Page 14 of Sohut's Protection

They were leaving him?!

…

FUCK.

…

She couldn’t breathe.

Somewhere deep inside her, there was a feeling of impending doom.

Trust your gut, Cleo. Her father’s voice echoed in her head.

Trust your gut.

Her instincts never failed her before. They wouldn’t fail her now.

This wasn’t like all the other times the orcs had come looking for her.

This time, shit was different.

That big blue alien was trouble. She could feel it.

As she moved away from the lookout spot, hurrying through the bushes, Wawa remained alert on her shoulder and that alone sent a shiver down her spine.

The only other time Wawa had stiffened on her shoulder in such a way was in their first few weeks in the jungle.

If he was alert…if he was worried…it meant she wasn’t overreacting.

He knew that a dangerous enemy was near too.

2

“Reckless fools,” Sohut muttered as he turned and headed into the dense growth of the great Koznia Jungle.

He doubted the Gori who’d dropped him off heard his remark. They were too busy driving away, rushing as far as they could from the trouble they’d gotten themselves into.

Not that what he’d said wasn’t the truth.

The Gori were reckless fools.

Only idiots would have lost an animal the way they had done. To boot, they’d failed to retrieve the creature after so many moons.

His ears pressed flat against the sides of his head, the only indication of his annoyance.

He couldn’t imagine the pure terror the animal must have experienced all alone in an alien world—and in the Koznia Jungle to add.

It must have been incredibly frightened before it died.

Shaking his head, Sohut walked slowly through the undergrowth as he contemplated this.

The Gori thought the creature was still alive.

He highly doubted that. A non-native species being lost in the Koznia Jungle was highly unlikely to survive.

The spined beasts alone would have quickly made the thing their dinner many rotations ago.

But no matter. If he didn’t find the animal alive, he was sure there’d be something he could use to prove to the Gori the creature was indeed dead.

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