Page 24 of His to Claim
"Of course," he nods.
Kallena lets out a small gasp of surprise and leans against Tarek protectively.
Tarek chuckles. "It wasn't necessary to hide. You're safe now."
I blush slightly and shake my head. I glance over at the retreating backs of the two aliens. One of them turns to face us once more, giving me another cold glare. Then they disappear around the corridor.
After a few seconds, Tarek walks closer to me. He cups my cheeks in his hands and tilts my chin upwards. “We’ll get off this planet and save Dhakar. I promise."
I nod. I never thought I’d say this but I miss Dhakar. I miss the way he looks at me when he thinks no one is looking, his sexy smile when he thinks I'm not paying attention…I miss his voice whispering sweet nothings in my ear…I miss him in general…even though we only spent a little time together…but it feels like forever…and it's only been a few days…I'm so confused… heartbroken… angry… hurt… sad…and…I'm just so lost…
A tear slips down my cheek but Tarek catches it with his thumb before it falls onto my dress and wipes it away gently with his thumb before dropping it into his palm with another sad smile on his lips before looking into my eyes again and kissing my forehead lightly before whispering in my ear again, "We're going to get him back."
“I hope so,” I reply. But deep down inside I don't believe we will ever see him again...
“What is this planet? Where did we land?” I ask Tarek.
Tarek frowns at me, "Why do you ask all these questions? Just trust me!"
"I just want to know," I reply softly before shaking my head at him and turning away from him so that he doesn't see my tears roll down my cheeks again as he continues to talk to Kallena, who is shaking her head at him as well but she doesn't say anything because she doesn't know all the answers either but she trusts him too much like me...I guess.
We venture away from the spaceship, Tarek leading the way. There’s no sign of civilization in sight. It seems we are completely lost on this alien planet somewhere in the middle of nowhere...
* * *
We walkfor quite some time before finally reaching a clearing that's situated between two large trees that tower over us all around like giant sentinels. “Where are we going? There’s nothing here,” I say to Tarek.
"Just trust me," he replies again, pushing past me and walking up a slight incline in front of us.
"Hey! Where are you going?" I demand, following behind him as he climbs up the incline doing everything he can to be quiet.
"Don't worry," he whispers over his shoulder to me as he continues to climb up the incline, "we'll be back soon."
"Where are we even going?" I ask him again in frustration, trying not to make any noise as I climb up after him...Up and up we climb until we come to a square stone platform that's quite large...like huge...like giant-sized square stone platform...like what the hell?
"What is this?" I ask him as I step up onto the platform I can now clearly see is made from thousands of tiny stones that have been fitted together seamlessly with no cracks or seams...it's hard for me to get my head around how this has been built because there's no mortar holding them together or anything like that...it just is.
"It's a temple," Tarek replies softly, putting his hand on my back to lead me into the temple...I walk into the temple and stand there in awe. “It’s also a teleportation device. This might be our chance to get off this planet. I knew this must be somewhere around the crash site,” he continues.
I look around at the temple, there are no markings or any other markings that I can see on the floor or on the walls of the temple that tells me where we are or what this temple was built for or anything like that so I look at Tarek, "Where are we going? What do you need with this temple? What's its purpose?"
Tarek sighs, "The Valkryans built it so they can easily get from one place to another without having to travel overland or use another portal."
“So it’s our chance to get the hell out of here,” I say in ecstasy.
"And it's our only chance," he replies with a nod of his head and a smile on his face, and then he walks up to one of the walls and places his hands on it as if he's going to push something but nothing happens for a second but then suddenly the wall shimmers and then opens up like a portal...what?
"What's going on?" I ask him in confusion as he steps off the platform in front of the portal.
He turns around slowly and looks at me for a moment before answering, "I'm going to take us to Valkrya."
I look up at Tarek and then at the portal, "Valkrya ?”
“Yes, we’re going after Dhakar.” He tells me and then grabs my hand and pulls me towards the portal. Kallena follows us. We walk into the portal and disappear...
* * *
We arriveon Valkrya in what feels like an instant. The bluish ground seems familiar. Now that we have landed on Valkrya I can tell immediately that Valkrya is very different from Bellaria. The trees on Valkrya are much smaller than those on Bellaria and they are blue. The two suns towering over us remind me of my time on Valkrya.
