Rescued by the Raider: barbarian alien romance (Banished Alien Warriors Book 4) by Riley Onyx

Author:Riley Onyx [Onyx, Riley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-09-09T16:00:00+00:00

13

RUBY

“These are almost like birds…except they don’t have feathers.” I toss a bone on the fire. It’s only a small one, more than enough to cook the three little cloud-seekers. I could’ve eaten all three. Instead, I ate only one.

Aldit is bigger than me, so I told him to eat the other two.

“What is a feather?” When he mimics my word, there is a lilt to his voice as though the sounds aren’t ones he is used to making.

“You know, a feather…” the thing birds have on their wings. Except their cloud-seekers, their animals that fly, don’t have feathers. Their wings are skin, and their bodies are furry. “Kind of leaf shaped but made of little…bits of hair.”

From the way his forehead creases, my explanation hasn’t helped at all.

“I’ll draw one in the morning, because I can’t describe it.” One of the scientists would.

“You don’t have cloud-seekers?”

“We have birds with feathers. Not that I’ve ever seen one. I’ve only seen them in pictures.” All the animals I’m familiar with, I’ve only ever seen in pictures. Why they bothered teaching us about them instead of about the animals that live here, I don’t know. “Earth has them. Since I’ve never seen Earth, can I claim to be from there?”

“It is where your mother is from, even though you were born among the stars.”

I glance up at the dark sky. It’s not a solid black. It’s so bright with bands of stars and areas of deep purple through to a much lighter green.

He tosses the last bone in the fire. It hisses and spits for a second before resuming its soothing crackle. “To the Honey, the stars are the campfires of the banished warriors. They watch over their tribe.”

That’s pretty, and it’s a lie. They are just suns. Each one with their own planets, most of which can’t sustain life.

We sit in silence, both of us staring up at the sky.

Neither of wanted to be born into this and yet here we are. In the colony, I knew my place—I was never allowed to forget it—with Aldit, I don’t know what to do. I can’t survive in this world alone.

Have a made a mistake by choosing freedom over the safety of the colony walls?

If I’d never seen beyond them, perhaps I could have lived that life and come to resent it less. Or maybe I’d have hated it more with each passing day, suffocating with every decision that was taken from me until I joined the dissenters. And then what?

What are the colony leaders going to do when the whispers become shouts?

Aldit leans back on his hands. “There are not many options for making a bed, but I recommend sleeping by the fire.”

I glance at him. He hasn’t mentioned the deal I suggested since we reached the top. To be fair, we were both thinking about water and food rather than sex.

And now?

I don’t know what’s coming tomorrow, and don’t won't to be fighting for my life with a regret weighing on me.

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