before it set.

The glow almost seems to pulse, creating a rhythmic pattern that spreads across the plains, and as I move through the grassland, each step causes the soft light to ripple around me. I can hear the shuffling of the many dicros, their nervous movements cause rippling disturbances in the glowing blades.

And I know he brought her here. If the nervousness of the dicro herd didn’t tell me, then my nose would. Now, that my scent glands no longer have to fight against the cloying odor of the Bitter Foret, I can detect the foul stench of a Pugj male.

And beneath it, faint but unmistakable, is the sweet scent of Mara.I stop and breathe deeply, letting her scent fill my lungs before I begin moving again, stalking along the edge of the grasslands.

And that’s when I see it.

Shadows and dips in the glowing grass indicating a struggle with two trails of bent blades leading away. One is straight and uniform, trailing through the edge of the grasslands towards the cliffs that lead to our village. Relief flows through me as I realize that trail was most likely made by Kaja, and my mount returned to her home as soon as she had a chance to bolt.

The other trail is chaotic, marked by lurching footprints and deep gouges in the ground. My heart lurches when I find a pool of dark blood, but relief comes quickly—it’s Pugj blood. But fear tightens my chest when I find more blood nearby.

It’s Mara’s blood. My pulse picks up speed until I remind myself that it’s only a small amount of blood. The other human, Emily, lost far more and survived. But then, she had access to medical treatment.

A strange piece of sharp metalloid glints against the soft yellow glow and I immediately pick it up, only to growl as I study it and notice red spots staining it. More blood.

Raising the sharp piece of metal to my nose, I sniff the length of white fabric that has been wrapped around one end forming a handle and transforming the scrap into a makeshift dagger. As soon as I get a whiff of the sweet scent that has seepedinto the handle, my mouth tips up with a proud grin. It’s Mara, and she fought back.

The trail leads me to the jungle’s edge, where the dense undergrowth bears signs of disturbance, as if a large being stepped through and into the jungle. The Pugj’s stench is stronger here, nearly overwhelming, but I can still detect the faint trace of Mara’s scent.

I track them for hours, moving slowly so that I don’t make any mistakes, but eventually both the Pugj and Mara’s scents grow fainter until I lose them. I backtrack, and manage to find the trail again, only to have it fade once more. Moving over the ground, I scour my surroundings, desperate to find any trace of Mara. Then, I spot it.

Deep gouges in the soft ground, as if Mara has dug her odd white shoes into the soil and dead leaves, churning them up. And I smell it—the metallic odor of her blood. Leaning closer, I spy red drops on a clump of leaves.

The blood has had time to dry, which means they’re quite a ways ahead of me. But still, the ball of desperate fear that had settled in my chest when Mara was taken, pressing heavily against my lungs like a tiniio, lessens and grows smaller finally allowing me to feel like I can take a full breath. She was still alive when the Pugj stopped here, and if he kept her alive this long, then he won’t kill her until they arrive at their destination.

But that means the attack was more than just a normal Pugj raid.

I travel through the jungle, following the sporadic red drops. Before long, I spy a small limb from a tree that hangs low to the ground. The limb has been bent, as if someone reached out and quickly snapped it in two as they were moving past. Agrin, full of pride at her ingenuity, spreads across my face. Mara has left behind a trail of clues to find her.

I find more signs of her presence. The petals of a small pink flower scattered on the ground. More blood smears, on the gray surface of a large rock and on the pale bark of a tree. More gouges in the dirt.

As I travel through the jungle, my thoughts return to the ambush. Somehow, our enemies knew we would be in the Bitter Forest. They waited to attack until we were well within the forest and in a section where the acrid odor from the sap is so overpowering we would not be able to scent the foul stench of the Pugj before they appeared, giving us no chance to anticipate their attack.

But to what end? While the group that attacked us was numerous in numbers, very few of them were skilled fighters, at least not on the same level as the warriors of my tribe. It’s almost like our enemies sent their weaker fighters as a distraction, like they had another purpose other than just to attack us.

It has to be because of the females.

Yes, taking the females was their true goal, but according to Isabella, when the Pugj fighter mounted my eponir, Mara fought back so viciously that he could barely contain her, let alone take both humans.

But why would the Pugj want the females? And where is he taking Mara? Though we don’t know much about their people, they do not seem to have trouble reproducing like our own species does. No matter how many of their numbers our tribe, and the other tribes, has killed there is still a never-ending parade of their fighters ready to unleash slaughter on us.

I follow Mara’s trail of clues through the night and into the next morning, but it’s not until around midday that I finally get an answer to my question. When I notice that the undergrowth and trees have begun to thin, growing less dense and more and more of the sky above seeping through the canopy, that I realize the fighter has taken Mara to the Tussoll village. With each step I take, my heart sinks.

Ahead of me, the wooden perimeter wall that encircles the village appears.

---