Crouched at her side, Veral grunted as he narrowed his glowing eyes at the building and gave a sharp nod. It was more of a dip of his square chin, but his eyes gleamed as he focused on their target from where they were perched on a nearby rise. They were high enough up that they could easily see inside the compound from above. The silver in Veral’s eyes brightened as he stared down at the building.
“My systems show several human lifeforms in that building,” he said, his vibrissae puffing out around him with the focus of his scrutiny.
She stared at them and frowned. Normally she loved his vibrissae, but when they were displayed like that it made them a much clearer target in the moonlight. She coughed. “Excellent. Umm, Veral, maybe you should bind your vibrissae so they don’t attract attention,” she suggested.
Veral shook his head. “I depend on them too much for protection and information. Binding them would be both dangerous and foolhardy.” His lips quirked in amusement, though he obviously worked to restrain himself as his mandibles twitched several times. “Do not worry, anastha. They will be kept close to my body in hunting mode when we are within the Reaper territory unless I am forced to defend us.”
“Okay,” she replied, blushing at his explanation. Of course he wouldn’t have them out waving around. Even when he attacked the Reapers in the desert, his vibrissae had remained close to him, making his fighting silhouette more streamlined and lethal until he was upon his victim. He definitely hadn’t needed her to tell him to keep them pulled in.
“Awesome… Yeah. We’ve got this then,” she said as she cleared her throat, her acute discomfort making her fill in the silence with awkward, fumbling words. Why was she suddenly acting like a fool? It had to be the pressure and the adrenaline running through her.
Veral reached out and stroked her cheek gently. Terri sighed as she leaned into his touch, taking pleasure from the weight of his hand. Even his eyes lingering on her features was reassuring. his lips curving sweetly as he looked down upon her. She stared up at him, caught up in the raw, naked emotion in his eyes. It was a startling change from the way he usually appeared, and it totally captivated her and pulled her in.
There was still a hardness to his gaze, but she knew that softness was only for her. It was only because he looked upon her.
Leaning forward, he bumped the broad ridge of his nose against hers in a silent expression of affection before he pulled away and dropped quietly off the side of the rise.
Terri scooted forward in the sand, grateful for the armor. Without it, she would have been wincing painfully from the rock and fine granules sifting into her shirt… Not to mention checking for venomous passengers hopping a ride. Glancing over the edge at her mate waiting below, she allowed herself to drop down into his waiting arms.
They crept through the dark, making their way to the perimeter wall. It was just as gruesome as before, maybe more with the added decay, but at least Terri didn’t need to linger this time. They weren’t waiting for anyone to let them in. One of Veral’s arms wrapped around her seconds before he leaped to the top of the wall. The movement was so quick that Terri swallowed back an instinctive yelp. He clung to the wall with the claws of his opposite hand before he dropped onto the other side, flattening them to the ground.
Terri, pinned beneath him, held her breath, her ears straining for any sign of someone nearing as Veral crouched over her. His weight pressed her close to the ground, enough so that she was certain that she would hear footfalls if anyone so much as walked their way. From the corner of her eye, she saw that his ears pricked up, listening for approaching threats as his glowing eyes scanned the area around them. Once satisfied that they were in the clear, he eased away to let her up. Standing slowly, he helped her to feet. A scream rent the night air, startling them both. Veral spun in place, his vibrissae flaring as his hand twitched as if he were going to snatch her up again. His head tilting, he looked down at her in consideration.
Terri pressed a flattened palm against his chest. “Nuh-uh. I won’t go back, not until I’ve done what I’ve come here to do. So don’t even think of throwing me back over that wall,” she whispered fiercely.
“I can retrieve them,” he growled. “You don’t need to be here. I object most strenuously to this.”
“We’ve discussed this. They aren’t going to just come to you, Veral. Remember, humans are frightened of you… It’s that whole not cuddly thing you have going on. They’re more likely to accept help from me.”
“Then they are foolish,” he grunted irritably, though he smirked at her description of him as if it were a compliment. “I am a highly evolved bio-cybernetic being. My nanos alone, that I’ve had since birth, make me a far more efficient organism. There is none better equipped to rescue them than me. Not cuddly works in my favor for destroying their enemies. That is what is necessary.”
“Okay, but that doesn’t do a damn bit of good when it comes to reasoning with frightened women. This is how we have to do it, whether you like it or not.”
Veral’s eyes narrowed in response but he didn’t argue further with her. He looked extremely displeased but nodded. Instead, he moved forward with purpose. He didn’t leave her to follow after him but nudged her with his arm to keep her by his side as they made their way through the encampment, staying well out of the way of the lights scattered through the vicinity.
As expected, they encountered no one as they made their way from the nearest perimeter wall to the shed. On her first trip through the compound, she’d noted that the behavior of the Reapers erred closer to anarchy than organization. This worked to their advantage, since there was absolutely no order to the camp itself, leaving it open and vulnerable. As before, all the tents were practically clustered on top of each other at one end, leaving much of it unsupervised and in complete darkness other than a few areas with torches. One such spot was the area directly around the shed, but this was also the case throughout the camp around the bonfires where food cooked and drink ran freely.
Though every gang member hung around those areas informally, there were no guards keeping watch. Terri had come to suspect that the Reapers depended on their reputation to keep intruders out, and the lack of order to confuse strangers and new recruits. Even the men standing around the shed seemed to be there more by chance rather than with a purpose. Not one of them was paying any attention to anything coming at them from the dark recesses of the compound.
In the light of the torches set around the shack, Terri was able to get a good look at the group of men who were standing around outside of it. To her surprise, not just one or two, but the majority of them, had obvious signs of mutations. Few looked anything close to normal, though all were incredibly dirty. She wondered how much of a role those most obviously mutated played in hunting down women. Their skills were likely put to use in other ways that she didn’t want to think about.
In the case of many of the men, their skin hung from warped bone and muscle. One of the men even had an additional set of eye sockets pitted lower beneath his cheekbones, sealed over with skin. She had never had the opportunity to study the Reapers too closely, but more than half seemed affected. Nauseating green pus dripped from more than one orifice. Was this solely the result of the mutations brought on by nuclear fallout in blast areas, or was a portion of it linked to generations of rampant cannibalism and other savage acts? She’d heard rumors about inbreeding and disease but didn’t know what to believe. Now she wasn’t so sure. With this new information, she doubted that they were a recently established gang, given their size. No doubt their mutated daddies and granddaddies had been eating people and breeding their lineage long before the current power took control.
“There are more signs of strange polymorphisms among your species in these males as well,” Veral also observed. “They appear varied from minor to severe cases.”
“I didn’t realize… I didn’t know that there were so many mutations,” she whispered. “I knew that the war created some—like that guy we came across when salvaging—but I always assumed it was in small, isolated cases. I never imagined it would be anything like this.”
“Mutation will spread uncontrollably where it is given free rein.” His thick, horned brow furrowed. “In my species, there has recently been a substantial increase in offspring born with violet eyes. It is a strange mutation that was first documented one thousand, seven hundred and twenty-five planetary revolutions ago, and yet when I left, the cases were spreading in the hundreds. Adults were discovered to be genetic carriers for the mutation due to early unregulated breeding practices before the Council began licensing mating and breeding. No doubt some of these males possessing the less severe mutations would be able to create thriving offspring that could potentially benefit your species were it not for their depravity,” Veral observed.
Not for the first time, his impartial, almost cold description of the fate of her species left Terri feeling aghast. Whatever affections he felt toward her, they did not extend to her species.
“You’re saying that the mutations are a good thing?” she whispered vehemently.
Her mate gave her a calculated glance before returning his gaze to the shelter. “They can be when they are not errors in the genetic coding. Some mutations would also be in response to the drastic environmental changes you have noted in your world. I calculate the odds are in favor of the rescued females suffering minor biological mutations that allow them to carry offspring to term where others are failing, by your admission. In cases of mutagenesis, it occurs in response to environmental factors for which the current biology may lack. Many of the Argurma would like to eradicate mutations, missing the point entirely that certain mutations would be a positive evolutionary growth for our species. The violet eyes in my species are linked to a natural reduction in a chemical that not only provides a certain pigment to my species, making the scales thinner and also paler in color, but lowers our core temperatures. Some believe that it is in response to the growing heat on our planet from our suns. Regardless of the cause of a mutation, no species can stay static forever. They must change and adapt in order to flourish.”
Terri considered this. He had a valid observation—up to a point. “I’m not so sure I see the results of the mutations here very favorably,” she whispered.
“No, I would not classify these males as ones that I would wish to continue their line,” Veral said. His attention shifted to the males she was watching. A puzzled frown pulled at his mouth and his nostrils flared only to be followed by a look of disgust.