Finn grinned, his teeth gleaming in the darkness. “I have good eyes.”
“Well what do I say?” Ute adjusted his shirt and puffed out his chest.
“I do not know. Make something up. Go.” Finn nudged Ute toward the entrance.
Ute dragged Finn into a hug, his gaze drifting over the rest of the group. “Be safe all of you. I will see you in a few weeks.”
Ute hurried down the path toward the guard. “Hello, could you help an old man out?” He moved to the right of the path so the guard faced him with his back to us.
“Sure, what did you need, Ute?” the guard replied.
Ute gestured back toward town. “Well, you see, I heard this noise. I was afraid it might be a coreck.”
“A coreck? Let me get Theo, we will go look,” the guard said.
Ute gripped the guard’s arm. “No, no, we do not want to leave the entrance unprotected. Come with me and we can check it out.”
“Uh, well, if you are sure.” The guard squared his shoulders and walked toward section two with Ute.
I held my breath when he walked past, my nose tickling. Please, please don’t let me sneeze. Their footsteps faded and my shoulders drooped. Phew.
Finn put his finger over his lips for silence and we started forward again. I grabbed onto his belt, feeling Zanth do the same with mine. When we neared the gate, Finn gestured for us to hunch and crawl under the window of the gatehouse.
As I inched past, a branch cracked close by. I froze, tugging on Finn’s pants. Finn’s hand grabbed mine while Zanth slammed into my back. Zanth reached out and steadied me. Hana squeaked in the darkness and got shushed by Baren.
A chair clattered in the room above our heads. Steps drew close to the gatehouse window. Oh god. Don’t see us, Don’t see us.
Everyone stood stock still, waiting to be busted..
A full minute passed before I dared to peek up. The guard’s hands were on the windowsill. Crap. Another minute and his fingers pulled back, his steps fading
Finn tugged me forward and we continued out of town.
Once we were out of sight of the arch, my breath whooshed out. “That was close.”
Finn squeezed my hand. Zanth grunted. In the darkness, I couldn’t see anything but Finn’s back while we traveled. The night amplified every noise, making me skittish. As soon as we got past the mines, which took two hours instead of the normal twenty minutes due to the darkness and hand holding, Finn declared it safe to light torches.
The extra illumination let us move faster. The last time I’d been past the mines was the day of the funeral where we mourned the dead killed by the E’mani in their hunt for me. The night I remembered their secret, the Imani were clones. It had been dark then too. Deja’vu had me shivering.
There were still mounds of massive dark brown rocks piled in huge heaps. The path between them was barely more than scratches in the dirt. A few spiky barren trees added to the creep factor.
Finn led us along a straight path through the boulders for the next several hours, although we got to take a potty break every hour or so. We needed to get as much distances as possible before Marin discovered our deception.
When dawn hit, I turned and stared back the way we’d come. Marin would be getting up round about now, his fierce eyes opening, his hands reaching out for me. My skin tingled at the remembered brush of his fingers against my skin, the spark that flared between us, the passion of his touch. I missed him already, a deep, hollow ache in my chest. I had to fight the urge to turn around and find him again to fill that hole
With a sigh, I pushed back a strand of hair that had drifted across my face and faced the scant trail ahead. But my feet wouldn’t move. The wind pushed me back. Marin or my conscience?
“Elizabeth? Where are you? I feel like cuddling.” Marin’s voice whispered both in my heart and in my head.
The feel of the wind in my hair, his voice in my ear, made me shudder. And he wanted to snuggle. Damn him. Damn me. He was going to be so mad. He couldn’t know we were gone yet, he sounded way to mellow for that. Ute would be disturbing him right around now.
“I’m with Hana. See you soon,” I replied in the same way with the wind.
“All right, my love.”
My eyes closed at the endearment. Oh god. I forced myself to start walking. No one else seemed bothered by the breeze.
Around lunchtime, Marin had definitely caught on to our deception.
“Elizabeth. Where are you? We seem to be missing a group of people.” Marin’s voice thundered in my head forcing me to a halt.
Hana ran into me from behind when I stumbled. I rolled my eyes and motioned to my head. “Marin.”
“Ah,” she mouthed.
Hana waved to Finn, who called a break. The group scattered. I wandered off to stand at the side of the path, near a thorny tree, being careful of the sap, and answered him using the wind. “You know where I am. I can tell from your voice. I left for Industry.”
“We were going to go together. You promised me.” The accusation in his voice nearly broke me.
“I never promised. I very specifically did not promise for that reason. I needed to go, and the Fost would not move. You are the Clan Chief, you couldn’t leave without them. I asked so many times. Always it was soon, a month or two, we are not ready. That is not good enough. I needed to go. Don’t worry, I have Zanth with me. We will be fine. I will see you soon on the other side of the mountains.”
“Is Finn leading you? Is this your choice then? Finn over me?”
I thumped my head against the tree. “Don’t be stupid,” I thought to Marin. “This has nothing to do with Finn. This has to do with me needing answers. We are married. That is forever, you dumbass. My choice was not to wait any longer. There is this urgency riding me, telling me it is important I figure things out soon. I told you.”
Marin’s voice lost some of its smooth echo. “Turn around now and we will go together. I will not be mad. I had gotten them to agree to another month or two at most, and not summer.”
“Marin, that is too late. Don’t you understand? I told you I have to go. You said you couldn’t. The dreams, they are getting worse. We have been gathering supplies. We will be safe.”
“Who is there with you? Who goes against me?” Really.
I groaned at the emo. “Stop being dramatic. No one is rising against you. We are just on an exploratory expedition.”
“I am coming to get you.”
I hated that flat tone of his. As if his word was law, it made my skin itch. “Don’t be crazy. You can travel fast, that is true, but only to places where you know every rock, every turn, and even then it can be tricky. That is why you take the back ways, less chance of running into things. You have to get the maps, and you would have to travel normally, or end up lost. Please stay safe. Stick to the plan and join us in Industry when the rest of the Fost agree to travel.”
“I would do anything for you, Elizabeth, you know that? I love you. Together we can do anything. But you do this, and you are leaving me behind. I am less important to you than your revenge. I cannot accept that. I will not accept being second or third. I will not accept anyplace but first in your heart, not like my mother did.”
“I am not your mother. This situation is nothing like that. I love you. I will always love you. But I need to do this. This is important for all of us. This is not just about my revenge.” My hand slammed against the bark.
Marin snorted and the sound was a puff of air in my ears, making me shiver. “Keep telling yourself that. I hope it makes you happy that you threw away our mating for hate.”
“The only way this changes our mating is if you let it, if you can’t accept my decision. My feelings are the same.”
“Mine are not. I am tired of pushing to get what I need from you. I will have to look for someone else to help me with that, will I not? You leave, this is over between us.”
My heart thumped once, hard. “I thought mating was for life?”
H
is voice grew silky. “The bond is. That does not mean we have to be together.”
Oh, you asshole. “So you can choose to not move for the good of the clan, but I chose to move for the good of the clan, and it is a whole ‘nother story, eh?”
No answer.
“Damn it, Marin. Talk to me. This isn’t fair…Marin.”
The wind died. He didn’t mean that, he couldn’t mean that. He knows what that would mean. I slid down to the ground and put my head on my knees.
Hana tugged at my arm. “You back with us?”
I rubbed my nose. “Yeah, Marin is not a happy camper.”
She nodded. “Yeah, we knew he would not be pleased.”
“He said our mating is over.”
Hana did a double-take. “What? He is angry. He will get over it. You two love each other, and mating is forever.”
“Doesn’t mean he has to be faithful, as we both know. And I’m not open like the rest of you. I couldn’t take that.” My voice broke. “I saw what it did to my mother when my dad cheated on her and left us. I can’t. I just can’t.”
Hana’s arm slipped around my shoulders and she rocked me as I cried. “That will not happen.”
My mind flashed to my vision and I sniffled. “Hana, is there any way to remove the bands?
Hana gasped and turned me to face her. “No. And Marin is not so stupid as to try, so you do not need to worry about that. They come off when you or your partner dies, and nobody is dying today.”
I nodded and rested against her. But my vision flashed before my eyes…Marin running, holding the hand of someone else, his arm bare. Did that mean I died? Was that the future or a possibility? Should I let him go, would that be the best for both of us? Maybe it was better to end it now. Playing house was not for me.
My heart heavy in my chest, I peered around for the others. Zanth stood nearby against another tree on the dusty path, his head was down. From the pained grimace on his face, he was talking to Marin, and it wasn’t going well. Hana huddled against me. The rest of the group all sat in the middle of the path sipping water. Finn stared at me as per usual.
We still hadn’t gotten out of the quarry yet and into the mountains proper. Should be soon. The air smelled fresher and less dusty. I scrubbed my hands along my face then slapped my cheeks. No more tears.
Zanth wandered over to me a few minutes later, face tight. “That was rough.”
I grunted. “Yeah, he’s really angry.”
Zanth chose his words with care. “Marin told me he regretted raising me, if this is how I repay loyalty.”
“Well, I can do one better. Marin told me we were over, and that he was looking for another woman.”
With a sigh, Zanth put his hand on my shoulder. “He does not mean any of it. You know that, right? Sometimes people say things when they are angry they do not mean.”
“Or they say exactly what they mean, but were too afraid to say before,” I said, my stomach sinking to my toes.
“My brother loves you, I know that. He will not go to another. He knows how you feel about that. We all know how you feel about that. It is unnatural.” Zanth shuddered at the thought of fidelity.
The corner of my lips tilted a tiny bit. “Your brother loves you too. If Marin cheats, I will gut him like a fish. Both of that is fact.”
The thought of Marin going to anyone else made my nostrils flare. My fingers curled. That felt much better than despair. I needed to focus on the anger to get through this. I could do this.
Zanth’s mouth curved up.
Hana rubbed a hand down my hair. “It will work out, Beta. Marin is angry.”
Anger, I expected. Not silence. Silence was my thing, and the threat. The rug had been jerked out from under me. The one thing I clung to was Marin’s stubbornness and love. In all the time I’d known him, he never wavered from a path. I was his, but not anymore I guess.
I rubbed the palm of my hand over my eyes. Damn it. No more crying. I’d cried more in the past few months than in the entire nineteen years before that. “Crying doesn’t make anything better, Beta.” Thank you for the pearl of wisdom, Zackary Camden.
Finn had planned on us traveling until nightfall, just in case. But since Marin appeared to be throwing mean messages at everyone in the group we stopped now. How far did Marin’s power reach, would he be griping at us the whole way? Did he miss me as much as I missed him?
Twenty
Lunch consisted of dried meat and tea. Yummy. We marched for two or three hours until we took another break.
It was uncanny how sure Finn seemed. He didn’t waver. He recognized every rock. There was no figuring out the way. As opposed to my trip into the valley, which passed in a blur that still felt like it took forever, this trip was going fast.
At first we didn’t notice the climb, but soon enough our calves were aching when we scrambled over rocks and through narrow dirt paths until we reached the end of the quarry.
My heart raced from the ascent. I panted while I took in the view. Blue-green grass spread in a wave down the hill to a river valley and up to staggeringly tall mountains covered with snow at the peaks. Bushes and wildflowers scattered among a new type of tree. The leaves were starred and red, the bark orange, the colors bright. The second moon cast a shadow on our group. I hoped that wasn’t an omen.
We rested a few minutes more then began the descent toward the river. Downhill was quicker, but much more treacherous. One slip and down we go.
Then we started the climb all over again on the next rugged peak, hour after hour. By the time supper rolled around every part of my body ached, especially my ass. I’d anticipated the calf pain, thigh pain, hip, knee, ankle pain. Who knew that your butt could throb? I couldn’t sit it was so bad. Instead, I lounged sideways like a diva when we stopped, my shoulders aching from the pack.
Dinner was solemn. So far we hadn’t seen much of anything but landscape, no animals, and no other signs of life. Finn built a big fire. Everyone had to stand guard. We were separated into three groups of three, doing four hour watches. That way, all of us should get approximately eight hours of sleep since we hadn’t rested the night before. Finn had me on guard duty with him and Baren, which made sense, given he was the most experienced fighter and I was the least.
Our shift was in the middle of the night, so I settled down for four quick hours of sleep. I was so tired that I slipped right off.
Marin’s voice woke me. “Elizabeth.”
“Marin?” Silence. Instinct urged me to stay still. I couldn’t hear anything, only the whisper of our company’s breath, the sound of Hana sighing in her sleep, Near’s snores, and the sudden pounding of my heart in my ears. A disturbing hush had fallen as if the land was taking a breath. I didn’t feel that bone-deep chill I associated with the E’mani, not that it wasn’t still cold as shit outside. But still…there was this tingling awareness.
Finn had bedded down next to me. I stretched out my hand an inch at a time to graze his fingers and get his attention.
He blinked and smiled when he felt my hand on his, until I squeezed really, really hard. His eyebrows creased when he frowned.
“Listen,” I mouthed. Something was not right.
Finn rolled to a stand, his weapon already out. He crawled to where Edd stood watch. The sentries were arranged in a triangle around the group. The whisper of a quiet conversation reached my ears. Finn tiptoed back towards me. “Time to get up.”
I sat up. “What was that?”
“I do not know, but Edd did not notice anything. Just us, but I know what you mean. I felt like I was being watched but it is gone now. Stay awake. If you have any problems let me know and I will throw something at you.”
“Nice. Thanks,” I grumbled.
“Anytime.” Finn nudged Baren awake then went to his post while I walked to mine. I thought I heard Marin too. I missed him. Hell, I missed George, cat breath and all.
“Marin.”
No answer.
I huddled against the co
ld. The main risk for us at night would be animal packs. Quick rallying would keep them from picking someone off from the edge of our group. Mid-mountain there were fewer packs as they tended to range near the bottom, but better to be safe than sorry. I’d only ever seen the one adult coreck and it scared the bejesus me. Generally they were pack hunters with keen vision, similar to mountain lions on Earth. There were also wolf-like creatures called toren, but they roamed on the plains.
I shivered from the freaky thoughts about being torn limb from limb or the weather, either or, and I bitterly regretted not bringing my bedding with me to my post. I’d feared falling asleep on watch, but given the cold rock underneath my ass, that wouldn’t be a problem.
Then I heard it, something. Whispering? It was near the bushes in front of me. I turned and looked for Finn, but he stared ahead toward the mountainside.
“Finn,” I thought to him, trying not to wake everyone in case it was my imagination.
He jolted and glanced my way.
When I turned back around, something flickered out of the corner of my eye. I gripped my dagger and moved toward it.
“Beta,” Finn growled from behind me, scrambling to get to my side.
I continued stalking toward the noise. When I got to the rock near where I’d seen the movement, I heard a high-pitched hum. My knees went weak. I knew that sound. I sank to the ground and George rocketed into my arms. His whiskers brushed my face while he shook from the cold.
I bundled him close and buried my face in his fur. “Look at you. You’re getting so big.” I’d left him at home on purpose, but was so glad he’d followed. Some unconditional love was just what I needed.
Finn smiled when I glanced up. He crouched halfway between my post and his. I waved him back and tucked George into my shirt. The rest of our watch was uneventful. Finn stayed true to his word and threw rocks at me for fun. The ones that fell in my line of sight, I picked up and lobbed back at him. My aim sucked though and I nearly beamed Zanth. Whoops. I dropped my next missile and shook my head at Finn, who smirked in my general direction.
After Zanth relieved me, I conked out a few hours more to wake to sunshine and happy cat breath. The pep of the day before had worn off. Finn said we had at least two weeks of travel ahead of us. Joy.
Can't Forget: If she can't forget her past, she won't have a future. (Solum Series Book 2) Page 14
