The Lereni Trade (2 page)

Ow!

Pain speared through her right ankle
upon standing and collapsed her to her hands and knees with the
dire reality of her situation. She would never escape with that
injury, least of all from four of them.

Why was this happening?

"What do you want?" Frustrations
bubbled up to drown her, and the tears ran cold on her cheeks. As
much as she wanted to be away from there, she didn't want to leave
like this. Why couldn't it be angels? Where were the rumored angels
she'd heard about? Apparently, she wasn't worth bothering for
anyone, until she was in the way.

They stood around her, but the soft
ruffle of fabric on her left accompanied bending knees. A hand on
her forehead made her twitch away.

"Don't touch me!"

Soft words only made her tremble in
dread of what they wanted with her. They were accompanied by the
combing of hair from her face, clearing her view, and the caress of
her cheek to wipe away the tear streak. She slapped the hand
away.

"Why me?" She wanted to trust that he
wouldn't hurt her, but it could all have been a trick, like calming
an animal before caging it. Was she a prisoner?

She blinked and dared to look up to an
alien face half hidden in shadow. It was no use; even if he had
been human, she couldn't read his expression.

"Torik!"
The word barked from one of the others prompted the kneeler
to look up and respond in their strange language.

She sniffed and looked up to the
depths of shadows on a human-like face that appeared to be set in a
scowl. That one frightened her. Instinctively, she shifted herself
closer to the one addressed as Torik.

Torik said something to the other, his
hand light on her shoulder.

The one standing over her huffed and
bared sharp teeth gleaming in moonlight. A second later, he crossed
his arms and growled a statement. Definitely not from around
there.

Still kneeling by her, Torik murmured
something that sounded like a gentle question. She twisted to see
his smooth palm held up as if in offering.

He waited rather than force her, not
what she would expect of someone wanting to abduct her. She wanted
to trust him. He hadn't hurt her and seemed to be sincere in
wanting to help, or maybe she desperately needed to believe in
kindness.

Hesitant, she set her hand in his. His
fingers closed around hers. With a nod of approval—or so she hoped
it was—he stood and pulled her to her feet. She avoided weight on
the injured ankle.

"Ka narwal shi?"
he repeated.

"I don't understand."

At that, he held up his hands as if
carrying her. That he asked first indicated a consideration for her
that eased her trepidations; although she didn't want to go with
them.

"Take me home?" She pointed into the
woods on a remote hope and all heads turned. Silence surrounded
them as if they had stopped breathing.

After several seconds, they returned
their attention to her and exchanged several words.

Krissa looked around at the shadowed
faces watching her and sighed. "I guess that's not your
intention."

His head tilted in a way that seemed
to be confusion.

Seeing no better alternative but to
freeze while hobbling back to the house, she dropped her head in
despair.

He scooped her up once more, his
warmth the only consolation in the cold night that he might
actually care. It would make him better than most of the humans she
had known all her life.

The irony didn't escape her and teased
a smile, brief as it was amid the fear of what would
come.

The relaxing sway of his body with
each step lulled her into a strange sense of peace.

It ended too soon at the rude beacon
of light.

She opened her eyes and squinted in
the shine and the lean of his body as she was pressed back into
him. He carried her up a ramp into their ship. It had to
be.

The fear returned with the realization
that they would take her away from her home, her world, and her
family. She might have been an outsider, but it was her
home.

And yet, she wondered if this might
hold promise for a new start. This Torik wasn't repulsed by her.
For the first time, someone had helped her without making her feel
like an inconvenience.

"Torik. Nek farasz."
The deep voice came from somewhere
aside.

The one holding her replied and gently
set her down at the top of the ramp.

Multiple sets of steps thumped on the
ramp behind her, until a hand clamped on her arm.

"Korr
.
"
The gruff voice matched the one who had addressed Torik.
The hand on her arm was firm and pinching, not the lighter touch of
Torik. Was this one Korr?
"Rashan mil."

"Kracha!"

The sharpness of the voice caught her
like a command. Sharp points dug into her arms and she gasped and
writhed to get free, but they only dug deeper. She looked down at a
claw, the sharp points pressing through her coat sleeve. This was
where it all ended. They had only lulled her into submission to get
her on board.

She followed the arm…

And caught her breath at the sight of
the faces watching her. She hadn't expected human faces; she hadn't
known what to expect. The species had a regal bearing for being so
alien while being almost human with a vague resemblance of
something feline. Their faces were bare of hair around eyes,
flattened noses, and mouths, but beyond, the colored hair formed a
fuzz over the rest of their heads with strips of longer hair down
the middle. Their bodies were tall and muscular, and their faces
had the thickness of masculinity that she had assumed. Were they
all male? How could she tell the difference? Did they even have
genders or maybe they were androgenous.

She pushed away the curiosities to
focus on the immediate situation.

In the green of the eyes, the pupils
contracted into vertical ovals. It was the double canine teeth when
one of them opened his mouth to speak that seemed the most
threatening, marking them as carnivores, predators.

"Karik."
The voice was less harsh and came from one of the nearby
creatures, the one with the softness about him that she
recognized.

A growl and a bark answered from the
one holding her. Krissa flinched and pulled, but tiny claw points
poked into her arm.

After a brief, curt exchange of words,
the one holding her shoved her into the one with the gentler
manners. He pointed at himself and said, "Torik."

So, he was the one who had helped her
and that was his name or title. She breathed easier now that she
saw his face and the softer features compared to the hardness of
the others.

Words she didn't understand were
barked from the one who had threatened to take her from Torik with
a harshness that made her flinch. An air of tension thickened
around Torik in spite of the calm visage. Movement behind Torik
preceded a hiss from the ramp, which raised to cut her off from
that world. It might have been cruel to her in many ways, but it
had been her home.

Had been.

"Karik." Torik pointed at the one who
had spoken harshly.

"Krissa," she said while pointing at
herself.

Karik turned and snarled with
flattened ears that reminded her of a cat. Startled, she backed
into Torik. She got it—the one giving the orders was called Karik
and she should avoid him at all costs.

Karik snapped a rapid string in that
strange language. Responses came from behind Torik.

When Karik turned and crossed the hold
area with all its containers, Torik pressed his hand to her back,
nudging her that direction.

Follow him? No. That way lay the
threat of mauling. She wanted to live.

The hand flat to the small of her back
pressed more insistently, forcing her to step forward through the
path amid the containers tied down with straps and nets. A brief
step on the injured ankle made her hiss through her
teeth.

Using the containers for support, she
hopped on her good foot through them. From the number of supplies,
she guessed that they had prepared for a long stay, or a long
journey. The latter made her grimace.

She passed support beams from floor to
ceiling and soon reached a steep, metal grate staircase to a second
level. Karik disappeared through the opening of the next
floor.

Hands on her shoulders pressed her to
continue.

"Ya wari'i."

She twisted around to see Torik and
two others waiting on her. Reluctantly, she put her hands on the
rails of the stairs and stepped up; but when it came to putting
weight on the injured ankle, she leaned on the rail and lifted her
body up.

One step at a time without any
pressure from the three aliens below her, she climbed the dozen
steps to a new level. At the edge of the upper level, she stared at
the small room with its seating around the rim and the table set as
a nook along the right side. It reminded her of the common rooms in
the college dorm. A common area on a ship? She must have been
dreaming this.

The warmth of a body bumped into her from behind but didn't
force her to move.
"Nazhwa,"
he murmured gently.

"Where will you lock me up?" This
didn't look like a prison and they didn't act like
guards.

"Nu?"

"Never mind," she said and hobbled
away to let them up the stairs behind her.

Torik said something to one of the
others, who disappeared through a short hall near the stairs, then
he extended an arm around her waist, encouraging her to lean on
him.

His mouth stretched into a smile.
"Tir alu?"

Whatever that meant. With his slow
guidance, she hobbled across the area to a short corridor, where
she was able to press a hand on each wall to steady her balance and
released him.

At an open door to another room, she
hopped away from Torik and stared out through glass plates at the
trees and up to the clear winter night with the sprinkling of stars
around the cold moon. This would be the last time she would see it.
She should be sad, but growing up had been a lonely experience. A
part of her felt relieved to be leaving it all behind.

A light hand landed on her shoulder,
and she turned to see the short yellow fuzz with the black spots on
fingers much like a human's, except for the points of claws, and
couldn't help but picture a leopard. Although not truly feline,
they almost were. They could as well have been canine.

The walkway sloped down around the
back perimeter of the room, behind the seat occupied by the one
called Karik.

"Theen. Korr."
The words snapped from Karik, still with his back
turned.

Her good leg ached from bearing all
her weight, but she watched one of the others stride down the short
arch of ramp to take one of the seats before Karik.

"Korr!"

A second later, Karik swiveled his
seat. His green eyes narrowed on her and Torik, shifted past them,
and then settled on Torik. A string of strange words came in a tone
of command and Torik answered with the sharpness of a
soldier.

Soldiers.

They all wore the same uniforms—black
over all their bodies except hands and heads. Belts around their
waists held pouches of secret items and matching implements that
she assumed to be weapons.

Prepared for combat it would
seem.

Soldiers.

Did that make her a prisoner of war?
What war?

What use was she to them?

A thought made her shudder and she
forced it away.

Torik steered her aside and touched a
button on the wall, which parted around a seat hidden behind it. He
pressed her down to sit as the other individual stepped through the
doorway.

"Korr."
Karik pointed him to the empty station between him and the
glass plates making up the fore view.

Korr didn't immediately go, however.
He handed Torik a small case, which was accepted with a brief word.
Only then did the other alien continue to where he had been
directed, while Torik knelt before her and opened the
case.

Krissa hardly noticed the soft words
he spoke, her attention on the clear above each console where the
others took their places. Those screens had become visible by the
displayed information that didn't make sense to her, but she tried
to resolve what it meant.

A sharp pain on her ankle alerted her
to the ministrations by Torik. He barely lifted it to shine some
sort of light on the now red and swollen ankle.

Karik gave several orders to the
others and a faint hum came from behind them.

"What was that? Are we taking
off?"

Torik paused and twisted around.
"Nu?"
His lips, thin as they were, pressed
together in a look that she took to be a hint of frustration. Over
his shoulder, he said something to the others and received a
reply.