Chapter 287 - Trails

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*****

AARYN

It was good to be outside, to run, to let his legs stretch, his lungs inflate. Too good. He reached the disformed cave too quickly and slowed before he took the path up the mountainside to it. He needed a moment before he had to face anyone.

There was a building tension that pressed on his chest and clamped on his spine. A boiling pot with a lid too tight. But he couldn't afford to let the lid off because if he did, everything inside would come out and he couldn't be weak that way. Not today.

So he swallowed it down and stalked up the path reminding himself that, at least for now, he was still Alpha. It was his role to help and protect the others—and discipline them where they were wrong. If they needed correction, he would be the one to do it. And if they did not, he would be their advocate.

They were clustered in the center of the cave when he entered, tense and agitated, arms flying when Anima spoke, all of their faces tight and pale.

They were so engrossed in their conversation, they didn't notice him enter the cave at first.

Something was missing, but Aaryn couldn't tell what, and didn't have time to consider it. The disformed made a circle in the center of the cave, around the low table, leaning in and focused on each other with eyes of fire.

"…can't let them just take him like that!"

"We don't have a choice. They said he defied the guards."

"Not just the guards, the Captain, and his Lieutenant." That voice was deep and cynical and Aaryn blinked. Gar was here. He didn't know whether to be relieved, or nervous.

"It's worse even than that," he said firmly.

Everyone's heads snapped up—including Gar's—and they all greeted him. Some of the younger ones rushing forward with stories of the guards appearing and taking Hholdyn who'd come to them when he returned, triumphant, with stories of tracking the human.

Aaryn made a mental note of the Anima that had been there that morning, to speak with them one on one later and get their stories, find out what they knew. But he kept walking as he greeted them all, and they surrounded him, babbling about the horrible morning, or in some cases, staying quiet, but their expressions uneasy.

Robbe was there, which made Aaryn breathe easier. He wouldn't allow the others to rush into anything. He nodded to his friend, who nodded back, steady as always. But Aaryn didn't miss the tightness around his mouth and the paleness of his already pale face. Robbe's white hair swayed as he nodded and his skin was almost the same color.

What had happened that morning.

Aaryn took his chair and the others settled around the low table, Gar hadn't gotten up from his seat on the couch to Aaryn's left, but he too met Aaryn's eyes and nodded. "Were you here?" Aaryn asked him.

Gar shook his head. "I got her after they took him. Some of the others came and got me. No one knew where you were."

That made images of a white wolf flash through Aaryn's head and a pang that stole his breath and made his throat pinch. But he just nodded. "Thanks for holding things down. There's been some stuff this morning."

"You okay?" Gar asked quietly, but Aaryn just nodded. Everyone was listening and watching. He couldn't get into that now.

The pot of tension and pain in his gut shivered. He tamped it down.

"Tell me what happened," he said.

The room erupted as ten of them tried to tell the story at once. Aaryn had to raise his hands for quiet and ask them to go one at a time. He gestured for Robbe to start.

Robbe sighed and clawed a hand through his hair. "Hholdyn came back early. I got here right after breakfast and he was already here, talking to Marryk and Hannah. I got a message to Despyna and Raichyl, but they were already working with the guards. But the others heard and started coming back here. Everyone wanted to hear what he'd been doing. We didn't… we didn't know he wasn't supposed to be out there until he told us. He was proud of it," Robbe said carefully, holding Aaryn's gaze. He understood what Hholdyn had done.

Aaryn breathed a little easier. "What did he say?"

"He said that they hadn't trusted him to find the human, and he knew he could, so he'd left them standing at the camp and gone off on his own. He followed the trail and used clues… he knew what to look for. Even the good humans are so much more clumsy than us. But he said they had a head start and—"

"They? He found more than one?"

"No," Errys spoke up. She was one of the older females, a sheep. Very quietly spoken and rarely drew attention to herself. But she was steady too. Aaryn was grateful she'd been there for the younger ones. "The scent was faint enough he wasn't sure if it was male or female—he thought female—but he called it a 'they.'"

Female. That was unexpected. Of course, there was no telling whether Hholdyn was right if he hadn't actually located her. "So he didn't actually make contact?"

"No, the trail reached the great plains—the desert—and just disappeared, he said."

Aaryn frowned. The trackers among them all did the same.

The trail just disappeared? That seemed odd. Oddly convenient, Aaryn thought.

Was all of this just Hholdyn trying to save face?

"I call bullshit," Gar muttered.

Aaryn grunted. "Did he have anything else? Any other evidence, or—"

"He found a cave," Robbe said. "One that had been used a lot, he said—there was a lot there. But it hadn't had anyone in it for a while. He thinks the human bedded there a few days ago."

"A cave?"

Gar caught his eye with a strange glint in his own. "I need to speak to you about that," he said quietly. "But yes, Hholdyn claims he found a cave halfway to the Great Plains. Stinks of old Anima habitation, and a faint trail of this elusive human."

"Does your dad or Behryn have anything out there that you know of?" Aaryn asked him.

Gar shrugged, then turned as Errys piped up again.

"Even though Hholdyn is emotional, he's not a liar," she said firmly. "If he says he saw a cave, I believe him. If he says the trail ended, I believe him. Even the guard said that the trail was faint when they found it. Maybe it just got old enough to disappear there?"

"The greater sun could degrade it," Robbe offered.

"But at a specific point like that?" Aaryn asked. "I mean, he had to have been in the grasses for a while if he got to the desert. Is he trying to say the trail stuck on the grasses, then died?"

None of them knew. They talked back and forth, but it was all speculation, and Aaryn didn't have the patience for it.

In the end, he sighed and rubbed his face.

Which is when it occurred to him what was missing.

Robbe was speaking with Gar and the others were chattering, all of them posing theories about what the human might have done to reduce their scent trail, when Aaryn sat up and barked, "Where's Marryk and Hannah?"

Everyone went quiet.. And looked at Gar.