Cal said, “What? What’d he say? I heard my name. What did he say?”
“I refuse to repeat that,” I said through my chuckling at Orrean.
“Come on! Tell me.” Cal looked legitimately upset.
I looked at Orrean and said, “You tell him.”
“Nope,” he said with a smile, “we need to know if you’re interpreting everything properly.”
I scowled at him. “Jerkface.”
“Not what I said.”
I smacked his chest again, but couldn’t help the smile from forming, then I shook my head at him before turning to Cal and saying, “He said, ‘dirt smudge on his face, Cal has.’” Then I looked at Orrean. “That’s good enough, right?”
“Nope,” this time Orrean popped his ‘p’ eliciting a glare from me.
I huffed out a breath, then mumbled, “Even so, he is still sexy.”
Cal’s previous scowl turned into a huge grin aimed at me. “So you think I’m sexy, huh?” He took a step toward me.
“No, no way,” I said, holding my hands up and backing away from him. “I didn’t say it, he,” I pointed at Orrean, “did. Blame him, not me.”
Cal kept walking toward me with a devious little grin. Suddenly he pounced, grabbing me in a hug and rocking me in his arms saying, “Oh, J, don’t deny it. You know you want me.”
“Get off me, asshole, or I’ll kick your ass,” I laughed out as I tried to disentangle myself from his arms without hurting him.
Cal surprised me by grabbing my head and placing a big wet kiss on my cheek. I heard that strange hissing-growl sound again that I hadn’t heard in a few weeks, but I didn’t know where it was coming from. Before I could contemplate that strange noise, Cal pushed away from me, laughing.
I wiped his spit off of me with my glove. “Ew, fuck, you’re disgusting.”
He walked back to the others, flipping me off on his way.
I walked back over to Orrean, who looked a little uncomfortable and pointed at him. “That was all your fault.” Then I looked at Cal. “You should’ve planted a big one on him,” I pointed at Orrean with my thumb and noticed him smile when Cal flipped both of us off. For some strange reason, I walked over and grabbed Orrean’s gloved hand in my own and said, “Say something else. I want the others to try, too.”
He squeezed my hand. “Okay.”
I looked past him. “Nolan, you’re next. Give it a try.”
Nolan was unable to understand anything Orrean said in Taoree. Wesley and Mandy both tried, but neither of them could understand anything, either. Even after the others tried several times, I still walked next to Orrean and continued my research. Well, that was what I called it, but really, I just thought it was really awesome. And bonus, Orrean and I made a game out of making the others—Cal especially—annoyed with us by making them think we were talking about them. I started to wish that I could respond in Taoree, but thus far, it hadn’t worked. Maybe when we get to a safe place, Orrean can teach me a few words. Then I could really drive Cal crazy.
***
Nothing too eventful happened for another couple of days. We’d had a long day of Feral fighting, so I was hopeful that we would be able to make camp and get some sleep since it was almost dark, so I suggested, “You guys wanna just stop here to eat?” I was surprised by my hunger.
“Uh…” Cal looked around at the rock cliffs above us and the mostly dead grass all around us. “I guess this is as good a place as any.”
“Guys,” Wes sounded nervous, so I turned around to face him. “I have a bad feeling about this place.”
I stepped closer to my brother, at once worried and curious. “What is it?”
He looked around us and I could clearly see the concern on his face. He whispered, “I don’t know.”
I looked over my shoulder at the others and stated, “We should keep going.” I had learned not to question my instincts when it came to shit like this, so I could only assume that Wes was the same way. We had to at least take it into consideration.
I saw Nolan and Cal exchange a look before turning back to my brother and me. Cal spoke up, “Yeah, we should keep going.”
I looked past them to Orrean, who wasn’t even looking at us. He was scanning the hills and rocks and sweeping his gaze in a circle around us. My stomach clenched as I realized he must have had the same bad feeling as Wes.
“Orrean,” I whispered, sounding desperate to my own ears. I didn’t even have to ask. I knew he’d understand that I wanted to know what it was he saw, heard, or sensed. It had become clear over the past month that Orrean’s senses were a lot stronger than any human’s.
Orrean caught my gaze with wide eyes. “They’ve surrounded us.”
I felt bile fill my throat. I didn’t know if he meant Taoree or Ferals, but from the look on his face, it didn’t seem to matter. It was crystal clear that we were royally fucked.
“How many?” Nolan hissed at him.
“Twenty,” Orrean whispered, “maybe twenty-five.”
I heard the distinct sound of a shotgun being cocked right before a gruff voice yelled, “Put yer hands up or we shoot first, ask questions later.”
I didn’t hesitate to listen, and one glance at my companions proved that they didn’t, either. Nolan had to lower Mandy to the ground to comply, but even the little curly-headed ten-year-old had her hands up.
“What is yer business here?” the same gruff voice asked. I could tell that it was coming from the left, so I angled my body a little that way and squinted my eyes to try and see who it was, but all I could see in the darkening shadows was a rocky hill.
Cal answered before I could, “We’re just passing through. We don’t want any trouble.”
“Where’re ya headed?” Gruff Voice yelled.
“We have family in Kansas,” Cal said readily. I’ll never understand how that boy can lie so easily. I glanced past Cal to see that Orrean had his head down, trying to hide his face and make himself look smaller. It wouldn’t do us any good if they noticed a Taoree traveling with us.
“You’re a far ways away from there, boy,” Gruff Voice said menacingly.
I cringed, but kept my mouth shut.
Cal said, “Well, we gotta try now, don’t we?”
No one answered for a long, tense moment, but then there was movement, and a man came out from behind a giant boulder with his shotgun aimed right at Cal and an angry scowl on his face. “Where are ya really going?”
Cal feigned innocence. “I told you, we’re going to Kansas.”
“Ya don’t sound like yer from Kansas. Where exactly in Kansas are ya goin’?” The angry scowl hadn’t left the man’s face.
I was worried about Cal answering that, since he and I never bothered to look at the map, but luckily Nolan was on top of it and answered for him, “We’re heading to Sylvan Grove.”
The man turned his ugly mug to Nolan and sneered, but didn’t say anything.
“Look, sir,” Cal spoke up again, “we just want to pass through. We don’t want anything and we certainly don’t want any trouble, so if you don’t mind, we’ll just be on our way now.”
“Don’t ya fucking move,” Gruff yelled loudly when Cal took a step. We heard multiple guns being cocked, and Cal stood still again.
“Cal,” I heard Orrean whisper.
“Sir, we would like to go to our families now. Please,” Cal insisted.
“Cal,” Orrean whispered again, more urgently this time. I looked over at the alien because I could suddenly feel his rising panic, which of course put my pulse beating at an uncontrollable level.
“You ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Gruff sneered, but I wasn’t looking at him. Orrean had looked sideways at me and I could see his terrified face. Even if I didn’t understand what had him freaked, I knew enough to be terrified myself.
“Calloway,” Orrean said a little louder, interrupting whatever response he had been saying back to Gruff.
Cal finally looked at Orrean and whisper-yelled while gesturing to
Gruff, “What?”
“Ships,” Orrean whispered back, making all of us freeze.
My building terror turned to outright panic at the single word. Oh god, oh god, oh god.
“We need to run,” I told Gruff.
Gruff actually laughed at me and turned his gun to aim it at my chest. “Like I told yer friend. You ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
Now my panic turned to anger. This fucker had no clue what was heading our way and I’d be damned if I was going to let him stop my family from escaping a freaking alien ship.
I yelled, “Taoree ships are heading this way. They. Will. Kill. Us. All.”
Gruff stared for a second, but at least he stopped laughing. He opened his mouth, but abruptly the hum of a spaceship cut through the air and Gruff’s face turned pale. He turned on his heel and jumped off the boulder. Suddenly, there were people running everywhere, oblivious to our presence.
I turned to my brother and grabbed his shoulder to push him forward. By the time we took the three steps to the others, they were all running, too. We ran along the path through the tall boulders on either side of us. Strangers were in front of and behind us, but no one seemed to care about us anymore, so we ignored them as well.
The humming was getting louder and louder, then almost unexpectedly the whole area was filled with a strong wind, nearly strong enough to blow me back a little. I caught my breath as the wind blew around me. Then, to my utmost horror, the ship came up over the trees in front of us and started moving slowly in our direction, almost like it was taunting us.
Before we could do anything, the ship zoomed forward a few hundred feet in the blink of an eye, and two giant claw-like hooks lowered from the front end of it. The people in front of us were turning back toward us in fright and trying to run away from the monstrosity. They didn’t get far.
The two claws reached out and plucked a man out of the crowd, lifted him in the air and ripped him right in half, making blood rain down on the others. The sounds that came from that poor man were something I wished I could forget, but knew I never would.
“Oh. Fuck!” I heard Cal shout.
I stopped in my tracks, but didn’t know where to go. The thing obviously saw us already, so there was no way we could outrun it. The claws grabbed someone else, but I turned away before I had to see it again. I couldn’t hide from the sound, though.
Luckily Orrean seemed to know what he was doing, because he ran over against a boulder and shouted, “Everyone grab on!”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what he was going to do, so I ran right over to him, pulling Wes along, and both of us grabbed Orrean’s shoulder. Once Nolan, Cal, and Mandy joined us, we tried to get the others running past us to join us too, but they refused. Cal and Nolan each grabbed a woman and a man’s hands, and as soon as they shoved their palms onto Orrean’s wrist, Orrean released the white dome.
Both the man and the woman were crying, but I didn’t have time to worry about them. Nolan and Cal were helping them out, anyway.
I instinctively knew it was going to be more difficult to keep this dome up, to keep the Taoree from seeing us since they had eyes on us only seconds before he released the dome, especially now that we had extra people in here, too. Not to mention that Orrean had to still be tired from doing the dome just a few days ago. I slid my hand up Orrean’s arm, around to the back of his neck and rubbed my hand over his pale skin. I could already see the strain on his face.
I ran my hand up a little to the back of his head and saw him shiver. I chose to ignore the strange reaction and just pushed his head down until his forehead rested on my shoulder. I absently rubbed his hair and upper back. I hardly noticed that his hair was much thicker and stronger than human hair. Instead, I just chose to ignore that as well.
When a huge amount of Taoree ground troops started patrolling the area, I felt Orrean fall into me even more. I looked around at the—I estimated—fifty Taoree and knew there was no way he was going to be able to hold it until they were all gone.
I tilted his head and leaned down so I could speak into his ear, “Let me help. Send it through me, too. It’ll be stronger with both of us.” I somehow knew it to be true and I was way past asking about all the weird, so I just went with it.
Orrean tilted his head back to look into my eyes. “You sure?”
“Yes,” the word had barely passed my lips when I felt the pain rip through me.
I closed my eyes as I felt the light expand out of my chest, and my breath hitched. I felt a steady buzz of energy pouring from Orrean, into me, and back out again. Once my body adjusted to the horrible sensation, I was able to open my eyes back up. I looked into Orrean’s dark purple ones as my panting became less aggressive. Besides the pain-wrenching energy passing through us both, I could also feel that warmth underneath, so I concentrated on that and soon the pain was secondary to everything else.
I blinked at Orrean when I felt the warmth coming from him, also. That warmth that I’ve been in denial about this whole fucking time. The warmth that I didn’t want to admit belonged to Orrean, even though it was somewhere inside of me. Well, now it was pretty damn obvious and there was no fucking way I could deny it anymore, either. Fuck.
Orrean slowly lowered his head back down to my shoulder and I did the same to him. When my forehead was resting against him, I was surrounded with his cinnamon scent. It helped calm my frazzled nerves. I was only vaguely aware that something was wrapping its way around my neck and rubbing the muscles there.
My one hand was still on the back of Orrean’s neck and I was content to keep it there. I fisted my other hand in Orrean’s jacket. Holding him tightly seemed to help keep me centered. I concentrated on that warm feeling in my core and took deep, slow breaths. The pain wasn’t as great as the first time I’d done this, but it was still there, digging into my stomach.
Orrean and I held the white dome for over two hours. It had taken nearly an hour for all the Taoree to leave the area, and then we had to wait until they were far enough away before we could release the energy. When we finally did, we collapsed in a heap against one another.
Orrean was the first to gain the ability to talk. “We need to get away from here.”
All I could do was nod in agreement. I knew we needed to get away, I just couldn’t bring myself to get up onto my feet.
I heard Cal and Nolan trying to convince the two strangers we had saved to come with us to the Independent camp, but it didn’t sound as if it was going very well. The strangers were scared of me and Orrean. I couldn’t really say I’d feel any differently in their shoes, but still, I didn’t want them going off by themselves and getting themselves killed, either.
Orrean lifted his head and through his deep breathing said, “We need to move.” I didn’t say anything even though I agreed, because I noticed Orrean’s long black braid falling off my shoulders. Somehow it must’ve wrapped around my neck while we were holding the dome steady. That wasn’t what was rubbing my neck, was it?
Nolan answered, “We know, Orr. We’ll get you guys up in a minute.”
“No,” Orrean’s voice sounded hoarse, “We need to move now.”
“Yeah, okay,” Nolan said quietly.
I felt hands under my arms a second later, then Wes’s voice was close to my ear, “Do you think you can walk if I help you?”
I finally found my voice and whispered, “I don’t know.”
Wes made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat as he lifted me to my feet. Once standing, he threw my arm over his shoulders and held me against his side. It was a wobbly start, but with Wes holding most of my weight, we slowly made our way down the path. Nolan was helping Orrean, and Cal had Mandy and everyone’s bags. The two strangers ran the other way. Idiots.
As Wes helped me along, I couldn’t help but think about the last time I was in this position. The last time, Colt had carried me on his back for hours, and when he couldn’t go any farther, he held me against his chest. I had to swallow hard around t
he lump in my throat.
We only moved a little over a mile away, but we found a cave that was wide enough for all of us to lie in a row. Wes set up my sleeping bag while I leaned against the side of the cave. Once it was set up, Wes helped me slip inside. I was asleep before he even settled into his sleeping bag next to me.
Chapter Seventeen
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Orrean replied from his seated position against the tree. “What’s wrong, emm Balu?”
I felt tears build in my eyes and I whispered, “I miss him.”
Orrean held out his arm to me and I practically fell into him. He pulled me against him as I sobbed into his chest. His hands ran over my back and hair. It was comforting, but I needed more, so I climbed into his lap, buried my face in his neck and wrapped my arms around his waist. He rested his chin on top of my head and held me tight while rocking me and continuing his back rub. I was glad he wasn’t telling me it would be okay. I didn’t need to hear any false reassurances in that moment. I just needed to be held.
I slowly blinked myself awake, trying to figure out my surroundings. I was completely covered head to toe in my sleeping bag, so I couldn’t see where we were, but I could tell I was lying against something—leaning my back against something large. I lifted my head a little and started to slowly peel the sleeping bag down so I could look around and see what I was up against. I couldn’t remember leaning against anything last night when I went to sleep, but maybe I rolled into something.
When I brought the blanket down far enough to peek out—and let in the cold, freezing air—I shivered as I remembered that we were in the middle of a cave, so there was no way I had rolled into a tree or something, but maybe it was the wall of the cave, though I remember being far from the side. Then the thing behind me moved, and I froze with wide eyes. The thing groaned quietly, making my eyes widen even further.
“I know you’re awake,” Orrean whispered from behind me.
I closed my eyes, annoyed that I couldn’t pretend I was still sleeping and let the awkwardness of the moment pass without acknowledging it. Still, I didn’t say anything. What the hell was I supposed to say? I could see how far away Wes was from me; Wes, who I had been lying next to last night; Wes, who I clearly rolled at least five feet away from to end up here. Yeah, what the fuck do I say about that?
Taoree: Taoree Trilogy #1 Page 26
