“It doesn’t work like that—” I started, but Torven’s hand on my arm stopped me.
“Enough,” Vikkat said, his voice carrying the weight of command. “Dr. Rivers has been with us since we left fortress. Under watch. No communication possible.”
“Then explain explosion,” Dorek demanded. “Explain why sky-stealers suddenly have new weapons after generations of nothing.”
“I can’t explain it,” Vikkat admitted, and I could see the admission cost him. “But suspicion and fear are no cause toaccuse.”
Dorek’s laugh was bitter and angry. “Our people lie bleeding because we brought outsiders into our hunt. Corrupted star-cousins who bring bad fortune and strange mates.”
The wrath in his voice when he said “strange mates” made something cold settle in my chest. This wasn’t just about the explosion. This was about resentment that had been building since we’d arrived, maybe even before that. Resentment toward Destrans who’d left this world behind, who’d abandoned their cousins to suffer while they traveled the stars.
“We continue,” Vikkat said, and his tone brooked no argument. “We find sky-stealers. We get answers. But we do not abandon mission because of one setback.”
“One setback that nearly killed Bront and Hesser,” Dorek shot back. “How many more must fall for Vikkat’s strange alliance with corrupted blood?”
“I said enough! Healers will care for Hesser and Bront.” Vikkat’s roar echoed off the cave walls, and for a moment he looked every inch the warrior leader who’d survived generations of fruitless hunting. “Bring them back to fortress, then return with more guards and weapons. We continue, or we return to fortress in failure and disgrace.”
The silence that followed was thick with tension. I could see the D’tran warriors weighing their options, loyalty to Vikkat warring with their own suspicions and fears. Finally, one by one, they nodded their acceptance, though the hostility remained in their expressions. They lifted Hesser and carried him back to the crawler, then returned for Bront.My heart ached for the injured and my chest felt constricted with the knowledge that the crawler wasleavingus here to continue withfewerguards.
Torven didn’t seem perturbed. He actually appeared to be relieved that Dorek was leaving. “I wouldn’t want to be hearing the conversations happening in that ride back to the fortress,” he murmured.
“Aren’t you worried that they won’t come back for us?” I hissed. “They can just say that we all died and abandon us here.”
“My people would not do that,” Vikkat interjected, having overheard us. “D’tran abandon no one. Not the wicked. Not the dead. They would return with our bodies or not return at all. Another group would come until we were found.”
“Dorek does not like us,” Torven said. “He is not alone in thinking my people are corrupt.”
Vikkat nodded sagely. “Is their right to think what they want. Is my duty to lead my people. They will obey me.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said quietly. “Otherwise we’re better off in those storms.”
Dorek returned, having sent two guards back with the crawler and the injured D’tran guards. That left four D’tran, Torven and me to continue on in unstable passages, in the near darkness. Sweat had soaked my clothes. Iknewmy pulse was exceeding normal parameters. My hands shook as I clutched a scanner in my cold, clammy hands.
Wewouldcontinue. Slower. With everyone on edge. Again, I didn’t need the mating bond to feel how tense Torven had become beside me, how his hand had closed around a rockand he held it as if he was ready to smash it into someone’s face.
It was plain to anyone with a normal sense of perception that some of the D’tran were unstable. Desperate. And we were trapped in caves with them, hunting enemies who now apparently had explosive traps, while being blamed for every piece of bad fortune that befell the expedition.
I focused on my scanner and tried to tune out everything but the readings and the data. I needed tonotthink about the very real possibility that we might not survive to see the surface again.
And even if we did, I had no idea how we’d find our scattered crew or get off this planet alive.
But first, we had to survive the next few hours. In the dark. Underground. With people who were starting to see us as the enemy.
I’d faced impossible scientific problems before, but this was something else entirely. This was politics and prejudice and generations of pain all wrapped up together and pointed at us like a weapon.
And all I had to defend myself with was a modified atmospheric scanner and a mate who would fight his own distant cousins to protect me if it came to that.
I really hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
But looking at Dorek’s expression and the way the other warriors were watching us with barely concealed suspicion, I wasn’t sure hope was going to be enough.
CHAPTER 17
TORVEN
The scanner in Zara’s hands had been humming steadily for the past twenty minutes, doing its thing without melting down or short-circuiting. I watched her face in the red light, saw the way her eyes tracked across the display. She was ultra-focused on the work to distract herself from the weight of stone above us, from the hostile glances of the D’tran warriors, from the fact that we all could have been killed in that explosion.
Part of me had wanted all of us to return to the fortress. To regroup and get more guards, weapons, something. Anything to make this safer for my mate. But more guards could mean more hostility toward us. Returning could also give the Kythrans time to reset traps and rig more explosives. That could produce more injuries and, possibly, some deaths. I wasn’t sure Zara could handle being underground with corpses. Her nerves were already stretched tight as a wire.
