Page 18 of Warlord's Mate

“A drop?”

She nodded. “Yes. A supply drop more than likely.”

“Or more females,” Celestia added in.

More females? The Chase popped into her head. Memories of being an unwilling contestant in that brutal game came back in an instant. Subscribers across the galaxy paid for the privilege to watch it and she’d been an unwilling participate to the spectacle.

The females they dropped here were told to run or die in the wastelands with no food or water. She’d run for her life, along with Sara, and hid in an old crumbling structure that had given her the creeps. Emma had refused to move when the aliens had been set loose. She’d been too scared and once she followed Sara into the trees, she’d never looked back to see if Emma had tried to follow them or not. She never saw her again after that and assumed she hadn’t.

Tezhila crossed camp, her arms full of baskets. Celestia and Sabera both grabbed one, the last of them being offered to her.

“What’s this for?”

“We forage today.”

“Forage for what?”

“Food.”

She’d not been in the forest since being brought to the warlords camp and other than the brief glances she caught on the way to the pond, she hadn’t explored any of the vegetation on this little moon. The surrounding area looked much like the forest at home did but things grew here that looked as alien as most of the people here did.

Trees that held large ear-like protrusions seemed to be their first stop. Sabera broke one off and tossed it into her basket and told her to do the same.

“These are edible?”

“Yes. The mash we ate last night is made of this.”

The reminder of that bowl of thick sludge she’d been fed the night before made her stomach turn. The stuff had reminded her of oatmeal but it certainly didn’t taste like it. The texture had been much thicker and coarse and the taste was bitter on her tongue. She’d choked it down despite the taste. It was either that or eat the leftover table scraps from the alien’s plates. Most of what they ate looked disgusting when they’d served it fresh. Eating it after they’d already picked through it was just—unacceptable.

As they plucked off the tree ears, Marcy saw what looked like small eggs on the ground near the base of all the trees. They looked like short mushrooms and she bent to get a better look. She ran her finger over one and jumped back when it suddenly moved.

The egg popped open in sections like flower petals stretching toward the sun but these weren’t flower petals. They were thick and rolled out from the center of the egg into what looked like octopus legs. The inner flesh was a soft pink but a few of them had streaks of red running through them. “What the hell is this?”

“Dohi,” Celestia said. “They are good for eating.”

Sabera stepped closer and toed another of the eggs with her foot, waiting as it popped open, the arm-like protrusions crawling out to lay on the ground. “Cayen doesn’t cook with them often. They are better eaten raw.”

They moved around the forest, the females showing her things they could eat, plants she could eat raw and which needed to be cooked, and the things that were poisonous. They’d walked nearly an entire circle around camp when she heard the humming sound that reminded her of music again. She stopped and looked up, expecting to see one of the camera orbs but the sky was clear. She looked at the others. They didn’t seem to notice. Either that or they ignored it.

This part of the forest was more densely packed with trees and she spotted a few of those small white flowers. She bent to pick one but stopped when she noticed the humming got louder closer to the ground. She knelt and bent her head, putting her ear closer to it. The humming was coming from the flower.

Marcy sat up, staring at it for long moments before picking it up. The humming died instantly. She frowned.

“Are you all right?”

Celestia stepped into her line of sight.

“I killed it.”

“You killed what?”

“The flower. It’s not singing anymore.”

“Singing? Flowers do not sing.”

Celestia walked away, leaving Marcy with the flower.Hadshe heard it humming? She searched the forest ground for more and saw another a few feet away. She knelt by it and smiled. It was definitely humming. “Singing flowers.”

She left the new flower where it was, afraid of killing it if she picked it and stuck the one in her hand behind her ear before standing back up and continued foraging. They’d been out there for a long time by themselves and Marcy wondered why the females were trusted so much. Did they honestly believe they wouldn’t run?