Valley of Weeds

Chapter Seventeen [Edited]

Chapter Seventeen:

"Y-yes," Nahoko narrowed his eyes cautiously. "Why?"

"Who is your mother?" Ares asked urdgently. "What is her name? Is it Atha? How many of you are there? Is it a big litter? Are you all healthy? What are your names? Take me to your mother! Please, now!"

Flicker scowled up at him bravely. "Why?" she demanded.

"It doesn't matter. Just do it."

"No."

Ares flattened his ears, but had to silently admit that he was impressed by their courage. "Fine. If I can't see her, then bring her a message. You, with the darker fur, tell her that Ares is nearby. And you, the smaller one, you tell her that Ares thinks of her every day."

The cubs looked at each other in confusion.

"Now go," Ares nosed them along. "Quickly."

The moment that they set foot through the ferns, Atha raced over to the cubs from the mouth of the temple.

"Where in the world have you been?" she cried. "Do you have any idea how worried I was about you? When I call you, I expect you to come immediately! What if something had happened to you? In fact, Amur went out to go find you, and he's still out there!"

"W-we're sorry, Mother," Nahoko apologized, cringing. Atha led the two of them inside, where they were met by Kysta, Flower, Bay, and Lysla.

"Flicker heard you calling, and she came to find me," he continued on. "Please don't be mad at her."

"But we met a leopard!" Flicker exclaimed.

Atha stopped dead in her tracks to look down at her daughter with wide lime eyes. "You... you what?"

"We met a leopard," Nahoko echoed his sister. "And he wanted to talk to you. He told me to tell you that Ares is alive, but really sick."

"Yeah!" Flicker nodded eagerly. "And he told me to tell you that Ares thinks of you every day."

Atha didn't say anything. Instead, a tiny smile slowly appeared on her face, then widened until she was beaming.

"Ares," she whispered happily. Her eyes twinkled excitedly. "Wh-"

"You're back!" a voice boomed from behind them. They turned to see Amur rushing over without bothering to shake the water from his pelt. When he reached them, he nosed the cubs almost-frantically.

"Why did you take so long?" he asked angrily.

"They met a leopard," Atha replied for them, still beaming. Flicker's jaw stiffened in annoyance, but nobody noticed.

Amur stared at her for several long heartbeats before telling the cubs to go to bed, then looking at Atha furiously. "A leopard?"

"Yes! Yes, a leopard! Ares!"

"Who's-"

"Atha!"

They whipped around to see a dark figure standing in the entrance, silhoetted by the thuderstorm. They could make out two wide, gleaming topaz eyes and thin rosetted fur clinging to it's trembling flesh.

Atha gasped. "Ares!"

The two raced towards each other. When they met in the middle, Ares tackled Atha in an overjoyed embrace. They broke into laughter, and Ares gave he a tender lick on the side of her muzzle. In return, Atha nuzzled into his neck.

"I missed you so much," she murmured into his wet fur. "I can't believe you're alive! I thought you were dead! I was waiting for you on our hill, and I was watching the tribe, and I heard you screaming. What happened?"

Ares got off of her and pulled her to her feet. "The night before that one, my youngest brother and his friend spotted me leaving. They followed me to our hill and spied on us the entire night. The next night, they noticed me leaving again and asked, 'going to see your mate again, Ares?' I asked what they were talking about, and they replied, 'Your mate, the tiger.' I asked how they knew about it, and I didn't realise that they had gotten my father and Head Guard to overhear from behind the nearest den until they walked out and demanded the truth."

"And the screaming?" Atha asked dejectedly.

"Some of Mercury's other friends thought it would be funny if they ganged up on me and... well..." His eyes met his feet.

Atha tilted her head and licked the side of his face. "That's all behind us now."

"Who are you?" Amur demanded.

Ares looked up at him and his muscles twitched nervously.

"Amur, this is Ares. He and I met almost every night in the months before you and I left our mother," Atha told her brother, coming in between them defensively. "We were going to become mates, but Ares was the son of the Lord of his tribe. He wasn't allowed to pick a leopard outside of the tribe to be his mate, let alone someone of another species."

"Tribe?" Amur asked suspiciously.

"Yes," Atha blinked her hardened green eyes. "Leopards are born into a tribe, then leave when they come of age. I thought you knew that."

"The lives of other species' don't interest me," Amur muttered with narrowed eyes. The fact that Amur stood a good foot above him made Ares nervous. Atha was undersized, so they were roughly the same size.

"Atha's cubs mentioned you," Ares told him gingerly. The remains of Amur's ears perked up, so Ares continued. "They told me that you would come and eat me if I didn't stay away from them."

Amur's heart swelled a bit at the thought. The cubs liked him... looked up to him... They used his name as defense. He blinked the thoughts away and tightened his scowl. Before he could bark anything at Ares, Atha had already opened her mouth.

"What about you?" she asked. "Do you have a mate or cubs?"

Ares didn't bother hiding the hurt expression from his eyes. "No. Not at all! I wanted to find you! I know you thought I was dead, but I thought we promised to be the only ones for each other. But you had cubs! Even worse, the cubs of Searn! Why would-"

"Wait," Atha cut him off sharply. "How do you know that they're Searn's?"

His eyes widened and met the brick floor.

"Ares?" Atha demanded.

"He told me," he mumbled.

"You... you're helping him?"

"He told me that if I didn't help him guard his other tigresses and help find one that escaped, he would kill me," the words exploded from Ares' mouth. Amur's lips parted to reveal his fangs, and he tackled the leopard to the floor.

"He wants to kill me!" Amur roared. "Along with the innocent daughter of a tigress he murdered! If he thinks Atha's cubs are weak, then he'll kill them too!" He swatted the side of Ares' head. "You idiot!"

"Amur, stop!" Atha tried to shove him off, but he stood as solid as a stone.

"Get out!" he roared in Ares' face, ignoring Atha. "Lest you want me to rip your head from your shoulders!"

Terrified, Ares wriggled out from Amur's grip and fled for the exit with his tail between his legs. Amur let out a deep growl. Chuffing, he turned away to meet Atha's unhappy expression.

"Why did you make him leave?" she demanded angrily.

"He's helping S-" Amur stopped in mid-sentence. She was right. Ares knew their location. He was able to tell Searn! Amur immediately broke into a run in the direction that Ares had gone.

"Stay here!" he called over his shoulder, and disappeared before Atha could reply.