The Elder's Mate

Thirty-One - Artemis

The first thing that Artemis felt was a cool breeze upon her skin. Her fingers twitched as she slowly roused to consciousness, her nails finding packed earth in her struggle to move. She creaked open her eyes to a world that initially was blurry before slowly coming into focus around her. In her limited view, she saw the bottoms of trees surrounding her.

Artemis groaned when a sharp pain occurred in her ribs when she tried to sit up. Every breath was painful, followed by a raging inferno within her very core.

Every bone in her body was sore, tired, not wanting to move. She felt like shit. Absolute shit.

With a little effort, she managed to sit up. Her body protested but she ignored it while she struggled to her feet. She didn't have any idea how long she had been out, but her legs swaying a little under her told her it had been more than a few hours.

She was in a forest of some sort. Dark green vegetation sprouted from the enormous trees that made up the forest she was in. The ground beneath her was a dark brown and dotted with low lying yellow plants, ones she had never seen before. When she was able to get a peek at the sky beyond the upper canopies she could see, not one, but two moons in the sky; one moon was faint in brightness.

"Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore..." she wheezed, an hand caressing her sore ribs.

The last thing she remembered was Valam kneeling before her on the clan ship and gassing her with some sort of sleep gas. Him being her attacker had hurt deep within her chest, a slowly growing agony. Such a betrayal had literally been a surprise. Valam was the last person who she would guess at betraying Rhage and her.

Worry mixed with the fear. Fear for Rhage.

He had to be pissed. He would kill Valam. There would be no mercy. Just imminent death.

Speaking of Valam...

Where was he?

Had he dumped her on some unknown planet to die on? What was he planning...and why?

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?!

Artemis took a few timid steps forward, using a tree as her support when dizziness threatened to overcome her vision. Her stomach rumbled in protest from the onset vertigo, her insides quivering in anticipation to puke. The sensation was awful and she hated it.

She slowly made her way through the forest at a slow pace. Every other yard or so, she stopped to let her body relax just enough to keep going again, the dizziness held at bay by her slow movement.

"Artemis..."

Rhage's voice echoed through the forest, catching her attention.

There was seemingly no sign of life in the forest. It was completely silent with only the whisper of the cool breeze whispering through the fan-shaped leaves. Hearing his voice filled her with brief relief...only to realize that it could be a trick.

Rhage had once told her that Yautja used such a technique when hunting humans. They would use sound bite recordings of their companions or other humans to toy with them, sometimes to disorient them, and other times to draw them out of hiding into a false sense of security. For her to hear Rhage's voice calling out to her now...Valam was here.

Valam was hidden in the forest. Watching her.

Toying with her.

Like prey.

Only...she wasn't prey...she was one of them.

"Come out of hiding, you sick bastard!" Artemis sobbed, looking in the trees and any spot she thought he would be.