Free Rebel Kato (Shifters of the Primus Book 1) by Elyssa Ebbott

go?” I ask Davoso.
    Davoso pulls himself to a sitting position, his gruesome wounds already healing. He pulls the two broken spears free and tosses them aside. “If he means to strike your father while he is weak, he will go to the Separatists. They have the manpower he will need.”
    “Where can I find them?” I ask.
    “It’s no secret that the Separatists have a base out of the local church of The Sacred Tree. You could try there. Take the lift at the edge of this platform. You’ll reach a small platform. The church is there.”
    I look at my sister and hesitate, not sure if she’s in more danger where I will be going or staying here. Davoso seems to read my thoughts and waves them away with his hand.
    “Don’t worry about her. This will heal in an hour and I have another place I can take her. We will be safe, and Kato will know where to find us.”
    “Thank you, Davoso. You’ve already saved Mira once and you’re probably saving her again.”
    “Anything for Kato,” he says.
    I move outside, clutching the gown I threw on quickly before leaving our hideout. The cold bites through the thin cloth. My bare feet slip against the frozen bark beneath me and my teeth are clattering within a few seconds of being outside. I make it to the lift and have to fiddle with the controls for a few moment before I get it moving where I want.
    As Davoso said, it drops me on a small platform with a single, steepled building at the edge. Though the windows are barricaded with wood, I can sense that Kato is within. I push open the creaking doors and step inside, my bare feet slapping the wood.
    I find him at the center of a group of nearly one hundred Primus males wearing hooded cloaks. They have their hands over their chests and kneel on one knee in a crowded circle around him.
    “Kato,” I call.
    He turns to regard me, pain in his glance. He really is planning to sacrifice my people to save me. I can’t let him. I don’t know how I’ll stop him but the foggy edges of a plan are forming in my mind. I begin speaking before I have the full grasp of my idea.
    “Warriors of the Primus. You have chosen to follow your Prince in rebellion,” I say, trying to project my voice. I pause a split second, almost expecting someone to correct me. For all I know, Kato didn’t ask them to follow him in rebellion; he might have just asked them to give us a ride back home. But no one objects and I press on. “He believes the most honorable thing to do is save me, because he knows that there is no hope of defeating all of Altak’s army. I come to you with another way. A way to destroy the king and his entire army and to save my people.”
    Some of the warriors share glances, a few murmur.
    This is the part where my plan gets fuzzier. In the time I spent fiddling with the consoles on The Hope, I came across a few very specific capabilities of the ship. Some of them, I remember thinking, seemed pointless. But when I think back to when I first saw Kato and his men enter my ship, I remember the warrior at the back of his group. When he passed near the pipe my sister was working on that had been venting helium two, he had clasped the spot on his arm as it began to bubble.
    I described my plan to the gathered warriors and felt my heart swell at the look on Kato’s face when I finished. He looked as if he might pin me against the wall and take me in front of all the warriors here. The thought got me a little wet. Okay, it got me really wet. But that’s not something I plan to share with Kato. It’s not like I’m actually some kind of exhibitionist. It’s just the thought of it, the idea of him claiming me so publicly so that all would know how much I am his and he is mine.
    As he and I head to a military hangar run by the Separatists, I begin to really believe my plan could work. I have doubts, of course, but. . . I think it could actually work. My mind even fills with images of Kato and I strolling the treetops with starlight at our back,