Chapter 14
Aimee hugged Emily. Then she hugged Anna. “Will I ever see you again?”
“I’m sure you will,” Aimee replied. “I’m not leaving.”
“Utmost is so far away,” Emily remarked. “You’ll be too busy building a new city to travel anymore.”
Aimee patted her cheek. “You could travel out there to visit me.”
Emily blushed. “You’re right. All these years it’s been you traveling to keep in touch with all of us. We owe you the same consideration.”
Aimee moved on to Chris and Marissa. “You, too. Don’t disappear into your mountain and never let us see you again. Come down sometimes and visit your friends.”
Marissa hugged her. “We will. I promise.”
“It will be much easier for us to run over and visit you now that we don’t have children and responsibilities,” Chris told her. “I like to run just for the fun of it. I might go out for a light jog and wind up on the Felsite border.”
Everyone laughed, but no one made much effort to set out on their way. They made any excuse to hang around and keep hugging and talking.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Aria asked Carmen.
Carmen rounded on her. “Are you trying to get rid of me already?”
“Of course not!” Aria exclaimed. “I only meant.....”
Carmen squeezed her arm. “I know what you meant. I’m only joking. Renier needs this, and so does Reina. We’ll visit Melnili after she establishes herself as Alpha.”
“She’ll need runners to carry messages to her friends in the other factions,” Anna pointed out.
“Ari will be her runner,” Carmen replied. “He wants to travel back and forth so he can visit his family.”
“Does he know about you moving up to the mountain?” Emily asked Chris.
Chris chuckled. “He’ll soon find out the first time he comes to the village to visit us.”
“Do Taig and Tara know?” Aimee asked.
“They’ll figure it out, too, when we don’t come back.” Chris hooked her arm through Turk’s elbow. “I think Taig suspected something when we left.”
Caleb’s head shot up. “What made you think that?”
“You three were sitting together outside our hut the other night,” she told him. “It was late, so you probably thought no one was awake to hear you. You were looking up at the aurora and talking about the faction. Taig said he planned to run out to the border to check the warriors on patrol and make sure they had all the supplies they needed. He also said he planned to consolidate our village with the next one over the ridge. He said neither village had enough people in it, and they would both benefit from joining into one.”
Caleb frowned and rubbed his chin. “I didn’t think anybody heard that.”
“Then he looked at you,” Chris went on. “He looked at you like he expected you to contradict him or tell him to change his plans, but you didn’t say anything. You just stared up at the sky. He waited for a good long time for you to reply, but you didn’t.”
“So what makes you think he figured out from that I wasn’t coming back?” Caleb asked.
“He wanted you to offer to go with him, to check up on his work and make sure everything he decided to do was good enough,” Chris replied, “but you didn’t. You pretended not to hear him.”
“He didn’t say anything after that,” Turk observed.
“No, he didn’t,” Chris replied. “That made him think.”
Caleb shook his head. “He’s smart enough to put two and two together. No one has to draw him a map to show him what’s what.”
“No, they don’t,” Donen added. “That’s what makes him such a brilliant leader.”
“You’ve got your own brilliant leader,” Aquilla told him.
Donen bowed to him. “Thank you for saying so. That means a lot coming from you.”
Aquilla pressed his hand. “Thank you so much for inviting me. I’ve learned more about the Ursidreans on this trip than I have in the rest of my life. And to think we’ve met on the battlefield and never knew anything about each other.”
Donen covered Aquilla’s hand with his own. “I would give anything to make our factions friends again.”
“We are friends,” Aquilla told him. “You’ve shown me that, with your hospitality.” He cast his eye up at the mountain. The city hummed with life under the veneer of rock. “You have such a beautiful city, so full of life and love and purpose. It truly is one of the great marvels of Angondra. I could almost wish I was staying here like Renier.”
Donen shook his head. “You’ll build your own great city at Utmost. It will be every bit as great as this one.”
“If Utmost can hold a candle to Harbeiz,” Aquilla replied, “it will be because I visited here and saw what was possible. I’ll be able to tell the other colonists what is possible, what standard we have to meet.”
Donen dropped his eyes. “The Avitras have their own great culture. None of our factions should model ourselves on any other. You have your own greatness to express. I’m sure you will make Utmost a great city, but it will be an Avitras city. It won’t have the technology of an Ursidrean city, and it won’t be a cavern underground. It will embrace the beauty of the treetops and the skies above. That’s what it should be.”
The two men clasped hands tighter than ever. All of a sudden, Aquilla dropped Donen’s hands and flung his arms around his big shoulders. He embraced the Ursidrean Alpha and clapped him on the back. Donen hugged Aquilla back, but without all his strength. He could crush the Avitras Alpha in his hands if he didn’t restrain himself.
Aimee and Piwaka watched them with beaming faces. When Aquilla released Donen, Piwaka moved in and embraced him, too. “Good-bye, old friend. Who knows when we’ll meet again.”
“Take care of each other out there,” Donen told him. “You have a long journey and a big task ahead of you.”
Piwaka laughed. “You don’t. Maybe you should go down to the Labor Pool and ask for a job, too.”
Donen put his arm around Aria’s shoulders. “Not yet. We’re going to spend some time together first.”
“There are too many young people around doing all the jobs,” Aria added. “The old folks can sit around in their rocking chairs and let the swirl of activity pass them by for a change.”
“You’re hardly old folks,” Penelope Ann told her.
Aria shook her head. “Mirin is taking over as Alpha. We have two other boys in the army, and Avi....” She trailed off.
The others waited for her to finish. “What about Avi?”
Aria waved her hand. “Never mind.” She turned to Penelope Ann. “You better get flying. You don’t want to lose the daylight.”
“We’re not flying,” Penelope Ann replied. “We’re going to walk.”
Chris and Anna gasped. “Walk! Are you nuts?”
Penelope Ann smiled. “We don’t want to get there too soon. We want to take our time and enjoy the trip. Once we get there, it will be work, work, work, probably for years. We want to enjoy a little free time on the way.”
“Have you got all the supplies you need?” Chris asked.
Penelope Ann pointed to a wrapped parcel sitting in a corner of the observation deck. “Aria gave us a mini-transmogrifier to take along.”
“That will be a godsend when you get to Utmost,” Marissa remarked.
“Where will you get power?” Emily asked. “The Ursidreans’ technology comes from the mountain rocks reacting to sunlight. It won’t work outside the mountain.”
“This is a military model,” Penelope Ann replied. “It’s designed to work independently. It will never run out of power.”
Chris clapped her hands. “Brilliant!”
Aria blushed. “We’re calling it a Christmas present.”
“How are you going to carry it?” Emily asked.
Piwaka hoisted the box onto his shoulder. “No trouble. No trouble at a
ll.”
The others laughed and shook their heads. “That’s gonna get mighty heavy along about the hundredth mile.”
He shifted it, but couldn’t find a comfortable position. “If it slows us down, so much the better. I don’t mind setting it down and sleeping in the trees for a week or two on the way.”
“When do the other colonists arrive in Utmost?” Donen asked.
Piwaka frowned. “I don’t know any other colonists going out there. As far as I know, we’ll be the first.”
The friends stared at him. “You’re going out there alone?”
“No one would come if someone didn’t go first,” Penelope Ann told them. “When they hear Aquilla and Piwaka and Aimee and I are living out there, more Avitras will follow. In the meantime, we’ll make due with what we have. We have the transmogrifier, so we won’t go hungry, and everything else, we can do ourselves.”
“And I thought we would be roughing it,” Marissa exclaimed. “You guys won’t even have a covered wagon to sleep in.”
“We’ll be just fine,” Penelope Ann replied. “And when you come to visit, you’ll find a thriving new village where there was nothing before.”
Marissa gave her a hug. “I’m sure you will be fine, and I can’t wait to see the village when you get it built.”
The four Avitras headed down the mountain. When they entered the tree line, Penelope Ann and Aimee turned and waved to their friends on the platform. Then they disappeared into the snowy forest. Chris sighed. “There goes a bunch of true pioneers.”
Aria gazed at the spot where the women vanished. “They’re true Alphas, leaders of their people.”
“I’m sure lots of Avitras will follow them,” Donen remarked.
“Of course they will,” Aria replied. “I’m tempted to follow them myself.”
Donen put his arm around her shoulder. “Don’t do that. I would get too lonely without you.”
Chris stepped forward and took her hands. “We’ll say good-bye, too. We’ve got a long run up into the mountains.”
“I wish I could convince you to take a transmogrifier with you, too,” Aria told her.
Chris shook her head. “No, thanks. We’ll stick to hunting and cooking over open fires.”
“What about you, Marissa?” Aria teased. “Can I tempt you with a nice piping hot slice of pepperoni pizza?”
Marissa laughed. “You might have been able to tempt me three days ago, but right now, I just want to get back home—or at least to the place where I will be home from now on.”
“You’ve never stayed up on the mountain with Chris and Turk,” Emily pointed out. “You’ve always lived in the village. You won’t be too isolated, will you?”
Marissa shook her head with a smile. “I’m looking forward to the quiet and the isolation. People came in and out of our house every minute of the day when Caleb was Alpha. I never had a minute’s peace, and when he went out to the frontier, I had to console people and try to solve their problems myself. I won’t miss that at all. I’m looking forward to doing things for ourselves, the hard way, and we can go visit our friends and family in the village whenever we want to.”
“I’m sure you’ll want to when Tara and Lilith start having children,” Anna remarked.
Marissa hugged and kissed her. “I’m sure we will.”
The men shook hands with Donen. Then they threw their arms around him and embraced. Then the four Lycaon set off into the trees. Like the Avitras, they paused at the tree line to wave before the mountains swallowed them.
Donen hugged Aria around the shoulders. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
Aria hesitated. The mountain wind moaned in the trees, and the bitter chill stabbed her cheeks and her eyes, but she couldn’t turn away. The world outside Harbeiz gazed back at her with knowing familiarity. It resembled Earth so much, and yet she and her friends shared their unique history with no other humans in the world. Not even their own children fully understood their experience.
The wind chilled her bracelet, and the icy metal burned her skin. Its song whispered to her and called her back to her own life underground. Her mate, her sons, and her closest friends all lived there, in the deep caverns. Their love kept her warm. It kept her alive.
The End
Tales from Angondra
A Sci-Fi Romance
Complete Series (Books 1 – 6)
Ruth Anne Scott
#1 Alien Romance Series on Amazon.com
Contents
Book 1 – Abducted by Aliens
Book 2 – Crashed on Alien Planet
Book 3 – Saved by an Alien
Book 4 – The Alien’s Captive
Book 5 – The Alien’s Wonderland
Book 6 – The Alien’s Bliss
Book 1 – Abducted by Aliens
Chapter 1
Carmen Herrera shut the bakery door as quietly as she could, but the sleigh bells hanging from it made such a racket everyone in the place turned to stare at her. A statuesque woman behind the counter scanned her uniform up and down. “What can I do for you, Officer...” She peered at Carmen’s name tag. “Officer Herrera. I’m sorry we don’t serve donuts.”
Carmen blushed. “I’m not here for the donuts. I’m responding to a call-out regarding an abduction in the neighborhood.”
The woman wiped her hands on her apron and nodded. She towered over Carmen with flowing curly blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. Decorative italic letters splashed across the front of her apron and matched the brochures on the counter: Penny’s Peppermints. “I made the call. I’m Penelope Ann King. I’m the owner of this bakery.”
Carmen looked around. All the customers listened to their conversation. “Did you know the girl who disappeared?”
Penelope Ann nodded. “I hire girls from the neighborhood to work here. It gives them a leg up in the world and gives them some experience of earning their own money doing something other than selling their bodies and dealing drugs. I hired Rosie three weeks ago, and she never missed a shift—until yesterday.”
“If she was selling her body or dealing drugs,” Carmen replied, “she may have gone back to her pimp. Maybe she didn’t want to slave away in a bakery anymore and wanted some easy money.”
Penelope Ann narrowed her eyes at Carmen. She could spike a bug on a needle at a hundred paces with those eyes, and something solid and powerful lurked under her white chef’s jacket. Carmen stiffened for the inevitable response. “Rosie loved working here. She planned to enroll in community college next semester. She never wanted to go back to the streets. She wouldn’t go back to her pimp unless he took her back by force.”
“Then there’s nothing we can do,” Carmen replied. “If she worked for him before, we don’t have any reason to believe she didn’t go willingly.”
Penelope Ann smacked her lips. “You cops are all the same. I should have known you would stick your big toe in the mud like this. We’re talking about a young girl’s life, and you have my word she didn’t go back to her pimp—not willingly, anyway. Are you really going to stand there and tell me you won’t do anything to help her?”
“I can’t do anything about it,” Carmen told her. “If she spent years working for some pimp on the East Side, and then spent three weeks working here,” she swept the bakery with her hand. “We would have to have something more than your word to interfere with her going back to him.” Carmen glanced toward the door. Now would be a good time to make her escape.
But Penelope Ann wasn’t finished. “It isn’t just Rosie. A lot of girls keep disappearing from this neighborhood, and they don’t turn up back on the streets, either. They just vanish, never to be seen again.”
Carmen nodded. “Our captain briefed us on that, but we don’t have the resources to investigate those disappearances. They go into the Cold Case archives. If we turn up any evidence for them, we’ll address them later.”
An African American woman in baby blue nurse’s scrubs stepped
forward. Her fuzzy Afro surrounded her fresh face and set off her glinting brown eyes. “You have the resources to investigate them, but you won’t because the girls were runaways and drug addicts. You don’t have to lie about it. We know the truth.”
Carmen turned to her. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I know you.”
“You don’t know any of us,” the nurse shot back. “I’m Aria McCray, and I’ve lived in this neighborhood since the day I was born. Penelope Ann has been here since she was three and went to school with me and Marissa Evans.” She pointed to a slender woman sitting by the front window. Her fiery red hair glowed in the morning sun. “She’s been the head librarian at the Public Library for ten years, ever since she graduated from college. None of us knows you from Adam.”
Carmen shifted from one foot to the other. “Just because I only moved here a year ago doesn’t mean I don’t care about this neighborhood as much as you do. I don’t make the decisions on what cases to investigate. The department decides that.”
“Four of the girls who disappeared worked here,” Penelope Ann chimed in. “I gave them jobs and a place to live and extra food if they needed it. None of them lasted more than a month before they vanished. Now I want to know what you and your department are going to do about that.”
“Like I said...” Carmen began.
Penelope Ann cut her off with a wave of her hand. “I know what you said. You said they went back to their pimps and their dealers, but we all know that’s not true. I used to see Carrie Townley standing on the street corner at ten o’clock at night, and I used to see Zoe Martin walking up and down in front of the shoe factory on Benson Street. Neither of them has come back. They disappeared off the face of the earth, and your department and your captain and you and every other cop in the world couldn’t give a flying.....”
Screeching tires drowned out the rest of her words. Carmen glanced out the window and saw the police paddy wagon pull up outside the bakery. She ran through what she would say to excuse herself from this situation before she faced Penelope Ann again. Then she noticed something that made her turn around again. The vehicle outside the bakery had no windshield and no driver’s side or passenger’s side windows. It was one solid white mass. It had no license plate, either.
Angondra Holiday Special Page 10
