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“Yup, just need a little break.” Scents similar to bergamot and vanilla wafted from the fungus I leaned on, and I longed for my favorite tea back on Earth.
“You need your medicine.” JayJay’s chest heaved. “Blant! If I we were on Yagras, I would direct my team to manufacture a diversion and administer the bloodroot fungus to that bastard myself. Bloodroot fungus is lethal to hellsna.”
JayJay’s personality transformed into a soldier’s before my eyes. Command shone through his rigid bearing. He made it sound as if delivering bloodroot fungus to a creature from my worst nightmares was as simple as handing over a headache tablet to a little old lady.
A distinctly unfriendly heat unfurled in my belly.
“No female would choose a male who couldn’t get her out of a situation like this.” He crossed his arms over his wide chest.
Why did his bullheadedness send sparks down my spine like I imagined his warm palm would? “Well, hypothetically speaking, if one did choose you… What would you do?”
He grunted and stared off into the distance. “They wouldn’t. But I’ll play along. If I had a female, she would never require rescue because she’d never be in the presence of a hellsna to begin with. I would forbid it.” The last four words were sharp and precise, and the air crackled with authority.
Though my independent side snarled at his overbearing demeanor, warmth spread into places I didn’t want to acknowledge. Why did he think a female would never choose him? He got along with females. TeyTey liked him just fine.
“Have you seen enough?” His laser-focused gaze read me like a body scanner, seeming to catalog every one of my aches.
With knees like Jell-O, I pushed off the column. “Just a little longer.”
Trance-like, I walked ahead, my eyes darting from wonder to wonder, following the brighter light emitted by the river of magma that cut through the cavern. My jaw tightened in frustration as my achy hips became achy knees, cramped feet, blurred vision…
Why the hell did I pack an entire sewing kit on a daytrip to trap linobee but no medicine?
I parted a curtain of vines, and before us, the cavern rounded and closed in on itself. My feet had turned to lead weights, and I sighed at the sudden endpoint. Except for the small gap near the ceiling and where the river of magma continued to flow through a narrow chasm, the vine-covered wall ahead was solid volcanic rock.
“It looks like we’ve hit the end of the road.” The pep in my voice sounded fake to my own ears.
JayJay’s muscles tensed, as if straining toward something his heightened senses picked up on. He frowned. “Wait here.” His brisk command came as he thrust my boots at me.
Before I could argue that I wasn’t one of his soldiers to order about, he jumped to the side of the wall and, with no effort,propelled himself up the ropy vines toward the cavern’s roof. He climbed fifty feet in the blink of an eye.
I think I should put my boots on.
Not even five minutes later, JayJay leaped from halfway up the rock face, landing in front of me in a crouch. The ground rolled like a wave under us. It reverberated through my knees and up my spine. The scowl that ate up his face made all my other joints tremble.
“I’m uncertain of our safety. We should return to the other end of the cavern. Can I carry you?”
I nodded, too concerned to be impressed that he’d asked my permission before scooping me up. In the cage of his powerful arms, I tried to relax. With long, steady strides, he traversed the ground without making a ripple.
JayJay’s voice lowered to a whisper. “There’s a hibernaculum on the other side of that wall.”
I swallowed past the dry lump in my throat. “You saw a pit of snakes through that small gap at the top?”
A writhing mass of translucent white tooth-filled flesh dominated my mind. Movie sets were part of my old life, and many of my coworkers were trivia junkies and especially fond of old films. Hibernaculum wasn’t an unfamiliar word to me—thank you, Indiana Jones and my classic film collection for punishing me with the vision of a hundred snakes hibernating in a massive heap.
“Think bigger.” JayJay’s breath showed no signs of exertion as he jogged back toward our temporary hollow. “We’re safe on this side. They can’t get through. The hellsna guards our cave entrance because the vibrations of the snow slide drew it out of its wintering grounds.”
With his heart thumping against my shoulder, his words did little to ease my fears.
“Blant.”
“How many?” I asked.
“Three…maybe four.”
Oh. My. God. Four more of those giant monster fuckers.
The tropical alien paradise of moments ago had turned into a sea of tripping vines hidden in a sinister orange glow. Mayor Yurst might send an earlier return shuttle to Earth because a monster was on the loose if I asked, right?
