Chapter 15

The sun’s rising again, the three moons on this horrible fucking planet still hanging heavy in the sky. Sunlight beats down on my exposed skin, and no matter how far into the shade I try to go, I can feel the sunburn happening already.

The vines were more ropelike than either of us anticipated, sturdy, and by some stroke of luck, the absolute perfect thing for snaring a monstrous, man-and-alien-eating crocodile.

Lyko’s fashioned some kind of snare, and he’s testing it out by yanking on the vines as hard as he can.

We didn’t hear anyone else die in the night, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t.

It doesn’t mean we’re the only ones left in the arena, but I can’t help but think we are.

Maybe that’s sleep deprivation, though. Or hunger pangs.

I lick my lips, which have cracked from thirst.

The rational part of my brain is whining about how using my stupid body as bait is proof of a stupid mind, but I can’t think of a better way to do this.

“I trust you to finish the snare,” I tell Lyko for the thirtieth or so time. “Make sure it pulls me to safety, then kill the thing.” He’s stronger than me. It only makes sense to use me as the bait.

“I know,” he tells me patiently. He’s panicked, though, or on the verge of something like it.

I watch him for a long moment.

His fingers go over each knot, each loop, testing for weakness, tying again if necessary. The device he’s made looks extraordinarily complicated, at least from my addled, tired brain’s point of view.

“So—”

“You dangle here. Bleeding.” He points to the spot in the water. The thickest branch higher up will be used as planned leverage.

“The snare trips when the beast makes a move for you, and then—” He pauses, making an elaborate gesture that, frankly, makes no sense to me.

I’m going to be honest. I’m a little confused about the mechanics of the whole thing, but Lyko seems confident that it will work.

“At least if I get eaten, it will be over quickly,” I tell him cheerfully.

“I do not like that idea,” he grumbles, glaring at me. “The idea is not to get eaten.”

“It was just a joke,” I mutter, but I can’t say I disagree with him.

I don’t like the idea of being monster munch either. The more I think deeply about what we’re about to do, though, the less I want to do it, and I’m not going to bake to a crisp here in the sun and wait to die.

No, I’m just going to drip blood into the water and hope we get lucky enough to not die. Normal things.

“I will not joke about the possibility of my mate dying.”

I squint at him, holding a hand up to my eyes to block out the sun. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“That despite your utter lack of concern for your bodily well-being, I do not want to see you hurt.” His muscles bulge as he pulls the vines tight yet again.

“Not that,” I say, swallowing against the dryness in my throat. God, I’m so freaking thirsty. “The mate thing. Is that just a Roth word for wife? My translator is giving me a different word.” I tap my head, where the translator was implanted in the Roth fertility facility/research lab/prison all those months ago.

He stops what he’s doing, looking down from his perch higher up on the tree, his gaze heavy on my shoulders.

“It means that of all the females in the universe, you, and you alone, are the one meant for me. It means that should something happen to you, I would never find happiness with another female, because you are the one the gods meant for me.”

I make a small squeak of surprise.

He grins. Grins. Like he thinks my shock is hilarious.

“So no,” he continues casually, turning his attention back to the vine snare he’s working on. “Not another word for wife.”

“How do you know?” I push, my voice still high and breathy. “How do you know that?”

He sighs, long-suffering, and glances down at me again. “Look at your skin, Piper. That only happens once, and only with the one we are fated to be with.”

“I don’t know,” I say skeptically, even as I eye the swirling symbols that have been there since he, well, since he fucked me silly at our wedding. “Seems a little like a self-fulfilling prophecy, you know?”

“Don’t be a fool, human,”the goddess’s voice rings loud in my skull, and I wince, my balance shaky.

“Right. Not a self-fulfilling prophecy then. A stupid religious one instead,” I say out loud.

“What?” Lyko looks at me, concern furrowing his brow.

I point to my head. “Your resident Roth goddess or ghost parasite or whatever is back.”

“Parasite?”The goddess sniffs, her imaginary voice pained. “I cannot imagine that any true Roth would denigrate me so thoroughly.”

“Did you forget I’m a human? Any advice before your chosen parasitical host is monster bait?”

“Not with that attitude,”the voice says.

I roll my eyes. Lyko’s completely still, watching me with a predatory awareness that sends a chill down my back despite the sun-soaked heat.

“What did she say?” Lyko asks.

“Apparently I offended her by calling her a parasite.”

“She’s the one who chose you,” he says, turning his attention back to the knots as though we’re discussing the weather and not my alien case of possession. Totally, 100 percent normal conversation.

“I chose you because you are stronger than you think, you pitiful excuse for a Roth queen.”

“Rude,” I gasp.

“You are a speck of dust in the eye of the universe. You are a fleeting blip on the timeline of our species.”

“And I’m likely going to be crocodile breakfast, so thank you so much for making me feel better.”

“Use what we’ve given you,”the voice hisses.

Then she’s gone, the weighty presence of her evaporating from my mind.

“She’s gone,” I tell Lyko, swinging between relieved and frustrated. “Can’t say I recommend possession. It’s a bit of a mindfuck.”

“I am the only one allowed to fuck you, mind or body.”

I blink. “Right. Uh-huh. Okay, then.” I shake my head. “It’s a human expression. It means it’s… messed up. It’s messing me up. Having her inside my head.”

“I’m the only one allowed inside you.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Got it. Got. It. You own me or whatever. I’m yours. Got it. Can you just let me whine for a minute? I don’t like having your goddess inside my head. That’s all I’m trying to say. Cool it with the possessiveness, you alien weirdo.”

“I am your alien weirdo.” He’s staring at me, unblinking.

I scratch at the collar around my neck, sagging against the trunk of the tree. “Drama king,” I mutter.

“I heard that,” he says.

The thin bodysuit snags on the bark of the tree as I sit up suddenly. “The goddess said to use what… we’ve given you.” I turn the words over in my mind. What they’ve given me? “What have they given me?”

“A mate,” he growls.

I peer up at him, starting to get concerned. “Are you short-circuiting? Did I activate some hyper-possessive masculine bullshit-o-meter? What are going on about?”

“The gods gave you a Roth mate, and I gave you the ash marks.”

“Uh-huh.” What I think we both need is some fucking food and water and to get out of the fucking sun. Shit. What if we’re both losing it? What if the goddess I think I’m hearing is just my brain trying to disassociate from the trauma of this situation?

Can’t say I love that idea. I frown down at the green-coated water. Some kind of pond scum’s grown in the sunlight, and as nightmarish as being in the arena is, I can’t deny that these aliens have their tech shit together to be able to do this.

“How does this work?” I ask suddenly.

Lyko sighs heavily. “I have explained this to you many times now, my mate.”

“No, not the snare.” I don’t tell him I’ve given up on understanding the physics of it. Call it faith or blind stupidity, whatever. I wave my hand around, only succeeding in pushing the humid air into my face. “This. The arena itself. How the hell did they do it?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can we undo it?” I ask, but I’m not expecting an answer.

A few hundred feet away, something disturbs the surface of the green-covered water.

“The fucking monster is here,” I shout-whisper to Lyko. “If we’re going to do it, let’s do it now.” Before I change my mind, I nearly tack on.

I don’t, though.

This is the only plan we’ve got, and I’m not going to think too hard about it now.

“Fuck,” Lyko spits.

“Is it not ready?”

“No, it is ready. That’s the problem. I don’t want to use you as bait.” He sounds so anguished that I can’t help but stare at him.

Does he really believe all this fated mate bullshit?

“Well, get used to the idea, because if you don’t set this shit up now, I’m going to jump in and hope for the best.”

The branch I’m sitting on vibrates as Lyko jumps onto it, the mess of vines and knots in his hands. For the first time in my memory, he appears truly disheveled. Truly upset.

Over me? I really thought he was just marrying me to appease his advisers and the Roth, and, of course, maybe to get some human nookie.

Apparently, he did not do it all for the nookie.

It shouldn’t make me a little warm and fuzzy inside, but it does.

“You’re worried about me,” I croon.

“I would be a fool not to worry,” he snaps. “Here,” he says, tying a vine as thick as the widest part of my arm around my waist. “Remember, make it look convincing. Thrash around. Bleed into the water as much as possible.”

I wince. “Oh yeah. I think the wound’s scabbed over. Can you…”

He gives me such a pained look that I sigh, and rolling my eyes, I grit my teeth and gouge at the place on my shoulder.

I suck in a pained breath as fresh blood begins to flow. A mosquito buzzes in my ear, and I swat at it, succeeding in sending droplets of blood skimming across the surface of the water with the motion.

The water ripples, the green bloom sucked under into the murk with the force of whatever is beneath.

Not whatever. I blow out a long breath and close my eyes.

A fucking alien crocodile. “Fuck me sideways and call me Captain Hook, because that bitch had a whole-ass point.”

Lyko makes a strangled noise, and I realize with a slight start that I spoke out loud.

“Captain… Hook? Sideways?”

“Human expression,” I mutter, though I can feel heat flaring in my cheeks, cheeks that already feel sunburned as hell. God, what would reality TV producers on Earth give for this footage?

Maybe we’re not so different from these alien jackasses after all.

Or maybe I’m just feeling insane from exposure and dehydration.

And the whole about to be monster crocodile bait thing, too. Definitely making me loopy.

“Loopy,” I say to Lyko, tugging at the vine around my waist and laughing. “Loopy, get it?”

“I do not like this,” he mutters.

“Just fucking do it,” I bark. He ties the other end of the rope around himself, and I tilt my head, confused, then glance up at where the vine’s looped around a branch high above. “What is that for?” I ask. “I thought this was going to be a snare.”

“I explained it to you already,” he says. “Ready?”

I nod, tensing my muscles, which are shaking with the influx of adrenaline. “Monster bait, here I fucking come.”

“That’s right, Captain Hook,” Lyko shouts as I jump. “Fuck him sideways.”

The water is freezing cold on my hot, sunburned skin, and for a moment, I panic, flailing as liquid covers my head, and then the vine snaps back, like a bungee cord, and I’m pulled back up and out of the swamp.

Green algae clings all over my body, and my shoulder stings from where the water hit the wound.

“Forget Captain Hook,” I shriek. “I’m Peter Pan, bitch.”

“You’re doing great, Peter Pan bitch!” Lyko shouts to me.

I bark out a laugh, because we’ve both completely lost our minds at this point. If I’m going to go, I would rather be laughing as I get crunched, though. I can’t stop laughing as I bob on the vine, dipping up to my hips, then my knees, then my ankles, until the kinetic energy evens out and I dangle like a burnt human morsel over the water.

I stop laughing, scanning the water for movement.

“It’s holding tight,” Lyko yells down.

“Good.”

He tugs the vine, and I rise up a little, slowly, farther from the water.

I count the seconds passing as my blood drips in the water, the smell of algae in my nostrils. My pulse is loud in my ears, second to the mosquito-like creatures buzzing around me.

I don’t know how much time passes. An eternity.

Nothing at all.

The crocodile doesn’t appear.

“Lower me,” I yell up to Lyko. “Put some slack in it. Maybe it didn’t notice?—”

A massive form launches out of the water, sailing over my head, soaking me. I don’t even scream as the vine snaps and I drop like a bag of sand into the water.

Oh, the alien crocodile noticed me, all right.