Stolen: Warriors of Hir, Book 3 (10 page)

It wasn’t like g’hir felt things the same way humans did. Half the time when she was trying to express herself—even to Ke’lar—she had the suspicion that these people couldn’t even fathom how her mind worked.

Certainly she didn’t understand them at all. 

They revered a creator Goddess, their All Mother, but hunted women like animals. They stole women from Earth but fawned over them on Hir. They had mind-bogglingly advanced technology but the men spent years training as if everybody might suddenly have to pack up and move to the Bronze Age. 

Despite that genetic aberration of human DNA in g’hir that made breeding with humans possible, Summer considered them an entirely different species. Their physical appearance was frightening, their customs bizarre and barbaric, their whole view of life was just . . .

Alien.

She had gotten the damp things off, dried herself with the towel he’d thoughtfully packed in there for her, had the dry pants on, and was just finished buttoning her shirt when she noticed them.

Black smudges. Far too uniformly placed to be natural . . .

Summer picked up the luma and moved closer, shining her light over the cavern walls, her eyes widening as she took them in.

“Ke’lar,” she cried. “Come here!”

He was there in a rush of movement, at her side so quickly she gasped and nearly dropped the light. His blaster was already in hand, his glowing gaze scanning for the threat; a flicker of confusion crossed his features when none was evident.

“Did you see these?” She clasped him by the hand and drew him nearer, her luma lighting the wall to show him.

“Cave drawings,” he murmured.

Summer shone the light on them. The drawings continued at about the same level above the floor but it was impossible to tell if they had been done by one group living at the same time or completed over the generations, if the pictures were part of a story or even a ceremony. “People lived here?”

“The g’hir did once live in caves,” he agreed. “Before we ventured into the forests to live, before we formed the enclosures.”

“These are amazing. They’re just . . . beautiful. I wonder how old they are.”

“Tens of thousands of years.” His fangs flashed in a smile. “It has been very long since my kind occupied caves. We have missed our hosts by millennia.”

Many of the drawings showed humanoids carrying weapons, showed them beside beasts being hunted, showed some that were family groupings. There were dozens of handprints too; marks left by those longing to connect through time, to be remembered, somehow.

Like any humans did.

“I cannot believe I did not see these,” he rumbled, delighted. “They are extraordinary.”

Ke’lar stretched toward the marks left by his ancestors. His glowing eyes shone with awe, his face softened with wonder as he traced the simple figures with his fingers, every line of his face and masculine form beautiful by the luma’s light . . .

“Funny how something could be right in front of you,” she murmured, “and you can’t see it at all.”

He sent her a wry glance. “I came back here searching out danger, not anthropological finds.” 

“I didn’t—“ She shook her head and gave a quick smile. “Never mind. Humans did that too, you know. Lived in caves, made cave drawings like these—images of people and animals. They did handprints too. I saw some reproductions of them at the Museum of Natural History.”

He indicated the wall. “Our drawings are like the humans’, Summer?”

On this wall both beasts and two-legged figures had fangs but—

“Yeah,” she murmured, fitting her hand to the print left by a g’hir who must have stood here millennia ago. “Yeah, they’re a lot alike . . .”

Nine

He had already set up the shelter to face the cave’s entrance and Summer scrambled gratefully into the geodesic dome. The heater had warmed the inside enough that the door flap could be left open but still allow them to sit inside comfortably.

The storm didn’t seem to have let up at all and Summer chewed her lip for a moment. “With this rain, and the runoff, the river is going to be impassable, isn’t it?”

“There are passages through the mountains,” he assured as he finished assembling their simple meal. “We will bypass the river and reach the clanhall from the north.”

“But it will take longer,” she said for him.

“Perhaps whatever draws you home—”

He broke off when Summer dropped her gaze, her lips pressed together.

“Now that the valley has flooded,” he continued after a moment, offering her a plate, “the high pass is the only way to reach the clanhall. There is no choice but to take it, even if that way is longer.”

“How much longer?”

His eyes met hers. “I cannot say for certain. A day, perhaps two.”

“Oh, that’s just fucking great,” she muttered. “It doesn’t give me a lot of time to convince your father to help me get home.”

“The journey from Hir to your world will not take long.”

“Yeah.” She gave a wry smile. “Too bad you can’t open a wormhole to take us from here to the clanhall.”

“I would need a ship,” he reminded, smiling a little too. “One cannot open a wormhole with a multari.”

“I didn’t even ask—is she okay? Did you find a place for her?”

“Beya is comfortably housed in a small cavern not far from this one. She was not happy that I left her to come here.” His glowing eyes crinkled. “I think she is jealous of you.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Summer’s eyebrows rose. “Why would she be jealous? And how can you even tell if a multari is jealous anyway?”

He gave a short huff. “She has feelings just as you and I do. Of course she feels jealousy. As to how”—his broad shoulders lifted in a shrug—“when you spend as much time with one as I have with her you come to understand a being, even when she cannot speak.”

Summer took a bite of the food he’d prepared and blinked.

His brow furrowed. “Is there something wrong?”

“Wrong?” she got out, already spooning up more of the stew. “This is fantastic!”

He gave a half shrug. “It is not my best . . .”

She gave a laugh. “Well, now I want to know what your best is.”

“I will hunt a kartlet.”  His chest puffed up a bit. “I will roast it for you over an open flame, and season it. Then,” he added with a g’hir chin jerk, “you sample my best cooking.”

Summer dropped her gaze and offered her own half shrug. “I make a real good lemon pie.”

“What is that?” he asked, his eyes bright and curious.

“It’s a dessert . . . from Earth.” Her bit her lip. “Jeez,
obviously
it’s from Earth. It’s my Granny Crawford’s secret recipe. I’m the only one she taught how to make it. Probably on account of being the only one bugging her to learn it. It’s all from scratch, even the lemon curd. Everybody loves it,” she mumbled, suddenly feeling silly for having bragged on it at all.

“Then I am sure it warrants their esteem,” he rumbled.

Despite his claim that it was nothing more than emergency rations, dinner was delicious, and he seemed very pleased that she took seconds.

“What is ‘bloodhound’?”

Summer blinked at his sudden question—and that he’d said the English word. “What?”

“You said I—that the g’hir—are half ‘bloodhound.’ I do not know what ‘bloodhound’ is.”

“Oh.” She
had
said that. “It’s a dog.”

“‘Dog’?”

“A dog is a domesticated animal, a canine. Bloodhounds are a breed of dog well known for having an amazing sense of smell.”

“Because the g’hir have a more acute sense of smell than humans.” He tilted his head. “You equate me with this ‘dog’ creature.”

If she tuned out the translation in her head and just listened with her ears Ke’lar’s speech sounded just like a bunch of snarls and growls. 

His brow furrowed. “You are smiling. Why is this funny?”

It was actually
really
funny but she didn’t think he’d get the joke.

She shook her head. “Don’t worry, even if I did equate you with a dog you should take it as a compliment. A lot of humans love them like family.”

He was silent for a moment. “I should like to see a dog someday. To taste lemon pie.”

“Maybe you will.”

“Perhaps.” He was already busying himself by gathering the remains of their dinner. “I will clear this away, then leave you so you may sleep.”

“
Leave
me? Where are you going?” She glanced toward the shelter opening. “You’re not sleeping outside?”

“We are still within the cavern,” he reminded with a raised eyebrow. “I will not drown.”

“Well, Jesus, I know
that
. I didn’t mean, were you going to go sleep out in the rain! I meant there’s no reason for you to sleep on dirt in some miserable, damp—Look, it’s warm in here and—” She gestured to the pallet, as comfortable as anything she’d ever slept on. “This is your bed. You should get to sleep in it.”

He frowned a little. “I do not wish my presence to make you uncomfortable.”

“It doesn’t. I mean—you don’t. It’s fine.” She cleared her throat. “You can sleep in here. You should get as much rest as you can, right?”

“It would be more comfortable.” He gave a shrug. “And if it does discomfort you to have me here . . .”

“Nope,” she said firmly. “Won’t bother me at all.”

Ke’lar went to check on Beya one last time for the night and Summer had just gotten under the covers when he returned. He was soaked again but threw her a smile when he ducked into the shelter.

“She okay?”

He nodded, grabbing a cloth to rub his hair with. He’d left his boots outside so as not to track mud into the shelter.

“She was asleep when I entered the cavern,” he said with a huffed chuckle, already unfastening the jacket of his warrior’s clothes. The jacket served as shirt too and his chest was bare beneath it, the muscles of his broad back evident as he turned to hang the damp garment. “Apparently I disturbed her.”

She’s not the only one . .
.

Summer shifted under the furs, wondering why she’d ever thought having him sleep in here—and share the bed—was a great idea.

“I offered her some grain,” he said, already undoing his trousers. “But she would not eat. I think,” he continued, stepping out of them and hanging them as well, “she is simply too tired.”

He turned to her then, unabashedly bare.

Holy cow, that All Mother does some seriously good work . . .

His skin was darker than hers all over, a natural color, not a tan. His shoulders were broad and his muscled chest had only fine hairs. On either side of his abdomen, the muscles of his groin created a vee and the planes of his perfect stomach flexed as he knelt beside the pallet.

He was beautifully male, with cock and balls very like a human.  The skin was darker there, veins visible beneath the skin, and resting on his muscled thighs, his penis was long and thick already. She was surprised by the longing to touch him; with a few strokes of her hand she could have him standing—

“Summer?”

His brow was creased a bit. G’hir didn’t have the same concept—or really any concept—of modesty as humans did. Likely, he really was wondering why her face had gone all pink, why she couldn’t look at him . . .

Why she couldn’t
stop
looking at him . . .

He knelt at the pallet’s side, his vibrant gaze catching hers. “Do you want for anything, little one?”

“Excuse me?” she got out.

He indicated the luma. “Before I lower the light.”

The luma’s light played over the flatness of his abdomen; he was so close she could feel the warmth of him, could breathe in the cinnamon scent of him.

His brow creased again and she realized he was still waiting for her to answer.

“We should get some sleep,” she mumbled. “Right?”

He gave a human-style nod.  “That would be best.”

He lowered the illumination but not to total darkness, and she suddenly thought that he had done that out of consideration for her. He would be able to see well in far less light than she.

Unfortunately, that had her able to see every curve and plane of his beautiful body as he joined her on the pallet.

Dismayed, Summer realized that when she was alone in it the pallet seemed huge but there wasn’t a whole lot of space left when you added a nearly seven-foot-tall warrior to it.

She realized too how thin her nightgown was. His skin brushed against her bare leg as he settled beside her and it was impossible to ignore his warmth, his scent . . .

“I would never hurt you, little one,” he rumbled softly, his face inches from hers. “You have nothing to fear from me.”

Startled, she met his gaze. “I know that. I’m not afraid of you.”

“I can hear your heart.” In the next moment his warm, broad palm rested on her breastbone. “It is going very fast.” He searched her eyes. “Your breathing has quickened as well.”

In fact, this close he ought to be able to scent her arousal too.

Thank God at least he thinks I’m scared instead of—

“Perhaps,” he suggested, taking his hand away, his fingers lightly brushing her skin as he did, “if we talked, you might be reassured. Perhaps become calm enough to sleep.”

Gotta do something.

He settled beside her, his warmth and male scent making her long to be closer still.

“Tell me of your world,” he urged. “Tell me of Earth.”

She cleared her throat. “I don’t know what to say. Earth’s not like Hir. We have so many different cultures on my world, so many different religions and languages and traditions . . . it’s not an easy question to answer.”

He turned to lie on his side, facing her, his head propped up on his elbow. “Then tell me of your home there.”

“Well . . . I grew up in Brittle Bridge—that’s a town in North Carolina—but I moved to northern Virginia when I went to college. My parents died when I was in school there.” She wet her lips. “That was awful. Mom had breast cancer and we really thought she was going to make it but . . . anyway I think it was just too much for my dad. They say people don’t really die of a broken heart but I know that’s not true ’cause he did. I buried both my parents in eighteen months and I was a mess. That’s probably why I took up with Dean so quick.”

“Your human mate.”

“I guess you could call him that but he was no kind of husband, really. We got divorced the week before I graduated from college. He wanted a fun girl, someone up for anything . . . I was such a mess when my mom got sick, when I lost her and dad too, that I graduated a year late—” She shook her head. “Anyway, Dean and I met at a party the night I got back to school and I had had
way
too much Smirnoff.” She gave an embarrassed smile. “Between the vodka and the platinum blond hair, I think I just gave him a bad impression of who I really am.”