Emma was amazed.
And a little resentful.
He turned and studied her thoughtfully for a moment. “You go eat. I take care ob Runcle Pater.”
Emma felt her jaw sag.
Some of that actually sounded like English.
As impressed as she was, she was pretty sure she didn’t want to leave the baby with him—if that was what he was suggesting.
“I’m fine. I’ll feed him,” she responded, lifting her arms toward the baby.
He didn’t take the hint.
That had to be a universal gesture, she thought indignantly.
“You go eat.”
Her stomach growled—loudly—spoke in tongues like a demon.
From the smirk he tried to hide she had a feeling he heard it.
He pointed a thick finger. “Dat way.”
Traitor that he was, the baby seemed very content to stay with the alien man.
She really felt like she had no reason to argue even if she could’ve been sure he’d understand.
She was hungry.
But she didn’t think she was ready to face the new reality.
Plus she really had to pee.
She was going on a very long trip with nothing but the clothes she was standing in, she realized abruptly, momentarily more dismayed by that than she had been by her other thoughts.
The yellow man almost seemed to sense her problem.
He strode across the room with the baby cradled in one arm and pressed a panel that slid open and revealed another room then gestured for Emma.
Hopeful, Emma responded by approaching him and discovered there was a bathroom.
Feeling her face redden, she thanked him and went in.
The facilities, thankfully, weren’t quite as alien as the aliens themselves. She was able to utilize them and even wash her face and hit at brushing her teeth with one finger. She had to finger comb her hair to put it into even a semblance of order, but thankfully it wasn’t beyond that effort.
Feeling a little better, she left the bathroom.
The yellow man had settled on her bunk with the baby.
Well, the bunk she’d used.
Nodding at him, she headed toward the door he’d entered through and went out into a very long corridor that didn’t look the least bit familiar.
She supposed she’d been in a state of shock the night before when Hauk had taken her to the cabin, but then again the hallway didn’t have a lot of distinguishing features. Shaking the thought, she headed down the corridor in the direction the yellow man had pointed and ‘followed her nose’ because she could smell food after going only a little way.
She knew she should’ve expected to find the other two—at least—if not more aliens considering the circumstances, but it still sent a jolt through her to walk in and find them settled at a table eating.
Discomfort wafted through her when they looked up at her.
In part because it hadn’t occurred to her until that very moment that she was an unexpected addition to the group and that meant supplies for her wouldn’t have been included when they’d prepared for the trip.
How critical was that?
Apparently not exactly critical, she supposed, because Hauk gestured for her to join them and slid a plate across the table to the end where he’d indicated a seat for her.
She settled uneasily and stared down at the unfamiliar food.
It smelled good, she told herself.
It tasted … exotic. Not bad, just unfamiliar.
It was a shame her stomach was always a little weak when she first woke.
She managed to eat enough to chase the nausea into abeyance—enough not to feel wasteful or look greedy.
“That was good. Thank you,” she said when she’d eaten what she could.
She discovered that both men were staring at her when she looked up.
Probably trying to figure out what she’d said.
“Hauk prepared the meal. I cannot say that he is especially gifted in the kitchen … but it was certainly filling.”
Hauk made an obscene gesture at him.
Emma felt herself gaping—at the familiar gesture and the completely understandable English the bronze man had spoken.
“I am Kadin,” he said when her gaze lit on him.
With a beautiful voice and an absolutely mesmerizing face. And a stunning physique.
“Hauk has already introduced himself,” he added dryly. “And I must suppose the Hirachi, Gaelen, also.”
“The … uh … one who’s watching the baby?” Emma said questioningly because she hadn’t heard the term Hirachi before and wondered if it was his name or maybe his race? Or country?
“Nye, our Runcle Pater.”
“Nye? The baby’s named Nye?” Surprise flickered through Emma—that he had a name and they knew it—which she supposed should have been something she would expect not be surprised at.
The one who’d introduced himself as Kadin shrugged two massive shoulders. “Yes.”
Weird name, but she thought she liked it. “Is … uh … the Pater his last name?”
“It is Hirachi,” Hauk answered.
An explanation that still left her all at sea. Word? Or name?
Kadin nodded. “It means High King.”
Emma blinked at him, feeling her jaw sag, wondering if she’d heard him correctly, although she dismissed the thought almost as soon as it crossed her mind as just being too farfetched. “So his name is Nye High King?”
Hauk snorted. The sound was more scoffing than amused she thought.
Kadin grinned at her. “We have crossed half of the universe to get him. He is the High King of the Hirachi people.”
“But ….” Shock and dismay rolled over her. “He’s just a baby.”
Their amusement vanished. “This is a hereditary title. He is High King because his father was killed.”
Emma sucked in a gasp of horror, covering her mouth. “Oh my god! How? When?” She thought about it for a moment and realized she knew those answers. “That’s how he ended up on Earth?”
His expression taut, Hauk got up and collected the dishes.
It flickered through her mind that she should volunteer to do cleanup, but she was totally unfamiliar with the ship. And still too shocked to hear about the poor baby to think straight. “That must be why he was so frightened last night,” she murmured. “They were attacked?”
Kadin studied her for a long moment. “So that was Earth?”
Emma blinked at the abrupt change of subject. She couldn’t decide whether she was more surprised he had no idea he’d been on Earth or that he had clearly heard of it. “Yes?” she responded uncertainly.
“You are not certain?”
Anger flickered through her. “I was just wondering if that was idle curiosity, or … other. Also how you would know anything about Earth when y’all are certainly not from anywhere close.”
“The rose has thorns,” Hauk muttered with a touch of amusement.
When Emma sent him a sharp glance, he lifted his eyebrows and then raised his hands in a surrendering motion.
She wasn’t amused.
She was scared.
“I had already guessed from the reception we got and the attack as we left that they were not especially friendly,” Kadin retorted dryly.
Emma felt the blood leave her face. “That was us that nearly shot us down?”
“Us as in your fellow Earth people? They certainly tried.”
“But … we’re ok? The ship’s ok?”
Hauk and Kadin exchanged a long glance. “Nothing that cannot be repaired,” Kadin responded coolly. “The question is, will your people send more? Can they come after us? Will they?”
Dismay flickered through Emma even as she stifled the immediate impulse to say Earth didn’t have the capability. It wouldn’t just be disloyal to admit they had nothing like these people did. It could be very dangerous. “I think it must have been in the nature of a warning against attack from y
our people.”
Again the two men exchanged a look that made Emma uneasy.
She didn’t think they believed her.
She shrugged inwardly. The military had attacked them already and they’d done nothing she knew of to provoke it, so they had a point.
She told herself she didn’t care if they didn’t believe her and that it didn’t matter anyway, but she knew that was a lie even as she struggled to comfort herself with it.
“So …,” she changed the subject. “I guess it didn’t really do any damage?”
The look they exchanged that time made her really uneasy.
“Is that a yes or a no?” she demanded sharply—because she was scared and that slashed IQ significantly.
Kadin gave her a look she found hard to decipher, but it was unnervingly like someone contemplating violence.
“There is damage,” Hauk responded. “We are working on repairs.”
Well! Thank god it could be repaired, Emma thought with relief.
* * * *
“I do not think this is something we can repair,” Hauk told Kadin and Gaelan when they joined him a short time later.
Consternation crinkled Gaelan’s features.
Kadin compressed his lips into a thin, hard line. “Did I mishear you then when you assured the female that we were affecting repairs?”
“Emma,” Gaelan and Hauk corrected him at the same time.
“I believe I said we are working on repairs,” Hauk retorted.
“Which suggests we can do them,” Kadin snapped irritably.
Hauk shrugged. “I had not had time to thoroughly assess the damage then.”
Gaelan glanced from one to the other. “There is no point in growing angry over it. It is no one’s fault.”
Hauk narrowed his eyes at Kadin.
Kadin shook his head. “I am not trying to blame anyone. I am trying to decide what we should do now.”
“Contact Merrik and tell him to come for the young king immediately,” Gaelan said promptly. “The longer we drift here, the greater the danger to him.”
Chapter Six
A vigorous discussion followed that suggestion but in the end neither Hauk nor Kadin could argue with the logic of it.
They had managed to capture only three Sheloni ships that were still capable of flight, and hopefully battle, and their value could not be calculated—especially since they had lost one already and that one had been carrying the High King and his family back to the home world.
But neither could the life of their High King—the last living male in direct line of the succession since his father had been killed.
He might be no more than a baby, but he represented generations … and unity. The Hirachi had been seriously weakened when the tribes had scattered in an attempt to survive the raids of the Sheloni. Together they might be strong enough to defeat the Sheloni once and for all.
Without a concerted effort by all of those being preyed upon by the Sheloni, the outcome was less certain.
Physcially, there was no comparison of strength. The Sheloni were as weak as babes beside the physical superiority of the Hirachi, the Satren, and the new mixed breeds.
Technology was the problem—even the Satren, who were more technologically advanced than the Hirachi, were generations behind the Sheloni in that arena—but they had new weapons to counter that failing—the ships of the Sheloni themselves and their weaponry.
“There is a risk here that we had not counted upon,” Kadin said finally.
Gaelen nodded. “Or planned for, but I do not see that we can do anything else if we have no hope of making the repairs.”
Hauk could see their point. If they called out for help, there was always the chance that their enemies might intercept it and arrive first. “We can afford to devote a little more time, I think, to attempting the repairs ourselves.”
Kadin considered that and finally shook his head. “Time is our enemy, as well. I think we must risk it and prepare the best we can if this does not go as we hope.”
The three headed to the bridge. Once there, it was Gaelen who settled at the communications console.
It had been modified and therein lay their best hope that they could summon help without alerting their enemies. It was adapted to work as an amplifier for the Hirachi telepathic abilities.
Gaelen spent the better part of three days struggling to reach help before they received a response. “We come.”
* * * *
Emma had never spent a good deal of time—or in fact any—trying to imagine what space travel must be like, but she doubted she would have imagined anything even approaching reality.
Or at least her reality.
She didn’t suppose what she was experiencing was anything like a trip in an Earth ship.
There was gravity and there wasn’t supposed to be any in space.
Even she knew that much.
When she finally calmed down enough to spare some wayward thoughts that flickered through her mind as questionable. She wasn’t prone to paranoia or even particularly suspicious minded and it still crept into her mind to wonder if she could simply accept everything at face value. Was she really on a space ship built by an alien race and bound for another world? Accompanied by an alien baby and three very different, giant alien men?
Because she had never seen other than the three and even that circumstance seemed strange.
And the three really looked like they would be more at home/comfortable wearing loincloths and carrying spears or maybe bows and arrows than sailing through the universe like super heroes racing to the rescue of the innocent and helpless.
Somehow, she realized, the ‘facts’ just didn’t seem to fit.
So, maybe it was all made up?
Maybe she was on a wild trip from some hallucinogen that she’d accidentally ingested or that was given to her?
Oddly enough that sounded even more farfetched than what she thought was real.
She couldn’t completely dismiss those thoughts. They lingered in the back of her mind, teasing her with a sense of unreality, adding to the fear, the deep down, trembling terror, that she could barely hold at bay.
But the baby, Nye, grounded her. Any time she snuggled his warm little body close, she knew in her heart of hearts that he was absolutely totally real. Whatever else she doubted, everything she felt and experienced with Nye was indisputable truth.
The rest of it—well maybe she just didn’t want to accept it?
Being targeted by soldiers as if she was some kind of monster—shot by them. Being swept off her feet, literally, and flown by a winged man to safety.
The kiss that had knocked her for a loop, for instance, bestowed by an alien man that more closely resembled the human concept of a devil than a man.
Granted, she hadn’t seen a great deal of Hauk since he’d shown her to her cabin. He seldom even joined them at meals over the next few days.
But when she did see him, he was completely cool and distant—not at all like someone who’d kissed her stupid.
She was actually comfortable with that, she decided.
At first.
She’d been seriously tongue tied and jittery during their first encounter afterward, but his cool demeanor had definitely thrown up a wall, shielding her from the sense of awkwardness she’d felt about her reaction, and the uneasiness.
She’d graduated from there to a nagging suspicion that it hadn’t happened at all and shortly behind that to absolute certainty that it had and discomfort and confusion had followed.
Why had he kissed her to start with?
Why didn’t he want to again?
It wasn’t as if she wanted him to, but it was actually kind of insulting that he’d done it and then just brushed her off like she didn’t exist.
So, why he’d done it mattered, but only in the sense that it was a complete mystery to her.
Of course, he was alien so maybe she was just expecting him—all of them—to behave and be governed by human mo
tives?
They generally shared meals together. The guys surprised her by not only taking turns keeping the baby to allow her to relax and eat without dealing with the baby, but also taking turns tending him and entertaining him throughout the days that followed and that gave her way more time to observe them and begin to know them than she’d really expected.
In some ways, actually a lot, they seemed very human—in their interactions with one another and the conversation she was able to hear and understand.
But she had only to look at them to perceive the alienness.
Not that they weren’t surprisingly attractive once she’d gotten over her initial shock and been able to look past the things that made them alien to see the features that were as human as her own. They were. They had very nice physiques and pleasingly formed facial features.
The alien features continued to jolt her, though, for what she thought must have been a progression of days, maybe weeks—the skin tones, the wings and horns and what appeared to resemble fins on the ones called Gaelen and Kadin.
Despite that, she began to lose her fear of them fairly quickly since they seemed to have pretty much dismissed her once they had settled her with Nye, which, she supposed, was mostly what had opened the door to speculation about them.
Primarily Hauk, but really all three.
Gaelen seemed very ‘at home’ with the baby for someone who claimed he had not fathered a child. And Nye seemed very ‘at home’ with him considering Gaelen said he’d never met the child before.
She was reasonably certain he’d told her that, although she was never one hundred percent convinced that she’d correctly interpreted his rendition of the English language.
Whatever the case, and despite the language barrier, it was clear that he had already formed a bond of affection with baby Nye.
She tried not to be jealous, but it was a struggle when she’d been the sole beneficiary of Nye’s affection for so long.
Kadin was the scariest of the three. She wasn’t completely certain of why she felt that way unless it was because she sensed he was in command and that he was the least welcoming of the three, the least inclined to accept her as a travel companion. It wasn’t because of his appearance, per se. He was actually the most handsome of the three in her opinion, but also the most fierce looking and she thought probably the most dangerous.
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