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She opened her mouth to call out to the ukkur, but the words died in her throat. Tears stung her eyes.

The ukkur was headed toward the stone crevice through which they had first entered. For a terrifying moment, Serenity actually thought he was going to leave her here all alone.

But the ukkur did not leave. He just sat down on his hard, naked butt with his back to her.

The tears brimming in Serenity’s eyes now spilled over and rolled hot and bitter down her cheeks.

So that’s how it was going to be, was it?

Cold.

With a bit of effort, Serenity wrangled her weak and messy body into an upright position and leaned back against the stone wall of the circular area. She folded her knees up to her chin and hugged her legs, coiling herself into a tight little knot of flesh and bone.

She suddenly felt very naked.

Naked and vulnerable.

CHAPTER 18: JAGGA

Jagga crouched at the edge of the small gorge, a silent shadow blending in with the surrounding rock formations. If not for the glint of his predator’s eyes, he would have looked like just another boulder perched on the cliff’s edge, ready to roll down into the gully below with the next rockslide.

Those eyes were locked on the cadre of nith soldiers gathered below him at the bank of the stream. The slender black-robed bastards were totally unaware of the dangerous ukkur lurking mere meters above them, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice. Had even one of them glanced upward, their natural thermal vision would have no doubt picked up the ukkur’s heat signature, but all of them were too focused on something on the sand at the water’s edge.

Jagga felt an updraft of air rising out of the gulley, carrying with it the gurgling sound of the shallow brook and the sour, repugnant odor of the nith gathered there. His nose wrinkled in disgust.

It had been Grodd, of course, who had smelled the bastards first. Good old Grodd, who could smell a single rotten ksh berry from twenty thizziks away.

Simple-minded Grodd was crouching beside Jagga, mimicking his companion’s pose. Grodd was a big bastard, even by ukkur standards. His huge body was practically vibrating with tension, and Jagga knew the reason why. Grodd wanted to jump down there and rip those nith bastards to shreds.

Jagga couldn’t blame him. But he wanted to wait.

He placed a restraining hand against Grodd’s rage-trembling shoulder.

“Not yet,” he mouthed.

In the moonlight, Jagga saw Grodd’s bearded face rumple with barely restrained tension.

“Why?” Grodd mouthed back.

“Just. Wait.”

The reply clearly did not satisfy Grodd, but he held his position anyway. He always followed Jagga’s lead. Jagga was younger than Grodd by several seasons, and the age difference was apparent from Jagga’s clean-shaven face and smaller tusks. But Grodd always deferred to Jagga in matters of strategy. He recognized the youth’s superior intellect.

Jagga turned his attention back to the group of nith below them.

He wanted to know what this small squadron was doing out here in the middle of the night.

The hooded creatures were huddled together in a little cluster. Six of them in total. Three of their small hovering vehicles were parked nearby. Some of the nith were holding electric lanterns, and the artificial white beams were illuminating something on the ground. Jagga could not make it out clearly, but it appeared to be some tattered grelk-hide garments and a splattering of rust-red blood, not fresh but not too old either.

Ukkur blood.

Whatever violence had taken place here, it had happened fairly recently.

One of the nith was speaking into a handheld communication device, probably reporting back to the landed ship that Jagga and Grodd had spotted a little while ago.

Jagga leaned close, straining his ears to hear what the nith was saying.

“Captain, we have found the human-szkkt. Yesss, the female. Or at least we have found her remains.”

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