When The Heart Sings

Chapter 36

Alex's POV:

I slashed the throat of another scrat as it jumped at me. I had killed hundreds as we searched the subterranean tunnels for Serena and the other missing warriors. This place was a labyrinth of tunnels that we had to crouch to pass through. Despite being almost mindless animals, the scrat were master diggers who could dig and fill tunnels within minutes.

Hundreds of tunnels rambled and twisted in all different directions. I glanced in another side room, but it was empty, although old Tarulk bones littered the floor. They had been picking off travellers here for who knows how long.

These were only foraging tunnels though. We had not found the main warren, even after an hour of searching. We had forced the other warriors who had been escorting us into the tunnels to help with the search.

"Serena! Where are you?" Darien's distant cry pained my heart. He was desperately searching for her and with good reason. Scrat were not known for keeping those they caught alive for long. He would know the instant she died, so at least we knew she still lived.

Any soulmate bond was a powerful thing. Theirs was more unusual than either of them realized. Having grown up with parents who shared a soulbond, the differences were quite apparent to me. Somehow, the bond had supercharged Darien with strength and speed that didn't disappear. There was more than that though, much more.

Soulmates perfectly complimented each other. I honestly couldn't think of anyone more suited to being Darien's mate than Serena. From the little I had seen, she was such a gentle and kind soul who was full of forgiveness.

I had known Darien since the time he could crawl. I had almost fallen over when I had seen the cold and temperamental man smile lovingly at her. Two centuries where we had visited on a regular basis and that was the first time I had ever seen him truly smile.

I killed three more attacking scrat in my desire to locate the delicate human they had taken. I passed a junction and the headless scrat bodies on the ground showed that Darien had passed this way and gone down a tunnel to my left. I continued straight in hopes of finding Serena.

I felt so bad for both of them. They hadn't even really had a chance to relax. It was bad enough having to deal with those humans at the lab, but then every Tarulk we met either wanted her dead or wanted to use her to try to force Darien into fighting.

That outraged my sensibilities. Any Tarulk should have honored the rare bond and counted her as one of our own. It wasn't the first time that a mate had been from a different race and they had not had any such difficulties. But for them to try and take Serena in order to force Darien... My indignant anger rose and fueled my attack against the endless parade of oversized rodents.

I would stand by Darien to help him protect the bond. Any Tarulk should have done so. I had thought it odd when that scientist had chained her up in the room that we had been caged in. At first, I assumed it was a trap to see if she could gain information from us.

Then she had rubbed her heart. It was a gesture I had seen my mother do countless times, and at that moment, I knew she had a soulmate out there somewhere. It didn't take a genius to know it was another Tarulk since she had been put in the same room as us.

That lab had only managed to catch Darien until they trapped Jessica and me, so I had a pretty good idea who she belonged to even before Darien showed up. Not that it mattered, I would have protected her until she was reunited with her mate simply because I knew the true value of the soulbond.

There was something slightly mysterious about that little mate of Darien's. She saw the world slightly differently and sometimes her comments made me pause to think. At my age, that was something that didn't happen often. She was like a breath of fresh air and energy. There was something else as well, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

I doubt she realized it, but she subtly affected anyone who was around her for a period of time, regardless of how much they detested humans. The way she and Darien interacted turned heads and reminded them of what the soulmate bond really was. Darien's expression was only soft for her, anyone else he looked at could get frostbite.

If the others slowed down enough to actually put aside their hostility, they were often left confused and bewildered by the shy and kind human who was apparently unable to harbor any type of grudge. The memory of the look on the hostess' face the day we left had been priceless.

The hostess had been ten stages past rude and yet Serena had only responded in kindness, even trying to help her with that mostly dead plant in the garden. When I had asked Serena how she was doing in the face of such hostility, I had only been planning to use that question to subtly reprimand the hostess inside.

I had not expected Serena to respond with a quiet explanation that had left me without a response. Serena could not have known that those inside would have easily heard her. Her words had a noticeable effect on the hostess, regardless of how she tried to hide it and use her hostility as a shield against the confusion.

The glowing green lichen on the walls shed enough light for me to see that the scrat were beginning to fall back and close up their tunnels. Any tunnel they sealed was nearly impossible to spot as the edges blended seamlessly with the dirt wall.

Darien's snarl echoed down a side tunnel as he likely realized the same thing. I chose a different tunnel and put more speed into my pace. In his current mood, Darien was much too dangerous to approach. The only one who could get near him when he was like this would have been Serena.

I didn't even have to see him to know that his eyes would be black. It was a physical warning of how dangerous he was when he was like this. No one in their right mind approached someone with black eyes. They had often lost all control and were extremely dangerous.

It was sometimes called a berserker rage, and it was rare. Or at least it was supposed to be. Until Serena showed up, I had only seen it three times in all my years. It took a phenomenal amount to push a Tarulk to that point. Another sign that their bond was different.

I shouldered through an entrance that the scrat were swiftly trying to seal. I killed them before continuing down this path to find out why they chose to seal this particular entry.