Chapter 56 #2
They fell into a companionable silence as they began their hike.
Survii had a general idea of where Atem might be, but that wasn’t so important as making himself obvious to Atem.
He didn’t think himself capable of tracking First Domini, but he didn’t have to.
When he got close enough, Atem would find him.
It took the majority of the day, but eventually, exactly that happened.
Survii was helping Alanna over a particularly steep, but short, climb. They were well off the trail at this point. He had deliberately left it because there was no way that Atem would have put himself and his mate that close to potential discovery.
He had just pulled Alanna up when something thudded against the detritus to his left. He whipped his head around, searching for a predator or a threat.
But when he looked up, he saw Atem. Peony was on his back. They were perched on the lowest branch of one of the thick, tall trees having dropped a rock to get their attention.
“You’re alive!” Peony declared, already crying.
“So, are you!” Alanna jumped, reaching like there was a chance she might catch her.
Atem dug his claws into the trunk of the tree and clambered down. The moment he dropped to the dirt, Peony was falling from his back. She ran to Alanna, throwing her arms around her.
As the females reconnected with sobs of relief and excited chatter, Survii moved to Atem.
“Are you all right, vi Dominani?” He asked, looking him up and down.
Atem was wearing a pair of brown pants, and nothing else. Allowing his body to camouflage against nature just as Survii had done while on the island.
“Certainly been worse,” he said, hands to his hips. “We were attacked in our hotel. Though, I assume you knew that, or you wouldn’t have come out here.”
Survii grunted in affirmation and filled him in on everything he knew.
From Alanna seeing the news reports to now.
The more he spoke, the darker Atem’s expression became.
All of his sisters had been attacked at once, along with his mate, the male that he trusted and loved as a brother, and the majority of his council.
It was like the humans had done everything possible to insult him personally.
“This group that attacked us. Do we know anything about them?”
Survii shook his head. “The human leaders tried to tell me they were investigating, somewhere between them begging me not to turn my back on their planet or order an attack on it.”
“Don’t tempt me,” Atem growled.
“I cared more about getting information on the locations of the others.”
Atem grunted, thinking for a moment. The females had fallen silent. Their arms were around each other’s backs. Peony was sniffling softly, no doubt just as terrified for her friends as Alanna had been when she heard the news.
“Tuvo and Hattie,” Atem finally said. “Are they…?”
“Not confirmed dead.”
Atem grunted again, pain flashing across his face. He buried it and held his head high before speaking, looking at Alanna and Peony while he did, “Tuvo will protect Hattie with his life. I trust him to do that. I know he’ll be all right if he can be. It’s the others we have to worry about now.”
“Scarlet and Havali are closest,” Alanna said.
“But Romival and Holly are in more danger,” Peony finished.
“We go to Romival and Holly first,” Atem said, just as Survii knew he would. “I assume we have some reliable form of transportation now?”
“My family hired people they trust. And the pilot is a family friend. He was just grateful that I was alive. We can count on him.”
Atem made a face. He wasn’t trusting at the best of times, and this was hardly that. But he didn’t have a choice either.
“I’ll trust you, Alanna,” he said. “If you vouch for him, that’s enough for me. For now. We’ll head back. We’ll rescue Romival and Holly. Then Havali and Scarlet.”
“And what about Tuvo and Hatti?” Peony asked softly, voice breaking on Hattie’s name.
“Once Romival has our communicator, he can likely repair it.” Survii said, patting the device that was still in his pocket. “Hopefully, anyway. Once he does, we can summon a shuttle down. We’ll head up to the Jutiron Stor and begin our own search efforts for them from there.”
Alanna looked like she wanted to argue, but she kept the words to herself.
It was a plan that Atem agreed with because it was the most sensible.
They weren’t going to risk their mates and the other females searching for them down here.
Not when there was a chance that they really were dead, and it would be a fruitless search.
No. Better to get them on the ship as soon as they could. They were trying to avoid calling down military forces to invade the planet and worsen relations. Not that they could get much worse. At this point, Survii didn’t know if he wanted a relationship with this planet at all.
But he kept those thoughts to himself as he watched the females while Atem went to go get the survival pack he had brought with them.
He returned quickly, and both males lifted the females onto their backs.
Survii didn’t have to go slow enough for Atem to identify and catch up to him now, so they rushed back through the trees.
Rescuing the others was the hard part.