Chapter 24 #2
Dove chirped in dismay, her nose wriggling, but I felt frozen in place.
Unable to move forward and check that corpse, certain I didn’t have it in me to verify it was him.
I couldn’t… Tears stung my eyes, my throat ached, and my chest felt like it was breaking open.
I’d never felt such pain before. Dove nosed my cheek and licked the tears from my face.
She chirped, too, loudly. No, wait, that wasn’t Dove.
That was Hunter, his pitch slightly lower.
I very slowly twisted my head in the direction of the noise and felt a sliver of relief when I could no longer see the charred, smoking corpse.
Hunter was a shimmer of slate blue and glittering amethyst at the edge of the charred crater, screeching his call, dancing through the air, but not approaching.
Vaguely, the response stirred something in the back of my mind.
Had he not acted much like that each time he and Dove had found a body in the rubble back at the Sun Fang outpost?
I dared not hope, but it fluttered like a trapped butterfly in my chest anyway.
My body ached with each step as I ran toward him, a cloud of ash and smoke rising in my wake.
As I reached the edge of the crater, Hunter flew away, and I was forced to chase him into a tangle of trees still standing even after the earthquake and the explosion.
Between the dark gray trunks, the purplish-blue grass, and the lavender spring leaves, Ekkire’s green scales were a spot of brightness.
I saw the tip of his tail, then coil after coil as I flung myself around a trunk.
He lay in a tangle beneath a tree, his head turned toward the earth and a spot of bright red blood matting the back of his mossy green hair.
His hand was outstretched, his body spread out as if he’d been thrown there.
I skidded to my knees at his side, reaching for his neck to check for a pulse.
The barest flutter under my fingers, so slow, so weak…
“Ekkire! I’m here! Wake up, my love!” He did not respond, didn’t move, but his sigils began to glow—a soft golden hue that grew brighter and brighter as I kept my fingers on his throat.
He was alive, he was alive! I chanted it in my head, assured myself the glow meant he was going to be fine.
A twig snapped behind me. I spun, rising to my knees, and my bow came up automatically.
My hand flew to grab an arrow and aim, all reflex.
A naga came through the trees at me, a spear clenched in his fist, blood dripping from several wounds.
An arrow jutted from his side, definitely mine, and fury filled his eyes. So I’d been chased after all.
I felt surprisingly calm as I rose to my feet and braced myself in front of Ekkire’s prone body.
“You are not getting him, and you’re not getting me either,” I gritted out.
My fingers tightened on the string, the arrow drawing back even further until the fletching touched my cheek just below my eye.
His gaze locked on the arrow, and I saw the calculations run inside his head.
Did he think I’d miss? Did he think I’d shoot so weakly he’d survive long enough to strike the bow from my hands?
“I won’t think twice about killing you,” I said.
I wouldn’t. I didn’t even feel the same sense of horror at the thought as I’d experienced earlier.
To protect Ekkire, I’d do anything, just as he’d done for me and for my people on the ship.
The naga snarled, his dark blue scales glittering as he moved silently closer.
“She means it, leave, or you will die,” a voice said gruffly.
It was the most amazing sound I’d ever heard, that voice.
I almost lowered my bow, ready to drop back down to his side, but at the last moment I kept the arrow up and aimed.
I willed him to retreat, but when he didn’t, I shot.
My arrow flew and sank deep into his spear arm.
I grabbed a new arrow right away while he was distracted by the pain.
“The next one will kill you,” I warned, and it did not appear he needed a translation for that.
He began to back away, eyes locked on my face, then growing wider.
They flicked over my shoulder to my left, then to my right.
I had the sinking feeling someone had approached from that direction, but I could not allow myself to weaken yet. Not until he was truly gone.
When he vanished from sight, I lowered my bow, the arrow dropping from my aching fingers.
I forgot all about that pain as I whirled to face Ekkire again and discovered that he’d sat up and was pressing his hand tightly to the bleeding gash on his scalp.
“Ekkire!” I dropped to my knees and threw my arms around his neck, so happy I felt like I could burst. “You’re okay! ”
“I’m okay now,” he said gruffly, his free arm curling gently around me and pulling me into his lap. “Did you get my message? Or did you come because of the noise?” Confused, I lifted my head and discovered he was talking to someone else entirely.
Corin and Joxra. They had approached through the trees from behind Ekkire, and perhaps had been there just as the Thunder Rock male fled. Armed with spears and swords, they were watching us with a mixture of shock and surprise on their faces.
“Ah, we saw the kite and launched, then heard the bomb go off. What was that? Blazing stars, it’s the biggest explosion I’ve ever seen,” Corin said.
He lowered himself next to us, already digging out his healing device from a pouch on his belt.
“You got tossed by the shockwave, Ekkire?” My mate nodded, then winced and tentatively raised his bloody hand to show Haven’s healer and tech wiz the wound.
“I managed to pin Msera to the device with my trident. Oh no, Jasmine—where is Hunter? He was with me!” Ekkire began to rise, swaying awkwardly as he frantically searched for the little sleara.
Corin reached out to hold him still, but my guy had already dislodged Corin’s hand holding the healing device, and a new gush of blood ran down the side of his face.
“He’s fine! He’s fine. He brought me to you, stay still, Ekkire.
” I didn’t know where he’d gone after that; I’d been too focused on the standoff with that hostile hunter, or worried about Ekkire.
I knew he was fine, though. Ekkire did not settle until Hunter dropped from a nearby branch with a chirp and landed on his shoulder.
“Hmm,” Joxra remarked. “Seems like whenever a human goes off on her own, she finds her mate… Congratulations, Jasmine. Ekkire.” I glanced up at him, though I was far more interested in Ekkire and the way he was holding onto both me and Hunter right now.
There were wheels spinning in Joxra’s head that I did not think boded well.
“Come on,” Corin said. “I’ve stopped the bleeding.
We’ll take care of the rest back at the sky wreck.
Sesethul landed in a nearby clearing.” Ekkire rose stiffly, but he kept me tucked under one arm, Hunter riding his shoulder.
He even had the presence of mind to dispatch Joxra to retrieve his trident.
If he leaned a tad heavily, or glared possessively when Corin got close, I ignored it. He’d earned that right.