Return to Eden by Kaitlyn O'Connor Page A

planted his hands on her bare ass
and gave her another push upwards. It worked better the first few
times. The feel of his hands on her bare ass was enough inspiration
to get her struggling higher, but it didn’t take long for her to
move beyond caring where he put his hands.
    The problem with giving up was that by
the time she reached the point where she didn’t feel like she could
climb anymore if there’d been a fire under her, they were a long
way from the hard concrete floor below. Feeling more than a little
nauseated from the strain and the gallon of water she’d drank, she
fought trembling, burning muscles, nausea and fear and kept trying
until the lip of the shaft was almost within reach. Her anxiety
then switched from fear of falling to what might be
outside.
    Right up until the moment of truth,
she’d actually felt somewhat more secure to have Aidan below her to
break her fall.
    Or to land on if they both
fell.
    She began scanning everything that she
could see above her. Relief didn’t really sink in, though, until
she was high enough to get a 360 degree view of at least twenty
feet surrounding the manhole. It took the last of her energy and
Aidan shoving from behind to climb out and collapse on the dirt.
She lay panting, shaking, and struggling with the urge to puke
while she listened to Aidan climb out. He collapsed beside her,
huffing for breath.
    That was somewhat mollifying. He looked
to be in great shape. If he was exhausted from the climb, maybe she
wasn’t doing too badly?
    He was on his feet in a few moments,
however. Leaning down, he hauled her to her feet, checked the thing
on his wrist and began hurrying roughly southward. They’d emerged
in a utility cut. The trees had been cut down in a wide swath to
accommodate the high power lines, but there was vegetation that was
nearly breast high on her. With that as a yardstick, she deduced
that the cat alien must be between six and seven feet tall.
Certainly a good bit more than six!
    So he didn’t just seem big and scary! He
was!
    It was an advantage for him. He
trampled through the high brush relatively unfazed. Following in
his wake, Anya didn’t fare quite as well, for although he blazed a
path with his boots, there were still plenty of bushes to slap at
her as she followed.
    When he stopped abruptly, she smacked
into his back and then fell back a step. He sent her a look over
his shoulder. “What?” Anya demanded irritably. “Like I can see a
damned thing!”
    “ Looks like whatever this
is it’s running in roughly the right direction. We might make
better time to stick with it.”
    “ Yes, well, gobble-dy gook
to you, too!”
    He shook his head. “Dis
vay.”
    Anya followed his pointing finger and
went up on her tiptoes to get a better look. Then she looked up at
the sky uneasily. “What about those things?”
    Aidan studied the sky, as well. Without
a word, he led her to the edge of the forest. Except for the damned
briars, it was a good bit easier to follow the line of trees. Pines
just naturally worked as weed killers and not a lot grew beneath
them—except the briars—which Anya discovered still had some
blackberries attached! “Oh thank god! A food-type substance I’m
familiar with!”
    Ignoring his tug to keep moving, she
stopped and plucked a handful, looked them over perfunctorily, and
then popped a couple into her mouth. Without sugar, they were a lot
more sour than she’d anticipated. She scrunched her face up at the
tartness, shuddering.
    Aidan chuckled.
    The sound caught her completely off
guard. Her eyes popped open and she stared at him with a mixture of
doubt and amazement. But she could see pure amusement in his
expression and that dispatched the last of her doubts that she’d
actually heard him laugh.
    An alien!
    Except that wasn’t what went through
her mind. It was a nice sound, created pleasure. Before she even
consciously acknowledged that she liked the sound, she felt the
effects on her spirits, felt a