Her mind raced in search of a way out of this, but she couldn’t think. She thought she might jump up and give him a quick kiss on the cheek, like Reina did with Taig, and then run back to her place. But when she got close to him, he wrapped his arms around her again and pulled her toward him. He dodged his head to one side and locked his lips on her mouth.
The same intoxicating sensation flooded her mind and exploded through her body. Instead of pulling away, she melted against him the way she did before. She couldn’t control her thoughts or emotions. Her friends stood watching in silence behind her. The kiss went on and on. Allen’s lips explored hers, and delicious warmth spread over her face. Their tongues intertwined, separated, and intertwined again.
Allen broke away first. Tara stared up at him in shock. Her eyes searched his face, but her mind pitched and tossed in turmoil. He blinked, and the spell was broken.
She found her way back to her place and sank down on the ground. Her mind went numb. She couldn’t think or pay attention to the game anymore.
Aeifa took the stick with an indignant snort and tossed it. It pointed toward Ari. He stretched out his arms to her in mock appeal, and she kicked him in the back of the leg.
“Toss again, Aeifa,” Taig urged her.
Aeifa threw the stick at him. “Tara’s right. This game is stupid. I’m not playing anymore.”
Taig turned to Ari. “She doesn’t want to risk kissing Taman again.”
Ari laughed and took the stick. “My turn.”
He didn’t toss it into the air, but threw it straight down onto the ground. It didn’t bounce, but landed exactly where he threw it, with the white tip pointed squarely at Reina. He laughed, but when Reina stood up and faced him, his laugh died on his lips. No one could laugh when she looked at him like that.
Ari didn’t move. Reina stepped up to him first. His eyes widened when he looked down into her face. He caught his breath, and the blood rushed to his cheeks.
Reina raised her head to fix him with a hard stare. Then she took the last step to stand in front of him. Ari barely breathed. Reina moved closer and closer to him until her breath brushed his skin. Her lips touched his with the weight of a butterfly.
Ari’s breath rushed out through his nostrils, and his eyes closed. His lips collapsed against hers, and he rocked on his feet. Reina slipped one hand behind his neck and pulled him down hard onto her mouth. Her lips devoured his. His mouth opened, and her tongue darted between his lips. He groaned, and his hands found their way to her hips.
Reina rose on her tiptoes and pressed her breasts against his chest. She flexed her hips and touched his pelvis with her body. A shudder ran through him, but he didn’t open his eyes. He relaxed into her kiss. He fell completely under her spell.
Not a breath sounded in the cave. The others stared at them, but Reina didn’t back off. She kissed him stronger and harder. She laid her other hand on the flat of his back and pulled him against her. Tara opened her mouth. She had to stop this before....what? What would happen? The way they were going, she wouldn’t have been surprised if they tumbled to the ground in a carnal embrace. But what if they did? They were fully mature. Reina’s father might not approve, but no one could argue she hadn’t done it willingly.
At the height of their passion, Reina released him. Her lips trailed off his, and she ran her fingernails through his hair one last time. He stood before her with his eyes closed in stupefied wonder. Reina gave him one innocent kiss on the forehead and walked back to her place like nothing ever happened.
Ari’s eyes fluttered open. He stared at Reina. Then he stared at the stick. Then he sank down on the ground next to his sister.
No one moved. No one picked up the stick again. No one said a word.
Chapter 5
The morning sun sparkled on the raindrops dripping from the trees. Ari squinted up at the sky. “What did I tell you? Clear blue. We’ll be back in the village in a few hours.”
Aeifa darted forward. “Come on, Tara. Let’s run it.” She disappeared from view between the trees.
Tara fell in at Reina’s side, but they didn’t talk on the way back. Even Taig and the Ursidrean boys walked together in subdued silence back to the village. Reina walked slower and slower until the smoke of a fire drifted over the tops of the trees. Then she stopped in her tracks with a heavy sigh.
“What’s wrong?” Tara asked. “After last night’s fiasco, I thought you’d be grateful to get back to your parents.”
“I am.” Reina took one last look around. “It’s just that I’ll probably never have another day like yesterday. My father never lets me out of his sight.”
Tara’s eyes popped open. “I thought you didn’t like yesterday. You didn’t go swimming, and after the way the boys behaved last night, I wouldn’t blame you for leaving.”
Reina shook her head. “I didn’t go swimming. I didn’t jump from the cliff. There are so many things I didn’t do yesterday that I wanted so much to do.”
Tara turned away. “If you don’t tell your father about kissing Taig and then Ari, too, he might let you go out with us again. Then you’ll be able to.”
“I’ll be able to,” Reina replied, “until we go home. Then I’ll never do those things again.”
Tara couldn’t answer that, so she started walking again. The group turned a corner and found Aeifa standing in the path. She didn’t acknowledge them when they greeted her, but stared through the trees. Tara followed her gaze.
The same view of the village met her eyes, with the huts scattered through the clearing. Smoke rose out of the roof holes, and a few outdoor fires smoldered in the brightening sunshine, but no people sat or walked around the houses.
Tara frowned. “What’s going on?”
An eerie silence answered her. No voices or babies crying or tools chopping wood interrupted the stillness. Allen came to her side. “Where is everyone?”
Tara started forward, and the others followed. They clustered close around her in a tight bunch. No one wanted to stray too far into that empty space. Tara stopped in the center of the village and looked around again. Not a single person was anywhere in sight. Tools lay next to unfinished work. Pots simmered in the dying embers of fires with no people tending them.
Ari stuck his head into one of the huts. “Grandmother! I’m hungry. When’s breakfast?”
They listened to the deafening silence. He strolled back to the group, and Aeifa kicked him.
He bounced away. “What’s the matter?”
She glared at him, but dared not break the silence.
Taig looked into another hut. Then Aeifa check two more. “There’s no one here.”
Allen surveyed the village. “Wherever they are, they can’t be far away. Everything’s exactly the way we left it.”
“Everyone?” Taig asked. “Why would they all leave at once?”
“Maybe something threatened them,” Taman replied. “Maybe they had to move quickly.”
Ari and Aeifa walked down to the end of the village. “Here are all their tracks leading down to the river.”
Tara examined the tracks. “These tracks were made this morning, I’d say less than an hour ago. Wherever they went, they didn’t leave in the rain. The tracks are too crisp and fresh.”
“But look.” Ari pointed to the ground. “Look how many tracks there are. The whole village left at once, in one large crowd. What would make them do that?”
“Take a look at this.” Tara touched the ridges of a track farther along. “This is one of Faruk’s tracks.”
“How can you tell?” Allen asked.
“Do you see this?” Tara touched a sharp point on the edge of the track. “You can see how he rolls on the outside of his foot. All Ursidreans do.” She smiled at him. “You do it, too.”
“That doesn’t explain how you know it’s Father’s track,” he countered. “It could be anybody’s.”
“Faruk is the only full blooded Ursidrean here
,” she pointed out. “Your mother Emily is human, and you two were with us last night. Faruk is the only person who could have made this track.”
“Here are Mother and Marissa’s tracks,” Taig told her. “They walk differently from other Lycaon, and you can see Father and Caleb’s tracks right next to them.”
“So why would they all leave the village at once?” Tara asked. “They walked, slowly and calmly. They weren’t in any hurry, or they would have run.”
“Maybe they walked to keep pace with the guests,” Ari suggested.
Taig shook his head. “If anything threatened the village, Caleb would have taken the majority of the people and run for the hills. He would have left Father and Mother to bring your parents and Renier and Carmen after them. He wouldn’t run the risk of anyone dallying behind.”
Tara scanned the village just one more time. She couldn’t force her mind to comprehend that everyone was gone—just like that. Her skin crawled. “Let’s get out of here.”
No one argued. They filed back down the path without a word the way they came. They didn’t stop until they passed beyond sight of the village.
By some unspoken agreement, they formed a circle and faced each other. They glanced from one to the other. Reina broke the silence. “What are we going to do?”
Ari shrugged. “We know enough to survive in the woods indefinitely. We should stay here and wait. They’re bound to come back sooner or later.”
Taman chopped at the air with his hand. “I’m not staying here. I’m going to find them. We can’t stay here.”
“We can stay here as long as we want,” Aeifa countered. “We have enough food and water and shelter here to last for years. What are you going to do? Are you going to walk back to Ursidrean territory by yourselves?”
Taman and Allen exchanged glances. Tara answered for them. “You know they couldn’t travel all that way. They haven’t got our survival skills. Whatever we do, we have to stick together.”
“Why should we?” Ari asked. “We can stay here, and they can do what they want.”
Tara rounded on him. “The boys and Reina will die without us. You know that. We stick together, and that’s my last word.”
“Then we stay here,” Ari repeated. “We have no reason to leave. Going on some wild goose chase to find them would be idiotic. They could be back in an hour, and then where would we be?”
A long pause answered him until Allen murmured, “They aren’t coming back—not any time soon.”
“What makes you so certain?” Ari asked.
Allen shook his head, but said nothing. “Allen is right,” Tara told him. “Something pretty serious made them abandon the village in a hurry. It must have been some kind of disaster. They knew we were out there in the woods, and they didn’t tell us they were going or where. We have to act as if they aren’t coming back. They could be gone for years, or they might never come back. Even if they come back soon, we have to plan for the worst.”
Reina’s eyes darted from one face to the next. “Which is what?”
“We can’t stay here,” Taman repeated. “We have to find them.”
“And how do you plan to do that?” Taig asked. “Those tracks disappear at the river. There’s no sign of where they went or why. Where are you going to start looking for them?”
Taman looked around with wild eyes. “There must be a way.”
“There is.” Allen held up his arm and pinched the skin. A round dimple puckered in his flesh. “Every Ursidrean wears a tracking device implanted under the skin. Back in Harbeiz, we have the technology to locate the tracking devices for every Ursidrean. The device is intended to safeguard anyone who goes outside the city, in case they get lost or injured. My father was a member of the border patrol, and now he’s on a diplomatic mission to negotiate with your father and Renier. He and my mother both have these devices, and they had the devices implanted in me and my brother before we left Harbeiz in case we got lost.”
“That doesn’t do us any good,” Ari countered. “We have no way of tracking them.”
“At Harbeiz they do,” Allen told him. “Wherever our parents are, they’re together. The whole village is together. If we can track down my parents, we can find the whole village. Carmen and Renier will be with them, too.”
The Lycaon exchanged glances. Tara shrugged. “I guess it’s worth a try.”
Aeifa spun away. “No way! I’m not traveling halfway across the world to Ursidrean territory on a wing and a prayer. If you want to go back to Harbeiz and work your hocus-pocus, you go right ahead. I’m staying here with Ari.”
Ari stroked his chin. “Well, maybe there’s something to it. We really don’t have any other way of finding them.”
Reina’s voice made Tara turn around “What’s going to happen to us?” She clenched her hands together until her knuckles turned white, but she couldn’t hide them shaking. Shudders racked her whole body.
Tara touched her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay, Reina. We’re going to find your parents.”
Reina stared up into her face. Then she looked around the circle at the others, but she couldn’t see them through her fear. They were strangers to her. “I don’t think....” She didn’t finish.
Ari nodded. “All right. We’ll go see if your technology can find them. If it doesn’t work out, we can always come back here.”
Aeifa flew at him with both hands flying. Tara barely recognized her cousin. “You can’t leave, Ari. We have to stay here.”
Tara put out her hand to Aeifa, but she hesitated to leave Reina. “We’ll be okay, Aeifa. We can come back afterwards.”
Aeifa didn’t hear her. “We can’t leave. This is our home.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not leaving. I’ve lived here all my life, and I’m not leaving now. If you want to go track the people down, go ahead. I’ll stay here by myself. I can survive on my own.”
“Of course you can,” Tara replied, “but....”
Aeifa waved her hand and started to walk away. “Forget it. I’m not leaving.”
Ari followed her a few steps. “Come on, Aeifa. It’s the only way. We have to stick together.”
She shrugged his hand away and crossed her arms again. Tara thought she heard a sniff.
Ari turned away. “All right. If that’s the way you want to do it....”
He rejoined the circle.
Taig frowned at him. “We can’t leave her here alone.”
Ari smiled and murmured into Taig’s ear. “You and the others go on ahead. Leave us here alone. I’ll talk to Aeifa and convince her we’re better off with the group. We’ll catch up with you later.”
Taig nodded and rounded on Allen. “So, how do we get there?”
Allen scanned the surrounding forest. “Well, I don’t exactly know. I thought....”
Taig eyes popped open. “You don’t know the way?”
“Ursidrean territory is to the north,” Tara broke in. “It’s that way.”
“All we have to do is find the border,” Allen told them. “When we explain who we are and what we’re doing, the border patrol will take us to the city. Our Alpha Donen and my uncle Menlo will know what to do to find my father.”
Taig threw up his hands. “This is a disaster in the making.”
Tara took hold of Reina’s elbow and turned her toward the north. “It’s the only way. Come on. We don’t have time to waste arguing.”
She set off through the trees, at a right angle to the path leading back to the village. Nothing remained there for her anymore. Reina followed her lead, and the boys came behind her.
She walked all day. Traveling took a lot longer walking than running. She wasn’t used to traveling so slowly. Toward noon, she stopped under a rocky overhang. A trickle of water dripped over the edge, and she cupped her hand to lift the water to her lips.
Allen and Taman collapsed on the ground in the shade and closed their eyes. Taig rolled his eyes and joined Tar
a at the spring. She collected a handful of water and helped Reina drink before she sat the girl down to rest.
She waited more than an hour for the Ursidrean boys to revive. They couldn’t waste any more time. She took Reina’s hand and led her to the path when Ari and Aeifa emerged from the trees. Ari smiled, but Aeifa wouldn’t look at any of them.
Tara breathed a sigh of relief. She would never ask Ari what he said to convince Aeifa to come with them, but she wouldn’t make it difficult. She might not want to leave her home village, but she had no one else left. Separating from her twin and her cousins and staying alone in the deserted village would be so much worse.
Tara led the party into the trees, with Reina at her side, the Ursidrean boys behind her, and Ari and Aeifa bringing up the rear. They trekked into the unknown northward, always northward, into the Ursidreans mountains.
End of Book 1
Book 2: Outliers
Chapter 1
Taig ran a strip of leather through his fingers. “We’re going hunting.”
Allen stood up from his seat on a rock. “I’m coming with you.”
Taig and Tara exchanged glances. She waved her hand. “That might not be such a good idea.”
“As you’re so fond of pointing out,” Allen replied, “Taman and I can’t survive out here alone, so it’s time we started to learn. If we got separated from the rest of you, we’d be helpless. Besides, none of us has any idea how long we’ll be stuck out here in the wilderness. We need everyone contributing. I’m coming with you.”
Tara sighed and Taig shrugged. “Fine. You can come. Just try not to get in the way.”
“Speaking of being stuck out here in the wilderness,” Reina added, “does anybody know where we are? How much farther do we have to go to get to Ursidrean territory?”
The others looked at each other, but no one answered.
“We’ve been traveling for two weeks,” Reina went on. “We should have been there by now.”
Allen surveyed the mountains to the east. “If I had to guess, I’d say we crossed into Ursidrean territory already.”
“But you said we only had to go as far as the border,” Tara pointed out. “You said the border patrol would pick us up as soon as we got there. We haven’t seen another person since we left the village.”
Rohn (Dragons of Kratak Book 1) Page 75
