Chapter 6

“We need to help those women.”

The Kamani I had fled with looked back at the spot that glimmered on the horizon—the Ak-hal base—his face betraying his feelings. It was obvious that he wanted to help them as much as I did, but he shook his head. “We cannot. There are only two of us. We are outnumbered.”

“But surely there’s something we can do. They were going to execute them. And the others… they deserve to be free. Even Libba, she—”

Turning, he caught me up in his gaze. I was momentarily dumbfounded by its intensity, unable to speak. Then I remembered the way his voice had resounded in my head back at the base, and what that meant. Mates, I thought. According to the Kamani, this meant that we were mates. But I wasn’t sure that this was something I wanted. Not after everything that I had been through. My heart pounded in my chest out of sheer nerves from standing this close to him, wondering what was going through his head in this exact moment.

But I would find out very soon. As I stood there, I saw him begin to reach out, and the feeling in my chest intensified as his hand neared my face. I felt his fingertips brush my cheek, softly, and they lingered there for a long moment before he finally pulled away. “Clara,” he said in his deep, resounding voice, a voice that seemed to envelop me with its warmth as we stood there on that cold outcropping of ice under the blaring sun.

“Wh—what is your name?” I asked, more than aware of the anxious tone in my voice.

“I am Atik,” he said, and then, “Do not worry, Clara. We will find a way to help the others. I promise you this.”

Though my worries weren’t completely assuaged, I did feel a little more confident with Atik there by my side. It was a strange thing. He was a stranger to me, and yet somehow, it was as if I knew him already—as if we were reunited after a long separation. Again, though, I tried to put these thoughts out of my head. The last thing I wanted or needed was to partner with a man, Kamani or not. Even if that man sent sensations racing through me that I had never experienced before.

“We can get the others. We can work together to save them,” said Atik. “If we move quickly.”

However, as he said that, I suddenly remembered everything that had just happened before the rescue. “But… Kypher said something. I think they want the Kamani to come to the Ak-hal base. I think they have something planned.”

Atik furrowed his brow. “Yes. It is possible. But we cannot wait around and do nothing if there are lives at risk. Especially the lives of Kamani mates.”

I watched his face—saw the frustration evident on those beautiful features—and thought on those words. Yes, what he said was true, and hadn’t I said much the same thing to Libba? But I also couldn’t fathom the idea of the Kamani being hurt, of any of them being killed. I had grown to love them as a people after my life spent among them. They were peaceful and kind, and they had given me the first true home I had ever known. However, it wasn’t my place to tell them what to do—to make decisions about how they should proceed.

All I could do was relay what I had heard and what I knew, and I was fully aware that it wasn’t much. Once again, I felt helpless. Once again, I felt useless to do anything when it really mattered. I felt as though if someone else were here, someone like Shay, then perhaps something could really be done to get this problem resolved, or at the very least, that someone could come up with the start of a real solution. But all I could do was stand there and wring my hands and worry.

“Clara.” I was startled out of my thoughts by the sound of Atik’s voice, and I looked up, into those golden eyes. It sent a sharp sensation shooting right through my chest, and I almost gasped at the intensity of it. Then he placed his hand on my shoulder. Almost instantaneously, I felt some of the pressure that had been building up inside me ease. “We will find a way,” he said. “I swear this to you.”

And somehow, despite all of my doubt, worry, and apprehension, I believed him. It was impossible not to believe him. He was so confident and assured in the way that he spoke, in a way that I wasn’t—in a way that I had never felt. I wished instantly that in the same way he had transferred that feeling of pressure out of me, he could transfer some of his confidence into my soul. I wished that he could give me some of his strength.

“We will return home,” he said, his hand still resting on my shoulder. I was more than aware of this fact, of his lingering touch. “There, we can speak with the others. We can decide how to act.”

Still anxious, still hoping that I wasn’t making some mistake that would result in the deaths of people I cared about, I haltingly nodded my head. Atik finally pulled away, slightly. Then he began to shift. I watched mesmerized as the transformation of his body began to take place. I had seen many Kamani shift before, but somehow with Atik it was different. There was something vitally beautiful about the way his muscles stretched and pulled, about the way his pale-gray fur erupted along those muscles to cover his beautiful tawny skin. I watched mesmerized throughout the process until it was finished and an enormous gray bear stood before me.

Come, Clara, came the voice in my head, as had happened before, and I was reminded once again of the strange connection between us. Feeling my heart jump in my chest, I edged forward and took a handhold of his fur, pulling myself up and onto his rippling back. Then once I was steady, he leapt out onto the frozen tundra, making great strides at an incredible pace that almost left me breathless.

During the time that we rode back to the Kamani compound, I tried to think. I tried to make sense of everything that happened to me, but it was impossible to sort out my thoughts. All I could do was touch on the tumultuous feelings that whirled around inside of me.

Again, I knew what it meant that I had this connection with the Kamani who had called himself Atik, but already I pulled back from it and everything that it meant. Though I had been drawn to him from the moment I had seen him back at the Ak-hal base, I tried to tell myself that it was only because I couldn’t stand to see someone die, especially a peaceful Kamani. The fact that I had felt so intensely about the man that I had seen that I had been driven to stand between him and the executioner… well, I tried to put that fact out of my mind.

Remain calm, Clara, his voice resounded in my mind as we moved over the ice. I didn’t speak back, but he continued to offer me these reassurances as we continued on our way toward the Kamani compound, and in some strange way, these reassurances did make me feel at least a little bit more at ease. They made me feel that perhaps something could be done to help those women. After all, we had escaped when everything had seemed hopeless, so perhaps some light at the end of the tunnel remained for the others as well.

“We’re here,” I gasped out when I finally saw the light of the sun shining down on the compound, people milling around in its center in a whirl of activity. They looked even busier than usual and I wondered if they weren’t in the middle of their own plans to fight back against the Ak-hal already. I wouldn’t be surprised, though it meant that it was a good thing that we had arrived when we did. I could relay the information that I had about the base and everything happening with them.

Atik took us right up to the edge of the clearing, and as we approached, several other Kamani came near us. Then I slid off his back and he shifted back to man. As he did, I saw several people turn to look at us, a few crying out in recognition.

“Brother!” cried out one woman, and she ran through the group toward us, arms outstretched, and threw herself at Atik. He embraced her fully for a long moment before pulling back, a grin on his face. I stood there awkwardly as they spoke a smattering of words to one another in Kamani—I only recognized a few of them—before he turned back to me.

“This is my sister, Nuna. Nuna, this is Clara.” He spoke, and then he hesitated. I was certain that he wanted to say more—that he wanted to tell her about the connection that we shared. I was grateful that he didn’t. However, he did continue speaking after a long moment. “She helped to save me from the Ak-hal at their base. They were going to execute me—or try.”

Nuna’s eyes opened wide, and then she turned to me. I was stunned by how similar she was in appearance to her brother. They had the same high cheekbones and the same tilt to their eyes. However, her hair was long, held back in an elegant braid, and she was shorter in stature—about the same height as I.

“You saved my brother,” she said. Like Atik, she had a powerful voice—one that seemed like it could command armies, and yet one that had a peaceful nature to it as well. “For that, I am forever grateful, Clara.”

Nuna nodded her head toward me, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. I wondered how I had never encountered these two before—though there were so many Kamani, it was perhaps no real surprise. I smiled back at her. However, there was no real time to go through pleasantries right now, and both Atik and I knew that. I turned to him, and as our eyes met, it was obvious that we both thought the same thing.

“We need to find Shay and Khofti,” I said to him, beginning to reach out to take his hand. But as I did so, he gestured to some point behind him.

“It seems they have already found us.”

I turned, and coming through the crowd, I saw the familiar form of my friend and her mate. Relief soared through me as I reached out for Shay. She embraced me, pulling me tight to her chest.

“Damn, girl! I thought for sure… ugh. No time to think about that now. Tell us everything that happened, and don’t leave anything out.” Then, noting that Atik stood very, very close behind me—almost possessively close—she lowered her voice. “Don’t leave anything out, you hear me?”