The Spawning (12 page)

His coolness when he’d seemed almost friendly before unnerved everyone and

Miranda was no exception. She had to strip again when he reached her since she’d been naked when she’d run through the jungle and she had more cuts and scratches from that than she’d had before she’d run. Bundling her ugly gown in her lap, she held her hair out of the way while he salved the broken skin along her back, trying to keep from shivering every time she felt the stroke of his finger.

It wasn’t cold.

She was uncomfortably warm by the time he’d finished her back. It occurred to her that it might be better, for her, at least, if she tended her own booboos on her front.

He seemed offended already, though. She didn’t want to add to it. Khan had really taken it badly when she’d implied ‘death before dishonor’ was more to her taste.

Which she hadn’t actually intended to imply.

Maybe he hadn’t taken it that way either? Maybe he’d just been insulted that

she’d questioned his motives for buying them at all?

She’d like to know—needed to, but she was afraid her understanding of human

nature couldn’t really be extended to them, whatever she’d told the other women to the contrary. From the exchanges she’d heard between them they certainly
seemed
very human-like in behavior, but how much could she trust her evaluation when she knew she was still trying to measure everything by the yardstick she knew?

She discovered she needn’t have worried. He salved her scratches with the sort of impersonal professionalism she was used to with doctors and moved on to Carol.

When he’d finished with Carol and left and she thought he was out of hearing

range, she glanced at Carol. “Do you think we were speaking English when he came up?”

Carol reddened. “I don’t know.”

* * * *

Khan was not pleased with the garments the trader handed him. The material they were made from seemed sturdy enough but when he held one up to study it and saw that the things were nothing more than squares with openings for head, arms, and legs—and ugly beyond that because it was virtually colorless—he turned and glared at the bastard.

“You have nothing better than this?”

The trader looked taken aback and then indignant. “They are slaves!”

Khan ground his teeth, struggling with the urge to pound the sniveling worm into the dirt. “They are not slaves—now,” he growled finally. “These things would not appeal to any female! They are … graceless! They will not enhance their beauty. They do not even have the benefit of being practical! There is nothing to protect the arms or legs.”

The trader’s face hardened. “It is all that I have. If you like, I will see what I can find to trade that might be more to your liking and bring them when I am this way again.”

“They were not naked when you took them!” Khan said. “Where are those

garments?”

The trader’s eyes slid away. “Damaged and discarded. I had to decontaminate

them to be sure they were not carrying harmful microbes. It’s standard procedure.”

He was lying and Khan knew it. Short of taking the ship apart, however, he saw THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 53

no way around settling for the ugly things and it seemed unlikely the slime would have the garments with him, in any case. No doubt they were on the main ship, in his holds, to be traded the next time the gods damned bastard stopped.

As angry as he was about it, he dismissed it. The garments would be something to cover them with, at least, some protection from the elements.

It also occurred to him that it might be for the best all the way around. It was probably
not
a good idea to enhance their beauty—at all. It was going to be difficult enough to ignore them as it was. At least with the shapeless things it would not be as hard to overlook the shape beneath … he hoped.

“I need the device to test the food.”

Reluctance flickered across the trader’s face, but he motioned for Khan to follow him and went inside, digging through his stores until he found a scanner. Khan watched him suspiciously while he ‘programmed’ it and then told him to give him a

demonstration. Supposedly, the requirements of the females had been programmed in and also the elements detrimental to them. He had no way of being certain, of course, but once he’d been shown how to use it, he tested it on plants he’d become familiar with and saw that it noted plants he knew to be poisonous or edible to the Hirachi.

He would have to trust that the trader wanted to trade with them again badly

enough that he wouldn’t deliberately create a problem by killing the females.

Stacking his goods together, he headed back to the compound. When he reached

it, he set his goods down and paused long enough to close the gates. He would barricade them when he’d found something heavy enough, he decided, but he thought the gates themselves were heavy enough the women probably wouldn’t be able to open them—not without several of them pulling at them anyway.

Most of the women, he saw, had moved down to the beach.

The one with red hair and green eyes was surrounded by Hirachi.

His gut tightened. Anger surged through him even though he realized that Adar and Gerek were there to give her food and water, just as he’d told them to, and that Teron was trying to tend her wounds.

It was the
way
they were attending her, he finally decided, that spawned the resentment, the sense of possessiveness.

Or maybe it was the fact that she was smiling at them?

He didn’t know, but he didn’t particularly care for the gut churning anger that arose in him. Struggling with it, he picked up the goods he’d set down when he’d closed the gates and started toward the intimate little knot just as Adar and Gerek finally took themselves off.

It eased some of the sense of possessiveness, but he discovered he didn’t really like the way Teron was looking at her either.

And he sure as hell didn’t like the way she was looking at Teron.

Grinding his teeth, he stalked toward the pair, dumped the stack of gowns beside them and strode toward the beach, certain that the sooner he put distance between himself and that red headed female the better off he’d be.

THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 54

Chapter Six

As much as it disturbed Miranda that they might’ve shaken what had seemed to

be a budding understanding with at least one of the Hirachi it occurred to her almost as soon as he disappeared into the water that there wasn’t a single Hirachi in sight. Certain she must be wrong, Miranda scanned the entire compound more carefully, searching for any previously unnoticed vantage point where they might have guards placed.

“They’re gone,” she said to no one in particular after she’d searched the area for several minutes.

The other women, who’d been engaged in low voiced conversations all around

her quieted a few at the time as the comment made the rounds. They began to scan the compound as Miranda had, a few growing bold enough to get up and walk around a short distance from the group.

“They all went into the sea,” Deborah said after a few minutes. “Did anyone see any come out again?”

No one had. Curious now, everybody who could got up and moved cautiously

closer to the beach to stare out over the water. Miranda pushed herself to her feet and hobbled toward the gate. Dismay filled her when she saw it had been closed, and irritation. What had she been doing that she hadn’t noticed, she wondered?

Khan had dropped the gowns practically on top of her, she remembered. She’d

been surrounded by Gerek, Adar, and Teron before that. It must have been Khan who’d closed the gate. She hadn’t noticed because she was too busy watching his angry departure and then Teron had carried her down the beach.

“Shit!” she muttered under her breath, wondering if it was even worth the effort to check it. Deciding it was, she paused to rest a few moments and, alternating between an awkward hobble, hopping, and resting, made her way down the wall until she’d nearly reached the gates.

They were thrust open just before she reached them. Halting abruptly, she stared at the panel, waiting to see who, or what, was entering.

Khan strode through, glanced almost casually in the direction where everyone had been sitting, and pinned her with his gaze. For a split second, there was surprise in his eyes but it took him less than five seconds after that to correctly assess why Miranda was standing within a few yards of the gate, one leg lifted like a stork, her hand braced on the wall, her eyes wide with the most innocent expression she could manage.

His face turned stony, his lips flattening into a hard line. Instead of approaching her, however, he turned and grasped something and lifted it. Every considerable muscle in his back and arms flexed and bulged with the strain. Miranda was so mesmerized by the display of power that it was several moments before she could drag her attention from his muscles to the thing he’d lifted.

A jolt went through her when she finally did.

The beast he half dragged half carried through the gates was damned near as big as he was—thankfully dead—and looked like something out of a nightmare. Its hide THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 55

looked plated. It had three horns on its head, three spiny horn-like protrusions on the tip of the tail that looked to be around six feet long, and a mouth full of very large teeth that looked big enough to bite her in half with one chomp.

She stared after Khan blankly as he hauled the thing down toward the water’s

edge and then glanced toward the gate again. Three more Hirachi followed him, each carrying a beast. Behind them were a half dozen Hirachi carrying logs that looked big enough to build a log cabin.

The last one in, set his log down, closed the gates and then picked his burden up again and headed down to the beach to join the others.

The women who’d gone to check on the Hirachi, having discovered at some point

that the Hirachi were behind them, sailed back toward their side of the compound like a flock of startled chickens—complete with unnerved squawks and flapping arms.

Miranda glanced back at the gates again, studied them for a long moment, and

finally turned to head back. She discovered when she did that Khan had dropped his burden and fixed her with a laser stare. Pretending she hadn’t noticed, she hobbled back to join her own group.

She didn’t know if the men had brought those horrible things in just to

demonstrate what inhabited the jungle outside the gates, but whether it had been their intention or not, it was certainly effective.
She
was cowed. She’d completely lost interest in heading into the jungle again any time soon—maybe never.

The ritual that followed even turned Miranda’s stomach, despite the fact that

she’d thought she was pretty calloused to gruesome. Pulling knives from their boots that were roughly the size of machetes, they began butchering the things while the men who’d brought the logs set about building a bonfire to roast them on.

Miranda discovered if she could just focus her gaze away from what they were

actually doing, it was sort of fascinating to watch them—because the beasts they were wrestling with were undoubtedly damned heavy and it took strength to gut them, take them apart and lift the carcasses onto the spits after they’d cleaned them for cooking.

The display of glistening muscles was enough to put her into a trance.

The smell of roasting meat had already begun to waft across the compound when

the hunters finished their task and headed down the beach to pitch the entrails as far out into the water as they could.

Then they stripped to bathe.

Miranda hadn’t actually expected quite the show she got, but she couldn’t have torn her gaze away if the other end of the compound had suddenly exploded. Khan’s buttocks and legs were as muscular as his arms and just as beautifully formed. She couldn’t say that she was exactly surprised. She’d noticed the snug fit of his trousers.

She just hadn’t expected the view to be quite as lovely as it was.

The front view was a shock that wasn’t quite as pleasant. In fact, although it was mesmerizing, it was downright unnerving. Her gaze was so riveted to the piece of meat swinging from his lower belly that she it was several moments after he’d frozen before it dawned on her that he’d stopped with one leg in his trousers and one out.

Her head snapped upwards, her gaze clashing with his for a shocked moment

before she managed to look away.

Glancing uncomfortably toward the other women to see if they’d noticed her

fascination with the anatomy of the Hirachi in general and Khan in particular, she THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 56

discovered that they were all staring toward the Hirachi men with glazed looks on their faces.

“Oh god! Please don’t tell me I looked like that!” she muttered under her breath.

She couldn’t do anything about the others, but she reached over to her nearest neighbor, Deborah, and pinched her. Deborah’s head snapped toward her guiltily. She stared at Miranda blankly for a moment, glanced back at the Hirachi, and then at the others and covered her face with her hands, uttering a snorting, hysterical giggle.

“Stop it!” Miranda hissed, giving her a hard nudge. “They’ll hear you!”

Deborah gasped a couple of desperate breaths. “I can’t,” she muttered against her hands.

Grabbing her, Miranda dragged her into a tight embrace, pounding on her back.

“There, there! Don’t cry! You poor thing! It’s alright,” she said a little desperately.

Deborah burrowed her face against Miranda’s neck, snorting.

It tickled. Miranda struggled with the nearly irresistible urge to laugh herself. “I swear to god, Deborah, if you make me start laughing I’m going to kill you if they don’t kill us first,” she whispered unsteadily. “Quit tickling my neck.”

Deborah moved her face, dragged in an unsteady breath and lay limply against

Miranda for a moment. “I think I’m alright now.”