His eyes opened a little, the glow of his bright green irises just visible under his lids, and he gave her a sleepy smile. “Hope . . .”
His hand came up to cup her cheek in his broad hand and she closed her eyes for a moment, just feeling his skin against hers, the warmth of him.
“You’re all right,” she whispered. “You’re all right.”
“My Hope . . .”
He rose up toward her, his nose brushing hers in a g’hir kiss, then his mouth was hot against hers, and she moaned as his purr started, soft and deep.
His tongue flicked against the inner part of her lip and she breathed in the sweet spice of him, his rumble-purr sending heat curling through her belly as he deepened the kiss. His strong hands went to the curve of her waist and he lifted her easily onto the table to lie beside him.
His lips brushed along her cheek to her throat and he inhaled deeply, a fine tremble running through his body as he breathed in her scent. His hand came up to cup her breast, his thumb tracing her nipple through the thin fabric of the gown, then his fingers were brushing the straps away and there was a rush of air against her bare skin as the silky fabric fell away.
His fevered gaze fell on her breast, the muscles of his belly bunching as he curled toward her to cover her nipple with the moist heat of his mouth. She bit her lip as his tongue flicked against her and her fingers threaded through his hair as he nuzzled.
But she wasn’t content, not at ease yet, even with her center tightening, her mind clouding with pleasure. Hope swung up to sit astride him, tracing the healed hurts with fingers and mouth, assuring herself he was whole again.
Her caresses only drove his need higher. The growling-purring rumble sent tingling fire racing between her legs and then he was spreading her wider, his long fingers at her cleft, stroking her.
“God!” she gasped, pressing harder against him as his fingers quickened, their light strokes against her clit increasing to inhuman speed.
She was teetering just at the peak when R’har caught her waist, lifting his hips to slide easily into her, filling her to the hilt with his slick hot cock. Hope bent her head against the warm smoothness of his neck, holding onto his shoulders as he rocked inside her, his hips picking up speed as she contracted hard around him.
He moved fast and deep then, drumming with a g’hir’s speed. He tensed, his big body trembled, his fangs flashing, and then he was pulsing hard inside her.
His breath was still fast, his skin damp with sweat, and she was still shaking from the intensity of her climax when he raised his head to offer her a clumsy nose rub.
R’har gathered her at his side and brushed his lips against her forehead. Hope let her eyes fall shut, her cheek on his chest, feeling how his heart began to slow in his chest as his fingers intertwined with hers. His rumbling fell to a contented purr and he brought her palm to his mouth to kiss.
His purr caught and stopped. “Your hand . . .”
“Hmm . . . what about it?” she mumbled, nestling closer but the sudden tension in his body was jarring.
“There is blood on your hand! Why is there—?” R’har drew back a little to look at her and his brows rushed together. “You are injured!”
She glanced at the black and blue already marring the pale skin of her shoulder. “Yeah that’s gonna be an ugly one. Probably happened when the Zerar first attacked.”
He shook his head a little. “The Zerar—they . . .”
Suddenly he sat up, dislodging Hope from her comfortable place against him as his glance darted around the room. “We are in the medical bay. How did we come to be in the medical bay?”
“How did we—?” Hope sat up too, frowning at him. “Well, you had a concussion and you were sedated,” she said slowly. “Maybe that’s why you don’t remember.”
“I think—” The heel of his hand went to his temple.
“You were cut there,” she agreed, tracing the spot and shaking her head in grateful amazement. He didn’t even have a scar to show for what he’d suffered. “Pretty badly and you had a whole lot of internal injures too. I can’t even believe the technology your people have—the healing it can do.”
“The ship spun out of control then we . . .” His eyes widened and his gaze went to her shoulder again. “My injuries were treated but yours were not? Goddess, how could I have—?”
In the next instant he was off the table, still naked, his arms sliding underneath her shoulders and knees to move her to the table’s center. “Commence medical—”
“Ohmigod!” Hope scrambled off the table to escape those dozen mechanical arms before they could close around her. But even in her terror human modesty died hard and she managed to take the sheet with her, wrapping it around her body even as she scrambled away.
R’har rounded the exam table heading for her but she jumped back with a squeak of alarm that stopped him in his tracks.
“You are injured, little one,” he said, his growl gentle as a rumble of distant thunder across the sea. “You must lie down.” He indicated the exam table “The medcomp will treat you.”
“No—” Hope backpedaled. “—Fucking—” Her back hit the wall. “—Way!”
R’har held his palms out to her, his hands spread in what looked like g’hir body language for I’m not going to hurt you or maybe Calm the fuck down. Either way his soothing pose didn’t fool her into thinking he wouldn’t try making a grab at her. It was all right for R’har but she wasn’t about to let that thing trap her with its spider arms, thank you very much.
“You are hurt.” He shook his head, bewildered. “You must allow your injuries to be tended.”
“No! I’m fine. Really.” She wasn’t sure how far that thing could reach; for all she knew those arms under the table could grab her from way over there. She sent a wary look its way.
R’har followed her glance. “You were afraid when you first came on board, when I first brought you here,” he murmured. His glowing eyes searched her face. “I believed it was I you feared so greatly.” His wave indicated the room at large. “It is this place that frightens you, little one? The medical bay?”
Hope swallowed hard, still braced for his rush or a mechanical arm’s grab. “Yeah, not such a big fan of this stuff. You know, now that you’re okay maybe we can get out of here? I mean, seriously, it’s a bruise, R’har.”
“I must—”
He stopped short at her frightened gasp and stared.
“That is why would you not sleep in here, although I told you the room would be heated to comfortable levels . . .” He tilted his head, his bright gaze searching hers. “Do you also fear the human medical treatment?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m pretty evolved that way,” she said with a nervous wave toward the exam table. “Human medicine, g’hir medicine—I don’t discriminate. The sight of anything medical leaves me an irrational whimpering mess.”
“You did not flee from me when I was hurt.” His brow creased. “You did not abandon me to my injuries. You brought me here. You remained by my side to see to my care.”
It was true. Usually she couldn’t even walk down the Band-Aid aisle at the drug store without having a panic attack. She could hardly believe a little while ago she’d been eagerly climbing onto the biobed with him. But that rumble-purring of his got her so hot she’d hardly noticed where she was.
Hope shifted her weight. “That was different. I couldn’t let myself fall apart then. You needed me.”
“Have you always had these fears?”
She gave a meaningful downward glance. “You know, I love that we’re having this talk while you’re bare-assed naked. I mean, I thought the whole kidnapped-by-an-alien-chip-in-my-head thing was going to make for some interesting talks with a therapist but now, exploring my medical phobia with the naked alien too? This takes crazy to a whole new level. I’m going to wind up putting her kid through college.”
R’har waited, sinking into that stillness of his again, so silent and steady he could have been carved f
rom marble.
Hope gritted her teeth; the man had patience Gandhi would envy.
“When I was eight I had my tonsils out,” she mumbled finally. “I mean, I always hated getting shots, my mother said I embarrassed her with how I would scream, but that’s when it really got bad.”
“You have endured this—alone—for a long time,” he said with a slow, human-style nod.
“Yes,” she croaked. Brian had been annoyed and embarrassed by her fears. She’d endured lots of ribbing from friends and the impatient frustration of doctors and nurses—and especially her parents—through the years. “Yes, I have.”
“I know your fear to be real, little one. I know you feel yourself in danger, even now.” He searched her eyes. “But on my word as a warrior of Hir, on my vow as your lifemate, I would never harm you, Hope. I would never allow you to be harmed. I would die first.”
“I know,” she blurted, surprised by her own admission, at how completely she believed him. She shook her head. “But I’m sorry I just—I can’t . . .”
“I ask you to trust me.” He offered his hand to her. “Even though your instincts scream at you that you are in danger, that you are not safe. Will you? Will you trust me to care for you? To protect you?”
Her eyes stung and she glanced at the hand he offered. “I’m scared, R’har. I’m so scared.”
“I know,” he rumbled softly. “But I am here. And I will always stand between you and danger, my Hope.”
Looking at this alien warrior standing unabashedly naked, his glowing eyes gentle, his hand held out to her, Hope felt her tears overflow.
“Oh, fucking hell,” she muttered thickly and took R’har’s hand.
Fourteen
Hope recoiled, whimpering.
“The scanner will pass a light over you that penetrates tissue but it will not hurt,” R’har rumbled, his growls soft, soothing.
He’d coaxed her back onto the biobed but it took all her will to stay there. Her grip on his hand was so tight her fingernails must be nearly drawing blood by now but he hadn’t complained.
“How do you know that this thing can even heal me?” she demanded. “I’m human, not g’hir. Maybe it’ll just scramble my organs up.”
“I treated you with this equipment once before,” he reminded. “It has been calibrated to treat humans.”
Of course. The ever-helpful Jenna. Someday she and I are going to have a talk about her handing her own kind over to aliens . . .
“I promise, little one, the medscan is painless.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, just do it!” Hope tensed as the light ran down her body but he wasn’t lying, it didn’t hurt. Then something else occurred to her. “But you can’t strap me down again! You have to swear you won’t!”
“I will not,” he assured. “I would never have let you regain consciousness here if I had known this room caused you such terror.”
“Yeah, remembering that I was unconscious in here is kind of freaking me out,” she said, biting back another whimper as the light passed over her again. “Why does it have to keep doing that?”
“It scans at multiple depths to determine the extent of your injuries and evaluate how best to treat them.”
“Wonderful. Yay for the scary alien light. Isn’t it fucking done yet?”
“Pause scan.”
The scanner held position and Hope twisted her head around to look up at him. His shirt was a total loss but he’d gotten dressed from the waist down while she kept hold of the sheet for the exam.
“Why’d you stop it?”
“Your breathing is very shallow,” he said and rested his warm palm on her lower belly. “Allow yourself to breathe deeper.”
“Can’t we just get this over with?” she cried. “I just want to get out of here!”
“Breathe so that you lift my hand. It will help you feel more comfortable here.”
Fucking nothing was going to make her comfortable here but R’har was already doing that still-and-silent-as-a-Zen-garden thing again, patient as time itself.
“Fine,” she grumbled and sucked in hard.
“Pause there,” he said when she’d filled her lungs.
“I’m not a computer!”
“You must pause in your breathing,” he said, unperturbed by her snappy tone. “Then let it out slowly.”
She didn’t see as she had much choice with his hand on her stomach like this. He wasn’t about to let her leave with even the littlest mark on her and the sooner he got the scanner back on the sooner she could get out of here.
“I’m dizzy,” she complained after several breaths.
“You are over-breathing. Pause longer between the inhale and exhale.”
“You know, it really is only a bruise. Maybe we should worry about something more important right now? Like the Zerar maybe?”
“We are safe for the present and nothing is more important than you are,” he rumbled. “You require medical treatment and you will have the healing you need. Breathe.”
She tried again, slowing her breathing even more, but it wasn’t helping much.
“Is there a place where you know yourself protected?” he asked.
She gave a short laugh. “Go to my ‘safe place,’ you mean?” At the puzzled look he gave her, she waved her hand. “Never mind.” Looking up at the scanner, deactivated but hovering ominously above, was making her hands clench. She shut her eyes briefly so she could think clearly enough to answer him and only one place came to mind. “I guess I always felt safe in my room growing up.”
“I have not asked you where you spent your childhood.” He gave her a faint smile. “It was not the wilderness in which I found you, I know that much.”
“Yeah, no. I’m definitely a city girl, born and bred. My mom had a place in Takoma Park. A big, old house with about a million plumbing problems. That area was kinda run down then, lots of hippies, but it was nice too, especially in the summer ’cause Rock Creek Park isn’t far away. When I was thirteen my mom managed a couple weeks off from the hospital so we painted my room. We tried to wallpaper it first.” She smiled, remembering. “But we were terrible at it and a day in we decided to start over with paint. We did the room a real pale violet color and we found some embroidered curtains at a resale shop in Alexandria. We painted the furniture white and did a darn good job too. We didn’t get along too well, my mom and me, but that time . . . that was fun.” She shook her head a little. “I can’t believe I’m saying this but this is actually helping.”
“Are you ready for the scan to continue?” He must have felt her tense up again because he added, “We can talk while the scan is performed. It will not affect the results.”
“What about your hand?” she asked, glancing at her stomach where his palm still rested lightly. “Don’t you have to move it?”
“I can instruct the computer to ignore it if you like.”
“Yeah, do that,” she said, her throat suddenly tight. “It . . . makes me feel safer.”
She didn’t miss how his eyes lit up at that. The scanner came back online but she knew what to expect this time and while it wasn’t any day on the beach, she managed to unclench her hands at least.
A blue three-dimensional holographic figure—female this time—appeared over the table. Unlike when R’har had been injured, only a few places appeared in red but the diagnosis wasn’t any more reassuring.
“Contusions, trauma to the intervertebral discs of the lumbosacral spine . . .” the computer’s female g’hir voice droned. “Non-displaced sub cortical fracture . . .”
Hope swallowed hard. “Fracture?”
R’har was frowning at the readout. “You have badly bruised your shoulder bone. This is a painful injury; you should have told me.”
She was starting to hyperventilate again. “Aren’t all injuries painful?”
“Yours is far worse than I believed. You should have told me you were in such pain.”
“I can handle it.”
“I think you wo
uld not have told me even if the pain were unbearable,” he grumbled. “Because I would have insisted you be treated.”
“What’s the point? Getting treated hurts just as bad or more.”
His huffed his breath through his nostrils in g’hir frustration. His attention returned to the readout and his frown deepened. “Your genetic makeup shows marked differences from that of Ra’kur’s mate.”
“Well, sure. We’re different people.”
“But you are both human females.”
“Yeah, okay, clearly missing something here.” Hope shook her head a little. “What are you talking about? What’s so different?”
“You have a unique mutation.” He pointed at the display. “See here . . .” He pointed again. “And here.”
“Uh, quick reminder—the chip you put in my brain doesn’t let me read your language. And even if it did I’m not a biologist, I’m an artist.”
He was troubled enough by what he was looking at that he gave an absentminded g’hir nod. “Your genetic makeup requires that you receive significantly more pain medication to feel the same relief.”
Hope frowned. “Wait—are you saying pain medication doesn’t work on me?”
“Not nearly as well as the same dose would on Jenna. And this same mutation makes you more sensitive to pain as well. You require a thirty-five percent higher dose to alleviate your pain than would another human female of your weight and build.”
“You mean . . . it’s not all in my head?” she asked tightly. “I’m not making it all up?”
“Your fears are not irrational or unfounded, little one. I do not think those who treated you understood the suffering they were inflicting upon you.” His vivid gaze reflected sympathy. “If my pain were so poorly controlled I, too, would greatly fear any treatment.”
“Oh,” Hope murmured. All those impatient doctors and dentists, all those unsympathetic nurses, her parents too, how Brian could shrug off a shot when she hyperventilated through every agonizing millimeter of needle. “That’s really . . . I mean knowing that maybe it’s not my fault—”
Taken: Warriors of Hir, Book 2 Page 11
