Stolen: Warriors of Hir, Book 3 (21 page)

But she sure recovered fast. “I am not saying I do not appreciate the merit of your offer but . . .” She looked around her dismal quarters. “It is hardly enough to make me comfortable.”

Summer gritted her teeth. “And just what would it take to make you ‘comfortable’?”

The xenari turned her huge black eyes on Summer. “The location of your world is a valuable and much desired commodity, human. Yes,” she buzzed. “The sale of
that
information to a few select g’hir would make me very wealthy indeed . . .”

The breath exploded out of Summer’s chest. “Absolutely fucking not!”

Ezzari gave her as haughty a look as an insectoid could. “If you wish
my
help—”

“Ezzari—” Ke’lar began but Summer broke in.

“Come on,” she urged, grabbing his arm. “Let’s go talk to that other guy again. It’s pretty far but at least
he’s
willing to be reasonable.”

Ke’lar’s gaze searched hers for an instant. “I am sorry to have made you walk such a distance,” he rumbled, catching on. “I have dealt with this honored xenari before.” He sighed. “But if it is your wish, we will return to the other ship master and accept his offer instead.”

Ezzari was startled. “Other—?”

Summer opened the door and paused at the threshold to give the xenari an arch look. “Hey, sorry, obviously Ke’lar really would rather work with you but . . .” She lifted one shoulder and pulled her hood up.

“It is regrettable,” Ke’lar agreed. “I think highly of you, Ezzari, and knowing your present difficulties I wished those funds to be yours.”

“A moment please!” The xenari scrambled to follow after them into the courtyard. “Ke’lar—my friend! I did not mean that we could not
negotiate . . .
”

Twenty

Summer held her breath as Ke’lar transmitted the xenari’s codes, wondering if Ezzari had managed to screw them over after all. Vast, terrifying g’hir warships patrolled the space around their homeworld to protect against any Zerar attack but they would just as easily stop a g’hir fugitive and the human woman he’d taken from her clan.

After an agonizingly long moment the Hironian station sent the signal allowing them to pass through the battleships that orbited this world. Ke’lar piloted the ship past them, only the slight tremble in his fingers betraying his anxiety.

“Well done, my Summer,” Ke’lar said approvingly as soon as they were clear.

“You’re the one flying the ship,” she pointed out.

“I meant with Ezzari.” He gave a huffing chuckle. “I have never witnessed such maneuvering.”

“The only reason I got away with it at all is because she’d never seen a human before,” Summer said dryly. “Anyone else would see right off I was lying through my teeth.”

The xenari ship was not at all like a g’hir ship. All delicate controls and fine shapes, this ship was far better suited to slender insectoid digits, not broad powerful warrior hands.

But Ke’lar was handling the ship beautifully.

“The chairs are pretty comfortable,” Summer commented, settling back into the co-pilot’s seat.

“The padding protects their exoskeletons during space travel.”

“Well, it’s pretty nice under a human butt too.” Summer glanced back at the main part of the ship. “Do you think there’s anything we can eat onboard? I’m starving.”

“I requested the ship be stocked with g’hir foodstuffs,” he assured gently. “You will not starve, little one.”

So freaking literal. Just like—

She swallowed hard.

Just like Emma.

Summer undid the safety straps of her chair and stood. “I’m going to see what’s back there.”

She found the galley easily enough, and even recognized some of the food there. She grabbed a piece of cali fruit, munching while she searched through the more substantial selections.

“There is kartlet,” Ke’lar suggested, joining her. “It is not of my hunting but I would be pleased to prepare it for you.”

“I
can
cook, you know,” she said, fingering the cali in her hand. “Kinda . . . if it’s Earth stuff.”

“There is nothing more I can do until we reach the jump point and the ship is set to bring us there.” He offered a smile. “And I like to cook.”

“Roasted, right? You said that’s your specialty.”

He chuckled. “I had hoped to impress you.”

“You did,” she said softly.

He was as efficient in the kitchen of a spaceship as he was in the forest of his own world and he soon had their meal ready.

Summer inhaled deeply as he placed the plate in front of her at the ship’s table. The furniture was affixed to the floor and Ke’lar gave her a proud look as he took a seat across from her.

At the first taste she closed her eyes in appreciation. “Oh, man, this is amazing.”

He grinned. “I am very glad it pleases you.”

Apparently he was as hungry as she because he cleaned his plate, and a second helping before she finished her first.

“Seriously,” she said, savoring her last bite of kartlet. “You should have been a chef instead of a warrior.”

He gave a huffing chuckle. “My father would have been scandalized.”

She bit her lip. “I’ll bet he’s pretty scandalized now, Ke’lar . . .” She wrapped her hands around her water cup. “What will happen when you return home?”

“I do not know,” he rumbled. “And I do not care. Once you are safe—our daughter is safe—what happens to me is unimportant.”

“Of course it’s important! Everyone is furious with you.”

“Not as angry as you when you thought I’d left you to Ar’rar.” He tilted his head, his vibrant eyes crinkled with humor. “Do you still wish me suffering in the underworld?”

She gave a faint smile. “No, I take back the ‘rot in hell’ thing. And you didn’t answer my question. Will they banish you permanently for taking me home?”

“I think they will be far angrier that I have returned you with your memories intact. By doing so I have broken Hir law and endangered all g’hir who follow me to Earth. Humans on your world are to have no knowledge of us.” He gave a rueful smile. “I am not sorry for
that
either.”

“My memories aren’t worth sending you back to a life of misery,” she said hoarsely.

He cupped her cheek. “I could not bear for you to forget me. To forget that you once loved me. To remember that I will always love you.”

Summer’s vision swam. “How long do we have?”

“Not long,” he rumbled.

She entwined her fingers with his and stood, leading him to the bedroom. It too was meant for xenari, less a bed than a large padded floor.

His bright gaze was pained. “Summer . . .”

“I know,” she whispered hoarsely.

He nodded—a human gesture. His nose brushed hers in a g’hir kiss, and then he cupped her chin to touch his mouth to hers tenderly.

She wound her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, relishing the taste of him, breathing in his spicy scent. She shivered as his purr started, soft and deep. He flicked his tongue against the inner part of her lip, his rumbling sending heat curling between her thighs.

He made short work of her gown, a rush of air raising goose bumps on her skin as the fabric slid away.

His gaze was fevered, his purr vibrating through her. “Are you cold?”

Mute with need, she shook her head.

Ke’lar gave a faint smile, pulling at his own clothing, bare in moments. “Good.”

His fingers brushed her breastbone and his hands moved lower. She gasped at the sensation as he traced her nipples, his hands dipping to her waist. He bent his knees, taking her with him to the softness of the floor.

He coaxed her thighs open and she shivered as he ran his fingers down the inside of her thighs.

“I have longed to do this,” he said huskily, then his lips were tracing the path his fingers had followed. Summer’s breath drew in sharply as his mouth found her clit, his hands cupping her buttocks to hold her.

Her hands were threading through his black hair, the flicks of his tongue and the growling-purring rumble sending tingling fire racing between her legs. She arched against him, gasping, as she came, and then Ke’lar was spreading her wider, sliding easily into her, filling her to the hilt with his slick hot cock.

Ke’lar’s brilliant gaze held hers as he rocked inside her.

His hips picked up speed. “My Summer . . .”

“I love you,” she managed a moment before she contracted hard around him.

His purr thrummed through her and he moved faster, deeper, drumming against her with a g’hir’s speed. His fangs flashed then he was pulsing hard inside her.

He raised his head then to meet her gaze.

Tears stung her eyes. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“You cannot,” he promised, brushing away the wetness with his thumbs. “I am yours, my mate, always. I will love you for all my life, and into the next.”

He touched his forehead to hers and started to move again, slower this time, savoring every stroke. Summer shut her eyes as his rumble-purr vibrated through her again . . .

Sometime later Summer awoke. She rolled over, reaching for Ke’lar, and found only emptiness.

She half sat up, her hand still stretched toward where he had lain.

I’m going to do this for the rest of my life. I’ll reach for him, look for him, and the place beside me, where he should be, will always be empty . . .

Summer dressed in the blue gown and slippers again, the only clothes she had with her. The ship was very quiet.

She found him in the cockpit. He would have heard her coming with that g’hir hearing of his but he didn’t turn around, his gaze toward the vast black emptiness of space framed by the ship’s front windows.

“We are clear of the Hironian system,” he said quietly. “I can initiate the jump any time.”

Summer’s throat tightened. “Okay.”

He waited until she was seated in the co-pilot’s chair, until she was strapped in.

His fingers moved over the controls. “Initiating jump in three . . . two . . . one.”

She drew her breath in sharply as a blinding burst of light appeared and vanished again, leaving the stars in completely different places, and a wondrous sight filling the viewport windows.

It was beautiful, hanging in the blackness of space like some exquisite blue jewel, so isolated, so vulnerable.

“Earth . . .” she whispered.

“You are home, my Summer,” he rumbled hoarsely, and the world blurred at the anguish in his voice.

Twenty-one

“The house looks okay,” Summer said, chewing her lip for a moment and pulling the cloak tighter around her.

The sky was an ominous gray and it looked like more snow was on the way but her uncle’s cabin looked as it always did—a little rundown, the porch in need of painting, but quaintly nestled in the woods and a mile in every direction from the nearest neighbor.

“You are shivering.”

“Yeah. December. Smoky Mountains. Pretty fucking cold.”

Ke’lar’s eyes were troubled. “I should have secured you more suitable clothing for this weather.”

She reached out, her fingers intertwining with his. His hand was warm, strong—as always.

“I wasn’t complaining. I was actually trying to be funny.”  She gave a half smile. “Though I’m really sorry those boots you made got left behind on Hir. They rocked.”

He smiled faintly. “I wish there was time to make you others.”

And we’re almost out of time, aren’t we?

He could never return here; the briefest visit would endanger him and not even Beya awaited him on Hir now. He would return as a criminal on his world, alone and hated, without even the unconditional comfort of the multari’s steadfast presence.

Ke’lar was making the greatest sacrifice a warrior of Hir could, to be separated from his bound mate, for her sake and the sake of a child he had never met, yet considered his own . . .

All I want to do is cry till I don’t have a tear left but I can’t make this harder for him. I have to honor his courage; I have to match it— he deserves that from me at least.

Summer swallowed hard and wrenched her gaze from his and back to Uncle Lester’s cabin.

Her car, covered in snow, was still parked outside. The lights inside the cabin were on, and shifting a bit she could see the TV still on as well. If someone—or even the police—had come by the cabin they wouldn’t have left everything on like that, would they? They would have towed her car, checked it for evidence or something.

“Well,” she murmured, “everything looks just like it did when I left it.”

“You do not sound certain.”

“I won’t be certain till I get inside,” she admitted. “But no one has even cleared the snow off the steps. I don’t see any sign anyone’s here—or has been here. Let me take a look. I’ll be right back.”

He caught her before she’d taken more than a single step. “I will go and ascertain if it is safe.”

So beloved to her now, his brilliant eyes were alert as they scanned the cabin and the area, his rippled brow lowered a bit, the showing fangs a dead giveaway he was anticipating danger.

“I think it’s better if I go,” she said. “If Uncle Lester’s come home early, you won’t have to lift a finger. He’ll take one look at you and have a heart attack.”

His glowing eyes turned to her. “I will not let you go alone.”

Summer sighed inwardly. At this rate they’d be here till nightfall.

“Fine, we’ll just go together, okay? But I go first and if there are any humans around,
don’t
let them see you.”

Her feet, still in slippers, were half-frozen by the time they made it to the door. It wasn’t locked.

“Hello?” she called but silence answered.

The Christmas cards she’d been addressing were still spread across the table. Her mug still stood beside them, the once-hot chocolate inside now dried up and nasty looking.

Ke’lar’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “What is that stench?”

“That’s what you get when nobody takes the trash out for almost two weeks.” She pulled her cloak off and flung it across Uncle Lester’s comfortable but ugly green patterned sofa. She grabbed the remote from the coffee table and shut the TV off. “But no one’s here,” she said and pushed a few of the windows open. Better cold air than that old trash smell. “No one’s
been
here either.”

Summer held her breath as she bagged up the trash. She went out the back door and threw the bag into one of the cans. Set on wheels to be moved to the road for trash collection, they hadn’t been touched either.

“This is a very primitive shelter,” Ke’lar commented as she scrubbed her hands at the sink. The heat was still on—thankfully or the pipes might have busted—but the fire she’d gone out to the shed to fetch wood for had long since burned out.

She grabbed a towel to dry her hands. “Says the man who suggested we live in a cave.”

They grinned at each other for a moment then the smiles faded.

She was home, in time.

And he should leave this world—now—return to his own before there was any chance he was discovered here. Get back to the ship that waited in the nearby woods, cloaked from view by holo-reflectors that made it invisible to the human eye, and lift off immediately.

Ke’lar looked away first. “Can you track where Emma is?”

“I have been meaning to get her ear tagged,” Summer joked, reaching for her bag, still hanging where she’d left it over the back of the dining room chair. “But I think I should start with my cell phone.”

Ten days and forty calls, but only two from Dean. One where he didn’t leave a message and the second confirming he was dropping Emma off today as planned.

“I should change,” she said, indicating the blue gown she still wore. “Looks like I owe Jenna a dress.” She looked at the wet slippers she wore. “And some shoes.”

“I will see she is compensated,” he rumbled.

When you get home.

“I repacked our things to carry them better for the walk to the clanhall and . . . I have something for you,” he said, uncharacteristically clumsy when he reached into his pocket to draw it out. “Something someday—” His throat worked. “For you to give to our daughter.”

A lump formed in her throat when she saw the carved comb in his hand, the one that had been his mother’s.

She took it from him. “Ke’lar . . .”

He met her gaze and in those glowing pained eyes she saw she didn’t have to say what she was feeling. He understood perfectly.

He reached for her and then she was in his arms, his mouth against hers, the cinnamon scent of him warm and soothing. He brushed his nose against hers, slowly up one side, down the other, a tender g’hir kiss, then his mouth touched hers and she wished this kiss could last forever.

But none ever could and she leaned into his strength, suddenly finding that all of hers had gone.

He touched his forehead to hers. “My own sweet Summer.”

“Ke’lar,” she murmured. “My mate . . .”

Suddenly he lifted his head, looking toward the cabin’s front windows.

“What is it?” she asked, looking that way, but she couldn’t see anything, hear anything, outside.

“I am not sure,” he murmured. “It is unpleasant sounding.” He sniffed and his expression went taut. “It smells like your land transport. The smell is getting stronger. It is coming this way.”

Dean.

Even if it wasn’t her ex, it was someone. Someone who couldn’t be allowed to see an alien warrior.

“No, wait.” She dropped the comb on the table to reach out to him, to catch him before he could go. “I’m not ready. Please, not yet . . .”

He cupped her cheek. “I wish I could express to you what it is for a g’hir male to be bound to a mate. My people have poems, songs, stories, and through them I thought I understood, but I did not, I
could
not. Truly it is not something a male can understand until he knows it. It is more than love, deeper than loyalty, greater to me than even the All Mother. I would do anything for you, my Summer.” His glowing eyes were tormented. “Even let you go.”

She could hear the car now too and her tears welled up. “I can’t do this. I can’t be without you.”

He placed her hand over his heart. “You will never be without me. I am yours. For always. No matter how many stars separate us.”

“It might be nothing. Maybe it’s somebody I can send away. Don’t go yet,” she begged. “Just a little more time. An hour. A minute. Anything.”

“A lifetime would scarcely be enough.” He gently brushed the wetness from her cheek. “We do not cry as humans do but know, my mate, I will keen for you all my days.”

His glance darted toward the door, toward the crunch of footsteps in the snow. She felt the barest brush of his mouth against her lips, and then with a g’hir’s speed and a warrior’s stealth he was through the back door, silently closing it before she could blink.

She took a stumbling step after him. “Wait . . .”

Behind her a heavy knock fairly rattled the front windows.

“Sum!” Dean called through the door. “Come on, girl! I ain’t got all day!”

Blinking away her tears, she turned that way, toward Dean’s hammering, her fingers numb as they wrapped around the doorknob.

Dean was no longer handsome, not like he had been in college when he’d been a blond baseball player, a square-jawed All-Star with an easy smile, confident he’d make the majors someday. When he’d hurt his shoulder, after they were married and Emma was on the way, the life just seemed to drain out of him. He was drinking more these days, or maybe it was just finally catching up to him; it showed with the puffiness in his face, the gut he was starting to get.

“Where the hell you been?” he demanded. “I done called you about a million times.” He scowled, apparently forgetting that everyone had caller ID now; she knew exactly how many times he had called. “You’d think a person be by the phone day and night worrying about their child.”

That he had hardly visited his daughter in three and a half years, that it sometimes took Summer three weeks to get him on the phone only to have him tell her he didn’t have time to talk about “kid stuff,” went right out of her head.

Because there, in his arms, a tumble of white-blond curls and rounded pink cheeks, sound asleep in her Hello Kitty pajamas, was Emma.

With a cry Summer reached for her daughter, ignoring Dean’s surprised grunt as she swept her baby right out of his arms. She closed her eyes, cradling Emma against her, breathing in her scent, feeling Emma’s soft, downy hair against her cheek.

“Baby,” she murmured. “Momma’s home, sweetheart. Momma’s home.”

Emma didn’t even stir. Thanks to all the time in daycare, the child could sleep through an earthquake.

One unfamiliar with how g’hir moved might have dismissed it, might have thought that quick movement among the snowy branches a bird or small animal, but Summer, turning her head that way, just caught a flash of glowing blue eyes on her, on Emma, making sure they were both safe.

Then he was gone.