“Tricky, tricky, my prize. But not tricky enough,” he taunted, taking the second left path, where her scent was strongest. The others had faded a fraction, and doubled back, hinting that she’d ran down the corridor and came back to the starting point to create a false trail.
He moved faster now and started his rolling clicking call, like the hunting hounds of Egypt when they scented their quarry. The sound carried hauntingly through the twisting corridors of the maze and he heard—very faintly—a startled gasp.
His head snapped around, ears rotating to try and catch the sound, but she’d gotten control of herself. He increased the volume and frequency of his humming clicks, listening intently but she remained silent.
Tricky, tricky.
When he reached the end of the passage, he had three directions to choose from, but this was where he ran into his first major problem.
Callie’s scent had vanished.
His call cut off as he doubled back and forth, scenting the air but her scent faded and then died just before the crossroads. Growling, Rathal loped down several meters of each new corridor trying to pick her scent back up, but nothing.
Verytricky.
However did she manage to hide her scent? And who had helped her?
“Oh, for this bit of genius there will be both a rewardanda punishment, my prize,” he taunted, his voice rough from maintaining his call for so long. He hadn’t used it in so long he was a little surprised that he remembered how.
Laughter floated on the breeze, husky and rich, but it was distorted—like it came from several directions at once.
His eyes narrowed.
“Who let you into the drone feed, Callie? I do believe this is cheating.” He paused, sniffing. “I’m so proud.”
“Whatever shall you do now, Rathal?” Callie sing-songed, throwing his words back at him. Her voice reverberated, echoing itself several times which meant she had commandeered quite a few of his drones for this little trick of hers.
“You understand that this means war, yes?”
More husky laughter.
“Come and get me… if you can.”
“Oh ho!” he said, laughing. “Such bravery! But let’s see how you like it whenIcheat.”
His mental link exploded into action, spearing through her flimsy hacking program and seizing the twelve spy drones. He found her quickly with them and then he killed them all one by one, dropping them at her feet, leaving only one hovering at eye level.
“You still have time, darling. I suggest you pick up the pace,” he told her through the drone. He’d marked her location—she was four corridors north and slightly to the left of him—and then cut the feed to the last drone, and locked her out of the station's mainframe. He had noted, however, the Link signature for the passcodes she’d used.
The twins would be on extra kitchen duty for the foreseeable future, the traitors.
And then he cheated further by scaling the walls. The strain of Hafa plant they’d bred for the maze walls had thick vines that wove together so densely that they were practically a solid wall. He was grinning like a mad person the whole way to the top and once he’d made it, he crouched like a specter in the dark and started calling again. This time he emphasized the clicking to add a truly horrifying edge and almost broke into laughter when he heard the muffledshitfrom deeper in the maze.
She really should have thought this through. Cheating first was opening the floodgates. She’d married a pirate for Goddess’s sake! What a terrible, terrible misstep. He snickered in between clicks and started crawling forward on all fours like a monster out of one of Callie’s Earth horror movies.
He kept his ears in constant motion to pick up her every movement, since he still couldn’t smell her. The naughty darling.
He pushed off his heels hard, jumping and sprinting down the top of the wall.
“Come out, come out. Wherever you are.”
twenty-six
Callie
Fuckfuckfuck!
The internal chant was like my theme song pushing me along because Rathal was on my ass.
