“No.” She shook her head. “I’d like to have a child as soon as we are capable of having one. I’d like to see our little one toddling around the caverns and running up to your parents who will most likely spoil them to death.”
I barked out a laugh. My parents would be overjoyed if Ashley and I had a sietling. They had mentioned to me a time or two how nice it would be to have sietlings in the dekes again and theywould pointedly look over at Ashley just in case their meaning wasn’t clear.
“I think they’d feed our child treats just to ensure our little one would seek them out every hour of the day.” I agreed.
Ashley laughed at my comment then sadly got up from the furs. “I’ve got to use the bathroom.”
Which was the human way of saying she needed to relieve herself. I still wasn’t quite sure why they used that phrase.
“Do you think we should leave soon?” She asked as she glanced at the morning sun slowly rising higher in the sky.
“Yeah, we probably should.” I sighed. I didn’t want to leave this place. The scent from our nighttime activities still lingered and I wasn’t ready to let that go, but Ashley was right, we did need to leave soon to make it back to my moon cave before nightfall.
We gathered our belongings and headed out into the forest. We walked hand-in-hand as I led my mate down a lightly worn trail. We talked more about children and the future when the breaking of a twig underfoot stopped me in my tracks.
“What is it?” Ashley asked, eyes wide with fear.
“Someone approaches.”
I opened up my senses to the world around us. The rushing water of the river, birds singing in the treetops, a badger digging a hole nearby, and light footsteps were undeniably getting closer to us with each step they took.
“Stay here,” I whispered. “I’ll see who it is.”
I shifted into my spider form and climbed the nearest tree. I used my webbing to swing from tree to tree until I was right above a small cloaked figure. This was not one of the males from my dekes. It could be a young hunter from the other dekes, perhaps Drovo’s brother Favalor. He was the only one I knew of who would have grown to this height by now.
I intentionally stomped one of my spider legs on the tree trunk to get the individual’s attention. They looked up, and as they did their hood slipped off their head. It was Holey. What was she doing all the way out here?
Ashley
I waited nervously by the tree Axon had told me to stay near. I knew he could hold his own, but I still worried. If the males from the other dekes could injure Brexl, the fiercest of them all, then they could injure Axon too.
Maybe it was one of the guys from our dekes.Axon did say that Rhaz comes out this far sometimes. Maybe it was him.
I chewed my nails as I waited and breathed a sigh of relief the moment I saw Axon walking back through the trees, unshifted. There was someone with him, but I couldn’t see who it was from here.
“All is well!” My mate called out to me. “It’s just Holey.”
Holey? What was she doing out here? I remembered how she wouldn’t meet our gaze as Axon questioned the priestess about her necklace. I had wanted her to speak up during our meeting with Kahina and was still a little bitter that she didn’t.
I walked up to them and they both looked tense.
“What’s going on?”
“I want you to take me to the ship you discovered,” Holey admitted. She pulled out the priestess’s metal pendant from her pocket and held it up like a fine jewel. “I want to show you the truth.”
Chapter 29
Ashley
I felt like my heart had shuddered to a stop. Was Holey going to give us the answers that Kahina had refused to even acknowledge?
“How did you get that from the priestess?” Axon asked, looking as shocked as I was with his eyes wide, tracking every movement of the pendant.
“I’m her acolyte.” Holey held her chin up high. “I have every right to use the pendant if I wish. She knows that. All I had to do was ask.”
“And she just gave it to you?” I cut in.
Holey’s confidence wavered for a moment. “Well, no. She told me I could borrow it after the full moon. So I slipped a large amount of sleeping herbs into her tea and stole it. She’ll be out until tonight.”
