Savage Seed by Ivy Sparks

16

Leslie

“Come!”Ria called, waving her hand impatiently at me. I had stopped yet again, faced with another inappropriate stare from another big, hulking brute. My stomach was rumbling with nerves. Would these looks ever stop?

Ria just about read my mind, walking her way back to where I stood and grabbing my hand. “You are new and attractive. The stares of the men will wane in time. Trust me.”

I was attractive?

She started walking again, this time pulling me along by the hand. “I am taking you to the Bazha. That will calm your nerves.”

“What’s the ‘Bazha’?” I asked.

“I don’t know the word in your tongue,” she said. “Or if there even is one.”

There seemed to be quite a few things the ear translator couldn’t decipher in the Xeki language. I had little to no understanding of how the translator really worked, but I assumed it was just as Ria had said: there was no literal translation for some of their phrases.

I was curious about this Bazha. With no frame of reference, it could have been literally anything. So far all I had seen were tents, tents, more tents… and ceremonial sex rocks. I didn’t have high hopes for this.

A scent hit me suddenly, a scent unlike anything I’ve ever smelled before. I must have looked like a dog, sniffing at the air as Ria continued tugging me along. Ria looked over her shoulder at me and smiled broadly, nodding her head.

We were approaching a set of tents with a well-worn path between them, and from the cracks in the tent material, I suddenly spotted a surprising burst of color. “What’s that?” I asked, more to myself than to Ria.

She said nothing, just continued pulling me along, taking us along the path past the tents. We came into a circular courtyard, and I barely felt Ria let go of my hand. She stepped aside and let me take in the scene for myself.

“Bazha,” I whispered.

I had seen only some life in this desert so far, most of it cold and hard. The colors were mostly browns, from the tan of the sand to the burnt leather of the tribe’s clothing. Nothing had prepared me for the life and colors that laid before me now.

It was a garden. The most beautiful, stunning garden I had ever seen. The flowers growing, while showing some resemblances to those I was familiar with, were strange and unique. There were things that looked like sunflowers, only a red more vivid than the brightest rose. Flowers like carnations, only with a soft yellow center and strange protuberances that looked almost like antennae. Beautiful blue and green lily-like growths I could tell even from a distance were giving off the sweet, powerful scent I had caught on the way in.

Stone tiles surrounded the garden, and it struck me that these people, who seemed to be perfectly comfortable walking around on bare sand most of the time, had taken the time to construct the tiles here. I walked closer, reaching out to touch one of the flowers. I caught myself and looked back at Ria, who was still smiling.

“Go ahead,” she said. “You may touch them.”

“I… I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Ria, it’s so beautiful!”

“I know,” she said. “This was the Queen’s Bazha.”

“Kade’s mother?” I asked with surprise.

Ria nodded. “She grew it from nothing, tending to it every day. Loved and cared for it the way she loved and cared for all her people. When she… when she passed, the Resh Xeki people were devastated.”

“‘Resh’ Xeki?”

“Yes. Our specific tribe. Resh means ‘of the sand.’ So after she passed, there were rumblings of the Bazha falling to waste. Dying, as its mistress had. But the tribe wouldn’t stand for that, and took it upon themselves to keep it alive.”

I stared at the garden in awe. They truly kept it in a blossoming state.

“There is no single person who tends to the Bazha now,” Ria continued. “I don’t think there is a single soul in the village who has not contributed to it, who has not taken their turn in maintaining it, making sure it grows. Thrives. Survives.”

I walked along the stone path, looking and smelling and touching the flowers of the Bazha. There was nothing like this back home, neither at the star port or even back on Earth.

“There you are,” came a familiar voice. I stopped in my tracks and turned to see Kade storming toward us. His head was low, his eyes burning with anger. I had to guess that his talk with his father hadn’t gone so well.

He approached Ria first, stopping directly in front of her. Ria was impressive, but she paled in size compared to Kade. And that made me even more aware of just how small I was compared to both.

“Why did you bring her here, Mina?” he asked.

Mina? I thought. Was that yet another untranslatable word, or perhaps even a nickname? The thought that he might have a nickname for Ria made an unfamiliar jealousy rise in my chest, which I quickly suppressed.

Don’t be silly, Leslie.

“Well, Omos,” Ria replied, unmoving in his shadow. “She has seen so much ugliness since she came into our village. I thought she should see something beautiful.”

“Ugliness?” Kade asked. “What has she seen that is so ‘ugly’?”

“Your stupid ugly face, for starters,” Ria replied tartly. My eyes widened in shock. I thought Kade was their prince. What was Ria doing, speaking to him like that?

Kade stood stark still, not reacting at all to the insult. Then the next shocking thing in a long line of shocking things happened: Ria reached up and shoved Kade in the shoulder. And he actually stumbled back a step!

He caught himself, then looked at Ria, his hand tightening into a fist.

“Kade, don’t!” I gasped, terrified of what he might do to her.

Ria didn’t budge, just stared at him defiantly. Kade lifted his fist above her head and brought it down like a hammer. But just before it hit the top of her skull, he slowed, hitting not with a mighty blow, but with a soft, playful bop.

“Bonk,” he said, and laughed.

Wait. Did the mighty warrior prince just say… bonk?

Ria brushed his hand away and started giggling, and soon the pair were both laughing. I felt my entire body, which I hadn’t realized had tensed up, relax.

“Leave us be for a bit, Mina,” he said to her after their laughter had subsided. She nodded and gave me a smile that made me like her even more.

Kade approached me, a grin still on his face. It was nice to see, after so much fierceness. He’d shown me kindness and tenderness in our short time together, but this smile suggested a level of comfort that really touched me. A brief showing of his inner self.

He came to me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Is she treating you well?”

“Yes,” I said, rubbing his forearms. “Very.”

He nodded. “Good.”

“What does ‘Mina’ mean?”

Kade wrinkled his brow. “Hmm. Sister?” he said, seeming to be working out the explanation for himself. “Big sister, perhaps?”

“Oh!” I said. “She’s your sister?”

“No. But we have been close for many years, like a brother and sister might be. I trust no one in this village more than Ria. That’s why I put you in her care.”

“Do you have brothers and sisters?” I asked.

“No. I am the only heir to the throne,” he replied.

I took that as my chance to ask about the conversation he just had with the king. “How’d it go with your father?”

“Bah!” Kade said, waving his hand dismissively in the air. “He’s an old fool. Never mind him.”

Ugh. There goes the hope of feeling comfortable in this place.

“So am I not welcomed?” I asked.

“Of course you’re welcomed,” he said. He brushed a hair that had fallen over my eye back behind my ear. “So long as you’re with me, you’re welcomed.”

“Kade,” I started. It was the topic I’d been wrestling with in my mind—in my heart. The one I wasn’t sure I was ready to bring up, but felt like I had to. “You said you’d get me back to the star port. Maybe… Maybe it’s time to go?”

Kade shook his head. “I’m sorry, Leslie, but that’s not possible.”

My stomach fell as panic rose in my heart. But Kade must have known before I could even speak how I’d react. He put a finger to my lips and shushed me softly.

“A report has come in from our scouts,” he told me. “The sand beasts have converged at your craft’s crash site, their numbers growing beyond what we can safely fight our way through. They have found, I fear, plenty of meat to scavenge.”

“Oh, God,” I said, grimacing. The “meat” he was referring to were people. Maybe not friends outside of Ava. But people I knew and had known. The thought of those horrid creatures picking through their bodies…

“It gets worse,” Kade continued. “The mass of sand beasts has already attracted other predators. Which will attract more predators. Soon there will be a frenzy of creatures, all of them fighting for scraps. When the scraps are gone, they will turn on each other.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to get the images out of my head. “How long until that frenzy is over?”

“Two weeks,” Kade replied evenly. “Or perhaps three.”

“Three weeks!” I yelled. I stepped away from him, rubbing my fingers into my temples. Were the desert creatures going to decide my fate after all, even from this distance? Could I survive three weeks here, with these hungry guys eyeing me like a piece of meat?

“There is also the sand tiger, Leslie,” Kade said from behind me. “She is in the area and has our scent. I tried to kill her, we must not forget. Sand tigers are vengeful beasts, so a showdown is likely inevitable.”

“Can’t we go around?” I asked, turning back to him. “Isn’t there another way to get there?”

Kade shook his head, motioning to his left. “The sea blocks our path this way. Our people are not seafaring people. Our boats are small and built only for shallow fishing. And the dangers in the sea are much, much greater than the desert.”

He pointed over my shoulder, toward what I assumed would be the other direction around the crash site. “The other way around is filled with dunes and hills. Dangerous jagged rocks, steep cliff drops. Besides the predators of that land, there are the Ji Xeki—the people of the rock. There has never been peace between my people and theirs.”

He said the last part grimly, and I knew there was no point in arguing with him.

“Okay,” I said, running my hand through my hair, thinking. “What about a radio? Or a communication device of any kind? You guys have the ear translators. Do you have anything like that? I could at least call my father that way, tell him I’m okay.”

Kade tilted his head, considering. “We have nothing like that, but—”

“But what?” I interrupted hopefully.

“There are tribes we trade with,” he continued. “Tribes I have good trading relationships with. Perhaps I could travel to them, see what I can find. Maybe one of them will have one of these communication devices you seek.”

“Can I come with you?” I asked. I walked back over to him, reaching up to put my hand on his chest.

“That’s not a good idea, Leslie,” he said. “There would be many questions if I brought an outsider with me. Many potential complications. It would be best that you stay here.”

I dropped my hand to my side and lowered my head. I felt beat. Defeated.

Kade put his thick, calloused finger under my chin and lifted it gently. I looked into his eyes.

“I will get you home, Leslie,” he said, repeating his promise once again. “I swear it. And in the meantime, you will be safe here. Protected, even when I am gone. I swear that as well.”

Looking into his eyes, it was impossible not to believe him. “Okay,” I said in barely a whisper.

“We will be together when I’m in camp,” he continued. “When I’m gone, Ria will be with you. You will be safe.”

“What about Trag?” I asked. I could hear the whine rising in my voice. But I didn’t care. The war in my head raged on: stay or go. Trust or fear. “And all the other guys, and the way they look at me?”

“If Trag comes near you,” Kade said with a deep seriousness that made my body stiffen. “I will kill him.”

I had to admit … That turned me on. I never had much taste for violence, and would be much more content if we could avoid it completely while I stayed in Kade’s village. But the fact that he was so willing to stand up for me in that way… it was hot, and something no man had ever done for me before.

I sighed, my last defenses down. Trust won out, and I wasn’t blind to the possibility that it was based solely on how Kade made my body feel. I felt it now, an underlying desire and hunger, a need to throw all of this aside and simply leap into his arms, wrap my legs around him, shove my tongue down his throat…

God. What happened to me?

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll stay. We’ll make this work.”

He smiled and embraced me, the heat from his body almost instantaneously overwhelming me. I rested my head against his chest, hearing his heartbeat and focusing my eyes on the Bazha behind him. There was beauty here, right here, amid all this hardness and fear. Not just in the garden, but in Kade himself.

I missed my father, but if my current predicament called for me to stay in this village with this man for even a short period, I decided at that moment that I would make the best of it.