Saving Aran: Redemption for a Ravaged Planet (Sons of Aran Book 1) by G. S. Kenney

Author:G. S. Kenney [Kenney, G. S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: GSK
Published: 2022-07-12T05:00:00+00:00

Dilia watched with interest as Cort set about organizing the group for a long trek. He started with Lor’s pack. Lor suffered the ordeal patiently, despite—or perhaps with the help of—Lennard’s friendly jibes and jokes about his own pack. Lennard’s Arantu was surprisingly good, and he soon had them all laughing.

The trail through the woods was still narrow, and so the group was forced to walk single file. Cort led the way, Dilia kept close behind him. Lor brought up the rear, but he kept looking around and wandered off the trail twice. After the second time, Cort asked him to trade places with Lennard. The short-of-breath Lennard then brought up the rear, pretending he knew what, if anything, to watch for.

“This is going to take days, isn’t it?” Dilia asked. She knew the khenaran was far away, of course, but she’d never thought about it in terms of days of walking.

“Weeks,” Cort said. “Are you managing all right?”

Dilia looked around. The woods were filled with a variety of plants. Many, she recognized from her studies, more and different ones than were growing on the base. This was going to be interesting. “Oh, yes,” she said.

“We’ll take it easy,” Cort said. He pitched his voice a bit louder, including Lor and Lennard in the conversation. “If anyone needs to stop and rest a bit, just let me know.”

At the end of the day, Cort found a good place to camp, a small clearing in the woods, not far from a stream of clear water. Dilia glanced over her shoulder to where Lennard and Lor, both exhausted, sat by the stream. She put a hand on Cort’s shoulder and guided him toward the woods, away from the others.

“What?” he said.

“Do we really need to bring Lennard all the way to the khenaran? I like him, but it seems… wrong somehow.” She looked again toward where they left the others. Neither of the two had followed them. The sky had turned gray, threatening rain, and a wet breeze rustled the leaves of the trees.

“Why?”

Dilia took in a long breath then let it out with a loud sigh. The exertion of dealing with this topic was almost too much for her. “He’s an alien, that’s all. Every time I look at him, I think of Karim, the way he kept me there against my will, and he lied to me about it. And he was so… so…” She shuddered. “I don’t want to be reminded. I don’t want to remember.”

“Dilia, dear…” He put his hands on her shoulders to hug her.

She stiffened but didn’t draw away.

Cort let his hands fall back to his side. “Be reasonable, Dilia. Lennard is not the commandant, he’s a regular person and a good companion. You said yourself that you like him. Besides, he helped me get you free. I owe him for that—we owe him.”

Her fists clenched, and her lower lip trembled. “I hate those aliens. I hate all of them. Karim—what he did. He had no right.

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