He wasn’t taking her back to his home because he didn’t want to bring any danger on Baba.
Partially, because he wanted to be in private with Adryel to find out if the sensations he’d just felt were something real, or if it was just getting wrapped up in the moment.
That it was nothing more than a physical reaction.
Not a true connection.
But unlike any kiss he’d shared with a female before, it felt like more.
A great deal more.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I forgot about the communicator.”
“Later,” he said. The kiss had been a distraction. A way to let the ones following them get ahead and let Stron see what they did. Maybe even figure out if they were from a particular family or organization.
That had been his thought, anyway. A simple, practical plan.
But now, they’d found them. The tracker had seen to that.
One of their pursuers kept looking at something in his hand, then back up at the crowd.
“Look there,” he said softly to Adryel.
“What’s he doing? Scanning for us?”
“Most likely.” If the male was, in fact, scanning for them, then he’s tracking for the girl’s genome, because that would be easy to spot in the sea of Kantenans.
He glanced at her. Through the hood, she just looked like a short Kantenan female, her face not visible except for her mouth.
If they were from Knobb, then they wouldn’t be following them now, so whoever they were, they were connected to some other aspect of this situation.
“Where to now?” she asked as they moved through.
He started thinking about the nearest safe station he could take her to. Someplace close that would get them both out of harm’s way. Someplace that they wouldn’t be able to be followed into…
There were places like that in the Underground, but one had to know where they were.
Stron knew where one was.
But were they close enough to get to it? They were still in the main corridor, and he started mentally drawing the map of the Underground. Where they were, and where the side channels were that he was familiar with.
The ones that would get them out of there, as quickly as possible.
Before Khalzin sent a search party after Adryel.
“This way,” he said, leading her back the way they’d come for a bit.
“Got a secret hideout?” she asked.
“In a matter of speaking,” he replied, and saw what he was looking for. A tunnel was partially obscured by two vendor stands, not as wide as the main corridor, but obviously a tunnel for foot traffic.
It was darker than the main tunnel, and low lights illuminated the walk, colors of blues and purples that gave everything a surreal nightlife. Though water could be heard dripping from somewhere, and it smelled more like an underground cave than the main corridor did.
Less air purifiers here.
Even their footsteps echoed more on the ground. The rumble of traffic from the main passage hushed as they walked away from it, and it was more distinct, their footsteps from others.
They weren’t alone, though. There was a few walking through this tunnel as well, but not like the main passage with its thick flow of patrons.
