by S. E. Smith
He saw a dark opening where the tree had split at one time and grown back together. He pulled his body through the narrow opening. His hand brushed aside a curtain of moss when he turned around in the surprisingly spacious interior. The curtain fell across the opening.
Little protection it will be against that thing, he silently thought.
He pulled out his laser pistol and waited. The seconds crawled by. Sweat beaded on his brow despite the chill in the air. His eyes narrowed when he saw one of the legs of the creature through the thin curtain concealing him.
He remained still, his breathing shallow. The head of the creature appeared on the other side of the curtain. The creature suddenly hissed and disappeared. The tree shook as it retreated and a moment later he heard the sound of it crashing through the brush below.
Curious, he peered through the opening before he cautiously pulled the curtain of moss aside and looked down. He could see the creature moving rapidly away from the tree. Dropping the curtain, he pulled a light from his pocket and turned it on.
The interior was filled with the moss. It wasn’t growing on the bark. Someone had placed the moss inside. He shone the light on the curtain. Aiming the light at the top, he could see that it had been draped over a piece of vine and tucked into the wood. His fingers curled in the thick pallet of moss and he pulled up some to sniff it. There was a sweet, minty scent to it.
Dropping the moss, he slowly scanned the interior. His hand froze when he saw a familiar bundle. He crawled over to the bundle and picked it up. It was identical to the one he had been left earlier. Untying the package, he saw that it was filled with fruit, nuts, and dried meat. He replaced it on the moss floor, and picked up one of the dark green round nuts next to it. It was the size of his palm, and surprisingly heavy. He shook it. The sound of liquid made his dry mouth water. He pulled his blade, and dug a hole in the nut. Lifting it to his mouth, he moaned in pleasure when the sweet, nutty water poured into his mouth.
He slowly lowered the nut and placed it next to the meal that had been left for him. Scooting back until he could lean against the interior of the trunk, he stared out of the opening. This entire situation perplexed him. He had an unknown thief who took a part that didn’t work, left him a trail to follow, food to eat, and relief and protection from the forest.
“Where are you leading me—and why? You could have killed me a dozen times over, or at least left me to die. What is it that you want?” he murmured.
He leaned his head back and picked up the leaf filled with food. His mind played back each of the events that had happened since he left the military base two days ago. He still had to figure out who had sabotaged his ship.
“On one hand, I have someone trying to kill me, and on the other, someone who clearly doesn’t want me dead, at least not right now, but I have no idea what they want. I’m not sure which one I prefer,” he tiredly groused.
He finished his meal, then unwound the bandage from his arm. Using some of the precious water in the nut, he cleaned the wound as best he could before he tore another piece from his shirt and reapplied the bandage.
He regretted that he hadn’t taken the time to bring any supplies with him. It would have been nice to have a medical kit. At the moment, the only items he had were his pistol, his blade, the light that he had placed in his pocket while he had been working on his ship last night, and a handful of screws and nuts.
He leaned his head back, thinking that he wasn’t normally so irrational. He fingered the green water nut.
“Tomorrow…. I will find you tomorrow and when I do, we are going to have a very long talk,” he mused, lifting the nut to his lips and taking a drink.
Chapter Nine
Early the next morning, Madas jerked awake. She sat up and drew in gulping breaths of air. Her wild-eyed gaze scanned the narrow alcove in the rock where she and L’eon had made camp. L’eon was gone, but that was not what had awakened her in a panic.
She lifted a hand to her cheek and was surprised when she felt dampness. Looking down at her fingers, she could see the shiny residue of tears against her green fingers. She rose to her feet and brushed the dirt off of her pants, holding onto the edge of the rock as she looked out over the forest.
Drawing in a shaky breath, she tried to calm the frantic beat of her heart. While she often dreamed, there were times when her dreams were… different. Her maternal grandmother had said that she was gifted by the Goddess to see things others could not. Her mother said she was crazy.
All Madas knew was that when she had dreams like this—they came true. Some of her dreams were good. They had shown her how to use certain herbs to heal, shown her where to find a missing child, and warned her of impending danger. But, there were times when the dreams had been bad. She had dreamed of the deaths of her grandmother and father; and had been unable to prevent them.
This morning she had dreamed of a cloaked figure emerging from the fog behind the pale Tearnat. She could not see the face of the attacker, only the long, curved blade—and she was trapped, unable to help him. Her cry of warning had come too late and she had watched him fall forward and disappear into a bright, white mist.
She jumped when L’eon suddenly appeared. He tugged on her pant leg and looked at her with an expression of concern. She sniffed and shook her head.
“I’m alright. I just had a bad dream,” she said.
He held up a pretty multicolored rock. She smiled and squatted in front of him. She took the rock he offered and shook her head.
“We are going to be seeing a lot of pretty rocks. I hope you don’t want to collect all of them or the pale Tearnat will definitely be able to catch up with us,” she teased.
L’eon took the rock from her and crossed to her satchel where it lay near the wall of the alcove. He opened the front pocket and put the rock inside before resealing it. She rose to her feet and waved a finger at him.
“I mean it. Don’t go filling up my bag with your pebbles. I need to refresh myself. You keep a lookout and let me know if you see the male. I didn’t hear any screaming last night, so I’m going to hope he wasn’t eaten,” she half-heartedly joked.
L’eon hurried past her and peered out over the forest. Madas stepped around him and climbed up to the flat section between the rocks. There was a natural basin of water a short distance away. She paused and turned with a frown when she felt a strange sensation. It was too early for the male to have travelled so far. He would have had trouble following the trail she had left, not to mention avoiding the night crawlers that would have still been out.
She brushed back her long locks with her hand. Deciding she must still be suffering the effects of her dream, she turned and finished climbing to the path. Today would be challenging. There were fewer places to hide and she would have to be vigilant of the weather. A sudden storm could bring a deadly flash flood.
“Once he is on the other side of the ravine, he will be safe,” she whispered.
Gril watched from the edge of the forest as the slender figure of the female disappeared among the rocks. A satisfied smile curved his lips. He had awoken several hours before feeling restless and had made the decision that if he wanted to catch his antagonist, he needed to be one step ahead.
His journey had been easier than he had expected. He had wrapped the moss around his shoulders like a cape and it had kept the six-legged creatures away from him. There had been fleeting glimpses of other creatures like the one he had killed, but a strange, small glow had appeared between the creatures and himself and they fled.
He had noticed that his antagonist had been leading him steadily north and had used the compass on his tracking device to guide him. As dawn approached, he had been able to move at a quicker pace—and caught up with his surprisingly provocative thief and her little sidekick.
What he had not expected was his intense first reaction when he saw the female. He had been scanning the rocks when he caught sight of L’eon climbing them. A short time later, the female had emerged.
He had been stunned, but more importantly, he had also been intrigued… sexually intrigued. The woman was an exotic beauty with her varying shades of green and touches of red and tan. Her bone structure was more delicate than the females he knew and she was tall with long legs.
“This explains how she moved so quickly,” he chuckled.
He frowned when he saw her lift a hand to her cheek. She looked down at it. While he was too far away to see her clearly, he sensed that something troubled her.
“Perhaps a guilty conscience?” he speculated before a flash of uncertainty swept through him.
Technically, she wasn’t the one who had stolen the part to his fighter, L’eon was. There was no evidence that the little lizard had given her the part. For all that he knew, L’eon could have buried the box in the sand!
“Still, why lead me on this chase?” he wondered.
He watched her tell L’eon something, and then she turned—and that was when he felt the full force of his attraction like a hard kick in his gut. As shallow as it might seem, he was a tail guy. He loved a female with a long tail, and this female had one that made his mouth water.
He flushed when he felt his cock grow hard as she swished it back and forth. His tail lifted and swung around as if reaching for her. He slapped the end of his tail, pushing it back down behind him.
“Sweet Goddess alive,” he muttered when she bent over and started to climb.
He curled his fingers into twin fists. His first impulse was to go after her, capture her, and claim her. His second one was to slap himself upside the head for even thinking such a thought. That was no way to treat a female.
The sight of the female returning to her camp pushed him into action. She turned at the same time as he emerged from the forest. Her eyes widened in shock before he saw the fleeting expression of panic cross her face.
A moment later he lost sight of her as he neared the cliff. He jumped and landed on a large boulder. His gaze swept the pile of boulders that had fallen over the millennia, then he began scaling them with one goal in mind—catching the female who had eluded him.
Chapter Ten
“L’eon, hurry!” Madas hissed.
She hurried into the recess that she had used as a shelter and grabbed her satchel and spear. Draping the leather strap over her head, she turned on her heel. L’eon was standing on the edge, looking down.
Madas spared him only a brief glance. The pale Tearnat was proving to be a good climber. In irritation, she kicked a small pile of rocks off the cliff.
A grim smile curved her lips when she heard his curses. Not waiting to see what he did next, she bent and swung L’eon up onto her shoulder. Seconds later, she was retracing her climb up to the washed out sections above.
Madas ran for several hundred yards before she began using the rocks as stepping stones to hide her tracks. She retraced her steps to the section where the rocks forked. The trail she had laid when she saw him at the edge of the forest led to a sheer wall worn smooth from the frequent rains that cascaded over the lip at the top. He would find no purchase for a climb there. The other path was a maze that would eventually lead him up to the top of the plateau and to the ravine.
“Hold on,” she warned as she rocked back and forth before jumping over ten feet to reach a boulder positioned at the beginning of the maze.
She landed on the boulder, reaching up as she started into a controlled roll and snatching L’eon protectively in her arms, before rising in one fluid motion back to her feet. L’eon jumped from her arm back onto her shoulder and held onto her long, green hair as she climbed over another boulder and crouched down.
Madas held her breath. She barely heard the sound of the male’s footsteps as he followed the tracks she had made in the soft sand that coated this plateau. He came into view around the curve in the path. She remained low, watching as he drew closer.
This was her first, really close look at him. He was broader than she’d realized, and being this close to him confirmed what she had thought before—he was not as pale as she expected a Sand Tearnat to be. She frowned when she saw that his left arm was wrapped in a bloodstained piece of cloth, and his shirt had ripped, jagged edges.
Guilt swept through her. It was her fault that he had been hurt. He would have been safe on the beach near the meadow. The night crawlers and hairless beasts did not like being out in the open.
Her eyes followed him when he passed her. She bit her lip appreciatively when she saw his tail swaying back and forth as he ran. She started and blinked when L’eon’s face suddenly blocked her view. The damn lizard had a knowing grin on his face.
“You are too smart for your own good,” she admonished in a very low whisper.
Nodding her head toward her shoulder, she crept from her hiding place and continued to work her way farther into the rocky maze until she could jump down and run as fast as she could. In the back of her mind, she tried to calculate how long it would take him to reach the end and realize that he had been tricked. It wouldn’t be much of a head start, but her knowledge of the area gave her an advantage.
Jumping up onto the rocks again, she crossed three different sections in the Goddess’s Stronghold, doubling back on the ground each time to create a maze of false and confusing trails. He would spend hours trying to figure out which path she had taken. Two of the three looped around in a circle. Only one would take him higher. The problem for him would be deciding which one to follow. The one that led higher was deceiving, so he wasn’t likely to guess right anytime soon.
She and L’eon climbed over the rock and worked their way down through a tight slit between two rocks to the opening of the third path. It was more of a fissure between two rocks than an entrance.
The way she had entered from the top had been even narrower. The walls rose up on each side barely wide enough for her to walk straight through the narrow passage. Large sections of boulders had tumbled down from above and created a ceiling for nearly three hundred feet before the corridor opened wide again.
A shiver ran down Madas’s spine. This was the most potentially deadly section of the entire trail up to the plateau for one reason—if there was a flash flood, there would be no escape for anyone trapped in the narrow gap. The force of the water would sweep anyone inside toward the opening. Unfortunately, with the opening so narrow, anyone caught in a flood would more than likely be killed either from being wedged or from being torn apart by the wall of rushing water.
The image of that possibility always propelled her through the ravine as fast as she could go and today was no exception. The pale Tearnat would have to suck his gut in more than a little. The thought that he might have to strip down and put on a little oil to help him slide through the narrower sections made her grin and blush at the same time. The visual of his naked body was permanently burned into her brain.
For the next hour, she carefully proceeded through the rocks, doubling back and laying false tracks at times in the hopes of slowing him down without hindering her own progress too much. The muted sounds of curses filtered upward once, causing her to freeze before she remembered how sound carried along the mountain.
L’eon stopped and looked at her, his gleeful grin indicating that he was enjoying this as much as she was. She slowed her pace a little to conserve her energy. The last couple of days had been tiring. Madas had covered a lot of distance while getting little rest.
She finally paused in a shaded area when she reached another section that would require a fair amount of climbing. Her heart melted when L’eon tiredly climbed up onto a large flat rock and laid down. His little tongue was hanging out of the side of his mouth and he was breathing heavily.
Madas sat down beside him, propped her spear against the rock wall, and pulled her satchel around. She opened it and pulled out one of the green water nuts and a pouch of fruits and nuts. Reaching up under her sleeve, she pulled out one of the sharp blades sheathed in a leather band around her forearm and skillfully cut off the top so th
at L’eon could easily drink from it. She did the same for herself.
They both drank deeply before wiping a hand—or in L’eon’s case, a front foot—across their mouths. Madas reached down and ran an affectionate hand over L’eon’s head. He leaned into her hand before falling over. She gently eased him down onto the rock.
“It should take him a while to find his way. We can rest for a few minutes,” she quietly said.
She scooted back against the rock wall and stared up at the clouds. A large grin curved her lips when she heard a barely suppressed groan of frustration followed by a series of curses. That was one thing she had learned over the last few days, the male knew some very colorful words.
“You know, this is getting a little old,” he yelled.
She covered her mouth and giggled. L’eon lifted his head, snorted, and rolled onto his belly. She lowered her hand and gently stroked his back.
“You could at least answer me and tell me why you are leading me through this… this maze of torture,” he added.
Madas debated whether to answer him. The way the Goddess’s Stronghold was formed, it was virtually impossible to know where the sound came from because it bounced off the curved walls. Still, there was a small part of herself that made her leery of being drawn into a conversation with him. What if… what if it became something more?
“My name is Gril. Will you at least tell me your name?” he asked.
“Madas,” she replied before she could draw it back. “My name is Madas.”
She could feel the change in the air the moment she spoke. A cool wind swept down through the narrow passage, caressing her skin as if the Goddess herself had touched her. She looked both ways, almost afraid now that she had spoken to the pale Tearnat—to Gril—that he would suddenly appear.
