“I thought . . . if you came to love me . . .” His fingers intertwined with hers. “You would not wish to return to your world.”
“Fucking hell!” Hope yanked her hand away. “How could you do that to me?” she cried. “Manipulate me like that? How could you lie like that? You’re just like my—I trusted you! You were the only one I actually opened—” She clenched her fists. “I fucking trusted you!”
“I believed us safe in g’hir space,” he growled softly. “I promised—tell you . . .” He closed his eyes and his voice became a murmur. “I have failed you . . . I die shamed that I leave you unprotected, my lifemate . . .” His head fell back. “My Hope . . .”
“Oh, no, you fucking don’t!” She shook her head violently. “You are not going to smash my heart into a million pieces and then leave me alone on this godforsaken rock! You promised if I wanted to go home you’d take me, and you are going to fucking keep that promise, R’har!”
He didn’t answer and she shook him hard. “R’har! Don’t you leave me!”
He was limp, his head lolling as she shook him.
“No . . .” she whispered.
There was a sound then, the crunch of leaves and twigs beneath a heavy footfall, and then more, headed this way, closing in.
Hope scrambled for R’har’s weapon and twisted, raising the blaster to face the Zerar.
Come on, you ugly fuckers.
Their shadowy forms were visible now, advancing toward her through the woods. Hope’s grip tightened on the weapon. There were easily a dozen of them, maybe more.
Her hand rested on R’har’s chest, his heart stuttering under her palm. They stepped into the clearing then, their huge forms visible now by the moons’ light.
Hope let out a strangled sob as their alien eyes fixed on her.
They were g’hir warriors.
Twenty-one
“How is he?”
It was the same question Hope had asked for the past twelve hours but this doctor—a g’hir too —showed no impatience at her question. Doctor Ki’san was about R’har’s age, one of the younger males on board the Hironian warship but a skilled and compassionate healer. His hair was dark, almost black, his glowing eyes amber in color.
Those amber eyes regarded the scrolling readouts over the biobed where R’har lay. “His condition is unchanged.”
As soon as the medical staff had cleared her to approach she had stood and remained at his side. R’har, the sole patient in the warship’s sickbay, lay with his face obscured by a breathing mask, constantly monitored by the medical team. The complexity of this equipment made what he’d had aboard his ship look like a first aid kit. According to Doctor Ki’san, R’har’s new internal organs—cloned and grown here to replace the ones so badly damaged by the Zerar’s weapons—showed every sign of functioning properly.
She watched the Hironian symbols scroll by. She still couldn’t read them but she’d had been looking at them so long now that some of them were starting to look familiar. The three-dimensional holo image representing R’har’s health status still remained a reassuring blue.
But he’d been hemorrhaging internally even as he raced through the forests of Olari with her swung over his shoulder. As Doctor Ki’san had explained R’har’s injuries he had been astonished that R’har had survived as long as he had.
But he hadn’t regained consciousness.
By the time the search party had gotten them back to the shuttle and into the care of the medic onboard, R’har had weakened to the point of needing total support. She had sat by his side, murmuring to him, encouraging him to fight back as the shuttle made the painfully long trip into orbit to reach the full facilities of the warship’s medical bay.
From the shuttle crew’s talk Hope knew that the Zerar, confronted with the g’hir warship’s superior firepower, had retreated from Hironian space.
The men onboard the Hironian warship were every bit as huge as R’har and some stood even taller. In their midst even Hope felt positively petite but it was their attitude toward her that was really jolting.
One of the youngest warriors in the rescue party had stopped short upon seeing her when she turned to face him, transfixed. His commander’s barked order had him ducking his head but even as he passed the spot where she knelt at R’har’s side he snuck little glances at her.
Every last one of them did.
Whether it was because she was female or human or—seeing the way even the commander’s eyes lingered—the color of her hair, she couldn’t help but feel their intense awareness of her.
It wasn’t as if they were rude, everyone made a great show of respect, careful to call her “Mata”—the g’hir term for an honored female. But when their eyes fell on R’har, each warrior paused as if judging his chances of survival, subtly eyeing each other as if each were weighing their chances of winning her for themselves, should R’har die.
“You have been here for nearly thirteen hours,” Doctor Ki’san growled quietly as he came to stand beside her. “The captain has vacated his quarters. He offers them for your use for the remainder of our journey to Hir.” He indicated the medical suite’s exit. “There is an honor guard to escort you there and a hot meal awaits you. Go and rest, Mata. I will contact you if there is any change in his condition.”
Hope glanced that way and one of the medics there dropped his gaze to pretend he hadn’t been staring at her.
“Once I’m sure R’har will be all right. Once I know that . . .” Hope folded her arms. “Right now, Doc, you just need to worry about R’har.”
Ki’san raised his eyebrows. “Your health is my responsibility as well.”
“Right, I forgot. Human females are valuable breeding stock.”
“Hope—Mata,” he corrected, “my interest in you is for your own sake, not what value you might have to the Ruling Council.”
“Jesus.” Hope shut her eyes briefly. “Not you too.”
“I am sorry.” Doctor Ki’san’s rippled brow creased. “I do not understand.”
“Listen, I’m not looking for someone to take R’har’s place.” She sent a meaningful glance at another medic who was trying hard to look suddenly absorbed in the medical equipment in front of him, at the guards who continuously glanced her way. “Everyone seems to be waiting around, just in case R’har doesn’t make it. They want to be first in line when I start taking applications for a new . . .” She pushed her hair back. “Companion.”
“I would not presume, Mata,” Doctor Ki’san said, straightening. “If it came to that, I am sure Hir’s mightiest warriors would be chosen to battle for the privilege of courting you.” He shifted his weight. “I am merely a physician.”
Hope blinked. “What—you mean you don’t even get to try for a wife?”
“Warriors are of a higher social status and there are so few females now—if one chose me for herself that would be—” He looked away. “But that will never happen.”
“I thought—” Hope frowned. “I thought among the g’hir the males picked the mates. That they captured women to prove themselves or something.”
’Course what the hell did she know? That could have been just another of R’har’s lies.
Her face got hot just thinking about sitting beside him as he worked, following him around the ship like a fucking puppy. Thinking that somehow she was helping him had made her feel good, remembering how much she’d enjoyed their talks . . .
When it was all just R’har’s unbelievably calculated manipulation.
She knew better now, knew that he’d been hiding more from her than just the phony repairs. R’har had “captured” her but she got the final say-so about whether or not she stayed with him. His claim on her would end in thirteen days. Then Hir law said they had to let her return to Earth if that’s what she chose.
Ki’san gave a g’hir nod. “Our traditions hold that if he can prove himself worthy after capturing her, she may choose a male as her own. But since the Scourge a female can choose for herself as well—any
male would welcome a mate now. Females, even those from what was once considered less influential enclosures, now choose only the best and take only warriors as mates.”
“If that’s the case, why didn’t you become a warrior then? You look like you could do it.”
He hesitated. “I considered my path carefully. I trained, as all g’hir males do, to be a warrior until I reached seventeen summers. But while I was capable of a warrior’s tasks, my heart belonged to medicine.” The glance he sent her was rueful. “I do not regret my choice. I love my work. I am grateful to be able to do it but still . . .”
Ki’san was gorgeous and brilliant. He might not be a warrior—at least as the g’hir thought of them—but at nearly seven feet tall he was every bit as burly as one.
“Well, just get yourself the next ship to Earth,” she said. “Women will be fighting over someone like you.”
“I am a physician,” he repeated. “Not the son of a clanfather, not even a warrior. I would not be a choice mate.”
“Hey, doctors are very highly regarded in human culture. Plenty of human women dream of marrying a doctor; they’d pick a doctor over a warrior any day of the week. The power to heal is considered very sexy.”
It was really sweet how Ki’san’s whole face lit up. Then his brow creased. “But only warriors are allowed to visit your world.”
“You’re pretty smart,” she pointed out. “I’m sure you can figure out a way—if you really want to.”
His eyes met hers and in those glowing amber depths she saw excitement, doubt, expectancy.
“Mata, would you—” He swallowed. “Would you tell me more of your world? Your culture?”
I’m as bad as that Jenna chick. Sending another one of these g’hir to kidnap some poor woman . . .
And what really sucked was that she could see Ki’san’s side too. He was a beautiful, intelligent young man who wanted nothing more than to share his life with someone.
Hope passed her hand over her eyes.
Fuck, whose side am I on here?
“Mata, are you all right?” he asked, instantly concerned, his hand gently cupping her elbow. “Are you dizzy or in in pain?”
“No.” Hope rubbed her eyes. “I’m just tired.”
“If you would consent to rest—” At her headshake he offered: “Are you hungry? I can have food brought.”
“No. I’m good, thanks.”
“Water perhaps? I do not think you are properly hydrated.”
He’d had another of the junior healers run a medical scan on her when she arrived. They’d insisted she take fluids intravenously to hydrate and balance her electrolytes and while she hadn’t panicked—for the first time she could remember—she wasn’t in a hurry to go through it again either. “Water I’ll take.”
She followed one of the medics down the hall to a small galley. Apparently meant as a break area for the medical staff, it was empty, she was glad to see. She stood with the cup in her hand, her gaze fixed on the galley’s window, at the stars beyond, and she found herself surprised that it didn’t make her sick anymore.
Guess I’m getting used to it.
Less than a week ago she would have—did—run screaming at the sight of one of them but now the medic who’d accompanied her seemed not just harmless, but damn near bashful.
“May I bring you more to drink?” he asked, his vivid blue eyes eager, his cheeks flushed. “Or a meal, perhaps? You have not eaten.”
Probably not an accident that sounds just like the g’hir mating ritual . . .
“No,” she said, handing the now empty cup back. “Thanks, I’m good.”
He led the way back and she could hardly miss how every pair of glowing eyes followed her.
I’m a woman and most of them rarely even get to talk to one. I bet that none of these guys have even seen a human woman before. And she saw it in their faces, the eagerness, the interest, the heated looks they were struggling to curtail lest they offend her and ruin their chances completely.
Each of them had an electric, sexual male beauty to him and they looked at her as if she were some sort of goddess. If R’har weren’t in there, unconscious still, with a breathing mask on to monitor his respiration and dozens of sensors monitoring him to make sure whole organs didn’t shut down, she’d really be enjoying this.
If he hadn’t shattered her heart . . .
Ki’san was hurrying forward to meet her at the med center exit. “He has regained consciousness,” he said as soon as she was through the door, his hand already at her arm to lead her forward.
Hope stopped, resisting the doctor’s pull, her gaze going to the observation window and the flurry of activity around R’har. “He’s awake?”
“He is groggy but that is to be expected,” Doctor Ki’san said. “But my readings show full brain function.” He offered a smile, but it was a little pained. “I am sure with time he will make a full recovery.”
Hope gave a nod. “Thank you.”
She pulled her arm from his grasp and turned away.
“Mata!” Ki’san caught up to her outside the sickbay doors, his rippled brow furrowed. “Where are you going?”
“To the quarters they’re giving me.”
“But—you may go inside. You may be with R’har.”
She fixed her eyes on the open door before her. “No.”
“But—do you not wish to speak to him?” He glanced toward the observation window. “You have been waiting—”
“No.” She gave him a level look. “You’re his doctor. You say he’s okay and I believe you. That’s all I needed.”
Ki’san shook his head. “I do not understand. Do you not wish to see your lifemate?”
“He’s not my lifemate!” she flared. “He is not my anything, okay?”
Ki’san blinked down at her and she felt immediately chagrined. He had been nothing but kind, nothing but polite to her. He didn’t deserve this treatment from her.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be snapping at you. But I just—” Hope let her breath out slowly. “Look, he’s okay.” She straightened. “And that means I’m done here.”
Ki’san shook his head a little and glanced back toward the room where R’har lay. “He will want you. He will ask for you. What . . . What do you wish me to tell him?”
She couldn’t go back in there. If she did, if she looked into those luminous eyes again, all her resolve would crumble to dust.
He was a liar. Just like Brian and the others.
Just like her dad.
But if she went back in there now, if she gave him even the slightest opportunity to speak to her, she knew, idiot that she was, she’d probably wind up believing anything he said, accepting any excuse he had that would make everything okay again.
She wanted him to make it okay, so very badly, even if it meant closing her eyes to the deceptions or the cheating, just like she always did . . .
“Tell R’har—” Hope wet her lips. “Tell him whatever was between us is finished now. Tell him I never want to see him again.”
Twenty-two
R’har cracked his eyes open. His body felt heavy, battered, and sore, and his vision swam as he tried to focus. He squinted against the brightness, the irritation making his eyes watering like hers sometimes did.
There were the reassuring growls of the Hironian language, the smell of his own kind, and the soft, sweet promise of—
“Hope . . .”
His voice sounded weak and muffled to his own ears. His vision was blurred and his glance darted around, seeking her with all his senses, but whatever covered his face also interfered with his sense of smell.
His arm felt leaden as he raised his hand to free himself of the thing over his nose and mouth. Suddenly they were crowding around him—other g’hir males—the scent of metal and laboratory and her filled his nostrils for the brief moment he was able to lift the thing away.
A strong grip pulled his hand away clamped it back on.
“Check the reaction rate i
n the corpus callosum.” The order was rapid but had the steady evenness of a professional well used to crisis. “Check for damage in the higher reasoning functions.”
A healer.
The room, with its medical systems, some familiar, some not, swam over his head. R’har fell back, sinking into the warm darkness as g’hir moved around him, snapping off readings to each other.
A healer . . .
“Hope!” he roared, his eyes flying open.
He fought the strong hands that moved swiftly to hold him down. Her scent was here but faint enough to flood his body with adrenaline. He flailed for her, every cell in his body demanding he protect—
“Hold him!”
“Hope!” He had gotten the mask off in the struggle to call her name but could not see her through the press of their bodies.
A medical bay! He could scent her, but not nearby. Where was she? Was she hurt? The dark forest on Olari flashed through his mind, the chill of the ground beneath and her tearstained face above him, the Zerar hunting them—
“Stop this immediately or I will have you sedated!”
R’har bared his fangs. The man’s face looming over him was flushed, angry. He wore the blue garb of a healer and for an instant the doctor’s own fangs flashed.
Then the man’s face relaxed into a more professional, detached expression. “I am Doctor Ki’san. You are onboard the Hironian cruiser Tribute. You are being treated for injuries sustained from a Zerar’s weapon. You are not in danger but you must lie still. Do you understand me?”
R’har’s challenge snarl showed an invitation to fight greatly out of place when addressing one’s own healer, but with her so nearby, her well-being in question, he could not contain himself, no matter how rude. “Hope—my lifemate—”
“She is aboard,” the physician assured, his gaze now on the display above R’har’s head.
“Is she here?” R’har twisted, trying to see the rest of the medical bay. “Please—is she hurt?”
“She was treated for minor injuries and I cleared her for release from the medical bay hours ago,” the doctor said curtly. “Get the backup systems online,” he said to one of the medics and his voice fell to a grumble. “He has damaged half the sensors on this side of the biobed.”
Taken: Warriors of Hir, Book 2 Page 16
