Marissa looked around. “They’re hiding here somewhere.”
“What about you, Chris?” Emily asked. “Where are these twins we keep hearing about?”
“They disappear whenever we want them to make an appearance,” Chris replied. “You can’t keep them out of the forest.”
The shorter Lycaon man, Chris’s companion, pointed to the foliage where Taig and Tara hid. “They’re right over there. They’re listening to every word we say.”
The three women craned their necks to see. Chris shrugged. “Just ignore them, Turk. They’ll come out sooner or later.”
“Nonsense” The man called toward the bushes. “Come out of there and show your manners.”
“We better go,” Taig murmured. “You know how Father gets when we try to hide from him.”
Tara nodded, and the twins stood up so the whole party could see them. They came to Chris’s side, and she smiled up at them with a mother’s pride.
Emily gasped. “They must have grown as fast as my boys. They’re fully mature.”
Chris nodded. “Taig stopped growing last year. He’s taller than Caleb now. That must be my grandfather’s genes coming through.”
Turk slapped Taig on the shoulder. He leaned back to look up at his son. “He doesn’t take after his old man at all.”
Taig blushed. Tara looked the two Ursidrean boys up and down. At close range, she noticed their brows didn’t overshadow their eyes the way their father’s did, and they moved more smoothly than other Ursidreans. Their mother’s human blood dampened the brutish effect of their father’s heritage.
Tara caught Allen studying her back, and she dropped her eyes to the ground. Emily murmured in Chris’s ear, “She’s beautiful. She looks like you.”
“She’s all Lycaon,” Chris replied. “She likes nothing so better than running through the woods. That’s all she and Taig ever do.”
“It is not!” Taig argued.
Another deep voice boomed through the forest. “Where is he? Let me at him.”
The Ursidreans parted, and a huge man with a shaggy orange mane around his head shouldered his way through the crowd. He held out his arms. “There you are, Caleb. It’s been too long.”
He threw his arms around Caleb and lifted him off the ground. His laugh rolled through the treetops and up to the sky, and the others laughed with him. Caleb laughed until he coughed, and the big man set him back down on his feet.
Marissa clasped his hands. “Welcome to our village, Renier. We’ve waited a long time for this moment.”
“The honor is all mine.” Renier bowed and kissed her hands. “Any village would be a royal one with you in it.” He looked around, and when he saw the young people, he frowned. “Are these who I think they are?”
Marissa nodded. “These are Faruk and Emily’s twin boys, Allen and Taman, and these are Turk and Chris’s twins, Taig and Tara.”
A short woman with cropped black hair appeared at Renier’s side. The women embraced her. “Carmen!”
“It’s so good to see you again,” Carmen exclaimed. “You’ve all been working so hard to open up the borders, but this was our first chance to come visit. Renier has his hands full taking down the village near the Avitras border and constructing a new one deeper in our territory to take its place. It’s been non-stop work for five years straight.”
“None of this would be possible without Aimee carrying our communications back and forth,” Chris replied. “She’s the lifeblood holding this peace agreement together.”
“I wish she was here now,” Emily remarked. “She should share this moment.”
“Has anyone heard from her recently?” Turk asked. “I haven’t seen her in months.”
“She hasn’t stopped running since we sealed the peace agreement with the Avitras,” Emily replied. “She should take some time to rest with her own people.”
“Maybe that’s why we haven’t seen her,” Turk suggested. “Maybe she took some time off.”
“I wouldn’t blame her if she did,” Marissa added.
“She’s not pregnant, is she?” Chris asked.
“When would she have time to get pregnant?” Marissa asked. “We’ve seen her every couple of months since this peace process started. I think we would have noticed if she got pregnant and had a baby.”
Marissa’s hand shot out and she shouted across the village. “Stop right there!”
Two tall figures slipped behind a hut on the opposite side of the village and blended into the shadows. Marissa darted forward and dragged them into the open. “Not so fast, you!”
She hauled them back to the group. “I’m really sorry. They do this every time.”
She let go of a young Lycaon man. He brushed himself off. He stole glances at the group, but mostly he kept his eyes on the ground. He stood as tall and square-shouldered as Taig, but he had black fur instead of chestnut. “This is Ari.”
A young woman jerked her arm out of Marissa’s other hand. “Let me go!”
Marissa compressed her lips. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re going to meet these friends of ours and show their young people around our village. You’re responsible for making sure they have a good time while they’re here. Is that understood?” She faced Emily. “This is my daughter, Aeifa.”
Emily smiled at the twins. “They’re lovely. I’m sure all of you will have a good time together.”
Aeifa looked away. Chris spoke up. “Taig and Tara and Ari and Aeifa have a gang of sorts. They run off together into the forest for weeks at a time. I’m sure they would be happy to take your boys with them. Why don’t you take Allen and Taman to the swimming hole over the hill?”
Aeifa scanned the Ursidrean boys. “Can you run?”
Marissa started to say something else, but Tara interrupted. “Never mind, Aeifa we’ll show them the swimming hole. I’m sure we can find something to do while the old people talk.”
Marissa relaxed. “Good.”
Tara addressed the Ursidrean boys. “Unless I’m mistaken, they’ll be talking for weeks, so we’ll have all the time in the world to show them the best spots. Come on, Taig.”
She started to walk away when Renier spoke up. “If you young people don’t mind, I would appreciate if you took Reina along with you.”
Tara glanced back over her shoulder just in time to see a small slight girl step through the crowd. She stopped next to Carmen, and no one could mistake the resemblance. Short hair surrounded her face, but her human inheritance made her features tiny and delicate. Taig, Ari, and both Ursidrean boys stared at her. She had her mother’s black hair instead of her father’s red hair, and her quick black eyes took in every detail of her surroundings.
Chris gasped. “Is this your baby daughter, your little baby who slept in the basket while we negotiated with the Avitras?”
Carmen and Renier gazed on the girl in rapture. “This is Reina.”
Chris took the girl by the hand. “Welcome to our village. Don’t feel any pressure to run off with these rough kids. You’re welcome to stay with us.”
Reina smiled. “That’s okay. I’ll go. I want to see everything.”
Renier laughed. “She’s tougher than she looks, and game for anything. She’s been looking forward to this for ages.”
Tara exchanged glances with Aeifa, and Aeifa pursed her lips and turned away. Tara sighed. None of the others would take the responsibility of making this expedition a success. She would have to do it herself. “Come on, Reina.” She swept the others with her eyes. “Anybody that’s coming, come on. Let’s go.”
She and Taig set off through the trees, but they didn’t take off running the way they always did with Ari and Aeifa. They walked slowly enough for the Ursidreans to keep up. Aeifa walked at Tara’s side and muttered in her ear. “Why did we have to bring them?”
“You heard your mother,” Tara murmured back. “These are honored guests. Their parents came all this way to negotiate the p
eace agreement. If we can help by keeping these kids amused, we should do it.”
Aeifa glanced back over her shoulders at the Ursidrean boys. Taman eyed her back. “They’re hardly kids, are they? They’re bigger than we are.”
Tara chuckled. “I meant Reina. She looks like she’d break in half if you sneezed at her.”
Reina trailed behind the group. She gazed up at the treetops and kicked dead leaves out of her way. She took barely any notice of the others. “What do you think she’s thinking about back there?” Aeifa asked.
Tara shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe she’s got a sweetheart back in Felsite territory. Maybe she told her father the story he wanted to hear about how excited she was to come out here and see Lycaon territory when she really wanted to stay home with her sweetheart.”
“Not likely,” Aeifa countered. “Did you see the way she looked at Taman? She doesn’t have any sweetheart back in Felsite territory, at least not one she’s dreaming about.”
“At least she didn’t look at Taig that way,” Tara remarked. “That would give me a stomach ache I’d never get rid of.”
Aeifa laughed. Taig and Ari walked behind them and talked in low tones, no doubt discussing the new arrivals, too. The Ursidrean boys came behind them, shoulder to shoulder. They didn’t talk, but inspected the surroundings with direct and curious intensity. When Tara looked back, she found Allen staring at her with a fixed expression on his face. She turned around and didn’t look back again.
“What about those boys?” she whispered to Aeifa.
“Not much,” Aeifa snapped. “They’re so coarse and thick-headed.”
Tara couldn’t help laughing. “They aren’t as thick-headed as their father. They take after their mother.”
“You can have them both, then,” Aeifa replied. “I wouldn’t touch either of them with a ten foot pole.”
Just then, they emerged from the deep dark forest onto a sunny ridge. A sheer chasm plummeted from their feet to a pitch black canyon below. Reina gasped at the breathtaking view spreading away into the hazy horizon, and the Ursidrean twins craned their necks to look over the edge. A faint music of running water tinkled up from the canyon floor, out of sight in the shadows. “What is this place?”
“This is the swimming hole,” Tara told them.
Taman started back from the precipice. “This? How can you go swimming here? There’s nothing here.”
Ari chuckled. He walked back to the last trees at the edge of the forest and, with a wild whoop and a shriek of laughter, he charged toward the cliff edge. He threw his arms and legs out in every direction and plummeted over the side.
Reina screamed and shrank back. Allen stretched out his hand, but it closed on empty air where Ari used to be. The group stood in silent awe and horror. Tara and Aeifa gazed down into the chasm until a distant splash of water touched their ears. Tara grinned at her guests. “See? The swimming hole is down there.”
The two boys stared at her. “You don’t jump off here to go swimming. You can’t.”
“We do it all the time.” Tara turned away. “But you don’t have to. Follow me. I’ll show you the other way down.”
They followed her along the cliff edge, but Aeifa hung back. She tossed her head at the boys. “I’m going down this way, too.”
Tara put out her hand. “Come on, Aeifa. You’ll frighten them.”
Aeifa shot the boys a savage glare. She ran her eyes down to their feet and back up. “They look to me like they need a little frightening. They’ve been holed up in their safe little city too long. If they want to walk down the path like babies, let them, but I won’t.”
She tossed her head with an indignant snort and walked back to the edge of the trees. Then she charged the cliff edge and hurtled off into nothing. The group watched her fall, and a moment later, another splash echoed off the canyon walls.
Taig sighed. “Well, come on, if you’re coming.”
He and Tara led the boys away from the cliff. They almost passed between the trees when Tara noticed Reina still standing at the precipice, gazing down into the dark. Tara went back to her side. “Are you coming, Reina?”
The girl didn’t answer.
“It’s all right,” Tara told her. “They’re down there swimming right now. Come with me and I’ll take you down the safe way.”
Reina let out a long sigh, but she didn’t move.
Tara waited, but when Reina didn’t answer, she laid her hand on Reina’s arm. “I know it’s frightening when you see it the first time, but we’ve been doing it all our lives. They shouldn’t have scared you like that, but it’s all right.”
Reina leaned back with another heavy sigh. “I wish I could do it.”
Tara stared at her. “You do?”
Reina nodded, but she didn’t take her eyes off the distant dark far below. “It must be wonderful to live out here.”
“It must be wonderful to live where you are, too,” Tara ventured.
Reina shook her head. “It’s not the same. We live in cities. We know where to find all the food plants. Nothing challenges us. It’s such a tame life.”
Tara blinked at her. “I thought you would want it tame.”
Reina turned away from the cliff. “I’m tame because I live in a tame little world where everything is provided for me. I don’t have to struggle for anything. I wish I did. I hate being so tame all the time.”
Tara brightened up. “Well, if that’s the way you feel.....”
Reina fixed her with glittering eyes. “Could you teach me how to jump from that cliff? Could you show me how to land in the water the way they did?”
Tara hesitated. “I don’t know if your father would want me to do that.”
“He would never have to know,” Reina told her. “Show me how to do it.”
Tara looked around. Taig and the others were nowhere in sight. “Well, all you do is go back there by that tree and run. That’s all there is to it.”
Reina studied the terrain. “How do you know where to land? How do you know if you’ll hit the water?”
“You just run,” Tara told her. “If you run from there and jump off where Aria and Aeifa jumped, you’ll hit the water. You can’t miss it. The pool is enormous, and you’ll fall straight down into it. You just have to make sure you run as hard and fast as you can so you get far enough out from the cliff.”
A shadow crossed Reina’s face. “Hmm.”
“Would you like me to show you?” Tara asked. “We could run together, and I’ll hold your hand. Just don’t lose your nerve and quit at the last minute or we could crash on the rocks.”
Reina drew back. “Well, maybe next time.”
Tara smiled. The weight of responsibility lifted off her shoulders. “Everybody has a first time. Think about it. Maybe we can do it tomorrow or the next day. You’ll be here a week. We can come back another time.”
Reina smiled in relief, too. “Okay.”
The two girls started through the trees after the boys. After a moment, Reina murmured. “Thanks.”
Chapter 2
They followed the path along the cliff edge, into the trees where it dropped downhill. The sound of rushing water grew stronger until they found the river rushing over stones at the bottom of the canyon, through large pools and over waterfalls.
Reina gasped at the scenery. “The river’s so big! It sounded so small from up there.”
Tara pointed. “Look how high we were. We’re a long way down.”
Reina arched her neck to look at the cliff towering overhead. “And you jump from there? You’re crazy.”
Tara shrugged. “We’re used to it. That’s all. We’re used to running a lot, too.”
“You’re born to it,” Reina countered. “Our people don’t run everywhere, and we don’t jump from cliffs like that to go swimming. We live on flat land.”
“Every faction is different, I guess,” Tara remarked.
Reina gazed at the river
. “It’s so wild and free and beautiful. I never imagined anything like it before.”
“What’s your territory like?” Tara asked. “I’ve never been outside ours.”
“I guess that’s the whole point of the peace agreement,” Reina told her. “Soon we’ll all be able to travel and see all the parts of our world.”
“That would be nice,” Tara agreed. “I’d like to visit the other factions and see how they live.”
Reina made a face. “You wouldn’t like our territory. It’s flat and boring compared to yours.”
Tara cocked her head. “How can you think your own territory is boring? It’s your home.”
“My mother says I’m a throwback,” Reina replied.
“A throwback?” Tara repeated. “What’s a throwback?”
“She says I must have inherited a longing for something different from her side of the family,” Reina explained. “She says I inherited a connection with Earth from her.”
Tara frowned. “I guess that makes sense.”
“She says I’m not like any Felsite,” Reina went on, “and I’m not like an Earthling, either. I’m somewhere in between.”
“That must be hard,” Tara exclaimed. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Why should you be sorry?” Reina asked. “You didn’t do it. Besides, my mother says once I grow up a little, I’ll be able to find the place that suits me. She says if I don’t want to stay in Felsite territory, I don’t have to. She says everyone goes through a process of growing up where they have to find the place and the work and the people that make them feel at home. She says everybody goes through it.”
Tara stared at her. “Really?”
Reina burst out laughing. “She drives my father crazy when she talks like that. He gets mad and says she putting ideas into my head. He says I would be content to stay with my family if she wouldn’t fill my head with nonsense.”
“I guess I can see both sides of it,” Tara replied.
“What about you?” Reina asked.
“What about me?” Tara asked.
“Do you dream of a world outside your own territory?” Reina asked.
Optorio Civil War Complete Series Box Set (Books 1 - 6): A Sci-fi Alien Warrior Invasion Abduction Romance (Optorio Chronicles Book 2) Page 85
