Kings and Sirens (The Blood Falls Book 2)

Atsila

I was annoyed she was here, but also…pleased. Leena was observant and asked a lot of questions. Questions that made me think. As much as we disliked outsiders, sometimes a fresh perspective was useful.

I didn’t mind her laugh or her smile either. Her ass was nice to look at, too.

We had sex and I didn’t die. I wanted her again since she was here, but I was positive now that when it was time for Leena to leave I would be able to wave goodbye and move on.

At least eighty percent sure, anyway.

“Why the treetops? Is height an advantage for some reason?” She peered over the edge of the lookout. It was one of the special locations along the Line for looking out over the flatlands where the Salishan came from.

“Two reasons. One, we can see anyone coming across the flats. And two, it’s harder to smell us up here.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “They have a good sense of smell? Like you?”

I nodded slowly, wondering if the Doctor was finding what we feared was true. That the Salishan were somehow a version of us. “They have an excellent sense of smell. So up here our scent is high on the wind. And below we have planted fragrant vegetation and go to great effort to mask our scents.”

It was part of the reason for the aggressive daily showering that we wouldn’t normally enforce with militant precision. It took some Heida a while to get used to cleaning their hair so often. Their scalps sometimes became dry and itchy. Their braids brittle. But it was better than the Salishan always knowing exactly where we were.

“We also move regularly.”

Now Leena frowned. “Move?”

“Up and down the Line. This is one of many posts. We have three teams in rotation, all changing location at random to keep the Salishan guessing.”

“Okay,” she made fists she placed against her hips, “so how many are we talking? Are there a dozen Salishan? A hundred? A thousand?”

I let my eyes wander along the tree line over a mile and half from here. To the place where the Salishan might be hiding even now. “Our last two scouting parties never returned, but before that we estimated a population of approximately two hundred.”

“And they come through the Line specifically to attack you? Or are they hunting and you happen to be in the way?”

The memories threatened at the corners of my mind. The screams. The blood. I pushed it back into the shadows. “They come to kill us.”

“And you have no idea why?”

“There is never anyone left alive to question. Either we’re all dead, or they are. I don’t even know if they communicate with words or psychic abilities. All we know is they are Plane sensitive.”

We moved from the lookout down the rope bridge to the next observation area. Leena was quiet as she watched the team move through their usual patterns of watching, scenting, recording. So I was surprised when she spoke. “I’m psychically connected to the Plane.”

I didn’t know what she might say, but I was already absolutely sure I wouldn’t like it.

“I don’t want to upset anything you have going here. Clearly it works for the most part. But…maybe I can help.” She shrugged her slim Wren shoulders.

I knew she was strong. I fought beside her against the Dreg Army. But to me she would always be a small, delicate thing. “Help how?”

“Maybe I can try to communicate with them. Through the Plane. Or at least observe them that way. See how they sense the Plane and what they do with it. We wouldn’t do it here. It might compromise the Line. But we can go somewhere else…maybe?”

Every molecule of my body screamed no. A small part of my mind—the part that wanted to feel peace again one day—wanted to scream yes. “There is nowhere else. I appreciate the offer, but the answer is no.”

She frowned. Shivered. Rubbed her hands over her arms. “Well if I’m ever near one again, first I’m screaming, but then second I’m reaching out.”

I wanted to tell her there would be no next time. If a Salishan got anywhere near her I’d rip its head off before she would have a chance to use her gifts. “Fine.”

Leena trailed along as I continued about my day finding small issues that were easily resolved with a shift adjustment or broadening a scouting outline. Wherever the Line was manned it was safe. There were the usual reports of Salishan sightings, but no breaches.

It had to be in the unmanned sections.

So over dinner I discussed it with my brothers and the commander of the group. “We need a way to detect a breach and we need a way to track them.”

The commander was a smaller female with a braid down the middle of her head and dark, squinty eyes. “We’ve tried creating alarms but so far they’ve never set one off.”

Klah leaned forward. “Can we set a small team—maybe three or four—at one of the unmanned sections. Have them observe, not engage.”

The commander balked. “And let them walk through?”

“Okay, maybe engage if it seems like it won’t set us back. Maybe shift to the nearest Heida to warn them.”

That was part of the problem. Our isolation made it difficult to alert everyone when there was a danger.

“What about a group text?” Leena looked around at us.

The commander frowned so hard I thought her lips might bend right off her face. “Group text? What is this, Wren?”

“The outsiders…they use human technology. They have communication devices where you can send a message to many people at once.” I was annoyed by them, but also intrigued.

So was the commander. Her frown softened. “Would the humans come here if we used something like this?”

I knew nothing of these things, so I looked to Leena for answers. “Well, if it would help, I’m sure my House would be happy to put something together that would be just for the Heida. No connection to the humans or their networks.”

“Net works,” the commander said slowly as two words instead of one.

“Never mind the details,” I interrupted. “We’ll run the idea past the Queen and if she approves Leena will take care of it. For now, we set up an observation team with orders to gather information first, kill second. We need to know how they’re getting through, if they’re bypassing our alarms, and if there is a way to track them once they come through the Line.”

“Smell!” Leena shouted, pointing a finger in the air. When everyone stared at her she put her hand down. “Smell? You have a strong sense of smell and the ability to scent. Why don’t you put something in the unmanned sections that puts a scent on anything that passes through?”

Klah grimaced. “That means a lot of fucking animals are suddenly going to smell weird.”

But I liked where Leena’s head was at. “Might be worth it in the short term. If it helps us figure this out.”

With a plan in place we broke our meeting up and joined with our group for the meal. Leena had a heated conversation with Daisy before sitting down and gobbling up her food.

The crowd was rowdier tonight. Even the rigid formality of the Line was subject to the pull of the eclipse and Midnight Dreams. I noticed the change, the hands, the lips, the smiling. I didn’t want to get caught up in it, so I moved quickly to the showers, cleaning up and enjoying the peace of warm water beating down on my head for a few minutes.

I was almost ridiculous enough to believe I could slip into my hammock and pass out for the night when I caught sight of Leena.

Naked and glistening from her shower. Her hair was down and wet as she dried it, her tits moving and swinging, her pussy a target to hit. I went instantly hard with a groan. I felt the pull and the rush of euphoria that flooded the Plane as the cosmos aligned.

Any hope I had of escaping was obliterated when she gasped and looked up—right into my eyes. I walked toward her against my own will. She wiped away the droplets, not bothering to cover herself. Her neck craned up, up, up as I grew closer. A smile curved her lips. Her eyes went dark and dreamy.

“Hello there.”

I growled low in the back of my throat. “Step back.”

She complied, returning to the space she was about to leave. I followed, drawing the curtain closed behind me. In the back was the shower stall. To my right a wooden chair, to my left a wood beam. She blinked up at me. “Dirty?”

I pulled off the little clothing I wore. “Filthy.” My mind was nothing but sex. Mouths and tongues and wet pussy and my very, very hard dick.