“I’ve seen them a few times,” he replied. “They aren’t any more mysterious than the other factions, though no one really understands how their communication system works. They have a way of propagating their chemical signals in the water to send them out to every other body of water in the area. Don’t ask me to explain it. That’s all I know.”
“Maybe they have a way to travel into space,” she suggested.
He turned away. “I wouldn’t bet on it. Anyway, you have no friends living with them, so you wouldn’t be able to ask them.”
“There must be a way,” she muttered.
“What are you going to do if there isn’t?” he asked.
She cocked her head. “What do you mean?”
“You have your heart set of going back to Earth,” he replied. “What will you do if you can’t find a way?”
“There must be a way,” she argued. “We got here through space. There must be a way to get back.”
He didn’t answer.
“You want me to say I’d settle down here with you,” she went on. “Is that where this is going?”
He wouldn’t look at her, but kept walking. “You said it, not me.”
“I won’t settle here,” she told him. “I’ll keep working until I find a way off this planet. I’ll never rest until I succeed.”
“What do you have back on Earth that’s so important?” he asked. “Do you have a mate, and children? Is that it?”
“I don’t have a mate, as you call it,” she replied. “We call them husbands—husbands and wives. I don’t have one and I don’t have children, either. But I have a home and business and animals I take care of. I have a life, and I don’t want to give that up.”
“You already did give it up,” he pointed out. “You’re here, not there.”
“I didn’t give it up,” she replied. “The Romarie stole it from me, and I’m going to get it back. That’s one thing you’ll have to learn about me. I’m determined.”
“Tell me about your business,” he told her. “What did you do for a business?”
“I train horses,” she replied. “I’ve worked with horses since I was seven years old, and I never wanted to do anything else. Let me guess. You don’t have horses on this planet. Well, that tells you all you need to know about why I don’t want to stay here. What would I do if I stayed—sit around the fire and raise your children? No thanks. I want to do something meaningful with my life, something more meaningful than being a pack mule for some man.”
He cast her a sidelong glance. “Is that what you think the other Lycaon females are doing? Is that what you think Marissa and her friends are doing on this planet? You think they’re pack mules for the Alphas?” He shook his head.
“I don’t know what they’re doing with their lives, and I don’t care,” she shot back. “I only know I won’t stay here, and I won’t mate with any Angondran male. I don’t care if he is the Alpha of his faction—or the Alpha’s twin brother. I’m not a brood mare. I have a life.”
“You said that,” he replied. “You said you wouldn’t be a pack mule, and you said you wouldn’t be a brood mare. No one said you had to be.”
“But that’s what staying on this planet would mean,” she pointed out.
“Who said?” he asked.
“I said,” she countered. “What else is there to do on this planet? Aria’s got two babies and another two on the way. She must not have had anything she wanted to do with her life. She must not have had anything back on Earth that gave her life any meaning.”
“As a matter of fact,” he replied, “Marissa says she was a nurse. She took care of people the same way you take care of....what do you call them?”
“Horses.” Chris blushed. “I didn’t know she was a nurse.”
“And Carmen was a police officer,” he went on. “Marissa worked at something called a library where she educated children. And Penelope Ann had her own business, too.”
Chris looked the other way. “I didn’t know that.”
“No doubt the other women who crashed with you had meaningful lives, too,” he pointed out. “You won’t be the only one who had a meaningful life.”
“Then they’ll be all the more ready to go back,” she replied. “They’ll be thrilled that someone is working to get them back to their homes and isn’t just settling into this life in defeat.”
“Is that really what you think they’re doing?” he asked.
Chris scanned the horizon. His eyes bored into the back of her head and made her skin crawl. “Let’s talk about something else.”
He gazed into the distance, too. “As you wish.”
“How are we going to handle the Felsite when we come in sight of their scouts?” she asked. “Should we have a plan worked out?”
“No doubt the scouts will tell us what they want us to do,” he replied.
“Are you telling me you don’t have a plan?” she asked.
“None whatsoever,” he replied.
“Do you really just plan to wing it?” she asked. “Do you really think that’s wise?”
He cocked his head to the side. “What does that mean—wing it?”
She waved her hand. “You don’t have a plan. You’re going to let them tell you what to do.”
“That’s my plan,” he explained. “My plan is to wait until the scouts leap out from behind their observation posts and threaten us with their weapons and march us to their city at spearpoint. That’s my plan.”
Chris stopped dead in her tracks and stared at him. “You’re not serious.”
He rounded her with no expression on his face. “Do I look like I’m joking?”
“You can’t be serious,” she insisted. “You can’t seriously plan to let them threaten to kill us and drag us away as their prisoners.”
“Why can’t I?” he asked.
“You said you would help me find Carmen,” she cried. “You said you would help me find a way off this planet. Now you’re betraying me.”
“I am helping you,” he replied. “If they capture us and march us to their city at the point of their spears, the very first thing they’ll do is take us to Renier. When they do, we can explain the situation. The closer we get to him, the closer we’ll be to Carmen. She might even be present, since the scouts will send word ahead to Renier that they have a human female in custody. Carmen will want to know who you are and how you got here.”
Chris narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you sure this will work?”
“This is the simplest way to get directly to Renier and to Carmen,” he told her. “I wouldn’t do this if I thought there was any chance it wouldn’t succeed.”
“What makes you so certain they won’t kill us on the spot?” Chris asked.
“First of all,” he replied, “they wouldn’t kill any Lycaon that crossed their borders. That could set off a string of hostile events that could lead our factions to war. The worst they could do is keep me under lock and key until they contacted Caleb and determined I wasn’t a spy or a maverick out to plunder their city. But as it is, Renier’s scouts will recognize me. They’ll have to treat me well, since I’m Caleb’s brother and the son of the Alpha family. Only Renier has the authority to decide what to do with me, and when he hears your story, he’ll bring you and Carmen together.”
“What happens then?” she asked.
He started walking again. “What happens then is entirely up to you.”
Chapter 10
Turk strode down the path to the base of the pass. The path wound up through red clay walls and disappeared between odd-shaped rocks. Chris looked up to where the path vanished into a wall of red, and her steps faltered.
Turk didn’t stop. He climbed into the pass and started to disappear, too. Chris didn’t dare hesitate any longer. She scrambled up steep steps into the pass behind him. The path wound higher until her legs burned.
At the top of the slope, the path leveled out so they could
walk abreast again. Chris caught her breath, but Turk showed no signs of exertion. He climbed those steps as easily as he walked on level ground. He kept his head steady and his eyes on the path in front of him, but he muttered under his breath, “We’ve crossed the border. The scouts are just ahead.”
Chris kept her step calm and her eyes forward. “I don’t see anything.”
“Behind the rock,” he replied. “They’re waiting for us to come up to them. That’s when they’ll show themselves.”
Her hand went out automatically and slipped into his. For a brief instant, he turned his head in surprise, but he recovered right away. He walked on with her hand in his. His feet made no sound on the stone path, but hers rang off the red walls. She listened to the beat of her own heels on the ground to keep it steady and strong.
The rock loomed closer, but she still saw nothing. Was Turk mistaken about the scouts waiting for them there? He could see and hear things she couldn’t, but maybe he was wrong this time.
She didn’t have time to question him, though. They strode alongside the rock. Even when his prediction came true and four Felsite scouts jumped into their path with spears pointed at them, Chris cried out in alarm and sprang back. Her hand pulled free of Turk’s grasp, but he kept his eyes locked on the scouts.
Not even Marissa’s description of the Felsite prepared Chris for meeting them in person. They had the manes of hair around their heads the way Marissa described, but they resembled the Lycaon enough that they had to be the same species. They stood just as tall, with the same body shape and direct, clear faces.
One of the scouts stepped forward with his spear aimed at Turk’s chest. He frowned when he saw Turk’s face. “What are you doing here? This is Felsite territory. You keep to your own territory.”
Turk lifted his head in silent challenge. “We have business with Renier. Take us to him.”
The scout shot Chris a glance, and his eyes widened imperceptibly. She must be developing the Lycaon ability to detect subtle changes in expression and body language. She wouldn’t have noticed his interest before. “State your business.”
Turk pulled his lips back from his teeth, and his hair bristled on the back of his neck. He snarled through his teeth, and Chris shuddered. “If my business was with you, I wouldn’t be asking to be taken to Renier. My business is with him, and I’ll state it to him.” His eyes slid down to the scout’s feet and back up to his shaggy head. “I won’t state it to you.”
The scout bared his teeth back at Turk, and his orange mane stood out from his head. He tightened his grip on his spear. “You won’t cross our border, and you won’t go anywhere near Renier until you state your business. He’ll never know you were here.”
Turk growled and laughed at the same time. “What do you think he’ll say if he finds out I came to see him and you turned me back at the border because I wouldn’t announce my business to you?” Turk took a step forward until the spearpoint jabbed him in the chest. Chris tried to hold him back by the hand, but he never took his eyes off the scout’s face. He slapped the spear aside with one stroke of his hand. “Run along, baby cub, and don’t bother me.”
The scout swung around with a roar. His spear whistled through the air, and the point stabbed toward Turk’s face. Chris yanked his hand harder than ever to pull him back, but he stood firm and flexed his shoulders at the scout.
The two men would have flown at each other in rage if another smaller scout with darker brown hair hadn’t seized his comrade by the arm and restrained him. He muttered something under his breath.
The orange-haired scout rounded on his friend. He bellowed in fury and turned his spear on his own comrade. “Out of my way, Jaro. I’ll spike you just as fast if you get in my way.”
“Not so fast, Manu,” the smaller scout countered. “If you harm a hair on his head, our faction could be on its way to war before the night was out.”
“So much the better,” Manu shot back. “They crossed our border without permission. Our duty is to repel invasion, and that’s what I’m doing. Now stand out of my way.”
Jaro shook his head, but before he could reply, Manu rushed his comrade with his spear aimed. Turk stood back and watched the two Felsite face off. But in spite of a noticeable size difference between them, Manu was no match for his smaller opponent.
Jaro didn’t even bother to brandish his own spear. He didn’t bristle or growl the way the others did. He stood back and waited for Manu to thrust his spear at him. Then, when Manu’s weight shifted to his forward foot, Jaro dodged the spear and drove it neatly between two rocks behind him.
Manu tumbled forward and the spear shaft splintered into matchsticks. He tumbled forward and fell on his face at Jaro’s feet. Jaro hauled Manu to his feet by his elbow and shoved him back. He kicked the spearpoint into the rocks and nodded to Turk. “Please forgive this insolence, Alpha Lycaon. Some of our people take their positions too seriously.”
Turk raised his eyebrow. “Both our peoples have too much to lose to fall into petty bickering.”
Jaro nodded again. “If you follow me, I’ll conduct you and your mate to Renier.”
Chris stiffened, but before she could correct him, he walked away into the rocks. His friends went on ahead, with Manu in front. Turk and Chris came last with their hands still clasped. “I thought you said they were no threat to us.”
“They aren’t,” he murmured back. “They have orders to watch the border, but they won’t risk hostilities.”
“He called you Alpha,” Chris pointed out.
“I am Alpha,” Turk replied.
“You’re secondary,” Chris returned. “Caleb is Alpha.”
“I am as Alpha as Caleb will ever be,” Turk replied. “If he so much as breaks his ankle, I am Alpha. The Felsite know that. They don’t know I’m here to indulge the whim of a human woman to chase some impossible fantasy. For all they know, I’m here on business that affects all Angondra. They won’t turn me away.”
“He thinks I’m your mate,” Chris pointed out. “Why didn’t you correct him?”
“You are my mate,” Turk murmured.
“Don’t fool yourself,” Chris snapped. “One night doesn’t make me your mate.”
“What do you call it?” he asked. “We call it mating.”
Chris grimaced. “It wasn’t anything more than a bit of harmless fun. It doesn’t make me your mate.”
To her disgust, he chuckled under his breath. “Words. Nothing but words. You can twist them around every way you want.”
“Believe what you want to believe, Loverboy,” Chris shot back. “I’m not your mate, and I never will be.”
Turk let it go at that, but for some reason, she didn’t let go of his hand. The farther they traveled into Felsite territory, the more she held onto him. She wasn’t scared, so why did she stick close to him? If he wasn’t her mate, why did she reserve this bond in the face of the unknown?
The Felsite scouts led them through the pass, but Turk and Chris could have found their way alone. There was only one path winding through sheer granite defiles. The wind moaned between the cliffs. Voices murmured from every direction, sometimes sobbing, sometimes chuckling, and sometimes singing. Chris glanced one way and then another, but nothing surrounded them but blank stone.
Turk paid the noise no mind. He kept his attention on Manu. The big orange-haired scout put as much distance between himself and the rest of the party as he could, and when they broke out of the defile into open country, he put on speed and left the party in the dust.
“Where’s he going?” Chris asked.
“No doubt he’s on his way to report his friend to Renier,” Turk replied. “He’ll tell all about how his friend stopped him from attacking me and then disarmed him. He’ll try to get his friend disciplined and removed from duty. That sort of thing happens all the time.”
“Has it happened with the Lycaon, too?” she asked.
He nodded. “I had to remove
someone from duty once. One of my lieutenants attacked an Avitras who crossed our border. The Avitras landed in a tree near their outpost, and my lieutenant threw his hammer at it. He struck it in the head and killed it instantly.”
“Oh my God!” Chris exclaimed.
Turk nodded. “Afterwards, we found out the Avitras was Aquilla’s cousin, and he’d come to warn us about a river in flood that threatened to wipe out one of our villages. A logjam of rocks and tree trunks gave way in Avitras territory, and the water was rushing down the valley toward our village. Because my lieutenant killed the messenger, we didn’t find out in time. The village was destroyed, and Aquilla was furious.”
“What happened?” she asked. “Did you go to war over it?”
“Thank the stars Aquilla is a sensible man,” he replied. “When Caleb told him I removed the man from duty, he let the incident go. He said any of us could have made the same mistake, and his cousin should have given us fair warning instead of landing in a tree near our scouts’ heads the way he did.”
“He does sound like a sensible man,” Chris remarked.
“He would have been within his rights to launch a war against us,” Turk went on. “None of us can afford to make a mistake like that. I’m sure Renier will exonerate our friend Jaro when he learns the full story.”
Chris shook her head. “I thought you people were peaceful. I didn’t know you were on the brink of war all the time.”
He shrugged. “Hostilities come and go. It’s everybody’s responsibility to keep the peace.”
At that moment, they rounded a corner in the rocks and Chris looked out over a million miles of waving grassland. The sun dipped toward the horizon and cast a golden glow over the landscape. Chris paused and admired the scene. The sun glinted gold off a shiny surface in the distance.
“That’s Melnili,” Turk told her.
“Mel—what?” Chris asked.
“Melnili,” he repeated. “It’s Renier's city. The sun is shining off the windows.”
“Windows!” Chris breathed. “I never imagined any place on this wretched planet would have windows.”
Damen (Dragons of Kratak Book 2) Page 27