Chapter 20
Tuvo
The search party was getting closer. Tuvo could see them circling in the air. Scouring the treetops for some sign of them.
They were moving in the wrong direction.
Heading further off, not coming their way.
The smoke from the fire wasn’t penetrating the thick canopy enough to send a signal, and the mark left by the plane crashing wasn’t big enough to be spotted.
Especially not with the distance between them and the search team.
Frowning thoughtfully, he climbed back down the tree and returned to their camp. They still had plenty of food, so he had eschewed hunting today in favor of staying nearby. Keeping track of Hattie and pacing around the plane.
Specifically, he circled the segment that she used as a shelter. It took him a while to figure out why the sight of it made him so anxious.
It was, for lack of better options, his den.
And his den was insecure.
How was his mate supposed to be comfortable in this place? It was so low to the ground, near potential predators. It didn’t have a place for her to nest. Unacceptable.
It was his instincts acting up. He was closer to his mate now than ever and he needed a safe place for her to nest. His instincts didn’t care that he was literally looking at the remains of a crashed plane, he wanted to fuck and breed his female, and, for that, he needed a nest.
All that same aggression he had before, only now it was focused on this.
“Are you okay?” Hattie asked after about his third lap around the plane.
“Fine,” he growled, scratching at his head. “Just… thinking about how we’re going to catch the attention of the search team.” It was a good lie.
And it was actually something he should be doing.
Maybe he really should tie his shirt to a stick and wave it in the air like a flag.
It might mean being up there for marks waiting for someone to spot that single splash of color amongst all the green, but it was better than their searchers going off in completely the wrong direction.
He checked on Hattie, who was once again cooking over their fire. Then, because he had to, he checked on Keith. Only to find his little tent open and empty
“Where is the male?”
“Hm? Oh. Heading to the little human’s room.”
“What?”
She snickered. “Sorry. Guess that joke didn’t translate well. Er, he’s going to the privy. Downwind, if you get my meaning.”
Tuvo grunted in understanding. Fiercely pleased beyond reason.
Because that was his den, and the other male shouldn’t be near it.
He really needed to get a handle on himself.
Deliberately walking away from the broken plane, he went to join Hattie by the fire. She had taken a seat on the rock she used as a counter, so he sat on the ground beside her. With the rock giving her a boost in height, it put them eye to eye.
She smiled, hands resting in her lap. Just looking at him. The way he was looking at her. Like nothing made her so happy as having him in her sights.
Then, without any warning he could see, she suddenly frowned.
“What is it?” He asked, cocking his head.
“N-Nothing,” she rushed to say, plastering a smile on her face.
“I don’t believe that any more than when I believe you when you say you are ‘fine’. What’s wrong?”
She hesitated just a moment before her shoulders slumped. “It’s just… I had the thought that… maybe I didn’t want to be rescued.”
He frowned. “You want to live in this jungle.”
“No! I just don’t want this to end.”
What was she talking about?
She quickly shook her head. Not like she was saying no, but more like she was banishing a though she didn’t want. “Never mind. That’s stupid. Of course, I want to be rescued.”
“No, tell me what you were going to say.”
She bit her lip before turning on her stone to face him. “Tuvo, when we get back, are things still going to be the same?”
“I imagine so. Might have to take issue with the security team for that pilot. Bertrand was in charge of screening the humans working with us. It’s frustrating that I can’t do it myself, but I am limited by language and connections.”
“No, I don’t mean like that. I mean… you and me. Are we going to be the same?”
“Ah…”
Understanding dawned and he understood what she was asking. She wanted to know if he was going to put that distance between them again.
Or if he would claim her.
But he couldn’t claim her. One finger inside her had been tight. Two had been a vice grip. And he still wasn’t up to the size of his cock. He couldn’t do it.
He also couldn’t ignore her again.
“Hattie, maybe…”
He focused on her face, only to find she wasn’t looking at him. Her gaze was over his shoulder, her head tilted to the side, forehead furrowed with confusion.
She saw something.
Before Tuvo had a chance to react, a force like a physical punch slammed into his back. He roared, collapsing to the ground as Hattie screamed.
When he tried to stand, something hit him again. And again. Multiple blows slamming against his body with more power than he could stand against.
The roaring in his ears, that pounding, was it his heart? Hattie was screaming. He needed to get to her. To protect his mate.
But when he tried to stand, his body did little more than twitch.
His vision was going gray as pain burned through him. The blows weren’t stopping. Hattie was still screaming.
What…
***
“Hattie!”
Tuvo woke, terror gripping his heart. Hattie had been screaming. Hattie was in danger. He had to-
“Ugh!” Pain burst through his body as he collapsed back. Head nearly hitting stone. The night darkened canopy was a heavy blanket overhead, the fire crackling at his side.
Their camp was quiet.
But what…?
“Yo.”
There was Keith, coming into his field of view. Frowning. Babbling his language that Tuvo couldn’t understand, holding out his hands. Trying to keep him from pushing himself up onto one arm despite the agony that burned through him.
Why was Keith here? Where was Hattie? What had…
His frantic thoughts came to a halt as he looked over his body. He had been bandaged with, it appeared, every spare piece of cloth inside the plane. His blood had stained the fabric. He was weak and his entire back was throbbing.
He shredded one of the fabrics on his leg, making Keith gripe, but he had to see.
Under the bandage, on the side of his thigh, was a hole. It had already scabbed over, but it was a penetrating injury. And there were more. On the backs of his thighs. All over his back.
Bullets. From the old-fashioned projectile weapons the humans used.
He had been shot. Peppered with bullets until he collapsed.
And Hattie…
“Hattie?” He looked at Keith.
The male opened his mouth then seemed to remember he couldn’t be understood. So, he just shook his head. No.
“Hattie!” Tuvo climbed to his feet, snarling with agony. Those bullets had done a lot of damage. He could feel them. In his back. Stuck in the muscles, just under his skin. He must have lost a lot of blood very quickly to lose consciousness.
And, there, he could see the dark stain on the grass where he had fallen, and the smeared blood where Keith must have dragged him.
There was Hattie’s rock, her cutting board, her knife.
There was her suitcase, sitting open, most of the clothes inside dragged out and sacrificed for the bandages covering his body.
But there was no Hattie.
“Hattie!” He roared, his voice echoing out into the trees. Calling back to him.
Unanswered.
“Tuvo.” Keith was there, shaking his head and pointing back. Trying to get him to lay down. To rest his wounds.
But he wouldn’t. He tore at the bandages, freeing himself from their grasp, ready to charge into the jungle after Hattie. Because she wasn’t here, which meant she had been taken.
And someone would pay with their life.
“Tuvo!” Keith jumped in front of him, scowling, speaking rapid English he couldn’t decipher.
“Move!” Tuvo snapped, fists clenching, ready to throw aside the worthless male.
Keith growled, that weak, adorable, human growl, before fixing him with a hard look and using small words – which Tuvo did understand. “Men! Tuvo! Big… Lots men!” He pointed past the trees. “Too many!”
Human males had taken his female. And that direction…
That way lay the tree with the mark on the side.
Not just a mark. A map. A guide. Someone had found them and marked the area before going back and getting a full fighting band. Which meant there had to be more marks because a single mark wouldn’t help them find their way back here.
“We go,” Tuvo said in stilted, accented English.
Keith sighed, shaking his head. “No. Die, Tuvo. Die?”
He did know that word, but it didn’t matter.
“Hattie.” He pointed the same way Keith had gestured. “Hattie.”
Keith grumbled, giving up and speaking rapidly again – using more words that Tuvo didn’t know. But it was clear that he was frustrated and not happy about the idea of chasing unknown groups of men into the wild, dark forest.
Not that Tuvo cared.
The forest was his home. Even an alien one was familiar.
And he was getting Hattie back.