AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Kaela,” I whispered. “Look, Danika and Kaze are over there, all alone together…”
She laughed.
“Those two lovebirds at it again? I rather think she likes pushing him,” she said.
I watched Danika goad Kaze. She continued whatever she was saying to him, placing her hands on her hips and cocking her head. His frown deepened, but his eyes sparkled.
I watched as Kaze cocked his head, scolding her for something, but I couldn’t hear what. She continued to talk at him and he stood up, his tall stature imposing over her shorter frame. She took a step back before he grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward him. She stilled in his arms before he pulled her in for a long, smoldering kiss.
When he finally pulled away, he landed two hard swats to either side of her ass and smirked as he whispered something in her ear. Her face turned wicked red as she reached back, but she was smiling
and giggling with him all the same.
Kaela laughed softly and turned away, getting back to work, so I followed suit.
They were meant to be, those two. I grinned and started the process of digging again.
We worked for a while longer before either of us said anything.
“I found a book yesterday. A real one,” Kaela interrupted.
“I thought they stopped making those, like, six hundred years ago,” I said skeptically. I’d hadn’t seen one in a long time, outside of a museum some years ago anyway.
“I did too. It was weird. We found an old house deep in the woods. It was kind of like a tree fort of some kind, maybe someone who wanted to live off the grid or something way back when. They had some books on a shelf, including some survival ones,” she explained, and I looked up with interest. “One of them was about crops and agriculture. I thought it might be useful to read for my garden. It’s not growing as well as I hoped. I did get one carrot so far though,” she murmured, her pride diminishing by the second. We’d mainly been living off the land all our lives, foraging for natural grown berries and the like, so this new gardening venture was going rather poorly for us so far.
“I hope it helps,” I replied with a small smile. “A carrot is a nice start, anyway.”
It was all we could do. Focus on moving on, surviving together and protecting each other from the enemy.
I stared up into the sky, watching the leaves on the trees sway back and forth in the wind. My sister was out there somewhere, maybe staring up at the same sky, maybe not, but I’d find her one day. I’d be the one to rescue her this time, rather than the other way around. I would bet my life on it.
Tonight, we were going to feast on boar. Maybe we could make some bacon too. My mouth watered at the prospect.
Chapter Two
Alaina
The next week passed by excruciatingly slowly, and still with not a single sign of Kira. I thought about her fate every waking moment.
Kaela and I had finished building the goat enclosure and now the goat, aptly named Sweetie after her need to nuzzle everyone who walked by, was happy there. She was surprisingly tame and that made the process of milking her easier because she just let us try anything, as long as someone was scratching her head at the same time.
Which was good, because it took us an entire week to figure out how the milking process worked.
The most we had to go on were ancient images, and that was it.
Kaela was the one who finally figured out how to milk Sweetie. That night, we only had a small cup of milk, but everyone passed it around and took a small sip. It had been freaking delicious, even if it had been warm. I looked forward to the day when we could add a spoonful to a rare cup of coffee in the morning.
The mood had been light and carefree that day.
I wasn’t able to focus on the goat and the milk though. It seemed so trivial to me, in that moment. What mattered to me the most was my sister, Kira.
Kira’s disappearance had been eating me away from the inside. I needed to know what happened to her. She deserved more than becoming a Vakarran breeder. I was afraid for her, furious for her and so incredibly sad. I was becoming more and more angry with each passing day. I hated that the Vakarrans had taken my sister and I wanted to find out what had happened to her. I needed to find her. What if she needed me? What if she was just hurt? Lying in the woods somewhere waiting for me to come save her? I bit my lip and looked out into the forest, beyond our safety net of the branches and leaves and brush.
Something occurred to me then. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it sooner.
Kira had safeguards in place out there. She had cameras. One of us needed to check on them. I’d gone with her once, checked into the ancient technology she had stored there. I’d never run them myself, but it couldn’t be that hard, right? I could figure the rest out on my own. I could start there, hack into her camera network to see what happened, if they picked up her capture, to gather clues to where she was now. It could work.
I ran my hand down my face. Why the fuck hadn’t I thought of that before? Stupid. She deserved more than this. She’d been a force to be reckoned with. In her honor, so would I.
