Page 27 of 20% Stud 80% Muffin
My erection quickly deflated at the thought of a bond with Geo, but I couldn’t deny the signs of my heat.
Under no circumstances did I want to spend the rest of my life with somebody who constantly bossed me around. I’d had enough of overbearing alphas. Tern was my fresh start—a safe place where my omega traits weren’t supposed to be triggered. Even though it was rare for a Lornian omega to move away, Bonic and I had checked the species colonizing Tern and none were Lornian.
Stupid blanting faulty bond tethering to a human.
I needed to tell Bonic that my body showed signs of sexual compatibility. My tail whipped beside me in frustration. What a fun conversation that would be—telling him my breeding passage was preparing its natural lubricant, I was growing hard, and a temporary human tether combined with the full moon had triggered my heat. My shoulders turned inward.
A faint sulfur odor tainted the air. Then a rocky outcropping appeared, a wall of ebony rocks jutting from the ground. The sun rose high, and dust motes enveloped the hoverbikes in a cloud.
D’irk motioned where to park. “We’ll set up camp here.”
My jaw dropped open as the full scope of the razor-sharp terrain we had to survey spread out before me.
I threw my bag down near the base of the outcrop and hollowed out a nest, a simple job I could wrap my head around. Then we moved forward as a team, the soft thud of my water container bumping my hip as I scouted the landscape. Jagged black rocks rose from the raw pink earth. The sharp contrast transformed the land. A Do Not Enter sign would not have been out of place.
“Strange how it’s all mixed up like that,” D’Argon said. We stood shoulder to shoulder, admiring the layered striations of silver and charcoal among the ebony that twisted and warped at odd angles.
Although we were only about one sun from Yurstille by hoverbike, the rugged nature of the ground had left this area unexplored until now. Heavy with supplies and weapons, D’Rasma and D’irk joined us.
“This is perfect ground for snaring.” I handed everyone a length of wire. “You’ll want to hold the wire this way as you create your loop.” I wove a long coil over my forearm and around my hand into the perfect snare. “Cover it up a bit when you find the right spot. The snare should be hidden. The rocks will hold many good hiding spots, but it will be tricky to find the right one.”
“Especially when we haven’t got the goddess clue what the blant we’re hunting out here,” D’Argon joked, but a sense of unease grew among us.
The expansive plateau we sat on was dotted with flat droppings dry enough to burn. The night air crackled as D’Rasma threw another patty on the fire in front of us. The moon, directly overhead, passed behind a cloud, and our breaths puffed out in cold mist. The sun had long set, the snares were laid, and a trap had been built to take down the mantu. My stomach was full of the mantu strips D’irk had dried, and linobee fur would line my nest tonight.
D’irk tipped his head. “This planet was supposed to be a dead zone. Mantu and linobee should not exist here. Tern keeps throwing all these mutations at us.”
“The Fires That Cleanse are not very well studied.” D’Rasma’s dark fingers tapped his thick pants. “I remember my sister researching it for a proposal she wanted to bid on, and she shared all sorts of anomalies that have come up in the places where it’s been used.”
“Right, I remember that,” D’Argon chimed in. “She didn’t get funding because the backers thought it was too risky to complete the on-site investigations.”
My tail lashed against my thick leather leg covers. “Well, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t safe. There’s no way Mayor Yurst would allow it.”
“The mayor…” D’Argon, D’Rasma and D’irk all huffed, displaying pointy white teeth.
Their reactions swayed me to reevaluate my opinion of the mayor. He did talk an awful lot without saying much of anything, but wasn’t that a trait of mayors federation-wide? I wondered what he’d done for all these capable enforcers to mistrust him?
“Let’s find us some critters to eat.” D’irk threw some soil on the fire and swiped the scanner on his wristport, mapping the ground as we walked. He signaled for the rest of us to do the same.
My fingers prodded the latest gash in my leg covers. Scrambling over jagged rocks all rotation had bruised the arches of my feet and gouges covered the soles of my boots, even though they were manufactured from the highest quality material available on Lorne. Worn by the elite protectors, they’d been a parting gift from my brother.
A couple of moons later, when the night sucked the heat from the air, the area well past the rocky outcrop was mapped.
“Let’s have a break before the big show,” D’Argon said.
“That cliff was something else, wasn’t it?” D’irk drank from his container. His mouth widened in a deep yawn. The container held the same slick sludge the Rock Dwellers drank every morning. I guessed Boola liked it too.
“Sprang up out of nowhere. Almost walked straight off it.” D’Rasma chuckled and rose from the short springy grass, securing his weapon on the belt at his waist.
Despite the peacefulness of the moment, my tether tugged. Agitation burned through me and beads of sweat broke out on my forehead. I tilted my head to glare at the full moon.
Blanted heat! How would I get through this with no alpha to service me?
The deep lowing of a mantu echoed in the distance. I focused on the crisp air and the looming full moon hunt. If I was firm enough with myself, everything else might fade away. Mind over matter. Denial had been my best friend before, and it was a comfort to hide behind it again. Instead of my heat, my focus would remain on D’irk’s plan.
At D’irk’s signal, I positioned myself as planned. Borrowed spear secured to my back, I crouched behind the boulder marked with an X. My lungs expanded and filled as I waited in the stillness lit by the pale moon’s glow. D’Argon and D’Rasma were tasked with separating a mantu from the herd with the help of D’irk’s clever whistle. It mimicked its young in distress.
The thunder of hooves stiffened my spine, and my breaths shortened as the ground shook. Mantu were herbivores, so I was at no risk of being eaten alive, but their long tusks and hard hooves could skewer or crush me in a moment. Adrenaline pumped through me as my heart drummed in my ears.
