Stolen: Warriors of Hir, Book 3 (6 page)

Five

“What are you doing?” Summer demanded as Ke’lar brought the multari to a halt and slid from the saddle behind her. “Why are we stopping?”

Not that the past couple hours had been fun—or comfortable either. They rode double, a tight fit on the g’hir saddle, she in front, her back pressed to the warmth of his body, his thighs pressed to the back of hers. The saddle had a handhold at the front that—since the multari stood at least eighteen hands high and the only light was courtesy of the Sister moons—Summer gripped white-knuckled as they sped over the gently hilly terrain of the westernmost Erah land. But Ke’lar wasn’t content to trust her safety to her own efforts, his massive arm encircling her waist to keep her securely on the beast, the reins held easily in one hand as they rode.

His greater height had her head resting in the curve of his shoulder and neck as they rode, his cheek against her temple, his skin smooth and free of stubble despite the late hour. G’hir males, despite their thick hair and heavy eyebrows, didn’t grow beards.

Her back felt cold without him behind her—g’hir body temperature was naturally higher than a human’s—and she shivered a bit with the chill. Her boots were somewhere in the packs but he’d found her some of his own soft foot coverings—too big of course—to keep her feet warm as they dangled over the multari’s sides.

He took the beast’s reins in hand and started to lead her at a walk. “We are far enough into the Erah territory now. The Betari would be foolish to venture this far into our lands, even to seek a stolen female.”

“I thought the whole point was to get to your clanhall
quick
. We should be riding like a bat out of hell!”

He gave her a quick, confused look and Summer sighed inwardly. Ar’ar had attached the translator chip to the language center of her brain when he’d first her brought her onto his ship. Since then she’d learned the thing did some peculiar and unexpected things when translating English idioms onto the g’hir side of things.

“I mean,” she began before he could ask what a flying mammal would be doing in the human underworld, “we should continue to travel as fast as we can. Between her speed and your night vision we were making seriously good time.”

“Pushing our only multari beyond her capabilities will only leave us walking the entire way rather than part of it—and shouldering our own supplies as well.”

“Wait, you’re kidding, right? You’re going to
walk
her? For how long??”

“Beya is growing fatigued carrying so much weight. She is not young. We cannot ride her to exhaustion.”

“You really care about this thing, don’t you?” she blurted.

His gaze snapped to her from his place leading the multari. “That surprises you?”

“I don’t know.” She tucked her hair behind her ears—again. Dozens of girly hair accessories back in the dressing room they gave her at the Betari clanhall and she hadn’t even grabbed a clip to hold her hair back. “Yeah, I guess so.”

His nostrils flared. “Truly, you do think the g’hir monsters if you believe us incapable of attachment.”

“Look, I didn’t mean . . . I’m sure your people have feelings, anyway.”

“How observant of you,” he grumbled then indicated the multari with a g’hir’s nod and his tone softened. “Beya came to me as a filly, a gift from my father when I reached nine summers, with clumsy legs too long for her body and a playful heart.” He stroked the animal’s nose with the palm of his hand and she tossed her head a bit as if to encourage him to continue. “I trained her myself, rising early to feed and water her. She was my sole companion on the many long and lonely ventures into the wilderness needed to earn my place as a warrior. But that was twenty years ago. She has this summer left . . . perhaps one more.” His voice was fond but heavy too, his touch gentle on the mount’s nose. “And then I, like so many of our warriors, will walk alone.”

“Why haven’t you gone to Earth then?” Summer demanded. “Captured yourself a human woman like Ar’ar did?”

He turned his face away, leading the multari again. “Very few are selected for the competitions. Even fewer win the chance to journey to your world to hunt a mate.”

“I thought—”

He made a huffing sound, a bitter g’hir chuckle. “What? That any male who wished it was provided with the location of your homeworld? That we would let loose millions upon millions of warriors to hunt there unchecked?”

“Why haven’t you?” she demanded. “You could. I’ve seen your people’s technology for myself, up close and personal. My world wouldn’t stand a chance against you.”

“You—human females—our last and only chance of survival,” he said grimly. “To invade your world—we would bring you to the brink of destruction as readily as those who unleashed the Scourge upon us have.”

“The Zerar.” That story—of how their enemies created and introduced the plague called the Scourge, the disease that had killed nine of ten of the g’hir female population in a matter of weeks, while leaving the males alive—she’d heard during her time with the Betari.

“How old were you, Ke’lar? When the plague came here?”

“Five summers,” he said, without looking back, without breaking stride. “I do not remember a time when Hir was not a graveyard, when mine was not a race looking into the face of its own extinction.”

“I’m sorry.” Her throat was tight, recalling the Betari enclosure’s monument, the thousands of remembrance stones sparkling under the suns to honor their lost females, women, girls, babies . . . “I’m sorry for what the Zerar did to your people.”

He didn’t reply. She shifted in the saddle uncomfortably, the unspoken retort hanging in the air—that if she were truly sorry, truly cared about the survival of their kind, she would accept Ar’ar as her mate and provide the g’hir with the children they needed so badly.

“So you seem young and healthy,” she said, her throat tight. “Fast enough to catch yourself a human woman for certain.”

“I would gladly hunt a mate from your world if I could. I would lay down my life for her. Bleed myself dry for her happiness.”

“Her happiness?” she scoffed. “You know, I don’t understand you at all, Ke’lar. How can you claim to feel any respect for women—for our rights and wishes—if you’d hunt us like animals?”

His fangs flashed in the moonlight. “I would give a day’s blood to the Goddess in thanks for the chance. I would have treasured her, my human mate, with every breath.” He turned his face away, walking again. “But I will never be permitted to compete. I will never be among those who journey to your world.”

“Why not?”

The reins in his hand were slack and Summer realized Beya, her big head lowered to be level with Ke’lar’s, was not being led at all but walking contentedly with him.

“A number of reasons,” he said, just when she had begun to think he wouldn’t answer her at all. “I am the second of our clanfather’s sons. My brother Ra’kur has his Jenna to lead when he becomes clanfather. My mate would have little chance of becoming a clanmother. I will not be chosen when other clans lack a female to lead. I am a second son but had the plague not come . . .” His voice was tight. “I love my brother. We have always been best friends as well as brothers and no one knows me better but—may the All Mother forgive me—I . . . envy him.”

“Because he will lead the clan? Because you want to be clanfather?”

Ke’lar gave a short huffing laugh. “If you knew me better you would not ask that. A clanfather must be the perfect balance of the All Mother’s sky children: powerful as the Brothers’ morning rise with the coolness of mind of the Sister moons.”

Summer glanced at his shoulders, the breadth of his back, the astonishing strength of his body. “And you don’t think you’re powerful?”

“I am too much of the Brothers, with too much sunfire in my essence,” he said easily. “And not nearly enough moon. I am told I take after my mother in that way but I could not say. My father loved her greatly but from what I have been told of her, she, like me, would follow her fire and go her own way. Ra’kur was once like me, one who also always chafed against the rules. That is the fire that sent him into the stars and ultimately to find your world. My fire sent me to forest. Perhaps it simply suits my nature better. That way I have no one to argue with but Beya”—he threw Summer a smile—“and out of pity she lets me win. But since he found his Jenna, Ra’kur has found his balance, the moonlight to his fire. It is best for all that Ra’kur will be clanfather and in that I am content.” 

“Was that why Ar’ar got to go to Earth but not you? Because he’s the heir?”

“The Betari are a powerful clan and wield great influence. Mirak would do whatever was necessary to ensure that their enclosure has a clanmother.”

“What will they do?” she wondered suddenly. “Now that I’ve run off?”

“I do not know. To publicly forswear a mate—as you intend to abjure Ar’ar when we reach the Erah clanhall—is shaming to him. Even more so to a proud man, the heir of a powerful enclosure.” By the light of the Sisters his shoulders were tense. “His father may demand compensation from the Council for the loss of potential clanmother by our interference.”

Her hold tightened on the saddle, her heart thumping in her chest. “Wait—you don’t mean Ar’ar will get a crack at another human woman? If he can’t have me he gets to go back to Earth and grab some other woman?”

“You are jealous?” Ke’lar was looking back at her, his glowing blue eyes cool in the moonlight. “That your mate might seek another female?”

She grimaced. “God no! But that means—I’m saving myself but condemning another woman to take my place here.”

He gave a shrug. “Human females have shown themselves just as happy as g’hir women to be claimed by a strong mate. Ra’kur’s mate is loved and happy, content to live at our enclosure.”

Summer shook her head. “I still can’t believe Jenna’s
here
. I can’t believe she’s—she’s—”

“Mate to my brother? Mate to an alien monster?”

“Hey! I didn’t say—!”

“You did,” he growled sharply. “Not a few short hours ago while I tended your injuries.”

“I was talking about Ar’ar,” she grumbled. “In case you didn’t notice, he’s kind of a dick.”

Apparently
that
made it through the translation matrix just fine because he burst out in a g’hir’s huffing laugh.

He looked back at her, his luminous eyes crinkled with humor, and Summer, for the first time in a week, laughed too.

“I hope,” he began when their laughter had faded, leaving both of them still smiling, “you will find that we are not all like Ar’ar.”

“I—Thanks,” she mumbled. “For helping me. I started to say it before . . . but I didn’t get a chance to finish. Thank you for helping me get home.”

“Do not thank me.” He turned to lead the multari again. “I am not sure that it will be enough. No matter what I do.”

Six

Summer was drooping in the saddle, their conversation having ebbed to silence as the night wore on. At their last stop to rest he’d given her a blanket to wrap around her shoulders against the chill and with one hand she held it closed over her chest. As she gripped the saddle’s horn with her other hand, Beya’s swaying walk, the late hour, and the dark and quiet left her struggling to keep her eyes open.

“Come.” The sound of Ke’lar’s growl at her side jarred her fully awake. “We will make camp here.”

“Here?” She looked around sleepily as he tied Beya off to a nearby tree limb. It didn’t look any different to her than any other stretch of land they’d covered that night. The moons were lower in the sky, the trees softly rustling with the cool, sweet breeze. “Why here?”

“The ground is higher and there is fresh water nearby.”

She frowned. “Have you been here before? How do you know there’s water nearby?”

“I can smell it,” he said, surprised. 

“Right,” she murmured. “I forgot you g’hir are all half bloodhound.”

His large hands went to her waist, effortlessly helping her down from the multari, but her legs felt wobbly and her feet were asleep from so long in the saddle. She had to grab his shoulders just to keep herself upright.

“You are not accustomed to riding,” he growled, helping her keep her balance. “I should have stopped earlier.”

“I’m fine.” But a step away from him still had her legs struggling to work properly.

“Here,” he said, encircling her waist and drawing her arm around his shoulder, his body very warm against her side. “Walking a bit will help.”

She had to rely on him a lot for support as they started, he moving with careful slowness for a g’hir, she stiff and limping a bit.

“Man, I’m glad that painkiller hasn’t worn off yet.” Her feet were tingling as the blood started moving through them again and it was hardly a fun feeling. “I’m not looking forward to when it does.”

“I have more in the pack,” he assured. “I will try to make the journey as comfortable as possible for you. There will be a healer at the Erah clanhall who can better tend you. I regret greatly that I did not bring a comm unit. If I could call for assistance a ground transport would have you there within the hour.”

“Why don’t you have a comm unit anyway?” She frowned. “Isn’t it dangerous to be out in the wilderness without a way to call for help?”

“I would not be much of a warrior if I needed to call for help and I did not think to be concerned with any but myself.” He gave a huffing chuckle. “I certainly did not expect to share this foresting with a human female.”

His tone was friendly, respectful, not at all seductive, but Summer—suddenly aware of the heat of his body beside hers, the warm scent of him, male with a bit of cinnamon—felt her face go hot.

“I’m good, thanks,” she mumbled and stepped away. “The walking is helping so I should probably move around on my own a bit.”

Ke’lar gave a nod. “I will have the shelter in place shortly.”

Summer moved about and stretched, trying to work the kinks out, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes before he had the geodesic dome set up and was carrying the packs in.

He opened the flap to the shelter to invite her in. He already had a heater set up that both lit and warmed the space and had arranged the pallet bed, thick with furs, along the side of the shelter.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, already setting out the water pouches, pulling foodstuffs out.

“Not yet.” They’d eaten some dried meat that reminded her a lot of beef jerky—except it couldn’t possibly be beef—as well as nuts and dried fruit before they set out and again when they’d stopped to rest earlier. But at his size he must need something like five times the calories she did. “And anyway I think I’m too tired to eat.”

“The bed is ready.” He indicated the pallet. “I must tend to Beya.”

“Right,” she murmured.

His brow creased. “What is the matter?”

“Well, to state the obvious . . . there’s only one bed.”

“I have no intention of trying to couple with you,” he growled, his gaze on the supplies he was unpacking and organizing. “I will sleep outside.”

“Okay,” she managed in a rush of embarrassment and annoyance. “No, that’s fine.”

He sought her gaze, confused. “Would you feel safer if I slept inside the shelter instead?”

“I don’t care where you . . . Look, it doesn’t matter. You can sleep in here if you want,” she said shortly. “You might as well share the pallet for all the difference it makes.”

His brow furrowed for an instant, and then he gave a short huff and stood.

“Beya needs to be watered and we need fresh water as well.” He grabbed a few pouches of food, obviously intending to munch as he worked, then lowered the heater’s light to minimum. “Go to sleep. I will be nearby if you have need of me.”

He did not want to sleep.

Sitting inside the shelter now, Ke’lar did not even think he could, though his body cried out for rest at this late hour.

He simply could not stop looking at her. She was asleep, resting easy on the pallet bed he had prepared for her, her arm thrown wide beside her face, her bright hair covering the pillow. Her delicate face was turned toward him, her skin smooth, her full mouth so rounded and pink.

He had seen only two other human women before and they were beautiful.

But she . . .
she
was exquisite.

Summer . . .

She was very like that season, soft and golden, sweet smelling.

And mate to the heir of an ancient enemy clan.

But one she is fleeing.

She must hate Ar’ar very much to risk her life to escape him. And be very brave to journey through the forests of an unfamiliar world, alone.

Ke’lar breathed her scent in. It was intoxicating; that had to be it. He had his faults, had often struggled with the rules, but he had never endangered his enclosure by his acts, never shown himself as anything other than an honorable man, as one worthy to be called a warrior.

His clan’s feud with the Betari had been a long and bloody one, the reasons for it buried in antiquity. Generations of animosity would unexpectedly blaze into conflict. Only the Scourge, the need for unification against a common enemy, had brought about their treaty.

Just to take and conceal her—the mate of the Betari heir—was justification enough to draw his enclosure into a war with the Betari that could see the destruction of both clans.

Nor could he count on the sanction of his own clan for what he had done. There were few crimes more abhorrent to his kind than to steal a female from her mate, from her clan, especially in the wake of the plague.

Ke’lar knew himself innocent of any crime. He had not stolen her but there were many—including his own father—who were not likely to see things that way. Just concealing her from her clan might earn him banishment from his own.

But . . .

She had taken food and drink from his hand yesterday when he had first hidden her in his shelter. Not as formally done as it should be, certainly, and at first he himself had not realized the significance of what he was doing.

But Summer was human. Would she even know the meaning behind the ritual; that a warrior could provide for his mate and that she would trust him to?

He wished he had asked Jenna more about their customs. When his brother’s mate had first arrived on Hir, he had been so eager to learn all he could of that distant planet that he had pestered her often.

But the news from the selection committee that he would not even be permitted to compete, that he would never journey to that world and had no hope of hunting a mate there, had discouraged him so that he ceased his badgering.

Was he a fool to hope that it was not a g’hir mate but Ar’ar himself that Summer found undesirable?

She did not seem afraid of
him
. She had asked his help, accepted his touch as he treated her injuries. She spoke easily with him, laughed with him.

Perhaps . . . 

Ke’lar edged a little closer to her.

She said she did not mind if he slept here, if he shared the bed with her. Had she meant it as an invitation? He had so little experience with females, and less still with human ones, he did not wish to offend her or, worse, frighten her.

Ke’lar shifted the covers just enough to ease himself into the bed beside her.

She did not wake. She was cool against him—a human’s body temperature was naturally lower—and he trembled with desire to feel her curves, his penis already hard as he fitted his body to hers, lubricating in anticipation of mating. He bent his head to where her neck met her shoulder, breathing in her scent deeply. Instinctively a rumble-purr of desire sounded in his chest and she, still asleep, responded with a moan, turning toward him. He could scent her instant arousal.

Her bright hair was silky against his cheek, the blood thundering in his ears as she softened against him.

He groaned, wanting so much to stoke that heat in her, ease her to wakefulness and pleasure . . .

Her offer to let him sleep beside her may have been an invitation to mate . . . or not. He had to know she wanted this as much as he did.

That meant it could not be now; it could not be tonight.

As much as he wanted her . . .

He had seen her fear of Ar’ar, witnessed for himself the injuries and suffering she had endured to flee him.

I must wait. I must be sure.

He was trembling with the effort it took to hold back but a mate bonding could not be undone. With slow, deep breaths, he quieted the rumble-purr of his arousal and with it she quieted too. He would find the strength to be patient, to draw her to him slowly, to learn how she needed him to court her . . . how a human would court her.

It might cost him everything to win her.

He cradled her against him, contentment blossoming in his chest just to hold her.

You are worth that and more . . .