Chapter 19 The Forest Border
NINETEEN
THE FOREST BORDER
Julia
Much like the previous times, I walk at the back of the others to make sure no one falls behind.
But unlike before, each step forward hurts more than the last. Luckily, crossing the river first thing ended up being a blessing in disguise.
The hardest part was getting everyone into the water to begin with.
None of them had ever been in so much water before, let alone something that could be bottomless.
Only Olivia was free from facing it, carried across by Krellix so her freshest bandages wouldn’t get soaked.
For me, I was just too relieved to have last night’s events washed off my body to suffer fear that I couldn’t see past my feet to the bottom.
And even crossing with the majority of my clothes on, the cold water was enough to feel human again.
It was like wiping a slate clean. Krellix’s seed had been all over my body, dried and flaking by the time I woke.
Between that and the dirt and petals in my hair, I was eager for a good wash.
I tried to straighten up but I’m certain Quinton suspects something happened between us.
Still, I couldn’t get away from Krellix’s scent fast enough. It already seemed to be emanating from my own body, coaxing me subconsciously to stop him so I could have sex with him once more. If I’m feeling the effects of his pheromones, I can only wonder what he must be experiencing.
I’ve never been the one to need lots of sex to feel satisfied. I’ve had good—strange—but good sex with Krellix yet I’m not feeling satisfied at all.
I need to stop breathing him in.
That was several hours ago, and with my clothes now drying slowly across my body, chafing me from every side, I’m back to staring at Krellix’s back and winding tail, more confused than ever, going over the same thought again and again in my head.
We had sex.
Maybe it wasn’t sex like I’m used to but it was sex all the same, with his unusual cock thrusting inside of me.
I let that happen, even walked right into it.
Whether I took the risk to distract myself or not, I’m not entirely sure anymore, but I do know that I made the choice willingly.
I breathed him in willingly. I stayed close to him willingly, knowing how he’d affect me.
Clenching inwardly, I eye Krellix’s tail patterning and the muscles flexing beneath it. I ache like a son-of-a-bitch. I ache for sex as much as I ached from the raw stretch of his cock.
The way his muscles move as he carries Olivia… I’ve never been so jealous of another female.
Olivia. She’s still bleeding. She’s growing weaker by the hour and can barely stomach food.
The fact that we’ll be at the encampment today is barely a reassurance.
I pray we’re not too late after waiting a night.
But as much as I yearn for Olivia to get to a doctor, I’m not eager to arrive.
A part of me is struggling to take each step further.
Nearly face-palming, I tear my gaze away from Krellix and the way the sunlight descends from the canopy to play across his coloring, and look at Benjamin and Quinton.
Both males trot along in silence ahead of me.
Remembering how the two of them tore into the pig meat this morning, I note there’s more confidence in their steps.
They’re getting used to the forest and the terrain. They’re less afraid today.
Seeing them doing better, even if it’s by a marginal amount, makes me feel better.
Krellix’s right…
I can help the people here without re-enlisting.
But if I just turn up at an army encampment, wearing some of my old fatigues, they’ll want to know my name and look into me.
They’ll find me—probably listed as dead in their systems. They’ll change my status back to alive and reinstate me on the spot. I might not have a choice.
We make good time after the river, quickly putting distance between us and the water.
The forest, at first, is quiet, undisturbed, still waking up for the day.
Wet clothes and a chilly breeze keeps everyone distracted and uncomfortable.
There’s less smoke in the air, less noise.
Today is the third day since the explosion.
Occasionally ships can be heard in the distance still, gunfire too, which is sometimes accompanied by shouting but it’s more intermittent and less random than the previous days.
Things begin to change the deeper into the forest we go.
The trees thicken, seemingly going on for eternity in every direction.
The plants and bushes press closer, making passage slow and sometimes difficult.
Everyone’s covered in scratches within the first hour.
Sometimes the foliage gets so thick it’s like fighting just trying to take a step.
As the brush folds under my boots, making the ground uneven, I slow down to take more deliberate steps.
Our trek slows further when smoke thickens the air, bringing with it the snapping and crackling of burning wood in the distance.
Krellix remains in the lead, but he switches directions and takes us towards a crashed ship much like Benjamin’s, Quinton’s, and Olivia’s, but this time with its hatch door wide open and ajar.
“Krellix?” I move past the others and to his side. “Is this a good idea? What about avoiding people?”
“I do not sense any people except for us. The people who were here are long gone.”
But even Benjamin’s excitement at the prospect of finding others is stymied by how quiet it is when Krellix briefly leaves us to make sure we aren’t stepping into danger anyways.
Waiting for Krellix to finish checking out the ship, the silence creeps up my back. Every snap of a branch, every split twig, or crackle of wood sounds louder than it should, accompanied by my growing nerves and building doubt.
It’s a relief when Krellix returns. He shakes his head at us and continues on, giving us no other information. I’m glad we’re leaving when he takes us back into the thicker brush.
I could smell the blood even if I couldn’t see it.
As we put distance between us and the ship, the stifling silence only grows. Quinton trips and curses, and we all pause to listen for anything in the forest responding, but as the seconds pass by and nothing happens, we continue on.
That is until Krellix stops us for an impromptu break and leaves again, this time without warning.
I settle next to Olivia, pulling out my water container and offering it to her. She takes several sips and hands the water back, giving me a soft smile and a wince.
“How are you doing?” I ask, lifting my canteen and taking a sip.
“I’m okay.”
I frown, eyeing her pale, sunken skin, and tired eyes. “Are you sure? I can ask Krellix to go slower?”
“I’m sure. I just want to get to the encampment.”
My heart jerks but I nod. “Me too.”
The four of us huddle in the brush while we wait for Krellix’s return.
Listening to the forest around me, it occurs to me that the persistent silence from this morning is gone.
I can hear the rustle of branches and tiny snaps of twigs being broken.
A bird takes flight and its flapping wings hit the leaves, sending several of them fluttering to the ground.
Benjamin ducks when something overheard squawks loudly.
“It’ll be okay,” I reassure him. “The birds aren’t going to attack us.”
But I grab hold of my gun strap anyway when a soft hum fills my ears. Benjamin looks my way as the sound quickly grows louder. Lifting my finger over my lips, I slowly rise to take a look over the bushes.
Just as I raise my head, a military drone flies overhead and I duck back down. The others watching me, freeze in reaction. The drone circles back and flies over us again, more slowly this time. None of us move until it finally flies away.
“What was that?” Olivia speaks first, her voice lower than a whisper.
I release my gun strap. “Military drone.”
“If it was military shouldn’t we have flagged it down?” Benjamin asks, looking at the others. “Won’t they be searching for survivors? It saw us.”
I start to speak, then frown instead.
He’s right.
We could have flagged it down…
I start to speak again, trying to wrap my head around why I reacted the way I did. I know a drone has to be a good sign we’re getting close to the encampment, but my gut intuition was to hide. Why?
I shake my head. “We can’t assume that.”
“Because of what happened on The Dreadnaut?” Olivia speaks again, her voice stronger. When I glance at her, her pallid face is pinched in thought. “If we’re not sure we can trust them, should we be heading to them?”
The three of us stare at her in grim, contemplative silence.
I turn to face her directly. “Because it didn’t shoot at us.
The Dreadnaut and its commander may be gone, leaving us temporarily stranded and without leadership, but that won’t be our fate forever.
Eventually help will arrive, and when it does, they’ll be in contact with the main encampment and that’s where we need—”
A rustle of branches cuts me off as Krellix appears from the trees.
We lock eyes and something flickers across his tight expression. I stand to face him, and Benjamin and Quinton swiftly follow.
“What did you find?” I ask, searching his features for clues but turning up nothing.
“There are flying machines scouting the forest between us and the camp. There has been passage through here recently, even where the forest is at its thickest. We have to be more alert that there are others around.”
“We saw one fly by,” I interject. “It saw us… It might have already notified the camp about us. Did one see you?”
“Not that I am aware of,” he answers, his gaze narrowing on me.
“They are not the only thing between ussss. We are coming to the old boundaries of my territory from the south and west. The safest path forward remains mostly untouched from when I was last here. It is still our best option to reach the facility’s borders undetected by other nagas, though it is the roughest passage through.
I did not see any fresh tracks in that area. ”
“That’s good, right?” I ask, glancing at Olivia.
He grunts. “Yessss. But it is undisturbed for a good reason.”
“Why is it undisturbed?” Benjamin asks.
Krellix turns to him, and as his tail shifts over the thick brush, it snaps and crunches under its weight.
“It is a maze of rubble and old buildings that has been taken over by the forest. There will be sparse structures that are not part of the facility, clogged with metal and crumbling stone. It is a hard path to take but no harder than what we have dealt with already. It will take us straight to the western side of the old facility.”
“Will we still get there by this evening?” I ask.
Krellix’s gaze drifts back to me and I can’t place his expression. “Yessss.”
“Then it’s settled.” I tear my eyes off him to check on Olivia.
“You’re going to get through this,” I tell her.
“I’ll make sure of it.” Glancing back at Krellix, he nods his head in agreement.
My stomach flips and I inadvertently clench the muscles between my legs, eliciting a wince from me.
I peer back at Olivia, trying to forget what my body’s going through.
“In a couple more hours you’ll be safe and taken care of. ”
Quinton swats a small bug on his cheek. “Did you see anything else? The people from the downed ship back there? Do you know if they’re okay or where they went?”
Krellix releases a breathy hiss. “I did not see them but there are multiple sets of human tracks heading in the direction we are going. There are also traces that several nagas have been through here. Otherwise, I saw no indication of where the humans went.” He slides past me to gently scoop Olivia into his arms.
“Could the nagas have hurt the humans?” Benjamin asks.
I glance between him and Krellix, remembering the smell of blood at the crash site.
“There were tracks of them there so it is… possible.”
Watching Olivia ease against his chest, I’m hit with another streak of jealousy. It’s worse now that I know what it’s like to be in his arms. Warm and safe. The safest place to be, outside Zaku’s home. And I truly believe that, out of all the nagas I’ve known, Krellix is the safest of them all.
He hauls Olivia higher up his chest until she is able to wrap one of her arms around his shoulders. As she resettles against him, my gaze catches with his over the top of her head.
The look he gives me could have been carved from stone. There is no tenderness, no emotion, just a blank flatness that is almost cold. Devoid of all emotion.
My throat tightens and I wonder if it has something to do with our conversation this morning. Or if he’s already pulling back. My heart twists at the prospect, even knowing it was me who was the first one to do so.
“We should move.” I turn away. His gaze lingers on me, and I pretend not to notice, tugging my hair back and tying it to keep my hands busy.
Afterward, I readjust and tighten my mask.
Whatever is going through his mind, I have no clue as to what it is, and if I’m going to be smart, I need to stop thinking about him.
Now. I need to focus on what’s ahead. I’m going to have some choices to make soon.
Krellix’s eyes fall off me as he twists away and disappears into the trees ahead of us. Quinton, Benjamin, and I share a quick look before they in-turn follow after him. I let them gain a few paces before I join them. Meanwhile, I pull my rifle forward and scan the trees around us.
Back on track towards our destination… The minutes begin to count down in my head.