Rhani (Dragons of Kratak Book 3) by Ruth Anne Scott (7)

Prologue

At eleven o’clock on the night of April 24, 2043, astronomers at Lick Observatory in the California Coast Mountains tracked the path of a comet through the atmosphere. To their surprise, it seemed to rise through the atmosphere instead of falling to earth, but they lost sight of it over the Pacific Northwest. The mystery was never explained, but in actual fact, the object was no comet.

The astronomers didn’t know an alien ship passed through Earth’s atmosphere that night, and instead of burning up in the atmosphere, it broke orbit and jetted away into deep space with more than three hundred human captives.

The Romarie were notorious smugglers drawn to Earth by huge prices for human females at markets in distant galaxies. An interplanetary plague wiped out the female populations of numerous planets, leaving their male counterparts desperate for mates.

Only one planet resisted the temptation to buy in replacement females. Angondra had a proud history of space travel and advanced technology, but the five Angondran factions put aside their differences to forge a solemn agreement they would have nothing to do with the Romarie’s stolen females. They staked their honor as a people on rebuilding their population without tainting their planet with any such contraband, and they sacrificed their space flight capability to back up their resolution.

On its way to the distant galactic marketplace, the Romarie ship lost power, and during an attempted emergency landing, broke up in the Angondran atmosphere. The ship crashed, leaving the four Romarie pilots dead and the women stranded.

The women found themselves on a beautiful, Earth-like planet inhabited by one species divided into five distinct subspecies. All Angondrans stood erect on two legs, with two arms, two eyes, one nose and one mouth like humans, and with the aid of telekinetic implants supplied by the Romarie, the women could communicate with the Angondrans easily.

The Felsite faction dwell in cities constructed on the open plains, but besides their architecture, they retained none of Angondra’s advanced technology. The Felsite eat raw meat and use oil lamps only for light. All Angondrans stand several inches taller than the average human, and the Felsite males have manes of shaggy fur around their heads.

Members of the Lycaon faction are not as tall or husky as the Felsite, and they have rough hair covering their heads and running down their necks and backs. They have pointed ears and sharp teeth. They live and hunt in packs in the deep forest on the eastern side of the Angondran continent, and they dwell in temporary shelters constructed of sticks, leaves, and thatch that facilitate their nomadic lifestyle.

The Ursidrean faction dwell in huge caves dug out of the northern mountains. The Ursidreans keep most of the old Angondran technology alive, as well as adding new developments of their own to enhance their quality of life. The Ursidreans have the most advanced medical care of all the factions, as well as the most advanced weapons and war machines. The Ursidreans are the heaviest Angondrans, with rough fur around their heads and shoulders. They move more slowly than the fast-running Lycaon and the powerful Felsite, but they are the strongest of all Angondrans.

The Avitras stand the tallest of all Angondrans, with light, slender bodies and iridescent feathers surrounding their heads in spectacular frills. Feathers running down the outsides of their arms and lower legs enable them to fly short distances in their treetop homes in the western forests. They build light houses in the upper canopy where they cannot be seen from the ground. Though the Avitras have no advanced technology, they maintain a detailed oral record of Angondra’s history, including all the political relationships between the factions. They consider themselves the guardians of Angondra and the makers of laws.

The fifth faction, the Aqinas, remain elusive and hidden in their watery home on the coasts southwest of the Felsite plains. They live in tidal pools on the edge of the sea where they maintain constant contact with the water. Little is known about them, even among other Angondrans. They appear to move through any body of water, no matter how meager or shallow, and they communicate chemically through the medium of water. No one understands how this mechanism works, but the Aqinas somehow seem to know where other Angondrans are and what they are doing at all times. The Aqinas have negotiated peace agreements between the other factions in times of war and strife, but some Angondrans suspect them of manipulating the other factions for their own gain, including provoking wars they can then mediate for their own benefit.

This is the world into which the women on the Romarie ship crashed. The ship crashed in Lycaon territory, and within minutes, a Lycaon scouting party surrounded the crash site and took charge of the survivors. After a grueling march over rough terrain, the Lycaon brought the women to their village, where they tended their injuries and made them as comfortable as possible.

In the months that followed, messages poured in from the other factions, begging the women to join them and help rebuild the Angondran population. Many left to seek new futures in the other factions, while others remained behind.

Chapter 1

Penelope Ann King burst into her house in the treetops. Her cheeks glowed with excitement, and her long blonde hair whipped around her head. Anna Evans jumped to her feet, but she didn’t stand higher than Penelope Ann’s shoulder. “What’s going on?”

“Aquilla’s back!” Penelope Ann breathed.

Anna froze. “Did they find Frieda?”

Penelope Ann waved her question away. “Of course not. It’s hopeless.”

Anna narrowed her eyes at her hostess. “How can you be so flippant? This is my sister we’re talking about.”

Penelope Ann bustled around, putting the house in order. “Your sister disappeared. No one can explain what happened to her, but the Avitras searched the whole forest several times and didn’t find her. You can’t expect our people to do anything more.”

“Frieda disappeared under mysterious circumstances,” Anna replied. “She was standing on a balcony near an Avitras house, and the next minute, she was gone. No trace of her body was ever found. I don’t expect the Avitras to keep looking for her indefinitely, but you don’t have to be so callus about it.”

Penelope Ann stopped in her tracks, and her expression softened. “I’m sorry. You and your sister just got here, and now she’s disappeared. I’m sorry. I’m just excited about seeing my mate again after so long.”

Anna sank onto the low couch against the wall. “I appreciate how hard Aquilla worked to find Frieda. No one could ask for more. He’s a good Alpha. You’re lucky to have him as a mate.”

Penelope Ann blushed with pride. “We all got lucky when we came to Angondra. The way the Angondran people took us in after the Romarie abducted us from Earth would make anyone proud to be one of them.”

Anna gazed out the window. The setting sun streaked through the leaves of the forest canopy. “I know. I just wonder sometimes.....”

Penelope Ann studied her. “What do you wonder?”

“I wonder if Frieda and I made a mistake leaving the Lycaon to come to the Avitras,” Anna replied. “Maybe we should have been happy with what we had and stayed where we were.”

Penelope Ann ran to the couch and sat down next to her. She gazed into Anna’s face with her brilliant blue eyes. “Don’t ever think that! Do you hear me? You made the right decision to leave the Lycaon, and you’ve been happy here ever since, haven’t you?”

“Sure, but....” Anna began.

Penelope Ann waved her hand. “I’m not talking about Frieda disappearing. You’ve been happy here with the Avitras except for that, haven’t you? Of course, you have. Who could be happy with the Lycaon? They’re savages.”

Anna shrugged. “I don’t know. I know a few women who are very happy there. Marissa....”

Penelope Ann jumped up. “I’m not talking about Marissa. I’m talking about you. You could never be happy with the Lycaon. They live in huts. They sit on the ground. They eat nothing but raw meat. No sane person could be happy there.”

“They don’t eat raw meat,” Anna murmured. “They do cook it first, and they...”

Penelope Ann went back to hurrying around the room. “No, you did the right thing by coming here. The Avitras are the most advanced faction on the planet. No one could be happy with any of the other factions. You’ve been here long enough to realize that for yourself.”

Anna kept her eyes on the distant sunlight streaming through the canopy. They’d been through this same conversation a dozen times in the weeks since she moved from the Lycaon village to the Avitras territory in the treetops. “I wonder sometimes what the other factions are like. Marissa says the Felsite live in cities, and we hear reports about the Ursidreans having advanced technology in their mountain caves.”

Penelope Ann snorted, but she didn’t turn around. She kept dusting and tidying the house. “You wouldn’t want to have anything to do with the Felsite with their shaggy manes of hair and their heavy limbs. Yuck! And the Ursidreans? You might as well mate with a goat.”

Anna’s voice dropped almost to a whisper. “I’ve heard that they’re more like bears than goats.”

Penelope Ann pretended not to hear. “I thank heaven I came to the Avitras first. I couldn’t stand any other faction. The Avitras are the only faction with any advanced social structure. The others are toads.”

Before Anna could answer, a shout went up from outside. Penelope Ann ran outside and leaned over the railing. “They’re coming!”

Anna hung back. Penelope Ann looked down into the shadowy canopy. All at once, a whirlwind whipped Anna’s brown hair back from her face, and a tall man sailed through the air and landed on his feet on the balcony. His eyes flashed, but he broke into a grin when he spotted Penelope Ann.

She rushed into his arms. “You’re home!”

He planted a passionate kiss on her lips. Then he threw back his head and laughed out loud. He hooked his arm around Penelope Ann’s shoulders and headed for the house. He didn’t stop smiling when he met Anna at the door. “Hello there.”

She smiled back at him. “Hello, Aquilla. Welcome home.”

His smile dimmed. “I’m sorry we didn’t find your sister.”

Anna made room for the happy couple to come inside. “I appreciate your trying.”

Aquilla threw himself on the couch, and Penelope Ann went back to whizzing around the room. “What a week! You don’t know how good it is to be home. I have less tolerance for the frontier every time I go out there. I think I’ll promote Piwaka to manage all the Border Guards from now on. I don’t have the stomach for it.”

Penelope Ann smiled at him over her shoulder. “There must be some advantage to being Alpha. If you don’t want to troop out to the frontier every time somebody stubs their toe, why should you?”

He lunged forward. “I’m sure glad I went this time, though. Even if this was the last time I ever had to go, it paid off. You won’t believe the prize we brought back.”

Penelope Ann spun around with a wooden bowl of mixed nuts and seeds in her hand. “What did you get?”

He jumped off the couch and kissed her again. “Just wait until you see.”

He strode out of the house, but before he got to the balcony railing, an even more powerful flurry of wind shook the treetops. Half a dozen Avitras men flew over the railing and landed in front of him. Aquilla pointed at one of them. “Bring him in here.”

He led the way into the house, and the other Avitras followed him. Then Anna noticed another man with them—and this man was not Avitras. He stood almost as tall as the Avitras, but he had no feathers and his muscular heavy body made him move slower.

He was unmistakably Angondran, but unlike any Angondran Anna had ever seen. He was too big to be Lycaon, and he had rough, short, dark fur around his head instead of a flowing golden mane like the Felsite. He was a big hunk of a man, heavy brows hung low over his eyes, but they snapped around the room and took in every detail. His expression brightened when he saw Penelope Ann and Anna in the room.

Aquilla held out his arms to make room for the man, but no one came near him. The Avitras surrounded him on all sides. Aquilla threw back his shoulders. “You see! This is the prize we brought back from the frontier.”

Anna and Penelope Ann stared at the man with their mouths open. Penelope Ann swallowed. “Did you....?”

Aquilla puffed himself up even more. “What do you think? This is going to seal my place in history. I’m the first Alpha ever to bring back an Ursidrean captive.”

He crowed in triumph, but Anna’s heart sank. So this was an Ursidrean, the first she’d ever seen, but being in the same room with him shamed her. She had nothing to do with his capture, but she could barely look him in the eye. She was supposed to be Avitras now, too. She left the Lycaon to make her home with Avitras, so why couldn’t she celebrate their triumph over their enemies?

Anna’s mind whirled. Aquilla, Alpha of the Avitras faction, had captured an Ursidrean from the frontier between their territories. This could lead to war. Why did she ever leave the Lycaon?

Aquilla was too full of his own pride to notice anybody else. He waved to his men. “You can leave him here.”

The guards exchanged glances, but he spread his arms to usher them toward the door. “Don’t worry. He’s harmless. He’s not going anywhere. You made sure of that.” Aquilla laughed, and his voice grated on Anna’s nerves.

She cast another look at the prisoner. Blood darkened one of his nostrils and the fur on the side of his head. He held himself perfectly erect and stared straight back into her eyes, but she couldn’t help notice the discolored patches on the skin of his arms and neck. The Avitras did their best to subdue him before they brought him back.

Penelope Ann broke the silence. “What are you going to do with him? You can’t keep him here.”

Aquilla turned away. “I’m going to interrogate him until I find out which of their rotten breed killed my brother Erius in the war. Once I find that out, I’ll hold him for ransom until the Ursidreans turn over the murderer. Then I’ll have my revenge.”

Penelope Ann let out a shaky breath, but neither she nor Anna could take their eyes off the prisoner. “Do you have to keep him here? Isn’t there anywhere else you could keep him?” She hesitated. “I was hoping...”

Aquilla swept her up in his arms. “I know you were hoping we could spend our first night alone together. I feel the same way, but I can’t let this opportunity pass me by. I’ve been burning for revenge against my brother’s killer for years. Now the perfect means to accomplish that has fallen into my lap. I couldn’t let it slip away.”

Anna swallowed hard. For some reason, she kept her eyes locked on the Ursidrean’s face, and his gaze never wavered from her eyes. How did he know to look at her? What trick of the light told him his stare played on her heart strings in that room full of people who cared nothing about him? “He didn’t exactly fall into your lap, did he? It looks like you beat him up pretty bad. He didn’t come over to the Avitras of his own free will.”

Aquilla laughed again. “No need for your jokes now.”

“Who’s joking?” Anna barely heard her own voice.

Aquilla collapsed on the couch. “Give me that food, my love. I’m starving.”

Chapter 2

Penelope Ann set a wooden bowl in Aquilla’s hands. He leaned back on the couch and scooped nuts and seeds into his mouth while he kept his flashing eyes on his captive. The Ursidrean never moved a muscle.

Aquilla chuckled over his meal. “You’re right. He didn’t fall into our laps. We noticed a band of the lumbering brutes across the valley while we were patrolling the border. They’re so stupid, they didn’t notice us.”

“Is that when you got the idea of holding one of them for ransom?” Penelope Ann asked.

“I actually got the idea on the flight up there,” he told her. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. I only just got the idea that, if I got my hands on one of the stinking creatures, I could force him to tell me which of his hairy comrades killed my brother. I’ve been brooding over this ever since the war ended. Not knowing who killed him drives me mad—almost more than knowing the murderer is walking free under the Angondran sky instead of rotting in a shallow grave the way he should be.”

Anna stood in the same spot. The Ursidrean held her gaze with unwavering attention. The one time she glanced at Aquilla, the sight of him eating his evening meal made her sick to her stomach. Looking at the Ursidrean calmed her in a way she couldn’t understand. He stood straight and still, with no fear for his future. His wounds didn’t touch him.

She trusted his solid form and watchful eyes. She never trusted the Lycaon or the Avitras this way. Nothing bad could happen as long as he held her gaze that way. She dreaded the moment Aquilla started questioning this prisoner, but she dreaded leaving the room and breaking that eye contact with him more.

Penelope Ann and Aquilla kept up a friendly chat about everything that happened since he left in search of Frieda. They even discussed Aquilla’s sleeping habits on the journey to the frontier. Penelope Ann’s voice drifted into Anna’s consciousness. “Did you find that Border troop you thought was lost?”

“We found them,” Aquilla replied. “They were miles away from their posts. We questioned them for three days, but we never got a straight answer out of them about what made them deviate from their patrol. I’ve got a good mind to strike the whole patrol and send them back to remedial training.”

“Is that really necessary?” Penelope Ann asked.

“I can’t trust them,” he replied. “If they can’t stay within their assigned patrol and have no reasonable explanation why they left it, I have no choice but to strike them. They left a whole stretch of border unguarded. Anything could have happened during that time. The enemy could have walked right over our border, and we would have been caught unprepared.”

The Ursidrean’s eyes brightened up, and one eyebrow twitched upwards.

The conversation paused. Then Penelope Ann murmured. “How can you eat with him staring at us like that?”

Aquilla chuckled. “I’m hungry.”

“Can’t you send him somewhere else?” she asked. “Does he have to stand here in our house?”

Aquilla set his bowl aside. “Looking at him makes me happy. You don’t know how satisfying it is to know he’s here, in our power, for a change instead of haunting our border, waiting to strike when our Guards’ backs are turned. I can do what I want with him, and he can’t do us any harm.”

“I wish you’d get rid of him,” Penelope Ann muttered.

Aquilla kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll get rid of him sooner or later, but right now I need him around. Now let’s stop talking about him. I want to relax and enjoy my first night back at home.”

Anna heard her own voice coming from somewhere outside herself. “He looks hungry.”

Aquilla snorted. “He’s not hungry. Look at him. Does he look like he’s fading away?”

She couldn’t stop herself. She walked to the counter across the room and picked up the other bowl of food. Penelope Ann prepared it for herself, but Anna held it out to the Ursidrean.

He gazed down at the mixture of nuts and seeds. Then he smiled at her and shook his head. Her cheeks burned.

“You see?” Aquilla called out. “He’s not hungry or tired or weak. He’d like you to think he is, but these Ursidreans are a tough breed.”

Anna couldn’t stand the Ursidrean gazing into her eyes and smiling at her that way. He didn’t really smile. No one could smile in his situation. But a fire burned in his eyes when he looked at her. He didn’t look at the Avitras men that way, and he didn’t look at Aquilla or Penelope Ann that way. What was he thinking when he looked at her? She tore her eyes away, but there was nowhere else she could turn.

Aquilla and Penelope Ann cuddled on the couch. If the Ursidrean hadn’t been there, she would have sat on the floor, but she couldn’t settle down. Nervous shivers racked her body. She clenched her hands together to stop them shaking.

She turned first one way and then another in a desperate search for something to do with herself. Every time she looked at the Ursidrean, she found him looking back at her. Every time she looked at Aquilla and Penelope Ann, she found them immersed in each other, which made her even more uncomfortable. How long would they linger on the couch? She was supposed to sleep there tonight.

She made a circuit of the room and stopped at the counter again. She picked up the water jar and held that out to the Ursidrean. “Are you thirsty?”

He regarded her with a distant intensity, almost as though he was seeing her for the first time. Then he took the jar out of her hands and lifted it to his mouth. He drank more than she expected. He must have been thirsty. He handed it back to her with a sigh. “Thank you.”

Aquilla watched the whole episode from the couch. “Be careful. You’ll give him ideas.”

Anna blushed and turned away, but she couldn’t stay in that house a moment longer. She strode across the room to the door, but just before she stepped out into the night, some mysterious power compelled her to glance back over her shoulder.

He still stood in the same place, immoveable, like a mountain dropped into her living room from the clear blue sky. And still he stared directly at her. He paid Aquilla, his captor, his tormentor, no attention whatsoever. Even when she hurried away into the dark, he gazed at the empty doorway where she disappeared.

She hurried through the village, going nowhere. She ran as much to get away from him as to get anywhere else. She passed a dozen lighted windows. She could ask at any one of them for a place to spend the night and expect a welcome. Her neighbors would understand Aquilla and Penelope Ann wanted the house to themselves for his first night back after weeks away.

But she didn’t want welcome at any of those houses. She wanted....What did she want? She couldn’t put her finger on it. She didn’t want to go back to Penelope Ann’s house—that was certain. The last thing she wanted to see was......him. But not him. She did want to see him, but she didn’t want to see him standing there, a captive. She didn’t want to see him standing there on display while Aquilla and Penelope Ann nuzzled on the couch. She blushed even now at the thought of it.

But him—she didn’t blush at the thought of him, alone by himself. The image of him standing in front of her with that straightforward look on his face gave her a sense of peace. If only she could erase the house around him and leave him standing that way in the middle of the forest with no one around but her. And then what?

She stopped on one of the platforms between the houses and watched the lights winking on and off again. She could name every person in the village, but those lights didn’t beckon to her tonight. They left her cold and cast out.

Then she spotted the same group of Avitras Guards who brought the Ursidrean to Penelope Ann’s house. They filed one behind the other, back along the tree branches, back toward the house. Anna’s blood ran cold. What were they doing?

She hated to return, but she couldn’t trust Aquilla or his men with that prisoner around. Whatever they did with him, she had to see it for herself. She had to bear witness to this moment. She couldn’t say exactly why.

Chapter 3

Anna hurried by a back route back to Penelope Ann’s house, but the Avitras Guards veered off and went a different direction. They didn’t return to Aquilla. Anna sighed with relief, but at that moment, voices bubbled out of the house and called her back. She couldn’t keep running away.

A deep rumbling voice answered Aquilla, and a shiver went up Anna’s spine. She hurried to the door. Aquilla stood in the middle of the room, face to face with his captive. “Who are you?

The man looked him squarely in the eye. “I am an Ursidrean.”

Aquilla’s eyes flashed. “I know that. Tell me who you are. What is your name?”

“My name is Menlo,” the man replied.

“What is your position in the Ursidrean army?” Aquilla asked.

“I am not a member of the army,” Menlo replied. “I am a geographer assigned to the border patrol.”

Aquilla’s arm shot up. Anna flinched, but he didn’t strike the Ursidrean the way she expected. He simply waved his arm. “We both know that’s nonsense. Every Ursidrean is a member of the army. You have a militaristic society. Men, women, and children get inducted into the army from an early age, so don’t give me any fairy tale about being a geographer assigned to the border patrol.”

Menlo cocked his head to one side. “Who told you that?”

Aquilla waved his hand. “Everybody knows it. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

“When?” Menlo asked.

Aquilla glared at him. “I’ll ask the questions here. Don’t step out of line, or you’ll wish you’d never been born. Keep your place if you know what’s good for you.”

Menlo said nothing, but he never took his eyes off Aquilla’s face.

“I saw for myself during the Ursidrean campaign how every Ursidrean participated in the battle,” Aquilla went on. “Even young children fought alongside their parents.”

“That was during the first war,” Menlo replied. “The Avitras invaded our territory and laid siege to our city. We all had to fight for our lives.”

“Your society operates as one enormous army,” Aquilla returned. “You prepare for battle from your youth. You might as well admit it now and tell me your position.”

“I already told you I’m not a member of the army,” Menlo murmured.

Aquilla’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Are you telling me you never fought in any war?”

“I never said that,” Menlo replied.

Aquilla jabbed his finger at him. “I knew it! You are a member of the army.”

“I fought in the last war,” Menlo admitted, “but I haven’t been in the army since.”

“You’re on the border patrol,” Aquilla shot back. “That’s the army.”

Menlo shook his head. “We’re assigned through the civil Labor Pool. I reported to the Labor Pool after being discharged from my squadron. They looked up my Academy records, and when they found out I had training in geography, they assigned me to the team mapping out the borders. I’ve been doing it ever since. I haven’t even had any combat training.”

Aquilla snorted. “You wouldn’t need any after the time you spent fighting the Avitras on our own soil. You can’t cry me a river about women and children fighting for their lives that time.”

Menlo narrowed his eyes. “I read history books. The Avitras provoked the second war the same way they provoked the first one. They breached our border, but we drove them back and fought them in their own strongholds where they couldn’t harm our defenseless civilians.”

Aquilla gritted his teeth, but Menlo cut him off. “After the war ended, we made a peace treaty with the Avitras. Our Supreme Council cut back the border patrols between our territories. That’s what left us open to invasion from our supposed allies.”

Aquilla dropped his voice to a menacing snarl. “How dare you blame the Avitras for your own brutality? How dare you come into my house and beg for sympathy—from me?”

“Who begged for sympathy?” Menlo asked.

Aquilla didn’t hear him. “Do you know why you’re here? Do you know why you’re bleeding on my floor tiles right now instead of laughing over your bubbling sanctity in your own country?”

Menlo watched him with patient reserve. “I’m sure you will tell me.”

“You killed my brother!” Aquilla burst out. “You murdered him, and now you’re going to pay the price.”

“I?” Menlo asked. “I killed your brother?”

Aquilla waved his hand. “What difference does it make? An Ursidrean killed him. That’s all that matters. I’ll never rest until I pay every single one of you back for it.”

Menlo arched his eyebrows. “What makes you think an Ursidrean killed him? You people have seen precious little of Ursidreans. You know next to nothing about us.”

“Who else could have killed him?” Aquilla shot back. “He died in the war.”

“Anybody could have killed him,” Menlo replied. “He could have been killed by friendly fire. He could have stepped in front of a cannon as it was going off.”

Aquilla fixed him with a terrible glare. “You’re a prisoner here. Don’t you understand what that means?”

“It means I’m bleeding on your floor tiles right now instead of laughing over my bubbling sanctity in my own country, whatever that means,” Menlo replied. “So your brother died in the war. What of it? My brother died in the war, too. And my mother and my little baby nephew and my great-uncle were all wiped out by the Avitras when they closed up the mouth of refugee shelter outside Harbeiz. You don’t see me taking Avitras prisoners and dragging them back to Ursidrean territory for revenge.”

Aquilla didn’t answer. Faster than thought, he flew across the room and struck Menlo in the face with both fists. Menlo buckled under the blow, and when he collapsed onto the floor, Aquilla fell on him with feet and fists flying. He pummeled the fallen man with blows even after the heavy frame lay still and bleeding at his feet.

Once, Menlo rallied under the hail blows to fight back. He grabbed Aquilla by the ankle and pulled him off his feet. The house shuddered when Aquilla hit the floor, and Menlo brought his elbow down hard across Aquilla’s neck.

Menlo struggled to get up to press his advantage, but he was too big and bulky to move fast enough. The Guards’ rough treatment and Aquilla’s blows slowed him down enough to allow Aquilla to recover from his fall. Menlo got onto his hands and knees and moved toward him, but Aquilla flipped around and locked his legs around Menlo’s waist. With one twist, he sent Menlo crashing back onto the floor, where he kept the upper hand.

Anna and Penelope Ann watched in mute horror. This couldn’t be happening right in front of them. Menlo was the first Ursidrean Anna had ever seen, and now Aquilla was attacking him in their living room. Anna always admired Aquilla for his steady determination and calm leadership. He never lost control before, and now, in front of her eyes, he’d descended into madness.

All at once, black rage erupted from the forgotten depths of her soul. She tackled Aquilla with all her might. She never raised her hand to a living soul before, but something snapped inside her, and she couldn’t stop herself. She slammed her fists into his back and grabbed at his arms. “Stop, Aquilla! Leave him alone. That’s enough.”

Aquilla outweighed her by a ton, and she couldn’t budge him. Then again, she couldn’t hit him very hard. She’d never hit anything before, but she wanted nothing more than to hurt him as much as possible. It was the only way to snap him out of this insanity. In the end, he stopped of his own volition. Menlo lay motionless at his feet. He shoved Anna away. “Leave me alone.”

Anna glared at him and panted to catch her breath. “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you see he’s unconscious?”

He rounded on her, but he kept his voice measured and calm. How he could remain calm at a time like this she could never understand. “Don’t ever interfere between me and my prisoner again.”

Anna shrank back, but she wouldn’t back down. “You already beat him up on the way here. You don’t dare face him in a fair fight, and every word he said just now was true.”

Aquilla turned away. “He’s a murderer. They all are.”

Anna crossed her arms over her chest and looked the other way. What was the point of arguing with him anymore?

Aquilla turned to Penelope Ann. “Come on. You wanted a happy night together after I got back. Let’s go have it.”

Penelope Ann stared at him. Where was her strong steady partner who went off to the frontier, and who was this maniac who took his place? But Penelope Ann didn’t have time to react. Aquilla hooked his arm around her shoulders and guided her out of the room. Just before the two disappeared through the doorway into their own bedroom, Penelope Ann cast one last glance over her shoulder toward Anna.

Their eyes met. The door closed, and silence descended over the house. Anna gazed down at the still form at her feet. Then, all at once, the door flew open again. Aquilla strode across the room and dragged Menlo to the support post holding up the log roof. He tied his wrists behind him to the post before he strode back to his darkened bedroom.

Chapter 4

Anna sat on the couch and stared at the unconscious prisoner. She didn’t dare touch him. Aquilla would fly into another rage if she interfered, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Menlo.

The lamp burned out, and crystal clear moonlight lit up the room. His shoulders rose and fell with grated breathing through the blood in his mouth, but she still didn’t move. The sound punished her for doing nothing. She couldn’t let Aquilla get away with this.

In the small hours of the morning, he stirred and groaned, and when he discovered his wrists tied behind his back, he winced in pain. He struggled against his restraints until he worked himself into a sitting position. He leaned his back against the post, and then his head. He closed his eyes and sighed.

Anna sat motionless and watched in silence. He didn’t know she was there. Why did he fascinate her? She’d seen enough Angondrans that another one didn’t surprise her much. He wasn’t alien enough to make her stop and stare the way she did when she first met the Lycaon. That wasn’t it. His quiet calm in the face of Aquilla’s accusations, his determination to lift himself out of his pain to a sitting position—Anna had never seen anyone act this way.

Before Aquilla went away, Anna thought he was steady and determined and dignified. Now he turned all that on its head. His steady determination and dignified hospitality was nothing but a facade to hide the pathological hatred burning below the surface. No wonder Penelope Ann stared at him in astonishment. She never knew who her mate really was.

Menlo kept his eyes closed, but his breathing settled into a quiet tide now that he sat up straight. Had he gone to sleep? The first glimmer of dawn brought the cries of the tree creatures, and Menlo snapped alert. That’s when he saw her sitting across the room from him.

His eyes flashed once set Anna’s hair on end. Then he sighed and closed them again. His head fell back against the post. “What are you doing here?”

She watched him for a long time without answering. The day expanded outside the window, and in the light, she saw the full extent of his injuries. She compressed her lips. “You must be hungry.”

He didn’t open his eyes. “Don’t offer me that kibble again. I can’t eat that.”

The longer she sat there, the angrier she got. “Did they feed you on the march here? How long has it been since you ate anything?”

He didn’t answer.

She couldn’t sit still anymore. She strode across the room to the counter by the door, but her heart sank when she got there. The Avitras ate nothing but this mixture of nuts and seeds. That was their whole diet. They didn’t hunt or trap animals. There was nothing else in the house or anywhere else in Avitras territory. She surveyed the counter in despair. Her mind ran through the surrounding forest for anything other than seeds and nuts to feed him.

“If you tell me what you eat,” she told him, “I’ll try to get it for you.”

He muttered under his breath. “Leave me alone. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

Anna spun around. He sat on the floor with his head tilted back against the post. He kept his eyes closed against the growing light, and blood trickled down his temple from a cut above his eye. She pressed her lips together again.

She squatted down in front of him. “I’m trying to help you, Menlo. You won’t survive this if you don’t keep your strength up. Aquilla might want to starve you until you’re too weak to resist, but I won’t let that happen. Let me find you something to eat.”

His eyes squinted open. “You’re one of them.”

She started. “One of what?”

“You’re Avitras,” he replied. “You’re one of them.”

“I am not Avitras. I’m human.” The words startled her, but she couldn’t stop them. They came from some forgotten part of herself, and that part would no longer remain silent.”

“Then what are you doing here?” he asked. “You joined their faction.”

She shook her head. “The Romarie abducted me from my home planet. Their ship crashed here, and I’ve been with the Lycaon for months.”

“I know all about it,” he returned.

Anna blinked. “How could you know about it? All the women on board went to the Lycaon village. They rescued us after the crash.”

“Not all the women went to the Lycaon,” he replied. “The Romarie ship broke up in the atmosphere. One of the women fell out and landed on the Ursidrean border. Our patrol found her, and our medic saved her life. We brought her back to our city for treatment.”

Anna’s blood ran cold. Where had she heard those words before? “You....you know this woman?”

“I told you our patrol rescued her,” he replied. “I suppose I know her as well as any Ursidrean.”

Anna swallowed hard. “What was this woman’s name?”

“Emily Allen,” he replied. “She told us she worked on mountain search and rescue for six years in a place called Prince Rupert. I guess that’s somewhere on your planet.”

Anna frowned. “Emily Allen is my sister.”

Menlo’s eyes flew open. A spark of recognition flashed across his face. Then he instantly recovered his cold reserve. “You’re Avitras now. You lived with the Lycaon for a while, but you joined the Avitras. You’re one of them.”

She shook her head. “I can’t explain why I came over to the Avitras. I guess I wasn’t settling down with the Lycaon. I had nothing to lose by moving. I know Frieda felt the same way.”

“Who?” he asked.

“My other sister,” she replied. “She came with me. We thought a change might help us find our places on this planet. But now.....” She glanced toward Aquilla and Penelope Ann’s room.

He clenched his jaw. “It doesn’t matter. Food won’t help me. He won’t quit until he gets his revenge, and I’m the only Ursidrean around. He’ll find a way to get it from me.”

“Let me help you,” she urged. “Don’t starve yourself to spite Aquilla. You’ll only kill yourself faster.”

He snorted, but didn’t answer.

“Tell me what you usually eat,” she told him. “I’ll find you something.”

“We don’t eat nuts and berries,” he growled. “I can tell you that.”

“What about meat?” she asked. “Do you eat meat?”

His head shot up, and a ray of light crossed his face. Anna smiled. So that was it. He ate meat. “I understand how you feel. I’d give anything for a fried chicken right now.

His chin fell onto his chest. “You won’t be able to find it around here.”

Anna’s smile faded. He had a point. “What else? Do you eat fruit and vegetables?”

He gazed at the floor. “I’m not hungry. Don’t worry about it.”

She leaned back and smiled again. “I’ll find you something. I don’t know what it will be, but I’ll find it for you.”

His eyes shot to her face, but before he could answer, the bedroom door swung open and Aquilla strode into the room. He took one look at Anna squatting in front of his prisoner, and he frowned.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to interfere with my prisoner?” he snapped. “I can’t trust you in my house any longer.”

He slashed the rope tying Menlo’s wrists to the post and took hold of Menlo’s collar. He dragged him across the floor and out the back door. Menlo’s heavy body bumped over the balcony to a windowless store room behind the house. Aquilla flung him into it and barred the door.

When he came back, he pointed a threatening finger at Anna. “Don’t let me catch you doing that again.”

Anna stiffened. “I’ve always respected you, Aquilla. You were kind enough to offer me a place in your house until I found my own home here, and for that I’ll always be grateful. But don’t expect me to go along with your plan to interrogate this man to find your brother’s killer. People die in wars. Be a man and let it go. Your people will be much better off if you do.”

“I’m the Alpha of this faction,” he returned. “I’ll decide what’s best for my people and what isn’t.”

“If your brother died in the war, it couldn’t have been murder,” she told him. “How can I join this faction when the Alpha is obsessed with revenge for a crime that never occurred? What will your people will say when they find out what you’ve done?”

“I’ll be a hero,” he replied. “Every family in this faction lost someone in the war. They’ve been dreaming of revenge ever since.”

Anna shook her head. “If anything happens to that man, you could start another war with the Ursidreans. Your faction won’t make you a hero for that.”

He turned away. “Only an Avitras could understand.”

Anna crossed her arms over her chest. “Then I guess I’m not Avitras.”

Aquilla strode out of the house. He leapt onto the balcony rail and spread his arms. The feathers stood out from his limbs, and he soared away into the rising sun.

Chapter 5

Penelope Ann came up behind Anna, and they gazed over the railing where Aquilla flew away. “You can’t provoke him like that. He could make you pay for it.”

Anna turned on her. “I don’t want to live anywhere in fear of what he might do to make me pay for it. I don’t want to live under tyrant like that. If this is what being Avitras means, then I don’t want to be Avitras. I’ll go back to the Lycaon. They’re sensible people.”

Penelope Ann shook her head. “You don’t understand him. Aquilla is sensible. He’s just eaten up by grief about his brother. You can understand that, can’t you?”

“You can’t seriously be supporting him in this, can you?” Anna shot back. “This is insanity.”

“Well, what can I do about it?” Penelope Ann asked. “Aquilla is my mate. I have to support him.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Anna countered. “Maybe if you stood up to him, you could stop him.”

“Well, what are you going to do?” Penelope Ann asked.

“The first thing I’m going to do,” Anna replied, “is find Menlo something to eat.”

“You can’t do that,” Penelope Ann told her. “What if Aquilla finds out? He already told you more than once not to interfere.”

“Tell him, if you want to,” Anna replied. “I’ll tell him myself. I’m not going along with this. I won’t stand by and watch him torture an innocent man to feed his appetite for revenge, and neither should you.”

Penelope Ann didn’t answer, and Anna turned her back. She balanced along a tree branch that acted as a bridge between their balcony and the next house. These branch bridges connected all the Avitras houses spreading through the forest canopy.

The branch ended at a platform with no house, and Anna paused there to collect her thoughts. She was flirting with disaster to flout Aquilla when she lived as a guest in his and Penelope Ann’s house. She had nowhere else to stay if he threw her out. None of the other Avitras would take her in if she made Aquilla her enemy.

Then again, the Angondran people made their hospitality to strangers a point of honor. Aquilla would never turn her out of his house to go cold and hungry in the wilderness, no matter how mad she made him. Penelope Ann wouldn’t let him, either—would she?

Anna never would have believed Penelope Ann could be so spineless when it came to doing what was right. How could she stand by and let Aquilla mistreat a helpless prisoner right there in their own house? She must have grossly misjudged Penelope Ann. She wasn’t the strong-minded, independent woman Anna thought she was. She went watery in the knees at Aquilla’s word and didn’t think for herself when injustice stared her in the face.

Anna gritted her teeth and turned away from their house. She might be homeless in this world without a friend or relative for thousands of miles, but at least she could do what was right. She might not be able to save Menlo from Aquilla’s vendetta, but at least she could make his ordeal easier. She would prove to him and everyone else she wasn’t like Aquilla. She had to find him something to eat.

Her thoughts turned northeast, toward Ursidrean territory. Her sister Emily was out there somewhere. Just two days before Aquilla brought Menlo to the village, Emily visited her here. She’d trekked south to Lycaon territory to find Anna, Frieda, and their cousin Aimee, and when Aimee told her Anna and Frieda had moved to Avitras territory, she trekked all the way across Lycaon territory to find them.

She found only Anna. Her Ursidrean mate Faruk traveled with her to support and protect her, and not even Frieda’s disappearance could induce Emily to separate from him. The Avitras wouldn’t let him remain in their territory, and Emily left to return with him to the Ursidrean capital.

Anna never saw Emily as happy as she was with Faruk. Would Anna ever find that kind of happiness? She held such high hopes when she and Frieda first came to live with the Avitras. The Avitras prided themselves on their oral histories, their advanced legal system, and their treetop architecture. They didn’t live in the mud on the ground like the Lycaon, tearing the flesh from dead animals with their fangs.

Now, Aquilla’s ruthless brutality toward a helpless prisoner made her think again. What did she really have in common with these people? Their staple diet of nuts and seeds made her stomach ache, although she kept it secret from everyone, including Penelope Ann. She found their huts in the trees flimsy and drafty, and the wind in the canopy kept her awake at night.

She’d made friends with a few village women, and their children were delightful—at least, she’d made their acquaintance. She hadn’t known them long enough to call them real friends. She thought Penelope Ann was her friend, but she couldn’t be friends with anybody who sat back and did nothing while another living creature got mistreated. Was she really the only person in this village who realized Aquilla was crazy?

None of this thinking was getting her any closer to finding food for Menlo, though. One more mental sweep of the village confirmed she wouldn’t find anything for him up here. None of the houses contained anything but nuts and seeds. No doubt they would make a meat-eater like Menlo sicker than they made Anna. She would have to go down to the ground.

She fought down an overpowering wave of vertigo and inched toward the edge of the platform. Not for the first time, she wished for Avitras’ feathers to carry her down through the branches on a cushion of air. But she was only human, and the only way down from these houses was to climb.

She got onto her hands and knees and crawled backward to the edge of the platform. The hardest part was pushing her legs out into thin air. You couldn’t see the ground so far below. One slip and that was the end of her.

She dangled by the waist and kicked with her legs until her foot hit the tree trunk under the platform. She pawed the bark with her foot until she found the first foothold. Then she lowered the rest of her body over the side. The rest was easy—or at least easier. It took her over an hour to climb down that enormous tree. She jumped down to the ground an hour later with sweat running down her forehead.

Nothing but giant tree trunks surrounded her on all sides. The forest creatures scurried and sailed from branch to branch, but she had no way to hunt them. The Avitras didn’t kill animals, so no one else in the village would have any way to hunt them, either. They would shun her if they knew she even thought of hunting them.

She started walking. She had to find something to feed Menlo. She couldn’t go back to Aquilla’s house empty-handed. Her frustration was nothing compared to what he was going through. For all she knew, Aquilla was there breaking his bones right now.

She shook that idea out of her head. She had to concentrate. Fresh meat was out of the question. The only fruit in the forest grew at the very tops of the trees around the village. That wouldn’t keep Menlo going for long. She had to find something—but what?

She sat down to rest on the bank of a stream. She splashed water on her face, but the cold didn’t solve her problem. She cradled her head in her hand in despair. All her noble ideas came down to this. As much as she wanted to help Menlo, she couldn’t do the first thing. She was helpless.

While she sat there feeling sorry for herself, a line of bubbles rose out of the water from the muddy depths. She stared at it. Then she almost burst out laughing. It was so simple, yet so perfect. She jumped up and splashed through the water.

She went down on her knees in the mud and thrust her arm up to the shoulder into the water. She burrowed into the mud with her hand, down to the bottom where those bubbles came from.

All at once, her hand struck something hard, and her heart soared. Something sharp bit into her finger, and she gritted her teeth, but she only burrowed further into the stream bed where the skidhopper made its nest.

The sharp beak bit and pecked, but she didn’t quit until she found what she was hunting for. She brought three eggs to the surface and transferred them to her other hand before diving for more. She didn’t stop until she retrieved all ten eggs.

The wind chilled her saturated clothing on the way back to the village, but she was too elated to care. She made a pouch for the eggs by tying the ends of her shirt together so she could scale the tree with both hands. They bumped against her back as she climbed, and she smiled to herself. The wind thrashed through the canopy when she hauled herself onto the platform, and she shivered. Now she had another problem—delivering the eggs to Menlo without getting caught.

A lamp burned in the window in anticipation of evening. Penelope Ann would be preparing the evening meal for Aquilla. How could Anna get into the store room without being seen? Just then, Penelope Ann came out of the house and caught sight of Anna. She smiled and waved, but she was too far away to notice Anna’s dripping wet clothes. Anna held down her excitement and waved back.

Penelope Ann set off over another bridge to another platform on the other side, on her way to the neighboring house. She left her own house, with its golden square of light beaming through the window. Penelope Ann would never leave if Aquilla was home. The coast was clear.

Chapter 6

Anna cupped her bundle of eggs with one hand to steady them as she hurried over the bridge to the house. She couldn’t risk breaking them at a time like this.

She paused on the balcony to glance left and right just to make sure no one was looking. Then she ducked around the corner to the store room. She lifted the wooden beam away, and the door swung open on the lightless room.

Menlo sat in a corner. Anna cringed when she noticed his wrists tied behind his back. Aquilla must have tied him up when he threw him in the store room. When the light fell on him, he was shifting his position so his weight didn’t crush his hands behind his back, but he couldn’t move very well. He winced in pain no matter which way he turned.

He squinted into the light, and when he recognized Anna, he compressed his lips and turned away. “What do you want now?”

Anna stepped into the room and shut the door behind her. She did her best to steady her voice. “I brought you something to eat, but we don’t have much time. Here let me help you.”

Before he could react, she squatted down behind him. When she saw the knot holding his wrists together, she let out a sigh of relief. She knew that knot. She untied it, and his arms sprang free.

Menlo rubbed his wrists and regarded her out of the corner of his eye. “Tell me you brought something other than fruit.”

Anna sat down in front of him and untied her shirt. “I brought you some eggs. I’m sorry I don’t have any way to cook them. I couldn’t cook them without getting caught anyway. You’ll just have to eat them raw, but they’ll keep you going.” She held out the eggs to him. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find anything else.”

He stared at them for a brief instant. Then, without a word, he pounced on them. He snatched them out of the pouch and cracked them with his teeth. Then he dumped the contents down his throat. Every time he swallowed, he let out a little squeak of satisfaction. Anna smiled at him.

When he finished, he sank back against the wall with a heavy sigh. Anna collected the shells into her shirt. “I guess Aquilla didn’t give you anything else to eat since he stuck you in here.”

Menlo didn’t open his eyes. He wiped the egg off his chin with his wrist. “You don’t know how much better I feel after eating those.”

Anna chuckled. “I thought you might. I’ll try to find something else for you. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try.”

Something between a purr and a growl rumbled up out of his throat. “My shoulders are killing me.”

She put out her hand to rub his sore shoulder, but stopped herself. What if he was manipulating her to help him escape? She shouldn’t even be here. If any Avitras, even Penelope Ann, caught her here, she would be in deep trouble. She’d done her good deed. Now she should get out of there while she had the chance.

Quick as lightning, Menlo caught her by the wrist. She yanked it back, but he held her in an iron grip. His eyes burned into her soul. “Wait.”

She struggled. “I have to get out of here.”

“At least let me thank you,” he murmured. “I wasn’t expecting anybody to give me the slightest consideration. I’m sorry I snapped at you before. I guess I thought I had to protect myself from getting hurt.”

Anna kept still and waited. When she didn’t answer, he glanced down at his hand on her arm. Then he dropped it with a shudder.

Anna moved back. Then she smiled at him again. “I better go.”

“Thank you.” He shifted against the wall. “I don’t even know your name.”

“I’m Anna. Anna Evans.” She stood up. “Now I better tie you up again. Aquilla will be back soon, and he’ll have to find you tied up or he’ll know someone has been here.”

He lowered his eyes and nodded. “Go ahead. Just don’t make it so tight this time, will you?”

She looped the rope around his wrists. “Sorry. I have to tie it exactly the way he left it.”

He flinched again when she pulled the rope tight. “Aargh!”

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

The frustration and anxiety returned to his face when he tried again to lean back against the wall. He clenched his teeth and grumbled every time he moved. “I’m no better off than I was before.”

Anna gazed down at him. “At least you’ve got something in your stomach now.”

His eyes shot up to her face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Thank you for the eggs.”

“I wish I could do more,” she replied, “but Aquilla will be watching me as much as he’s watching you. I have to be careful or I could wind up....”

“What?” he interrupted. “He wouldn’t do to you what he’s doing to me. He better not or I’ll....”

Anna smiled at him. “Or you’ll what? No, he won’t do anything to me, but I’m a guest in his house and in his faction. He already knows I don’t approve of what he’s doing to you.”

“How does he know that?” Menlo asked.

“I told him,” Anna replied. “I told him I wouldn’t go along with him torturing you and starving you and getting his revenge on you. I didn’t come over to the Avitras to be part of anything like this.”

Menlo snorted. “I’m sure he loved hearing that.”

“He’s already warned me more than once not to interfere with you,” Anna went on. “If he found out I gave you food when he’s obviously trying to starve you into submission....well, I really don’t know what he would do. He’d throw me out of the house at the very least.”

“Charming fellow,” Menlo grunted.

“He and Penelope Ann have been very kind to me,” Anna replied. “I should have my head examined for repaying their hospitality this way.”

His head whipped around. “Don’t beat yourself up about doing what’s right. You’re the only person here with a beating heart. You shouldn’t have your head examined for that.”

“Were all the Guards cruel to you on the march down here from the border?” Anna asked. “Wasn’t even one of them concerned about your treatment?”

He cocked his head to one side. “Now that you mention it, there was one who seemed more concerned than the others. He didn’t go out of his way to do me favors the way you have, but I did see him talking to Aquilla once. They seemed to be arguing, and this one Guard kept pointing at me, so I guess they were arguing about me. After that, he came over and examined my restraints and my injuries, but he didn’t say anything.”

“What did he look like?” Anna asked.

“He was uncommonly tall, even for an Avitras,” Menlo replied. “He was even taller than Aquilla, and he had very bright blue and green feathers. He was very striking.”

Anna nodded. “That’s Piwaka. He’s Captain of the Guard. He’s a sensible guy, and he’s been in enough combat to appreciate peace. I thought Aquilla was the same way, but I guess I was wrong. I wonder...”

Before she could finish her sentence, a thump reverberated through the house. The sound of laughter floated through the open door, and Anna recognized Penelope Ann’s voice. Then Aquilla’s voice answered.

Anna leapt toward the door with the egg shells clutched in her shirt. “They’re coming!”

Without another word, she ducked out of the store room and barred the door. She had time to rush into the house and dump the egg shells into her own sleeping roll before Aquilla and Penelope Ann entered with their arms around each other.

Both flushed with delight in their own company, and they kissed right there in the main room. They didn’t see Anna at all until they separated, and Penelope Ann’s smile softened. “Where have you been all day? I’ve been looking for you.”

Anna straightened her sleeping roll. “I went for a walk.”

“You won’t believe the story Aquilla just told me,” Penelope Ann breathed. “I couldn’t stop laughing all the way home.”

Anna looked up. “Really? Was it something that happened on the frontier?”

Aquilla waved his hand. “Nevermind. I don’t want to tell it again. Let’s eat something now, because I have to meet the Guard later.”

Penelope Ann jumped. “Why? I thought you were staying home for a while. You’re not going off on another patrol, are you?”

Aquilla took the bowl from her hands. “I’m meeting them here.”

Penelope Ann stopped in her tracks. “Here?”

“We’re meeting to discuss that prisoner,” he told her. “I knew you didn’t want me to leave home again, so I arranged to have the meeting here so we don’t miss one instant of our precious time together.”

Penelope Ann shook herself and held out a bowl to Anna, but Anna shook her head. She couldn’t even look at the food. “I’m not hungry.”

Penelope Ann eyes widened. “Are you sick?”

“I’m just not hungry,” Anna replied. “I don’t have any appetite right now.”

“You have to eat. You have to keep up your strength or you’ll get sick.” Penelope Ann set the bowl on the counter and took her seat next to Aquilla. They both ate.

Anna sat on the floor against the wall the way she usually did, but she said nothing. If only she could run away somewhere, she wouldn’t be here when Aquilla discussed Menlo with his Guards. But someone had to keep an eye on them. Aquilla could do anything, and no one else would do anything to stop him.

Aquilla and Penelope Ann murmured low into each other’s ears. They couldn’t be talking about Menlo or anything else unpleasant. They were too full of each other and their romantic whims to notice anything but themselves.

All at once, Aquilla shot off the couch. He startled Penelope Ann, and Anna stiffened. He slammed his bowl down on the counter and made for the store room.

He dragged Menlo back into the room, slashed the cord binding his hands behind his back, and stood him on his feet. He pointed into Menlo’s face. “Stay there.”

Menlo stared him down, but he didn’t move. Anna could barely look at him, but her eyes instinctively migrated to his face. To her relief, he looked stronger, more fortified by his meal of eggs. His predicament didn’t rattle him as much now that he could face Aquilla on a full stomach.

Aquilla confronted Menlo. “You fought in the last war between the Avitras and the Ursidreans, didn’t you?”

“I fought in the last two wars,” Menlo replied.

Aquilla waved his hand. “I don’t care about that. I only want to know about the first Ursidrean war against the Avitras. You admit you fought in it.”

“There never was an Ursidrean war against the Avitras,” Menlo countered. “The Ursidreans never made war against the Avitras. The Avitras attacked the Ursidreans in both the last two wars. In the first one, we beat you back and fought you on your own territory. In the second war, the Avitras broke our peace agreement and launched a surprise attack on our city. That’s the only reason we fought that war on our own territory.”

Aquilla chopped the air with his hand. “I’m not here to argue over details. You fought in the first Ursidrean war, so you must know about the Ursidrean military structure. What do you know about the commanders of the divisions who fought in this part of our territory?”

Menlo shrugged and looked away. “I was a common soldier, and the war was a long time ago. How am I supposed to know who commanded what division?”

Aquilla took two rapid paces across the room. He glared at Menlo. “You know, all right. Don’t waste my time denying it. Who commanded the division that breached our border along the Eastern Divide?”

Menlo lifted his eyes to Aquilla’s face. He locked his gaze on the Avitras. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Aquilla grabbed him by the back of the neck and shoved him to the window. He pointed over the expanse of treetops to a line of mountain peaks in the distance. “That is the Eastern Divide. If you fought in the war the way you say you did, you know that perfectly well. It’s the line between Ursidrean territory and Avitras territory, and that peak there is Corbell’s Crossing. That’s where the Ursidrean battle column breached our border for the first time. Now tell me the truth. Who commanded the division that crossed it first?”

Menlo gazed out the window. “I can’t remember. It was too long ago.”

Aquilla pushed Menlo back to the middle of the room. “You’re lying.”

Menlo only shrugged.

“Which division did you fight in?” Aquilla asked.

“I was in the Tenth Division,” Menlo replied.

Aquilla’s eyes flashed. “If you toy with me, you’ll find yourself in a very unpleasant position. Which part of Avitras territory did you attack?”

“I’m already in an unpleasant position,” Menlo replied. “My position couldn’t get much more unpleasant.”

Nausea gnawed at Anna’s insides. She clasped her hands together in her lap until her knuckles ached. Aquilla might as well be interrogating her.

Something thumped against on the balcony outside, and a line of Avitras men filed through the door. The first one stood taller than Aquilla himself, and his teal feathers caught the fading sunlight and glowed brighter than Aquilla’s pearly feathers. Anna recognized Piwaka, the Captain of the Guard.

Wrinkles softened his skin with the first signs of age. He surveyed the room in one glance, and he smiled at Anna and Penelope Ann. Anna blushed, but she couldn’t smile back. This was nothing to smile at.

The Guards formed a line behind Aquilla and faced the prisoner. Aquilla threw back his shoulders. “I’ve been questioning our prisoner about his involvement in the first Ursidrean war. He won’t admit it, but I’m convinced he knows the identity of the division commander for the Eastern Divide.”

Piwaka frowned. “Is that true? Do you know who the division commander was?”

Menlo shifted from one foot to the other. “I was just a foot soldier. I had nothing to do with command. I know who my division commander was, but I couldn’t say whether I fought on the Eastern Divide or not. To tell you the truth, I don’t know where I fought. I only know I was somewhere in Avitras territory.”

Aquilla rounded on Piwaka. “Don’t believe a word he says. He’s spinning a yarn to throw us off the track.”

Piwaka shook his head. “You know how it is in combat, Aquilla. Most soldiers don’t know the first thing about their commanders’ plans or where they are. They care about keeping themselves alive, and not much else. You’ve fought in enough border skirmishes to know that.”

“Can’t you see he’s lying through his teeth?” Aquilla shot back. “He’s hedging so we don’t find out who the division commander was.” He turned back to Menlo. “Tell us who your division commander was. If you can’t tell us what part of our territory you fought in, you can at least tell us who you fought under.”

Menlo opened his mouth to answer, but Piwaka interrupted. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. He just said he doesn’t know anything.”

Aquilla narrowed his eyes. “And you believe him over me?”

Piwaka shrugged. “This won’t accomplish anything. Finding your brother’s killer from one lowly soldier will be harder than finding a needle in a haystack. You can’t expect every Ursidrean that walks through your door to know where every other Ursidrean was during the war. It’s impossible.”

Aquilla rushed at Menlo. “You’re hiding something. Tell us who your commander was.” He fell on Menlo with kicks and punches, but Menlo got his arms up in front of his face before he did any serious damage. Piwaka took one long step across the room and hauled Aquilla back. “That’s enough. You’ve done enough.”

Aquilla spun around with his fist raised, but Piwaka didn’t flinch. He stared Aquilla down with the same quiet smile he gave Anna when he first walked in the door. Aquilla’s fist fell at his side. “You can’t believe a word they say. You know that.”

Piwaka shook his head again. “You can see by looking at him he’s telling the truth.”

Aquilla clenched his fists, but he didn’t raise them again. “You’ll live to regret this.”

“I only regret letting you bring him back here,” Piwaka replied. “I’ve known you since you were a boy, and I’ve stood by you and guided you since you became Alpha of our faction. I wouldn’t stand against you now if you weren’t making a big mistake. We all lost loved ones in the war. I lost my wife in the war. We can all let it go now and live in peace. That’s the best we can hope for.”

Aquilla shook his head. “The Ursidreans have been our enemies for generations. It’s only a matter of time before they lash out at us again. We have to take our stand now while we have a chance.”

Piwaka nodded toward Menlo. “This man never did anything to you. Let him go.”

“I will never let him go,” Aquilla growled.

“How do you think Donen will react when he finds out you captured one of his people?” Piwaka asked. “And it won’t be good.”

Aquilla waved his question away. “I know how to handle Donen.”

Piwaka shook his head again and walked to the door. The other Guards followed him. No one said a word. At the door, Piwaka turned back and gazed at Menlo. “I’m old now, and I’ve fought in many wars. I don’t want to fight in another one.”

A moment later, a gust of air shook the treetops, and the Guards flew away. Aquilla drew close to Menlo and pointed in his face. “You know more than you’re telling, but it’s only a matter of time before I find out what I want to know. Piwaka’s an old fool. He’s going soft in the head, but I don’t need him to deal with you. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I’ll send a message to your Alpha. I’ll tell him you’re here, and we’ll bargain for the man who killed my brother. Make it easy on yourself and tell me who he is.”

Menlo stared at him. Aquilla waited, but when Menlo didn’t answer, he humphed and dragged Menlo back to the store room.

Chapter 7

Aquilla slammed the store room door and stormed back into the house. Anna glared at him from the couch. “Are you out of your mind?”

Aquilla turned away. “What’s the matter with you now?”

“Do you really think you can get away with this?” she asked. “Do you really think you can taunt the Ursidrean Alpha by holding Menlo for ransom?”

Aquilla scooped a handful of nuts off the counter and popped them into his mouth. “Donen is all bark and no bite. He won’t risk another war. He’ll turn over the man who killed my brother to keep the peace.”

“He won’t risk another war, but you will,” Anna countered. “You’re playing with all our lives, and for what? To pay back a vendetta decades old. You’re obsessed with the past.”

“They won’t get away with it,” he returned. “They’ve been waiting for a chance to attack us. I can sense the tension along the border. That’s an Alpha’s job.”

“So you decided to give them the excuse they need to attack us?” she asked. “You kidnapped one of their people from the border. You forced marched him halfway across our territory with no food or sleep. You beat him black and blue and kept him tied up and confined except to interrogate him and beat him some more. And now, to cap it all off, you want to hold him for ransom for a man who killed your brother in a war that you started. You’re out of your mind.”

He turned away. “You don’t know anything about it. You couldn’t understand. You’re not Avitras.”

Anna froze. Her anger evaporated. “You’re right. I’m not.”

Her words jolted Penelope Ann out of a trance. “He didn’t mean that, Anna. Don’t listen to him.”

Anna threw her sleeping roll down on the couch. “Maybe he didn’t mean it, but I did. If this is what it means to be Avitras, then I’m not Avitras. I never was, and I never will be.”

Penelope Ann took step toward her. “Anna.....”

Aquilla caught Penelope Ann and pulled her away. “Forget it. I’m tired and I’m going to bed. Come on.”

Penelope Ann tugged her arm out of his grasp. “I’ll be there in a minute. You go ahead.”

He disappeared into their bedroom. Anna straightened her sleeping roll on the couch and pretended not to notice Penelope Ann hovering behind her. She sat down on the blanket and kicked off her shoes.

Penelope Ann sat down next to her. “Don’t take his words to heart, Anna. You know you’re as much a part of this faction as anybody. You’re as Avitras as I am.”

“I’m not Avitras,” Anna told her. “I won’t be Avitras with him as Alpha. You should wonder at yourself, too. I thought you were better than that, Penelope Ann.”

Penelope Ann looked down at her hands. “I’ve never seen Aquilla like this. He’s always been strong and steady. That’s the man I fell in love with.”

Anna looked up at her. “Can’t you talk some sense into him? He won’t listen to anybody—not even Piwaka. Maybe he’ll listen to you.”

“He told me when we first met that he couldn’t forget the Ursidreans killed his brother,” Penelope Ann replied. “I didn’t know this burning hatred ate him up inside. He kept it hidden all this time.”

Anna touched her hand. “Talk to him. You’re the only one who can. Maybe if you tell him this isn’t the man you fell in love with, he’ll realize he’s crossed a line within himself. Maybe he’ll come back from the edge and realize he’s putting all our lives at risk.”

“You don’t understand,” Penelope Ann replied. “I love him. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love him. I could never do anything to cross him.”

“You can’t put your love for Aquilla ahead of what’s right,” Anna told her. “Would you risk sending your whole faction to war, just to satisfy Aquilla’s lust for revenge?”

Penelope Ann brushed a stray wisp of golden hair out of her eyes. “It isn’t as simple as that.”

Anna smacked her lips and went back to arranging her sleeping roll. “I’m tired of all the excuses. We both know this is wrong, and I won’t go along with it.”

She brushed an invisible speck off her sleeping roll and flipped back the top layer. Penelope Ann stared down at it. Anna forgot she’d hidden the egg shells there. She closed her eyes as tight as she could, but they didn’t go away. They were still there when she opened them.

“What’s this?” Penelope Ann asked.

Anna sighed. “They’re egg shells.”

Penelope Ann frowned. “Where did they come from?”

Anna squared her shoulders. “They came from the stream. They’re skidhopper eggs.”

“I can see that, but why are they in your sleeping roll?” Penelope Ann furrowed her brow. “You haven’t been sneaking eggs, have you? You know the Avitras don’t eat anything that came from animals.”

Anna smacked her lips. “How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not Avitras. I never will be. I would give anything for a cheese omelet right now. Don’t tell me you’re feeling your best on this diet of rabbit food.”

Penelope Ann’s eyes shot open. “How can you say that? The Avitras diet is the cleanest, most wholesome diet I’ve ever eaten in my life.”

Anna shot her a wry grin. “Come on, Penelope Ann. There’s no one here but you and me. You can tell me the truth. Don’t you dream at night about a nice rib-eye steak, seared medium rare, with a side of creamy mashed potatoes dripping with butter? Don’t you dream about a roast chicken with cornbread stuffing and gravy?”

Penelope Ann clamped her eyes shut and covered her ears. “Stop it.”

Anna nodded. “I thought so.”

Penelope Ann peeked at her. “That’s not reason to go sneaking skidhopper eggs and hiding them in your sleeping roll. What if the Avitras found out?”

“I don’t care if they find out,” Anna replied. “I’ve made up my mind. I’m going back to the Lycaon.”

“You can’t do that!” Penelope Ann exclaimed.

“I can, and I will,” Anna replied. “I made a mistake coming over to the Avitras. I know that now.”

Penelope Ann shook her head. “Wait until I tell Aquilla. He’ll change. He’ll let Menlo go. He won’t let you go back.”

“He has no choice in the matter,” Anna replied.

“That’s not what I meant,” Penelope Ann told her. “I meant he won’t want you to go because of what he’s doing with Menlo. When he realizes you feel strongly enough about this to leave the Avitras, he’ll let Menlo go.”

Anna shook her head. “It’s not just Menlo and Aquilla. I would go back to the Lycaon for the food alone. I don’t belong with the Avitras. Maybe you do, but I don’t.”

“We can’t let this happen,” Penelope Ann insisted. “We can’t let you walk away.”

“It’s already done,” Anna replied. “There’s nothing you can do to change my mind. I suppose I should have found out more about the Avitras before I came to live with them.”

Penelope Ann looked around. “Maybe when I explain the situation, we can work out some way for you to collect your own food from the forest.”

“Where would I cook it?” Anna asked. “No, it wouldn’t work. I was wrong about the Avitras, and it took Aquilla capturing Menlo and bringing him here for me to realize that. I never belonged here, and I won’t stay here.”

“What are you going to do?” Penelope Ann asked. “When will you leave?”

Anna glanced around the room. “I don’t know. I’ll have to figure out a way to get back to Lycaon territory. Maybe Piwaka will help me find my way.”

Penelope Ann’s head shot up, and her blue eyes widened. “These eggs.....they weren’t for you at all, were they?”

Anna turned bright red. “What are you talking about?”

Penelope Ann dropped her voice to a hoarse whisper. “You got these eggs for Menlo, didn’t you? You smuggled them to him in the store room.”

Anna’s cheeks burned. She had no choice but to look away. “I told you I ate them.”

“You never told me anything of the kind,” Penelope Ann shot back. “I said it, and you didn’t deny it. You let me believe they were for you to hide the truth. You’ve been smuggling food to Menlo while Aquilla’s back is turned.”

Anna raised her eyes to Penelope Ann’s face. “How did you figure that out?”

Penelope Ann stared down at the eggs. “I don’t know. Something in the way you said you weren’t sure when you would leave told me you wanted to stay until you knew Menlo was safe.”

“Can you blame me?” Anna asked. “I don’t know how you can stand to watch Aquilla mistreat an innocent man without doing something to stop him. All I did was give him something to eat so he could put up with the abuse a little bit better. You can’t blame me for that.”

“You shouldn’t have done it,” Penelope Ann told her. “Aquilla already told you to leave Menlo alone.”

“Are you going to tell him?” Anna asked.

Penelope Ann shook her head. “I don’t know what I’ll do. Aquilla is Alpha of our faction, and he’s my mate. In a way, you’re asking me to betray Aquilla instead of you.”

“You know I only did what was right,” Anna replied. “Aquilla’s gone off the deep end with this vendetta of his, and he could wind up dragging the Avitras and the Ursidreans into another war.”

“I’m sure that’s exactly what Menlo wants,” Penelope Ann shot back. “That’s why he keeps his information to himself.”

“You know that’s not true,” Anna countered. “You know as well as I do he keeps it to himself to keep the peace. If he told Aquilla what he wanted to know, Aquilla would never stop until he murdered the man who killed his brother, and the Ursidrean Alpha would have no choice but to launch an attack in revenge for that killing.”

Penelope Ann turned away. “I don’t know about that.”

“I do.” Anna finished straightening her sleeping roll and collected the egg shells into a pile. “Even Piwaka won’t go along with Aquilla’s insane plan to hold Menlo for ransom.”

Penelope Ann pulled her hand away. “I don’t know. I should tell Aquilla about this. I shouldn’t keep this a secret from him.”

Anna leaned forward, but she dared not touch Penelope Ann again. “At least wait a few more days before you tell him. Give me a chance to figure out what to do about Menlo.”

“You don’t have to do anything about Menlo,” Penelope Ann replied. “Aquilla will handle him.”

Anna stood up and faced the woman she once considered a friend. “Don’t tell him. Search your heart. You know he’s out of his mind, and helping Menlo is the right thing to do.”

Penelope Ann shook her head one last time and turned away. “I don’t know.” She walked across the room and vanished into her bedroom.

Chapter 8

Anna sat on the couch and listened. The sounds of the village died away into the dark. Aquilla’s voice answering Penelope Ann in the next room faded and died, too. Was Penelope Ann in there right now, telling Aquilla that Anna brought Menlo those skidhopper eggs to eat?

How much longer did she have before Aquilla barged out of the room to confront her? The light changed from golden to green to royal blue, and the brilliant yellow Angondran aurora lit up the sky. Then the soft buzz of Aquilla’s snoring reverberated through the wall. He wasn’t coming to confront her any time soon. Penelope Ann must have kept the eggs secret.

Anna let out a long breath, but she couldn’t relax. She paced around the room, but she only wound up pacing toward the store room. Was Menlo asleep? She paced around again and stopped by the door again. What harm could it do if she just looked in to check on him? Then she had an idea. She stuffed a box from under the counter into her pocket, took up the lamp in one hand, and ducked out the door.

She lifted the bar off the store room door as quietly as she could. Lamplight flooded the store room, and Menlo squinted up into it. “It’s only me. It’s Anna.”

He slumped back on the floor. His composure vanished from his face, and the despair he hid so well in front of Aquilla darkened his eye. “I’m not hungry.”

Anna’s heart melted. She shut the door behind her and thanked heaven the store room had no windows. She set the lamp on the floor and sat down in front of Menlo. “I didn’t bring you any more food. I don’t know when I’ll be able to find any more, but I’ll keep looking. But I brought you something else.”

He didn’t look up. “Is it a weapon of some kind?”

She smiled. “I’m afraid not.”

“Then it’s no good to me,” he grumbled. “You better go back inside and go to bed.”

She pulled the box out of her pocket. “You might find this useful. It’s a medicinal salve. It will kill the pain in your wounds so you can get some sleep.”

He turned away. “I won’t be able to sleep with my hands tied like this.”

Anna set the box down. “Come here and I’ll untie you.”

“Don’t bother,” he snapped. “You’ll only have to tie me up again before you leave, and I’ll be in the same predicament as before. Why don’t you leave me alone? I can handle this by myself.”

She sighed. “Come on, Menlo. Let me help you. I’ll untie you now, and you can rest your hands until I leave. The salve will make you feel better, and if you like, I can stay while you get some sleep.”

He grunted and turned away.

She studied him. “You’re exhausted. That’s why your patience is wearing thin.”

She got up on her knees and untied him. Then she opened the box. He jerked his head away when she tried to rub the salve on his forehead, but she persisted until he gave up and let her do it.

“There.” She sat down and scraped the remaining salve off her finger. “Doesn’t that feel better?”

He stole a glance at her. “You’re right. It kills the pain.”

She burst into a smile. “What about your wrists? Would you like to rub some on them?”

He hesitated. Then he held out his hand. “You do it.”

She couldn’t help but smile again. She cradled his hand in hers and rubbed the salve into the purple line around his wrist. When she finished, he offered her the other one. “You really know how to make Aquilla mad.”

“He’s mad enough already,” Menlo muttered.

Anna chuckled. “You gave perfect answers during your interview. Piwaka is defending you now. Aquilla won’t be able to keep you much longer.”

“He’ll keep me as long as he wants,” Menlo returned. “He won’t let me go until he gets his revenge.”

“He can’t exactly revenge himself on you,” Anna replied. “You don’t know who killed his brother, and he won’t find out by torturing you.”

Menlo’s head shot up. Then his shoulders slumped. “This is the second time you’ve done me a good turn, Anna. I feel honor-bound to return the favor.”

“What do you mean?” Anna asked.

“I lied to him,” he replied. “I do know who killed his brother.”

Anna’s jaw dropped. “You do? How could you? You said you were only a foot soldier in the war. How could you know who was the division commander along the Eastern Divide?”

He must have been feeling better, because he smiled. “Everyone in that war knew where the Eastern Divide was. It’s the main border feature between our two territories. I would have to be dead not to know where it was. And I know who the division commander was because I served under him. I fought with him along the Divide, and I was there when he killed the Avitras Alpha. Aquilla’s brother Erius was Alpha before him.”

Anna stared at him. “Then why did you lie? Why don’t you tell Aquilla what he wants to know and save yourself all this trouble?”

He gazed into her eyes. “You really care about what happens to me, don’t you? I wasn’t expecting that, even from you. I lied because, the moment Aquilla finds out who killed his brother, he’ll get rid of me.”

“He’ll.....get rid of you how?” Anna asked.

“He’ll kill me,” Menlo replied. “Once he knows the identity of the killer, he won’t need me anymore.”

“But that would spark a war with the Ursidreans,” Anna pointed out. “He wouldn’t want to risk that.”

“He doesn’t care if he sparks a war,” Menlo replied. “All he cares about is getting his revenge. In fact, sparking a war is exactly what he wants to do. Then the man who killed his brother will have to cross the border to fight it. He’ll have to come to Aquilla instead of Aquilla having to go find him somewhere. It all fits in with his plan.”

Anna’s head fell into her palm. “This is terrible. This is the worst thing that could possibly happen. What if he keeps attacking you until he finds out the truth? It would be better if you didn’t know anything. Then he couldn’t force you to tell him.”

Menlo shook his head. “He won’t stop, and eventually, I’ll have to tell him what I know.”

“What about your Alpha?” Anna asked. “When he finds out you’ve been taken prisoner, he’ll come for you.”

“That’s exactly what Aquilla wants,” Menlo replied. “The sooner our factions go to war, the happier he’ll be.”

“What are we going to do?” Anna cried.

Menlo looked down at his hand still cradled in hers. All of a sudden, she became aware of her skin touching his. “There’s nothing we can do.”

She pulled her hand back. “We can’t just sit around waiting for disaster to strike. We have to do something.”

“Like what?” he asked.

Anna opened her mouth. Then she shut it again. “I don’t know.”

He took her hand again, and this time, he cradled her hand in his. The salve radiated its heat into her fingers. “You’ve already done more than any one person could be expected to do under the circumstances. You should be careful not to endanger yourself any more than you already have.”

This time, she forgot to pull her hand back. “I’m not in danger.”

“You’re in more danger than you realize,” he told her. “Aquilla won’t let anyone stand in his way, and you aren’t even Avitras. What are you to him? You’re a stranger. He won’t hesitate to get rid of you, too, especially when he figures out you’ve been helping me.”

Penelope Ann flashed through Anna’s mind. How long could she hold out before she broke down and told Aquilla that Anna was helping Menlo? Anna always counted on Penelope Ann to help her settle into Avitras territory, but she couldn’t count on her now.

Her mind swept over the village, and the people Penelope Ann introduced her to. She’d come to consider some of them friends, but now they might as well have been a thousand miles away. She wouldn’t trust one of them to help her. None of them would cross Aquilla.

She looked up to find Menlo studying her. “What’s on your mind?”

She shook her head, but she couldn’t hold his gaze. His eyes searched her heart. He already knew without her telling him. “Nothing. I guess I’m just tired.”

“You should go to bed,” he told her. “Tomorrow’s another long day.”

“It won’t be as long for me as it will be for you,” she replied. “Why don’t you lie down and get some sleep? I’ll watch until you wake up. That way, I won’t have to tie your hands again until I leave in the morning.”

He shook his head. “It’s too risky. You should leave now while you have a chance.”

She didn’t budge. “This could be your only chance to get some good sleep. You should take it while you can.”

He cast a sidelong glance at the rope lying on the floor. This time, Anna read his mind. He dreaded her retying his hands behind his back. She didn’t have to argue to convince him. “Lie down. Here. Put your head on my lap. You’ll be more comfortable that way.”

His head shot up, and his eyes drilled into her soul, but he didn’t argue. He sighed and laid down. The instant his shaggy head came to rest on her leg, he closed his eyes and his breathing lengthened and deepened. He was more exhausted than either of them let themselves believe. In a moment, a steady purr rumbled up from his throat and he fell asleep.

Anna’s hand hovered in mid-air above his head. Then she moved it down to his shoulder, but she didn’t dare let it fall. She wouldn’t let herself take the last final step across the line between them.

She imagined running her fingers through his hair. She rubbed the soreness out of his shoulders and massaged his neck. But in reality, she didn’t touch him. He needed sleep, and she would sit up all night and guard him while he got it, but she couldn’t touch him the way she wanted to. He was a prisoner. He had to hold himself on guard.

She sat all night and watched him sleep. He fell into a bottomless pit of exhaustion and never stirred. Her feet and legs went numb from sitting still so long, and he didn’t rouse even when she shifted her weight to let the blood flow back into them.

Every time fear seized her and commanded her to run for her life, one glance down at his sleeping face convinced her to sit still. His ordeal was so much harder than hers. The risk she took helping him was nothing compared to his danger. He needed rest more than anything right now, and she could endure some discomfort, for one night at least, to make sure he got it.

The faintest streak of morning light peeked under the store room door before she let her hand fall on his shoulder. “Menlo, it’s time to wake up.”

He jolted awake with a gasp. “What?” He bolted upright, and her hand fell away.

“I have to go now,” she murmured. “It’s dawn. The village will be up soon. I have to tie you up again and bar the door before anybody finds me here.”

In an instant, calm settled over him. He nodded. “Of course.” He sat back in the same place against the wall. “I’m ready.”

She looped the rope around his wrists, but didn’t pull it tight. The angry welts on his skin wouldn’t let her.

“Make it tight,” he told her over his shoulder. “Make it the way it was when you came.”

She did as he commanded, and he flinched when she tugged on the rope. She squatted in front of him and tied his ankles. “I’ll try to find some more food for you. I don’t know how long it will take. The Avitras don’t eat meat. Just know that I’m working on it.”

“Don’t endanger yourself,” he told her. “Keep yourself safe, no matter what.”

She stood up and moved toward the door. “I have to try. I can’t see you like this without trying something. I only wish I could do something more to help you.”

He didn’t say anything else until she turned her back on him and put her hand against the door. Then he called after her. “Anna?”

She looked at him.

“Thank you,” he told her. “You are helping me.”

She broke into a radiant smile and hurried out of the room. She dropped the bar across the door and hurried away from the house. She had to cover her tracks before Penelope Ann or Aquilla found her.

Chapter 9

The minute she got clear of the store room, Anna set off at a run down the bridge away from Penelope Ann’s house. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she fought for every breath. Her stomach turned at every step in case someone saw her. She was safer inside the store room than out in the open village.

She raced from one bridge to the next, past three platforms, before she let herself slow down and look back. Golden sunshine touched the treetops and the roofs of the houses. The first doors and windows opened, and the Avitras poked their heads out to view the day.

Anna smiled at some people she knew and set off on a circuitous route back to Penelope Ann’s house. She moved with casual slowness and stopped often to chat and smile and look around at the forest that, until a few days ago, had been her home. At the last platform, she turned—and stopped. Penelope Ann crossed the bridge toward her with a basket in her hand, and she didn’t return Anna’s greeting. “Where have you been?”

“I woke up early,” Anna told her. “So I decided to go for a walk.”

Penelope Ann didn’t react. “Your bed wasn’t slept in.”

Anna pretended to be surprised. “What do you mean?”

Penelope Ann lifted her basket. A scrap of cloth covered the bottom. She tossed the cloth aside, and Anna stared down at the collection of egg shells in the bottom of the basket. “You forgot to get rid of these.”

Anna lifted her eyes to Penelope Ann’s face. “Why didn’t you tell Aquilla about the eggs?”

Penelope Ann brushed her question away. “You’re playing with fire. You’re going to get burned one of these days.”

“What are you going to do?” Anna asked.

“I’m going to get rid of them,” Penelope Ann replied. “I don’t know where I can put them where Aquilla and his men won’t find them, but you can’t leave them lying around in your sleeping roll without getting caught.”

Anna let out a shaky breath. “Thank you.”

Penelope Ann shook her head. “Did you visit him again last night? Is that where you were?”

“Can you blame me for wanting to help him?” Anna asked. “I put some kelep salve on his wounds and on his wrists.”

“You’ll stay away from him from now on if you know what’s good for you,” Penelope Ann told her. “You’ll get yourself in trouble—or worse. He’s an Ursidrean. He’s an enemy of our faction.”

“He’s a person who feels the same pain and hunger and fear we do,” Anna countered. “You would be upset if one of the other factions kidnapped an Avitras and held them captive.”

Penelope Ann shook her head. “It’s not the same.”

“You just told me I could get in trouble—or worse—for helping Menlo,” Anna went on. “So you admit Aquilla is capable of killing anybody who stands in his way. He’s not the benevolent patriarch he made out to be when I first came here.”

“How can you say that about him?” Penelope Ann asked. “He’s given you everything you could wish for since you came here. He spent weeks searching for Frieda when she disappeared. He even let your other sister come to visit you.”

“He didn’t let her come,” Anna argued. “He was away at the time. It was Piwaka that let Emily come to visit me, and you made her leave early so Aquilla wouldn’t find out an Ursidrean and the Lycaon came with her.”

Penelope Ann stiffened. “Don’t quibble with me, Anna. Is that the gratitude you show Aquilla for his hospitality to you and Frieda since you came over from the Lycaon?”

“I don’t want his hospitality or yours anymore,” Anna replied. “He’s not the man I thought he was, and if you’re going to stand there defending him, you’re not the person I thought you were, either. You told me a big story about how you used to be some kind of martial arts champion back on Earth, and how you fought against the Romarie and all that nonsense. I thought you had some backbone, but I can see you’re just as twisted as Aquilla. You’re weak and spineless. You haven’t got a bone in your body, and I don’t want to have anything more to do with you.”

Anna turned away. A lump stuck in her throat, and her foot trembled when she put it onto the bridge to walk away. She didn’t really despise Penelope Ann or Aquilla, but how else could she get through to them? Everywhere she turned, doors once opened to her closed in her face when she tried to help Menlo. Something had to give. She couldn’t live on this knife edge much longer.

She wasn’t sure she could keep her balance on the branch, and she hesitated to take the first step. Penelope Ann grabbed her hand. “Wait, Anna. Don’t walk away.”

Anna couldn’t look at her. “Leave me alone. I’ll help Menlo on my own. I don’t need any help from you.”

“I helped you by keeping these eggs secret,” Penelope Ann murmured. “If you give me a chance, I’ll help you again.”

Anna’s head whipped around. “You will?”

Penelope Ann’s cold expression softened. “I never knew Aquilla could be so cruel. I never would have believed he could do to anyone what he’s done to Menlo. I didn’t want to believe it, but now that he’s doing it, I see it’s wrong. You’re right. We have to stop him. Don’t ask me how, but we’ll find a way.”

“What can we do?” Anna asked. “Will you try to talk sense into him?”

Penelope Ann shook her head. “Talking won’t do anything. Piwaka already tried to talk to him, and you heard how well that went. If he won’t listen to a seasoned warrior like Piwaka, he won’t listen to you or me.”

“But you’re his mate,” Anna pointed out. “Would he free Menlo if you asked him?”

“Free Menlo?” Penelope Ann repeated. “He’ll never free Menlo. He’ll twist him around until the Ursidreans give up the man who killed his brother, and then Aquilla will kill him.”

Anna’s hand flew to her mouth, and she sucked air between her teeth. “He wouldn’t do that, would he? He would never get away with it.”

A soft smile played on Penelope Ann’s lips. “He’s already talking about it. He’s got it all planned out. Menlo is a dispensable pawn in his scheme to get revenge against the Ursidreans.”

Anna stared at her. “Then there really is no hope. We’ll never convince him to back down.”

“No, we’ll never convince him,” Penelope Ann agreed. “The only solution is to subvert his plan ourselves.”

“How?” Anna asked.

“I’m not sure,” Penelope Ann replied. “But you don’t have to worry about doing it all yourself. I’ll help you come up with a plan.”

Anna threw her arms around Penelope Ann’s neck. “Thank you! Oh, thank you! You don’t know what this means to me.”

Penelope Ann pushed her off. “I’m beginning to understand.”

“Just tell me what I have to do,” Anna replied. “I’ll do anything you tell me to do.”

“I’m not telling you anything,” Penelope Ann returned. “I never said I’m taking over the planning of this rebellion. I only said I would help you if I could. I’m counting on you to spearhead this operation. I won’t be able to do much with Aquilla around all the time. You’ll be able to do more than I will.”

Anna stood back, but she couldn’t wipe the smile off her face. “Knowing I don’t have to keep this a secret from you anymore is a big help. Thank you.”

“Stop thanking me.” Penelope Ann shoved the basket into her hand. “Now get rid of these egg shells. That’s the first step. I suggest you take them back to wherever you found them and hide them there, and whatever you do, don’t make another mistake like that. It was only by sheer luck that I found them before Aquilla did.”

Anna took the basket. “Right. Sorry about that.”

Penelope Ann turned away. Then she glanced back over her shoulder. “What did you do last night? Did you take him some more food?”

“I didn’t have any to take,” she replied. “He can’t eat the nut mixture we eat. That’s why I had to bring the eggs. I just took the salve, and I sat with him while he slept. He can’t sleep with his hands tied behind his back, so I untied him. Then, when I woke him up this morning, I retied him the way he was. That’s all I did.”

Penelope Ann cocked her head. “And that’s what you call helping him?”

“Those eggs are the first food he’s had since he left the frontier,” Anna told her. “And last night was the first decent night’s sleep he’s had since Aquilla captured him. Yeah, I’d say I’m helping him. I’m helping him a lot more than anybody else around here.”

Penelope Ann studied her. Then she nodded. “I guess you’re right.” She walked away.

Anna watched her disappear into her house, and in a moment, Penelope Ann’s laughter rose through the air mingled in conversation with Aquilla’s voice. Once, Penelope Ann came to empty a bundle of sweepings over the side of the balcony. She blushed with pleasure and laughed over her shoulder to Aquilla inside. She caught Anna’s eye on the platform across the bridge, but she didn’t miss a beat. In a flash, she retreated into the house.

Anna stared at the empty doorway. Then she nodded. Penelope Ann’s message was clear, and she had her own job to do to keep up their charade. She clutched the basket and hurried away.

At the next tree, she gripped the basket handle in her teeth and started climbing down the trunk to the ground. She found her way back to the same stream bed and buried the empty egg shells in the mud where she first dug them up.

She swung the basket on her way back to the village. She had at least one ally in the world. Her shoulders relaxed and lifted back. She hadn’t realized how tight and hunched they’d become in her anxiety over Menlo. Now, whatever happened, she could turn to Penelope Ann for help. The basket in her hand proved that. Penelope Ann might not be able to get around Aquilla enough to help her, but at least Anna could talk to her. That alone was the greatest gift anyone could give her right now.

Her step quickened. The future opened up in unlimited possibilities, now that she no longer faced it alone. She found her way back to the same tree and set the basket handle between her teeth. But the instant she put out her hand to take hold of the bark, a figure stepped out from behind the tree and she found herself looking up at Piwaka, the Captain of the Guard.

Chapter 10

Piwaka surveyed Anna up and down, from the basket in her hand to the frown on her face. He studied her so closely she shifted from one foot to the other in guilty anticipation. Had he figured out what she was up to while Aquilla’s back was turned? At least she didn’t have the egg shells in her basket anymore for him to find.

“What are you doing down here?” he asked.

Anna waved over her shoulder toward the stream. “I just took a walk down to the water. I guess I’m just not used to living so high off the ground. Sometimes I just need to feel the earth under my feet again.”

He cocked his head and blinked his bright eyes at her. “What’s in the basket?”

She held it up, and her cheeks flushed with relief. “Nothing.”

He smiled at her, but his eyes kept her pinned to the spot. “You can tell me the truth. What were you doing down at the stream?”

She stared back into his eyes, straight into the depths of his heart. He’d always been kind to her, and he showed a lot more sense than most other Avitras. He was the one who let Emily cross the border to visit her, even though the foreigners accompanied her. The other factions didn’t threaten Piwaka the way they threatened Aquilla. Those bright blue eyes of his saw farther than any Avitras she’d ever met.

What if, by some miracle, she could trust him? What if he wasn’t just asking what she was doing down at the stream, but was in fact asking her to open up to him about Menlo? What if his questions were really an invitation to confide in him, to rely on him, to draw him into her circle of allies?

Everything she knew about him, everything she’d seen him do, encouraged her to trust him. She couldn’t ask for a better ally. He knew everything that went on in Avitras territory, and he had a lot more influence with the Border Guard than Aquilla ever would.

If she trusted him, if she won his confidence, she might have a real chance of helping Menlo instead of just comforting him through his ordeal. With Piwaka’s help, she might be able to get him out of this horrible situation in one piece.

The moment the thought crossed her mind, her spirits soared the same way they did when Penelope Ann offered to help her. She never thought she’d be so fortunate as to get Piwaka on her side. If she did, the possibilities were limitless.

She took a deep breath. “I was burying some egg shells I got from there.”

He blinked again. “What were you doing with egg shells?”

He wasn’t asking. He was inviting her to tell him the truth, to unburden herself of her secret. “I gave them to Menlo to eat. I brought the empty shells here to hide them so Aquilla wouldn’t find them and figure out what I’d done.”

A trace of a smile touched his mouth. “What else have you been doing with Menlo that you don’t want Aquilla to know about?”

“I untied him last night,” she told him. “I put salve on his wounds, and I kept watch over him while he slept. Then I tied him up again this morning.”

Piwaka nodded, and the smile spread all the way across his face. “It’s a good thing you told me the truth, because I followed you just now. I watched you bury those egg shells. If you had lied to me....”

“Would you have told Aquilla?” she asked.

He cocked his head the other way. “I don’t know what I would have done. But since you did tell me the truth, I won’t tell him. I should, but I won’t.”

“If you should, why won’t you?” she asked.

“Probably for the same reason you did it in the first place,” he replied.

Anna frowned. “I did it because Aquilla is a psychopath who wants to drag this faction into another disastrous war with the Ursidreans. When the Ursidreans find out what happened to Menlo, they won’t rest until they get him back. They’ll punish us for Aquilla’s vengeful folly. You must understand that.”

He kept his eyes fixed on her face, but he didn’t stop smiling. “Is that why you did it?”

“Why else would I have done it?” she asked. “Who in their right mind could stand aside and do nothing while Aquilla toys with Menlo like a cat toys with a mouse before he kills it?”

“I don’t know what a cat and a mouse are,” he replied, “but Aquilla is not a psychopath. He might be a little....” He trailed off.

Anna waited. “Deranged? Is that the word you’re looking for? He’s more than a little deranged. He’s gone completely off the rails. You heard Menlo say he has no idea who the division commander for the Eastern Divide was. He doesn’t know who killed Aquilla’s brother.”

Piwaka shrugged. “That was a lie. Anyone could see that.”

Anna stiffened. “What do you mean? Why would he lie about it?”

“To save his own skin. That’s why,” Piwaka replied. “He knows, but he’s keeping it to himself. I don’t blame him, either.”

“Then you must realize Aquilla won’t quit until he gets that information out of him,” Anna countered. “He’ll starve Menlo and beat him and torment him until he gets what he wants, and then he’ll kill him. Then where will we be? The Ursidreans will want revenge in return.”

“You might be right.” He wouldn’t stop that maddening smile. Anna couldn’t look at that smile any longer without flying into a rage.

“So what are you going to do about it?” she asked. “Are you going to wait until he kills Menlo and drives us to war all over again? I thought you were more intelligent than that.”

“Intelligence has nothing to do with it,” Piwaka replied. “I think you’ll admit Aquilla is a perfectly intelligent man.”

“He’s crackerjack,” Anna muttered.

“Whatever else he is,” Piwaka told her, “he’s Alpha of this faction. It isn’t my place to interfere between him and his prisoner.”

Anna glared at him. “I can see I misjudged you the same way I misjudged Aquilla. I thought you could think for yourself and act on your own judgment without kowtowing to Aquilla all the time.”

He smiled even bigger. He almost laughed in her face. She could have slapped him if she wasn’t scared of him. “I am sorry to lose your good opinion.”

She turned away toward the tree. “I suppose you’ll run to Aquilla and tell him everything now. You’ll tell him everything I’ve been doing, and he’ll either kill me, too, or throw me out of the village. I don’t know what will happen to me, but I’m sure Menlo won’t survive much longer.”

Piwaka didn’t try to stop her. He kept his voice low so she hardly heard him. “I won’t tell him.”

Anna whirled around. “Why not? You said it wasn’t your place to interfere. Run home to your Alpha if he means so much to you.”

Piwaka shrugged again. “He might be my Alpha, but that doesn’t mean I can’t think for myself. It isn’t my place to interfere any more than it’s your place to interfere. That doesn’t stop you from interfering, and it wouldn’t stop me, either.”

Anna stared at him. She couldn’t understand him. “What are you getting at?”

He really did laugh at that. “Here. Take this. You’ll need it.”

He pulled a bundle from the folds of his shirt. Anna unwound it and stared at a dead sillian wrapped inside it. These fuzzy creatures inhabited the upper canopy, and their chatter echoed through the forest every day. They lived on fruit and leaves. The last warmth of its life radiated into her hand through its thick fur. She didn’t have to ask what she was supposed to do with it. “Why are you doing this?”

Piwaka chuckled and turned away. “He won’t last long on eggs.”

In an instant, he disappeared. The air washing off his feathers blew Anna’s hair out of her face, and she lifted her eyes into the sunshine where he vanished into the canopy.

She wrapped up the sillian as fast as she could and concealed it inside her shirt the same way he had. She didn’t have a moment to lose. She took hold of the tree trunk and started climbing.

Sweat trickled into her eyes, but she didn’t stop until she scaled to the platform adjacent to Penelope Ann’s house. There she stopped and considered. How could she deliver the sillian to Menlo in broad daylight? The animal was intact with its fur still on. She couldn’t exactly hand it to him and expect him to tear into it with his teeth.

At that moment, Penelope Ann and Aquilla came out of the house. Aquilla put his arms around her and kissed her. Then he set off across the bridge toward the village. He paused on the other side and waved back at his loving mate. Penelope Ann waved back. Adoration beamed from her cheeks, and she blew him kisses until he disappeared into the trees. Anna’s heart sank.

When the branches stopped swaying from Aquilla’s passage, Penelope Ann turned toward Anna. She strode over the bridge, and Anna braced herself for the other shoe to drop. What if Penelope Ann changed her mind about helping her?

Penelope Ann stopped in front of her. Then, to Anna’s astonishment, Penelope Ann’s composure dissolved. Her eyes darted one way and then another. She grasped Anna’s hands and whispered into her face. “Thank goodness you’re back! I’ve been at my wits’ end since you left.”

“What’s going on?” Anna asked.

“It’s Aquilla,” Penelope Ann exclaimed. “He’s completely lost his mind. I don’t know what to do about him. He won’t listen to a word I say. He doesn’t hear anything but his own voice.”

Anna’s shoulders slumped. “What happened?”

Penelope Ann bent closer and dropped her voice. “He’s going to kill Menlo. He doesn’t even care about finding out who killed his brother anymore. He’s going to get his revenge on Menlo and force the Ursidreans’ hand. He’s going to force them to start a war with the Avitras.”

Anna froze. “He can’t do that.”

Penelope Ann nodded. “He’ll do it. Nothing can stop him now.”

“What are we going to do?” Anna asked.

Penelope Ann pressed something cold and hard into her hand. “Take this. Give it to Menlo. It’s the only way.”

Anna gazed down at the object in her hand. A fragment of stone, chipped into a crude point, dented her fingers. She didn’t have to squeeze it to feel how sharp it was. “Where did you get this?”

“It belonged to Aquilla’s father,” Penelope Ann replied. “Aquilla keeps it with some personal possessions in his room. It was made in the bad old days when the Avitras still hunted for their food. It was the closest thing to a weapon I could find.”

The sillian flashed through Anna’s mind. How had Piwaka killed it? He must have used some weapon like this one. He was old enough to be Aquilla’s father. Maybe he still possessed the old hunting skills to kill a fast-moving creature like the sillian.

“Give it to Menlo,” Penelope Ann urged her. “If Aquilla tries to kill him, at least he’ll have some way to fight back.”

“Why don’t you give it to Menlo yourself?” Anna asked. “If you feel that strongly about it, why don’t you come right out and say so?”

“I have!” Penelope Ann cried. “What do you think I’ve been doing ever since you left? Aquilla doesn’t hear me.”

“Then you just have to make him listen,” Anna replied. “There must be some way to get through to him.”

“You don’t understand,” Penelope Ann told her. “He doesn’t just not listen. He doesn’t hear. The words don’t penetrate his brain. He doesn’t comprehend anything but his own crazy plan.”

Anna frowned. “What do you mean? What does he do when you tell him this is insanity?”

Penelope Ann shook her head. “He doesn’t hear it. He keeps talking like I never said anything.”

Anna gazed toward the house. “He must have really gone off the deep end.”

Penelope Ann wrung her hands. “What am I going to do?”

Anna hefted the weapon in her hand. “I can’t give this to Menlo. If Aquilla attacked him, they would fight to the death. No matter who won, the result would be the same. Another war would destroy both the Avitras and the Ursidreans, regardless of how it gets started.”

Penelope Ann started to argue, but Anna cut her off. “The only solution is to avoid a fight. If Aquilla is that bent on killing him, then we have to find a way to get him away.”

“But how?” Penelope Ann asked. “Aquilla’s men would catch him the minute he set foot out of the store room.”

Anna smiled to herself. “Aquilla’s men.”

Penelope Ann stared at her. “What are you going to do?”

Anna hefted the weapon again. “I don’t know, but I won’t give this to Menlo—not yet. We just might be able to avoid bloodshed. I’ll keep this in reserve just in case anything goes wrong.” She tucked the stone into her waistband. “Thank you for this. It’s a big help.”

“How can it be a help if you’re not going to use it?” Penelope Ann asked.

“Just knowing it’s there helps a lot,” she replied. “Now go home. I have a job to do, and I don’t want you watching and asking a lot of questions.”

Chapter 11

Anna crouched behind the store room and drew the sillian and the stone knife out of her clothes. She set the animal on the boards of the balcony and set to work. She hadn’t cut up an animal since she butchered a chicken in her father’s yard, but this couldn’t be much different. She rolled the furry skin in her fingers until she worked a piece of it away from the underlying muscle. Then she cut.

The weapon was as sharp as she expected, and the sillian’s skin sloughed off the carcass with no trouble. She opened the abdominal cavity and scooped out the organs. She wrapped the skin and offal Piwaka’s cloth and stowed it in a corner next to the store room. She cleaned off the knife and hid it in her boot. She wouldn’t tell Menlo about it just yet. With any luck, neither of them would ever have to use it.

She ran through the situation in her mind. She could count on Aquilla not to sneak into the store room unseen and kill Menlo. He would choose a public place to execute his prisoner to show everyone what a powerful leader he was. When he decided to kill Menlo, Anna could count on some form of warning. She would slip Menlo the knife if he needed it.

She lifted the barricade and stepped into the dim room. Menlo sat in his corner where she’d left him, but his eyes brightened when he recognized her. “I didn’t think you were coming back.”

She stepped forward. “I wouldn’t leave you here like this.” She unfastened the cords around his wrists and ankles.

“I don’t mean that,” he replied. “Aquilla was just here.”

Anna’s head shot up. “What did he say?”

“Just the usual mumbo-jumbo about how he couldn’t let the Ursidreans take advantage of the Avitras,” he replied. “I couldn’t follow half of what he said, but he didn’t have any trouble putting words together into a sentence. That guy can talk. I’ll give him that.”

Anna shook herself. “Never mind about him. I brought you something.”

Menlo frowned. “What?”

Anna opened the cloth and laid a mound of square chunks of meat on the floor in front of him. He stared at them for a moment. Then, with a furious growl, he pounced on them and devoured them in a heartbeat.

Her idea of him tearing the sillian apart with his teeth wasn’t much different than his treatment of the meat. He really was that hungry. He would tear a dead animal apart with his teeth to save his own life. Who wouldn’t?

She sat down on the floor in front of him. When he finished, she folded up the cloth and tucked it away. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes with a sigh.

“Tell me what Aquilla said,” she told him. “He must have made some coherent statement, or he wouldn’t have come to visit you.”

Menlo didn’t open his eyes. “He’s going to kill me. That’s what he said.”

Anna’s blood ran cold. “Is that what he said?”

“Of course,” Menlo replied. “He wants to rub my nose in it so I’ll be quaking in fear when the time comes.”

Anna’s astonishment turned to rage. “He’s not going to kill you.”

Menlo peeked at her through his half-closed eyelids. “What’s to stop him? You?” He chuckled. “That’s sweet of you.”

Anna shook her head. “Maybe not me, but something will. I think I know something that will.”

“What could that be?” he asked.

“Never mind,” she replied. “I don’t want to promise anything, but I might have a few options left.”

He chuckled again and shook his head, but he didn’t answer.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” she asked.

He smiled up at her and shrugged. “You’ve been very kind to me, and I don’t like to deprive you of all hope. But Aquilla is Alpha of his faction. You aren’t even Avitras. You’re a guest here. What could you possibly do to save me?”

She turned away. “You’ve been locked in this room too long. The rest of the world is still going on outside. Days pass, and people talk to each other. Where do you think I got that meat for you?”

He blinked down at the floor in front of him. “What?”

Now it was her turn to smile. “Did you think I went hunting for it to get food for you?”

He opened his mouth and shut it again. “I...I guess I didn’t really think about it.”

“No, you didn’t,” she replied. “For one thing, I can’t hunt. All I did was clean the animal and cut it up for you. For another thing, the Avitras are herbivores. They don’t have any weapons for hunting. I could get in big trouble for this.”

He nodded with round eyes. “In more ways than one.”

She squatted down in front of him. “Some other people in the village are helping me. I don’t want to tell you who they are, because if Aquilla finds out you have help, he won’t stop until he gets you to tell him who they are. But I’m not alone. Other Avitras want to help you, and one of them gave me that meat to give to you. We’ll find a way to stop Aquilla from killing you.”

He made a face. “Let him kill me. I don’t want to keep living like this.”

She sat down and brought her face close to his. “Don’t give up—not now when we have the chance to help you. Hang on a little longer. We might be able to bring Aquilla around.”

He shook his head, but his chin fell onto his chest. “You might be able to help me with your salve and some food every now and then. But what can that really do for me? I’ll probably never get home again. Aquilla will never let me go.”

She couldn’t stop herself from touching his hand. “Don’t give up, Menlo. We’re doing everything we can. It might not get you out of here, but it’s the best we can do for now.”

He nodded and pressed her hand. “I shouldn’t be so ungrateful. I’m lucky to have you—and your friends.”

“I’ll try to get you some more food,” she told him. “If Aquilla stays away from you for a while, your wrists might heal a little. And I can try to come back tonight so you can get some sleep.”

He shook his head. “I can’t let you risk that anymore. You got away with it once, but not again. If anything happened to you....”

She stiffened. “Don’t you want me to come back? I thought you slept well last night.”

“I did,” he replied. “I can’t think of anything I’d like better in the world than to sleep with you watching over me. But you’ve done enough already. I can’t let Aquilla hurt you the way he’s hurting me. I couldn’t live with that.”

She swallowed a lump in her throat. “But I want to come. I was looking forward to it, and now you’re telling me not to. Are you trying to rob me of all hope?”

His eyes rose to her face. “Listen to me, Anna. Aquilla has passed beyond the limit of rational thought. He won’t hesitate to kill anyone who gets in his way. If he found out you kept coming here to help me, that would be the end of you. No one could protect you from him.”

Her shoulders drooped. “I know it’s dangerous, but I have to come. I thought I was joining the Avitras faction, and that I would mate with one of their men and make my home here. Now that hope is gone. I came here with my sister, and now she’s gone, too. I thought Aquilla and Penelope Ann were my friends, and that I could trust them to help me settle in here. Now, ever since Aquilla brought you here, the ground is slipping under my feet. I’ve got nothing to stand on. This is all I have left.”

He stared into her eyes. For a moment, she couldn’t tell if he believed her or nor. Menlo turning away from her would be the biggest disaster of all. Then he stroked the back of her hand. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Alright. You can come. I just hate to think of anything happening to you.”

She almost choked when she tried to speak. “Something’s already happening to you. I have to live with that every day. I’m driving myself crazy trying to figure out how to get you out of this, but what options do I have? I can’t exactly fight the whole faction. I’m only one person.”

He cradled her hand in both of his. “You don’t have to fight the whole faction. You’re not responsible for me. You should protect yourself. I would protect you if I could.”

“I am responsible for you,” she countered. “If I don’t help you, no one else will.”

“You said you had friends who want to help you,” he pointed out.

“They want to help me help you,” she explained. “If I wasn’t sticking my neck out to help you, they wouldn’t do anything. They would sit back and say it’s not their place to interfere with Aquilla’s decisions.”

Menlo cocked his head. “Is that what they said?”

Anna blushed. “One of them said that. He said it right before he gave me that meat for you, so I guess he doesn’t mind interfering so much.”

Menlo smiled to himself. “I see.”

She tugged at her hand. “I better go. Aquilla could come back at any time.”

“I don’t think so,” he replied. “He said he was going to call a council of his Guard. He could be gone for a while.”

Anna glanced over her shoulder. “He said that right after he said he was going to kill you?”

Menlo nodded.

She tried to stand up. “Then there’s no time to lose. I have to find out what he plans to do so we can stop him.”

He held tight to her hand. “Don’t leave, Anna.”

Her eyes widened. “This is serious. When he comes back with his men, he’ll have a plan in mind for killing you. I don’t know. Maybe he plans to send your head back to the Ursidreans as a message. We can’t just sit back and wait.”

He didn’t let her go. “Even if he does kill me, I would rather spend my last hours here with you. Don’t run away. Stay here.”

She couldn’t speak through her parched lips.

His eyes flickered across her face, down to her mouth and back up to her eyes. “You’re not the only one who lost everything. Looking forward to you coming back here is all I’ve got left.”

A shiver of excitement quivered through her. Was he really saying what she thought he was saying? She didn’t dare breathe.

“When Aquilla brought me here,” he went on, “I thought I was done for. I never expected anybody to help me, and you’ve helped me so many times I can never repay you.”

“I don’t want you to repay me,” she began.

“That’s not what I mean,” he replied. “You’ve helped me, and now you’re telling me there are others who want to help me, too. You’re the only light in the darkness. I can’t lose you now.”

She laid her other hand over his, but that simple touch seemed so paltry now. Nothing would satisfy her now but to touch him with more than just her hand. She couldn’t let herself touch his body, but her soul cried out against all restraint to do it.

What could they have been if they hadn’t met in some dank store room in the Avitras village? What would they have said to each other? How could they have known each other? What would they have shared without all this fear and pain keeping them apart?

She saw it all when she looked into his eyes. She knew him as something other than a prisoner. If she could see the places he lived before his capture, she could understand him as a person instead of an obligation. If she could get to know him in the daylight instead of this dark closet, she could appreciate his strength as well as his soft side.

They might laugh and talk and walk together in the forest. They might sit in the sunshine and wait for the day to end. When the stars came out, they might walk back to.....wherever he lived. Penelope Ann told her the Ursidreans lived in caves in the mountains, but Anna couldn’t believe anything any of them told her anymore. She wouldn’t believe it until she saw it for herself, and when was that likely to happen?

She would leave the Avitras when this was all over. Once she didn’t have to worry about Menlo anymore, she would turn her back on the Avitras once and for all. She’d only stayed this long in the fading hope that Frieda would turn up again. That hope died when Anna looked at Menlo’s face. Frieda wasn’t coming back. She was gone. Most likely, she was dead. Anna would never get back to Earth, and she had only two relatives left alive on this planet. Her other sister Emily lived with the Ursidreans, and her cousin Aimee Sandoval lived with the Lycaon. The Lycaon welcomed the marooned human women with open arms. She would go back to them.

Her vision cleared, and Menlo’s face hovered before her eyes again. How could this situation resolve except in his death? He was right. Aquilla would never let him go. He would rally his men to kill Menlo. Her throat tightened. She couldn’t be swayed by false hopes of him getting free and back to his own people. Piwaka giving her the sillian was one thing. Freeing Menlo was another matter altogether. All the other Guards would support Aquilla, and not even Piwaka could stand against them all.

Menlo’s breath puffed into her face when he whispered, “Are you there, Anna?”

She tried to smile, but inside, sobs choked her heart. “I’m here. I’ll always be here.”

“Is everything all right?” he asked.

She couldn’t stand it any longer. She clamped her eyes shut and leaned forward. Her lips touched his, and he froze in surprise. Then, in a whirlwind of arms and bodies, they clutched each other in a frenzy of longing and desperation. Another day, another hour, another minute into the future no longer existed. They might die together, but at least they would have each other.

His mouth lingered on hers for only a moment. Then he gnawed down her neck to her chest. She devoured every inch of his skin she could find. She ran her fingers through his hair the way she dreamed of the night before. She spread her legs around his waist to draw him into herself.

They clawed at one another in desperate hunger. Anna would never have known he was worn down with hunger and pain and exhaustion. He crushed her against his big hard body with his mighty arms and reared up onto his knees. Her skirt rode up her thighs to her waist. Menlo’s large hands gripped her ass and he pulled her against his erection. She took control and devoured his mouth. She rubbed against his hardness and moaned. Riding him she showed him what she wanted. He groaned and kissed her harder, more demanding as if this was going to be his one and only chance. When he pulled back he was breathing heavily and she could feel his heart racing against her breasts.

He didn’t wait long before he pulled Anna’s shirt over her head and pulled her skirt down her hips. Anna had to wiggle to get it down her curves. Now she stood before him naked, and feeling a little vulnerable. She became aware that she wasn’t model thin, and her skin wasn’t perfectly tan and flawless. He froze and stared at her. The heat in his eyes told her she was everything he ever wanted.

He was the biggest man she had ever seen. He was strong, hard, and muscular. She ran her fingers down his abs to the button on his pants. She popped the button and his erection jumped at her, she wrapped her small hand around him but he flipped her over on her back, and she yelped in ecstasy when she felt his tongue lick her pussy, and he didn’t stop. His tongue swirled and licked her thoroughly. Her body shook and she wrapped her fingers into his hair trying to pull him away only to push her pussy closer. She flipped on her back wanting to see him working on her. She lifted her hips crying out when he stuck his tongue inside of her. She arched off the wood floor and pushed further into his face grinding against his mouth as she came. Pleasure wove through Anna as Menlo continued to lick and then sucked her clit into his mouth.

Finally after all this time he was going to make love to her. There in the small room floor Menlo pushed into Anna. Her body tightened, but he slid in inch by inch. Taking his time and enjoying the feel of her wet pussy wrapping around him. He thrust deeper and she gasped when he was fully seated. Her body still tingled from her last orgasm and her inner muscles milked his cock tightening around him.

He clenched his jaw and pulled out only to slowly thrust back in. He made love to her. Their pace became synchronized as she lifted her hips to meet each thrust. His eyes never left hers and when he kissed her it was soft. His touch was light and sensual. She wrapped her legs around his waist pulling him deeper inside of her and holding him close. Her nails scratched his back and he grunted. Her feet were constantly slapping against his bare backside and she could feel the hardness of those heart shaped globes.

This was a spontaneous, spur of the moment kind of thing that most women would give anything to get from their significant other. Anna had always been closed off emotionally, but this was an exception. It’s not often and it’s usually not for long, but she felt that Menlo might be someone special.

His eyes widened and she felt his cock grow even larger inside of her. His eyes glazed over and then he thrust in and out of her with such a force that she could do nothing but lay there and take it. She locked her legs around him and held on as he took her, and when he came, she gave it her all to not scream as Menlo owned her body and soul.

She didn’t know how many times she came, as she lost count after the third one. He was consciously aware of his own body and he was now trying his level best to keep his orgasm at bay. He wanted her to enjoy herself and this was the first time that any man had wanted more than just their own pleasure. They rolled over and over on the floor in a frantic search for one another.

He drove down on top of her, but nothing could satisfy her desire for him. She rose to meet him and pulled him down harder with all her strength. His smell of mountains and trees and rivers wafted into her nostrils, and she reeled into oblivion on an intoxicating wave of rapture.

Chapter 12

Anna stared up at the timber ceiling. Menlo rested his head on her chest, but neither slept. Light peeked under the door. The day was fading. When the sun dipped below the treetops, the air would cool. When Penelope Ann figured out where she was, she couldn’t keep it a secret from Aquilla forever.

Still, Anna couldn’t tear herself away from Menlo. She ran her fingers through the rough hair along the back of his neck and shoulders. Her body embraced his where she kept contact with him all the way down to her feet.

His breathing rose and fell in even waves, but he must have been watching the light, too. For the first time, he spoke. “They’ll be looking for you.”

“I know,” she murmured.

“You can’t put it off any longer,” he told her.

“I don’t want to leave,” she replied.

“I don’t want you to leave, either,” he told her. “But staying would be worse.”

She sighed. “I know.”

“I’m sure Aquilla has got his men rounded up by now,” he went on. “They’ll come for me pretty soon, and you don’t want them to find you here. I don’t want them to find you here, either.”

“I would rather go with you,” she told him. “Whatever happens, let’s stay together.”

He shook his head against her chest. “We can’t play that game anymore. We had a nice time, but that would be pushing it too far.”

“Was it just a nice time?” she asked.

“You know what I mean,” he replied.

“All right.” She sighed again. “I better go.”

They sat up together, and he kissed her long and deep. They sat on the floor, shoulder to shoulder. This could be the last time they sat together in this world.

“What will happen when they come for you?” she asked.

He shrugged. “He’ll make a show of interrogating me. He’ll ask the same questions to show how stubborn I am, and that he’s not getting anywhere by dallying around.”

“Would it make any difference if you told him what he wants to know?” she asked.

He looked away. “He doesn’t care about anything anymore but provoking Donen. It wouldn’t do me any good to tell him about Faruk.”

Anna froze. “Faruk? What about him?”

“I won’t bother telling Aquilla about him,” Menlo replied. “I doubt he’ll go through much of a charade of prying the information out of me. He’ll be too anxious to move on to the main event.”

Anna shook her head, but it didn’t work to clear her thoughts. “What about Faruk?”

He frowned. “What’s the matter?”

“You said it wouldn’t do you any good to tell him about Faruk,” she repeated.

“That’s what I said,” he replied.

“What would you tell him about Faruk?” she asked. “What would he care about Faruk?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “What is the matter with you? Why do you keep repeating the same words over and over again?”

She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. She summoned all her will to stop herself from shrieking at him. “What about Faruk, Menlo? What would it do no good to tell Aquilla about Faruk?”

He stared at her wild eyes. “He’s been trying to find out about Faruk. He brought me here under the pretext of getting me to tell him what I know.”

“He brought you here under the pretext of telling him who killed his brother in the war,” Anna returned. “Are you telling me Faruk killed Aquilla’s brother?”

He frowned again. “I thought you knew that.”

Anna leapt to her feet and paced around the room. She couldn’t stop shaking her head in agitation. “You never told me the killer was Faruk.”

“What difference does it make who it was?” he asked. “It was an Ursidrean. That’s all Aquilla cares about.”

She squatted down in front of him and hissed into his face. “I care! Do you hear me? If Faruk is the killer, this changes everything.”

“How?” he asked. “I’m just as dead if it was Faruk or somebody else.”

She grabbed him by the shoulders again. “Don’t you understand? Faruk is my sister Emily’s mate. You knew that. Why didn’t you tell me Faruk killed Aquilla’s brother?”

He pressed his lips together. “I didn’t want to tell you point blank. I didn’t want to frighten you into thinking your sister might be in danger.”

“My sister isn’t in danger,” she shot back. “She’s safe in Ursidrean territory with Faruk. I’m the one in danger here with you.”

He put out his hands to her. “Anna....”

She smacked his hands away. “Don’t Anna me. How could you keep this secret from me? How could you sleep with me just now with that secret hanging over our heads?”

He leaned back against the wall. “How was I supposed to know how you really felt about me until now? How was I supposed to know you would really stick by me? You did a couple of nice things for me, but you might still have run to Aquilla with the information if I’d told you. I wasn’t sure until now that you really cared about me enough to stand by me.”

Her anger and surprise crystallized into icy rage—not at him, but at Aquilla and Penelope Ann and all the rest of the Avitras. This was the last straw. She crouched down in front of him again and pulled the sharp weapon out of her boot. His eyes popped open when she pressed it into his hand. “Take this.”

“What am I supposed to do with it?” he asked. “Am I supposed to vanquish Aquilla in single combat? I won’t get a chance to do that.”

She shook her head, but she was already on her feet and heading toward the door. “I don’t know what you’re supposed to do with it. Just take it. You’ll need it.”

“Hey, wait,” he called after her. “Aren’t you going to tie me up again?”

She paused at the door. “I’ll find a way to get you out of here. I’m not going to wait around for Aquilla to come and kill you. I’m not sure how I’ll do it, but you’re leaving here tonight. Don’t get comfortable, because I could come for you at any time. Keep that knife handy and be ready.”

She hurried out of the store room. She barred the door the way she found it, but she took no other precautions. She raced around the house with her mind whirling. So the man Aquilla wanted most of all, the man against whom he wanted revenge for killing his brother, was Faruk, her own sister Emily’s Ursidrean mate.

This changed everything. It sealed the compact she and Menlo created by sleeping together in the store room. If she wouldn’t throw her life and future in with his for that, this erased all doubt in her mind. She couldn’t let him die here. She couldn’t let him spend one more night in that store room. Her time with him hadn’t been some risky fling. She couldn’t turn her back.

What happened to Menlo, happened to her. They were one and the same now. Emily had Faruk, Penelope Ann had Aquilla, and now she had Menlo. The love that grounded all these women to Angondra and made this faraway planet their home was hers at last.

Ever since she came over from the Lycaon, Penelope Ann tried to introduce Anna and Frieda to eligible men in the Avitras village. She even asked Aquilla to introduce them to men in other villages. They would never truly settle until they mated with Angondran men. No one could have foreseen Anna would find that grounding love in a man from another faction.

All those considerations melted in the golden sunlight. All those cares and concerns evaporated into the past. Only one thought dominated her mind: Menlo. She was his last and only hope. She had to get him out of here, no matter what it cost her.

She raced around the house. She had no time to cover her tracks. She had to get back inside and find out where Aquilla was and what he was up to. The only way she could gain any advantage on him was to put the squeeze on Penelope Ann.

She cast one glance over her shoulder. The store room door stood barred the way she found it. No one would know by looking at it that Menlo stood armed and free inside it. Her last image of him flashed through her mind. He stood on his own two feet, not crouched and bound the way Aquilla wanted him. He faced the door, ready for anything that came through it. She pitied anyone beside herself who went through that door.

She didn’t turn around fast enough, and she didn’t watch where she was going. She flew around the corner and ran straight into Aquilla. He growled once in surprise and pushed her back before she collected her thoughts enough to realize what happened.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”

She shook her stunned head. She had to pull herself together. “I was just going to find Penelope Ann.” That at least was true. She waved her hand toward the house, and for the first time noticed Piwaka standing there. He watched her with his big blinking eyes. He didn’t smile, though. He pretended to know nothing about her.

“You don’t have to run to find Penelope Ann,” Aquilla told her. “She’s right there in the house.”

Anna nodded like an idiot. What could she say to get out of this? “Thank you.”

“I’m going up to the house myself,” he went on, “just as soon as I finish talking to Piwaka.”

The fog blew out of Anna’s head. She gazed up at him. Then she glanced at Piwaka. “I’m sure Penelope Ann will want help getting the evening meal ready.”

Aquilla nodded. “The Guards are coming around later for a meeting. Penelope Ann is preparing refreshments for that. She asked me before where you were.”

Anna dropped her eyes. “I’ve been out for the day. I didn’t know she had so much work on her hands, or I’d have come back earlier.”

Aquilla turned to Piwaka. “I’ll go fetch the sentries. We’ll need them here, too. We’ll finalize the plans before the meeting.”

Piwaka nodded. “I’ll meet you back here just before the Guards come.”

Aquilla rustled his feathers and took to the air. In an instant, he was gone. Anna turned once more toward the house, but Piwaka stopped her with his hand on her arm. He pressed something cold into her hand.

“What’s this?” she asked.

He leapt onto the balcony railing and balanced there. He flexed his feathers. “Mix it with the Guards’ food. They’ll fall asleep.”

Chapter 13

Anna couldn’t stop shivers coursing through her. She dared not close her hand around that cold object. It might dissolve and soak through her skin, and then she would fall asleep just when she most needed to stay awake.

She found Penelope Ann hard at work in the house. Baskets of food and overflowing bowls filled the main room. Anna’s eyes widened. “What’s all this for?”

“Didn’t you hear?” Penelope Ann asked. “The Guards are coming here tonight.”

“I heard,” Anna replied, “but they don’t need all this. Why are you going to so much trouble?”

“The Guards are coming,” Penelope Ann told her. “All the Guard.”

Anna stopped. “All the Guard? Do you mean, from the whole village?”

“Not just the village,” Penelope Ann replied. “They’re coming from all over the territory. Aquilla’s called a council of war. This is the final step in his plan to start another war with the Ursidreans.”

“But why would he do that?” Anna asked. “Why would he want to destroy the Ursidreans and his own people in the process?”

Penelope Ann shook her head. “I can’t explain it. He started out wanting justice for his brother. Now his hatred has spread to the whole Ursidrean faction, and he wants to destroy them. He doesn’t care what it costs to do it.”

Anna pushed past her into the house. “We have to stop this. We can’t let his madness ruin all our lives.”

“How?” Penelope Ann asked. “The Guard will meet here, and when they’re through, Aquilla will kill Menlo. Once he does that, there won’t be any way to stop the Ursidreans from retaliating.”

Anna stopped in front of the counter loaded with food. She turned to Penelope Ann. “That’s why we have to stop Aquilla from carrying out his plan. We have to stop them from meeting, and we have to stop them from killing Menlo. If we don’t stop them, no one will.”

“How can we?” Penelope Ann asked. “The Guards are already on their way here, and Aquilla won’t listen to a word we say.”

A smile crept across Anna’s face. “He doesn’t have to listen.” She opened her hand.

Penelope Ann inspected the small round object. “What is it?”

“I have no idea,” Anna replied. “Piwaka gave it to me.”

Penelope Ann’s mouth fell open. “Piwaka?”

Anna nodded. “He said to mix it with their food, and the Guards would fall asleep.”

Penelope Ann stared at her. “Piwaka said that?”

Anna nodded again. “He wants to stop Aquilla from killing Menlo and starting another war, too.”

Penelope Ann squared her shoulders. “That settles it, then. If Piwaka cares enough to give you this, we’ll do it.”

“Then what?” Anna asked. “What will we do after their asleep?”

Penelope Ann’s face cracked into a grin. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Anna smiled back. “Right. We’ll get Menlo as far away from this village as possible. With any luck, he’ll be halfway over the Eastern Divide before they wake up.”

They turned to the counter together, and Anna dropped the object into a grinding mortar. She crushed it with the pestle, and they combined it with the food Aquilla and his Guard would eat.

They barely finished in time before the tread of feet on the balcony startled them from their work. Penelope Ann whirled away from the counter, but only Piwaka stood in the door. A dozen or more Avitras filed in behind him. They formed a circle in the middle of the room, and Aquilla came last. He took his place on the couch, and the Guard sat in a ring at his feet.

Then another group entered. They filed into the room in silence, but they just kept coming, more and more of them. The line never stopped. They formed successive rings outside the first circle until seven rings of men filled the house.

Anna and Penelope Ann kept out of the way, but Anna couldn’t take her eyes off those feathery warriors. Every shade of their plumage caught the light, and their eyes burned with mysterious fire. They filled the house until not a square of floor space remained. Piwaka sat at Aquilla’s right hand, and every face turned upward to listen to Aquilla. Anna touched Penelope Ann’s hand, and the two women slipped out of the house.

They waited on the balcony for the meeting to end. The sun went down, and the sky blazed with color. Stars twinkled overhead, and the voices of the treetop creatures died away. Lights glowed from windows throughout the Avitras village, but their light no longer warmed Anna’s heart. She no longer belonged in this village.

“What will you do when Aquilla wakes up and realizes what happened?” she asked Penelope Ann. “He’ll be angry when he figures out he’s been tricked.”

“I’ll blame you,” Penelope Ann replied. “I’ll tell him I knew nothing about it.”

Anna laughed. “Perfect.”

Penelope Ann didn’t laugh, though. She didn’t even smile. “The real question is what are you going to do when he finds out.”

Anna wiped the smile off her face. “I’ll go back to the Lycaon. I’m finished with the Avitras.”

Penelope Ann’s head whipped around. Then she sank back against the railing and nodded. “I didn’t want to admit to myself that you didn’t belong here, but now it makes sense. I wish it could have been otherwise, but I can see you’ve made up your mind.”

“It isn’t just all this mess with Aquilla,” Anna told her. “When Menlo leaves, I’ll have no reason to stay here.”

“When will you go?” Penelope Ann asked.

“Tonight,” she replied. “I’ll leave as soon as I know Menlo is safe.”

Penelope Ann’s eyes widened. “So soon? But you haven’t made any preparations for the journey.”

“Like you said,” Anna replied, “it won’t be safe for me to stay any longer. I’ll find my way to the Lycaon territory. Once I cross the border, their warriors will take me to the village. I can hold out that long. My cousin is one of them. She’ll make sure I’m all right.”

Penelope Ann shook her head. “I hate to see you leave like this. At least let me help you make you some food for the journey.”

“There isn’t time,” Anna replied. “In a few minutes, Aquilla will call us back in to serve the Guard their refreshments. We have to stay where they can see us until they fall asleep. After that, we’ll have to move fast to get Menlo out of the village without being seen.”

“What if one of the Guards doesn’t eat the food?” Penelope Ann asked. “If even one of them stays awake, we’re sunk.”

“I would be surprised if Piwaka eats the food,” Anna replied. “Maybe he’ll help us deal with anybody who gives us problems.”

Penelope Ann cast her a sidelong glance. “You’re making one mistake. They won’t be giving us problems. They’ll be giving you problems. Once the Guards fall asleep and you let Menlo out of the store room, you’re on your own. I can’t help you anymore.”

Anna took hold of Penelope Ann’s shoulders. “You’ve done enough, and I’m grateful for your help. None of this would have been possible if it hadn’t been for you. I only hope you can live in peace with Aquilla after this.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Penelope Ann replied. “Once Menlo is gone, Aquilla will go back to the way he was before. With the possibility of war off the table, he’ll settle down to the same quiet life we had before.”

“I hope you’re right,” Anna murmured.

“I am right,” Penelope Ann replied. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Anna’s head shot up. Penelope Ann gazed at her with steady determination. Then Anna smiled at her. “I should have known you would take control of this situation.”

“Aquilla is my mate,” Penelope Ann told her. “I love him, but I won’t let him ruin our lives with some crazy idea about the Ursidreans. You concentrate on getting Menlo away from here and leave Aquilla to me. Between Piwaka and me, we’ll quell any sign of unrest from him.”

“All right,” Anna replied. “I trust you.”

A bubble of voices rippled out of the house, and Penelope Ann pushed herself off the balcony railing. “That’s the signal. The meeting’s over. Let’s go.”

The Avitras milled around inside the house in clusters of conversation. Piwaka stayed by Aquilla’s side, but a delicate smile played on his lips. Whatever happened during that meeting, the result delighted him. Everything was going exactly according to Piwaka’s plan. All Anna had to do was keep up her end of it.

She and Penelope Ann carried the bowls and platters of food around the room. Every time one of the Guards took a handful of nuts or a sample of Penelope Ann’s delicacies, Anna committed the man’s face to memory. Under the guise of attending to the Guards, she made sure everyone present got something to eat, even Piwaka and Aquilla. Penelope Ann did the same thing.

Penelope Ann lingered at Aquilla’s side with his favorite seed mixture, and he smiled at her while he helped himself to it again and again. After more than two hours of constant attention, the food disappeared and Anna made less effort to circulate among the Guard. If Piwaka’s magic bullet didn’t do its job after all the food they ate, it wouldn’t work at all.

At last, Aquilla clapped his hands and announced they would play a round of issingass before they brought out the prisoner for questioning. He sat on the floor with Piwaka and the oldest Guards, and the game started.

Anna and Penelope Ann retreated again to the balcony, but this time, they kept the men in sight through the window. One by one, the younger men not included in the game relaxed in the corners of the room. They leaned against the walls or stretched out on the floor to watch. Their postures became more and more relaxed, and they observed the game with smiles and half-open eyes.

One by one, the players were eliminated until only Piwaka, Aquilla, and two other older men continued to play. The night wore on, and some of the younger men fell asleep where they were. Piwaka showed no sign of noticing them. He concentrated on the game. In the end, he and Aquilla eliminated the other players, too.

Penelope Ann leaned close to Anna. “You better go get him. You won’t have a better chance than right now.”

Anna shook her head. “Not yet.”

She clenched her hands together in knots. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the two men’s faces. Aquilla didn’t realize it, but they played for the future of the Avitras people. Aquilla might be the Alpha, but it was Piwaka who played to save his people from Aquilla’s madness.

He and Aquilla played against each other for more than an hour before Piwaka leaned back in triumph. Aquilla’s laugh rumbled through the house. “You always were unbeatable.”

Piwaka reclined on the couch. “Then you should know better than to play against me.”

Aquilla sighed and leaned his head against his hand. “It must be later than I thought. Look at these louts. They’re all asleep.”

“What do you want to do about the prisoner?” Piwaka asked.

“We can deal with him in the morning,” Aquilla replied. “I got the Guards’ approval. That’s the most important thing. We can deal with the prisoner when they wake up. It will serve the same purpose.”

Piwaka nodded. “I could go to sleep right now myself. I never felt so tired. Maybe it was something in your mate’s food.”

Aquilla laughed again and leaned back on the couch. He threw his arm over his eyes......and the next minute, silence descended over the building. Anna barely breathed. Piwaka’s head lolled to one side, and his lips pouted open. The rise and fall of his chest moved his head up and down.

Aquilla slipped down the couch until his body stretched the length of it. His arm still shielded his eyes from the light. The gentle tide of breathing filled the room, and bodies covered the floor from the front door to all four walls.

Penelope Ann grabbed Anna by the elbow and spun her around. “Go!” she hissed. She propelled her toward the store room.

Anna didn’t hesitate. She hurried around the house and took hold of the bar across the door. She lifted it silently, but nothing could wake those men up from the influence of Piwaka’s sleeping drug.

The door creaked when she pushed it open. There stood Menlo in the same strong, straight, alert posture. His eyes flashed when she opened the door, and he brandished the weapon, but he relaxed when he saw her. “It’s you.”

Anna rushed into the room. She took his hand. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”

Chapter 14

Menlo didn’t ask any questions. Anna led him out of the store room into the night. The aurora lit the sky. She glanced both ways, but there was no one in sight, not even Penelope Ann. Anna’s heart sank. She would never get a chance to say good-bye. Penelope Ann had done her part. Now she had to protect herself by keeping her distance from Anna and Menlo.

Anna hurried to the edge of the balcony and started across the bridge to the next platform. She hadn’t taken more than three steps when Menlo’s hand slipped from her grasp.

She turned back. “What’s the matter?”

He peered down at the branch under her feet. “Will this thing hold me?”

She laughed and took his hand again. “It’s strong enough to hold Aquilla and Piwaka and every other adult male Avitras. It will hold you, too. Just don’t look down. Come on.”

She tripped across and beckoned to him to follow. He hesitated another moment. Then he took a deep breath and started walking. He didn’t look down, and he didn’t stop moving. Once he got out onto the branch, he found his balance and crossed with no trouble.

“That’s the hard part over with,” Anna told him. “Now all we have to do is climb.”

“I’m trusting you,” he breathed.

“I’ll help you,” she told him. “It’s a long way down, so don’t lose your nerve halfway. I’ll be right with you. Just keep going until you reach the ground.”

She swung her legs over the side of the platform and groped for the hand and foot holds in the bark. She held herself in position on the trunk until Menlo’s legs appeared over the side of the platform. She held on with one hand and guided his feet into the clefts of the footholds.

Once he stabilized himself, he found his own way down onto the trunk. She started climbing, but she waited for him so many times the climb took much longer than usual. Halfway down, his breathing strained and he missed his footing a few times, but he didn’t stop. Anna paused, but he didn’t need her help. He didn’t quit until he planted his feet on the soft forest floor next to her.

Anna smiled. “Okay?”

Menlo ran his wrist across his forehead and nodded. “Now I know where I am. I can handle anything now that I’m on the ground.”

Anna looked around. “There’s only one problem. I don’t know the way to the Eastern Divide.”

“I do,” he replied.

Anna gasped. “You do?”

“Sure.” He set off through the trees. “I’ve been here before, remember?”

Anna hurried to catch up to him. “But how can you find your way in the dark?”

“We aren’t in the dark,” he replied. “Besides, I can smell the forest.”

Anna took a breath, but she didn’t smell anything but cold, damp trees. “What do you smell?”

He didn’t stop walking. “Every forest has a distinctive smell. This forest smells different from my home forest, but I can smell my home forest coming from over there, beyond those mountains. That’s the Eastern Divide.”

Anna squinted into the dark. “How can you smell it from so far away?”

“The wind is coming from that direction,” he replied. “It brings the smell to me from there. That’s where I need to go.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“I’m sure.”

The farther he got from the Avitras, the more sure and swift his strides became until Anna had to run to keep up with him. Now she was the one to pant and sweat from the effort. At last, she called out to him, “Wait a minute.”

He turned around. “Am I moving too fast for you?”

She shook her head and caught her breath. “You go ahead. I’m going back.”

He arched his eyebrows. “You can’t go back. Aquilla will kill you when he finds out you let me escape.”

“I’m not going back to the Avitras,” she explained. “I’m going to the Lycaon. I couldn’t stay with the Avitras anymore, and I was happy with Lycaon. Their territory is back that way. You go on. You’ll be home soon. Don’t worry about me.”

He frowned, but before he could answer, a shadow moved across her field of view. She tried to warm Menlo, but the shadow materialized from behind a tree, and Aquilla stood before them. “You don’t have to worry about Aquilla finding out you let him escape. He already knows.”

Menlo jerked his weapon out of his waistband and rounded on his foe. He bared his teeth and roared a challenge that shivered the massive tree trunks. Aquilla drew himself up to his full height and crouched to spring. He paid no attention to the weapon in Menlo’s hand.

Anna stepped back to give them room. Nothing would please her more than seeing Menlo pay Aquilla back for his cruel treatment. She never doubted for an instant that Menlo would triumph over Aquilla in a fight to the death.

Menlo coiled in on himself with every muscle tensed. The knife meant nothing to him, either. He would tear Aquilla to pieces before he went back to the Avitras as a prisoner.

The two men sized each other up in a flash and would have rocketed toward one another with all the blood lust of mortal enemies. But at that moment, another figure emerged from the trees and stepped between them. Piwaka held out his hands to both men. “Stop where you are!”

Aquilla gnashed his teeth. “Get out of the way, old man. This has nothing to do with you.”

“You don’t think so?” Piwaka asked. “Who do you think drugged your Guards so this Usridrean could get away? Do you really think he could sneak past me if I had my eyes open?”

Aquilla paused for a fraction of an instant. Then he narrowed his eyes at Piwaka. “You call yourself my Captain? This is the last time you’ll ever interfere with me again. You’ll be banned from the Guard and sent to the frontier to live with the outliers.”

Piwaka smiled his inscrutable smile, but he didn’t move. “You couldn’t rule our faction without me. You could never have captured this Ursidrean in the first place without my help, and I won’t let you drive our people to ruin over some nonsense about your brother. This was never about your brother, and if you stand against me, I’ll make sure you lose your position as Alpha. No Alpha can stand without his lieutenants. You know that.”

Aquilla hesitated again, but only for a moment. “I don’t need any lieutenants who aren’t loyal. You drugged the Guards, and you tried to drug me, too. You’re finished. Now get out of the way. I have a job to do here.”

Piwaka turned his back on Menlo and faced Aquilla with his own arms flexed and his legs bent to attack. “You’ll have to kill me first before you harm a hair on this man’s head. You know what Donen will do when he finds out what you’ve done. I never should have gone along with your plan to capture him. I won’t let that mistake cost our people any more lives. Let him go, or do your worst with me.”

This time, Aquilla really did hesitate. He might have fooled himself that he could defeat Menlo in single combat, but he didn’t stand a chance against a hardened warrior like Piwaka. The glint in Piwaka’s eye told him he wasn’t joking around.

Still, Aquilla couldn’t back down without losing face. Piwaka would never tell anyone Aquilla gave up without a fight, but Aquilla couldn’t live with himself if he went back to the village in defeat. If he hoped to maintain his position as Alpha, he had to remain undefeated.

The wheels turned in his mind. He glanced over Piwaka’s shoulder at Menlo standing ready to take over where Piwaka left off. Even if by some slim chance Aquilla defeated Piwaka, Menlo was waiting for his turn. Aquilla would never beat Piwaka without suffering some injury or at least exhaustion. He couldn’t face Menlo afterwards.

He hardened himself for the first assault, even knowing it was hopeless. At least he would die in open combat. No one would call him a coward. He crouched to spring at Piwaka, but all at once, a voice echoed through the trees and called his name. The voice was female.

Anna whirled around, and Penelope Ann appeared between the trees. “Stop, Aquilla!”

His eyes widened, and his arms fell to his sides. “What are you doing here?”

She strode right up to him, past Anna and Menlo and Piwaka as if they weren’t there. She stopped in front of him and peered into his burning eyes. “What are you doing? You aren’t going to fight them, are you?”

“Of course I’m going to fight them,” he shot back. “My prisoner is escaping. I have to take him back.”

Penelope Ann shook her head. “You’re not going to take him back, and you aren’t going to fight these men, either. Let Menlo go.”

Black rage erupted in Aquilla’s eyes. “Never! This man, who claims to be Captain of my Guard, colluded with these other two traitors to drug my Guards so the prisoner could get away. They have to be punished.”

Penelope Ann only shook her head again. “How do you think he drugged the Guards? He put the drug into their food. And how could he do that, when he sat at your side all night long? Anna and I did it. He gave us the drug, and we put it into your food.”

He stared at her from under his burning brows. “You—you did this? But you served that food to the Guards....and to me. So you tried to drug me too? How could you do this to me?”

She laid both hands on his shoulders with no fear. “We couldn’t let you kill this man and spark a war that would destroy our faction. Another war would kill even more men we can’t spare, and it would probably destroy the Ursidreans, too. We couldn’t let that happen.”

Menlo spoke up from behind Piwaka. “Our faction no longer has enough men to patrol our borders. Another war would cost us the lives of our young people. If we lost them, our population would collapse and we would never recover.”

“The Lycaon are in the same position,” Piwaka added. “Every year, fewer and fewer warriors patrol their border. None of the factions can afford another war.”

“You see?” Penelope Ann asked. “We did it for the good of our people. Let Menlo go, and be the savior of the Avitras. You won’t be a coward. You’ll be a hero. You can open up new negotiations with Donen and inaugurate a new era of peace between our factions. Instead of fighting the Ursidreans all the time, we can use our resources to rebuild our population the way we need to. We can build new villages and dedicate more time to preserving our histories.”

Aquilla frowned. He surveyed the faces observing him. Then his eyes returned to Penelope Ann.

“Do it for me,” she murmured. “If you won’t do it for anyone else, do it for me. Who will I lean on if you die here fighting these men? Did you think of that? I would be left alone. Who would be my Alpha if anything happened to you?”

He gazed into her eyes, but already his expression changed. The burning madness faded from his face, and the light of reason returned.

Penelope Ann squeezed his shoulders, and she dropped her voice to a murmur. “No one could ever love me the way you have. Don’t take yourself away from me now.”

His eyes blazed again, but with passionate love instead of murderous hatred. “No one will ever love you again, not as long as I’m around.”

A brilliant smile burst across her face, and she drew him to her. “You’re my hero. You’re my savior. Come home with me.”

He towered over her and took her in his arms. The next moment, his face disappeared from Anna’s view as their lips merged in a passionate kiss. He folded her in his arms and lifted her off the ground.

Piwaka waved his hand toward the trees, and Anna and Menlo took his signal and started forward. Menlo set off at a rapid stride, and Anna hurried after him.

Chapter 15

At the top of the rise, Anna caught Menlo by the hand and pulled him to a stop. “This is where I turn off.”

Menlo spun around and stared at her in the early grey dawn. “You’re not seriously striking out for Lycaon territory by yourself, are you?”

Anna nodded. “I can’t go back to the Avitras. I told you that.”

“It probably won’t be the same,” he replied. “Aquilla’s not raving mad anymore, and you won’t have me to worry about. It could be good for you again, the way it was when you first came.”

Anna shook her head. “I can’t go back, not even with Aquilla restored and you set free. I never really belonged there. I don’t know why I came over in the first place. I should have stayed with the Lycaon. No, that’s not right. I do know why came over. I came because of Frieda. Now she’s gone. I have no more reason to stay here.”

He shrugged. “I still think you should reconsider. You’ve got a long, hard road ahead of you. I hate to think of you traveling all that way by yourself.”

“Well, what’s the alternative?” she asked. “I won’t go back to the Avitras, and that’s final.”

He eyed her in the growing light. “Come with me. Come to Ursidrean territory with me.”

Her mouth fell open. “You’re joking.”

He shook his head. “I’m not joking. You said you didn’t have anything left, and I don’t want to go back without you. Come with me, and neither of us will ever have to be alone again.”

She started to say something, but he stopped her mouth with a kiss. Anna froze with his lips lingering on hers. She tasted again the fear and grief of their one brief night in the store room when she never expected to see him alive again. At the same time, she tasted something new, some distant promise of lands and people she’d never seen—the promise of a real future together with him.

He pulled back to look her in the eye, but she didn’t move. She let her lips enjoy the softness of his kiss while her mind floated above the scene and looked down from above.

Emily was in Ursidrean territory with Faruk. Anna wouldn’t be alone. Menlo and Faruk were old friends. Anna and Menlo might wind up spending quite a lot of time with Emily and Faruk. That would be nice.

And the Ursidreans lived in developed cities with electricity and medical care and vehicles. Anna wouldn’t have to cook on open fires anymore or survive on nuts and seeds. For the first time since she crashed on this planet, she would actually live a life of ease and comfort. Who could say no to that?

At long last, her gaze migrated back to Menlo’s face and she found him studying her. He followed the turns of her thoughts through her expression. He whispered to her between her lips. “I love you, Anna. Don’t turn your back on that.”

She sucked in her breath. “You love me? You never said that.”

“Who could fail to love you after the way you rescued me from the Avitras?” he asked. “Who could let you walk away after the times we’ve seen and survived there?”

She blushed. “I didn’t exactly rescue you. Piwaka and Penelope Ann did most of it.”

He shook his head again. “I wouldn’t be standing here, on the border of my own territory, if it hadn’t been for you. Piwaka and Penelope Ann would have let Aquilla kill me if you hadn’t convinced them to stop him. You don’t think I’m going back to Harbeiz by myself, do you? What would Donen say, if I turned up there and told him all about you? He would say, ‘How could you let this woman walk away? How could you let her go back to the Lycaon? Why didn’t you do everything under the sun to bring her here with you?’ He would never respect me again, and I would never respect myself, either.”

She had to laugh at that, but he didn’t laugh.

“I love you, Anna,” he told her. “I don’t want to go back to Harbeiz without you. If you go to the Lycaon, I better come with you.”

“You can’t do that,” she blurted out. “You’re Ursidrean. You couldn’t live with the Lycaon.”

He cocked his head to one side. “Then you better come with me.”

She stared at him. Why was she arguing with him when she really wanted to go? She took his hand. “Alright. I’ll come.”

They turned toward the east. Thousands of miles of trackless mountains stretched away as far as the eye could see, but in the distance, a tiny point of light twinkled in the wilderness. “That’s Harbeiz, our capital city.”

That light called Anna home, and warmth spread through her frozen heart. In a few days, it would welcome her as no other place had. She would throw her arms around Emily’s neck, and she would live in her own place, with Menlo at her side. She would live in peace and quiet and comfort. She would have found her place, and Angondra would be her home.

THE END