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“It hurts!”
This conversation could very well stay on a near infinite loop and does go on for quite some time until Azlan intervenes. Herk is less inclined to disobey the alpha, and finally allows me to remove the mud-plug, which by now has dried out and comes out relatively easily.
“You are good with the young ones,” Azlan says. “I am glad. It bodes well for our own young.”
“You want to have babies here. In this situation. Amid a cluster of young who have no mothers of their own.” I frown. “It doesn’t feel right. We need to get these babies their mothers.”
“We are working on a plan.”
“Are you? What’s the plan?”
“For the moment, we must be careful.”
“So your plan is… be careful.”
It is very hard not to sound doubtful. It’s even harder to get the sneer out of my tone. I don’t understand Azlan’s motivations, he won’t share his thoughts, and my role appears to be being agreeable and helpful and not notice that nothing is being done.
Kain snorts. I didn’t notice he was nearby. I was too busy arguing with Azlan without arguing with him. Azlan did, though, and the look I get is a dark one.
“Let’s go to our ship,” he says.
“Yes. Let’s.”
The four ships have been separated and set up around the perimeter of what has essentially become a home refugee encampment. With so many grown males killed and the females taken, the Leonids left behind are displaced even in their own dens.
“If you are planning on punishing me…”
“I’m not,” he says. “But you cannot disrespect me that way.”
“Disrespect? I think you mean disagree with you. Is that what you need, Azlan? Must I always agree with you?”
“No. You are free to speak your mind, just not in front of Kain.”
“Why not in front of Kain?”
Azlan’s expression becomes unfathomable again. “I do not wish to speak ill of my brother. He is dearly beloved, but…”
“But what?” I need details. I can’t understand this world if nobody will explain it to me. Azlan is very cagey with the information he is prepared to share, and with motherless cubs swarming me almost every hour of the day, I am not having it. Something needs to be done with real urgency.
When Azlan does not immediately reply, I launch into a tirade that I have previously played over so many times in my mind it comes out stiff and forced, more like a speech than a plea to emotion. With the way Azlan is acting now, that might be a good thing.
“The infants are not putting on weight as they should. The goat milk is slowing down their decline, but it is clearly not a complete substitute. I hope I can get them to an age where they can consume solid food, but I have my doubts. They could die, Azlan.”
“And that would be a pity, but Leonidas has an entire army at his disposal, and we are but four brothers and wounded, broken males. What would you have me do? Launch our meager forces at Shattered Gulch? Get us all killed?”
“No. Of course not.”
“If the babies die, it is not I who killed them,” he says. “Nor will it be your fault, or the fault of anybody here. It will be another of the many tragedies of Leonidas.”
Logically what he is saying makes sense, but emotionally I cannot bring myself to agree. He does not hold the babies when they suckle. He does not look down into their trusting but confused eyes when their little paws pad for a maternal pelt that is not there. Azlan is an alpha, and these are not his babies. He has not shown any hostility toward them, nor do I see him showing as much concern as I have regarding their welfare. Sometimes it is very hard to tell what Azlan thinks or feels, whether he is hiding softness, or if he does not have it at all.
I know one thing for sure. I will not allow the cubs who depend on me as they once depended on their stolen mothers to become casualties of Leonidas. I will do something about this.
9
Much further away than you might expect….
Ava
