Planet Urth: The Savage Lands (Book 2) by Jennifer Martucci & Christopher Martucci

Author:Jennifer Martucci & Christopher Martucci [Martucci, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2013-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

“We won’t, I promise!” the male says, his voice bordering on whiny and pathetic.

“Shut your mouth!” I warn him.

“Avery, don’t do this,” Will continues to try to sway me away from what I know is the right thing to do. Something between regret and apology flashes in his eyes.

I know they have to die. Just because they have behaved in a mildly human fashion does not make them human. They are hardwired, genetically altered and programmed, to hate and hunt humans. My sister’s life rests on me ending theirs. I clutch the handle of my sword in my hands and grip it tightly. I swing it in a wide arc and am about to slice it laterally and be done with it when Will’s club rattles to the floor with a bang. I halt my blade mid-swing and freeze. He steps in front of me and places his hands in front of his chest in surrender.

“Avery, this is a family. They are not soldiers,” he says meekly, fixing a penetrating gaze on me. “Having compassion is what makes us human, it makes us better. You can’t do it. Remember what you are.”

I gaze into the bottomless depths of his aquamarine eyes. I see innocence. I see warmth and empathy. But sadly, none of those qualities serve us now.

“No,” I tell him. “If I draw upon compassion, as you’re telling me to, it does not show my humanity. It makes me a fool.”

“Please,” he begs.

“We won’t tell. You have our word. On our child’s life, we swear we will not tell the others that we saw you,” the female promises. My eyes linger on her, searching for a shred of truth to her words. I see nothing, just the face of a vicious predator.

“Avery, look at me,” Will says and diverts my attention away from the female Urthman. “I’m begging you, don’t do this. If you do you are no better than they are, and I don’t want to be a part of it,”

His last sentence lands like a slap across my face.

“Of what? Of me?” I ask and narrow my eyes at him, stunned that he would even utter such a thing.

“Of this, of what is going on right now,” he answers. “I can’t travel with an executioner,” he says finally.

He is talking about me. He will see me as an executioner if I kill the Urthmen, our enemies for centuries. I feel as if I have been slapped and punched in the gut.

With an unsteady hand, I lower my weapon. My mouth is dry, my temples pound. Will issued an ultimatum and I caved. I compromised principals that have kept me and my sister alive since we were born. Kill or be killed was my father’s motto where Urthmen were concerned. There was no maybe. Every cell in my body shrieks at once that what I am doing is wrong. I feel it in my bones, in the lifeblood that pumps through me.

Reluctantly, I back away from the three and out the front door.

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