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Despite her best intentions, Mia dozed off while Zoran navigated the jungle-lined roads between hisjutji’s agricultural center and the old fort. It was a beautiful day, the temperature pleasant, the humidity surprisingly low. The vehicle’s rumble was lower and quieter than most human cars, but still loud enough to soothe her into drifting.

She woke when the vehicle came to an abrupt stop.

“Be still,” Zoran commanded in a low voice.

Mia froze in the middle of straightening. Her eyes blinked open, scanning what she could see of the surrounding area, which admittedly wasn’t much. She’d listed against the door while sleeping and could only make out the underside of the canopy of trees stretching across the road.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“Vyirkolen.”

Mia’s heart tripped into a thready hammering and her breath froze in her lungs. “Oh, my God. I thought I was seeing things.”

“Would that you had, for your own safety.” Zoran reached behind the seat and extracted a long gun of some kind, as lethal looking as any heavy rifle Mia had ever seen, then reached back again and withdrew a wickedly sharp sword. His gaze never left the road ahead of them. With both weapons in one hand, he grasped her shoulder and pushed her into the floorboard. “Stay there, Mia. Do not make a sound. Do not satisfy your curiosity. Do not exit the conveyance no matter what you hear.”

She nodded once, the most she could manage, and watched mutely as he climbed out of the vehicle and locked her into it, alone.

Chapter Fourteen

Mia huddled awkwardly in the cramped space between her seat and the dash, her eyes pinned to the canopy visible beyond the driver’s side window.

Why hadn’t she asked Zoran to stay with her, to turn the conveyance around and come back with more warriors? Why hadn’t she asked him to be careful?

She wrapped her arms around her knees, stiff and uncomfortable and terrified of the predator Zoran was facing. A cry pierced the air, the cry of someone in pain. Mia jerked, startled, and cracked the back of her head against her door. Not a woman,couldn’t bea woman. They were miles from anywhere, stuck somewhere between the farm and the fort.

Fear wound through her, a dark miasma whispering of pain and death and things that go bump in the night, and Mia began to tremble. Something hit the vehicle, rocking it. She gasped, then slapped her hands over her mouth to silence the whimpers mewling from her throat. Another hit, the slice of metal through metal. Azzzt-powrang out, and that eerie human-like cry came again.

A white head filled the window across from her, and Mia froze, too terrified to scream. The creature looked almost like an overgrown, furry salamander: wide, flat head, mouth stretching nearly from one pointy ear to the other, larger, rounder nostrils than a salamander. The nostrils of a hunter. Its pale blue eyes were mounted above its snout, and they were pinned on her.

Thevyirkoleninhaled deeply, its nostrils flaring, then it placed a huge, talon-tipped paw against the window and pushed. Mia forced herself to sway with the vehicle’s rocking as thevyirkolensnarled, revealing the two rows of sharp, pointed teeth lining the roof of its mouth.

Anotherzzzt-pow. Thevyirkolenjerked around, whining, and fell away from the vehicle. Zoran strode into view, his sword swiping down once, twice, and an oily black fluid sprayed through the air. He stood there for a moment staring down at the road, then opened the door and leaned in.

That dark fluid flecked his sternly shaped face and a stench like rotting fish wafted into the cab.

“Thevyirkolenis dead,” he said flatly. “Can you find the conveyance’s medical kit?” When she didn’t respond, he snapped, “Mia! I need you.”

That jolted her into action. She unwound and awkwardly pushed herself out of her cubbyhole into the seat she’d vacated. “Where is it?”

“Behind the seat.”

He withdrew as she twisted around and started digging behind his seat for a first aid kit, cursing herself the entire time. Why hadn’t she taken the time to familiarize herself with the vehicle the way she would’ve done on Earth?

The answer popped immediately into her mind: because she trusted Zoran with her life.

Pure foolishness, she thought as she dug through the weapons and other items behind the seat. Hadn’t she herself observed that he couldn’t shadow her around forever? Wasn’t she an independent woman, capable of taking care of herself? Or, at least, on knowing that Zoran had stashed a first aid kit in his car before he needed one?

She found a box that, when opened, contained the Xeruvian analogues of bandages and emergency ointments. Zoran grunted, and the vehicle rocked again. Mia scrambled out onto the road and caught another glimpse of thevyirkolen. Zoran had hoisted it up and strapped it down to what would be the trunk of a human car. Its head and front legs draped over the vehicle’s side, nearly dragging the ground.

Horror froze her in place. Xeruvian cars were larger than human ones, taller and wider. If thevyirkolen’s front paws could reach the ground, then it must be massive.

Bile coated her throat and her stomach lurched. Salty saliva filled her mouth. Mia spat, swallowed, and spat again. She would not disgrace herself by vomiting her lunch onto the road. Would. Not. Do. It.

Hadn’t she seen worse when she was a kid, traveling the world while her parents tried to save one impoverished village after another? Kids with bellies distended from hunger and malnutrition. Bloodied corpses mutilated beyond recognition by junta machine guns. And much, much worse.

She spat again and forced herself to straighten. If Zoran could find the courage to face a monster, the least she could do was stiffen her spine.

“Mia, the antivenom.”