STOLEN
Willow Danes
Stolen
by Willow Danes
©2015 Here be Dragons
Stolen is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be produced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.
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Cover Design: Steven James Catizone
Published by Here Be Dragons
Also available in paperback publication
One
The alien warrior, naked beside her, gave a soft snore, his thickly muscled arm thrown over Summer, keeping her close as he slumbered.
When he had first captured her on Earth, she had only seen beast—his full mouth, his gleaming fangs, his inhuman ridged forehead and heavy brow. Now, lying beside him, his bare tan skin smooth and warm against her own, his eerie glowing amber eyes shut, she knew how very intelligent he was, this wild creature who had brought her to his planet. He, like all the males of his kind—the g’hir—was tall, powerfully built, fast as quicksilver.
Summer wet her lips. She could see the movement of his eyes behind his lids.
Dreaming.
She’d never get a better chance.
Escaping a seven-foot-tall alien warrior who’s claimed you as his mate and taken you halfway across the galaxy is impossible.
But when it’s your only chance in hell of ever seeing home again, you just tell “impossible” to fuck off.
Six days after her abduction, her heart hammering so hard she feared the sound of it would wake the warrior at her side, Summer eased out from under his heavily muscled arm and slid from his bed.
He stirred, reaching for her. She froze, crouching beside the bed, praying his vibrant eyes stayed shut, his face slack with slumber. His long, silky, red-brown hair was spread across the white pillow, his swarthy coloring a stark contrast to her own pale complexion.
When she’d first awoken to find herself captive on his ship he’d looked her over with his unnervingly brilliant alien gaze. He’d taken a lock of her pale blond hair between his large fingers, frowned at her skin, and asked if such pallor in a human meant she was sickly. Trembling before the huge warrior, thinking he’d kill her if he thought her ill, not even understanding how she was processing those growls of his as language—Summer swore she was completely healthy. He’d given a satisfied fanged smile; pleased, she knew now, that she’d be able to produce the robust, healthy offspring he wanted.
The warrior—Ar’ar—gave another soft snore and Summer straightened to standing.
Clad only in a whisper-thin nightgown, the polished tiles cold under her feet, she padded silently through his luxurious quarters. Sweet spring air drifted through the open balcony doors, the fine silk curtains fluttering in the breeze as she passed them.
The balcony of Ar’ar’s rooms—the opulent living quarters of a clanfather’s heir—overlooked his family’s vast holdings, and the three moons of his world—Hir—lit her way. The wind stirred her long hair, momentarily blocking her vision, and impatiently Summer tucked the bright strands behind her ears to keep them out of her eyes.
She had one chance at this.
If they caught her she’d be watched constantly no matter what concessions Ar’ar—her new alien “mate”—made to his female’s pleas. He was confident enough, and proud enough, that he had dismissed the honor guards his father, Mirak, tried to attach to her. Ar’ar gave a huffing, indulgent laugh as he’d waved them off at her request. After all, compared to him, Summer, even at five foot nine, was just a slip of thing.
A weak, harmless, helpless human female . . .
Using the building to help her balance, she climbed up to stand on the balcony’s wall.
Eight stories above the ground of an alien world.
Summer swallowed hard. There was a reason she always insisted on having a room on the first floor of a hotel. Just glancing out the glass-wall window of her high-rise office back home left her woozy.
But there was only one way out into the hallway—and ultimately to Earth—that wouldn’t wake the glowing-eyed fanged warrior snoozing back there. She had to get from these quarters over to the unoccupied rooms beside them. That door she could open without fear of waking him, then get the hell out of this monstrously large building they called a clanhall and run for freedom.
It wasn’t even very far over. Twelve feet, maybe.
All she had to do was get to the next balcony.
Never mind that the only way there was a small decorative outcropping on the side of the building barely as wide as her foot . . .
Summer hardened her jaw and scooted her right foot out along that tiny space. It was a little lower than the wall she was presently perched on and that made the balance extra tricky. When her right foot was as close to the gap as she dared, she brought her left foot out and shifted her full weight onto the edge.
The ancient hall had something of the look of an adobe house but was made of far more durable material to have stood this long in a forest environment. Rough against her cheek, despite its age and exposure to the elements, the building’s surface offered the barest of purchase for her fingers and caught at the fine fabric of her nightgown, as if the clanhall itself were trying to dissuade her from this insane crossing.
Sliding her bare feet along the rough, narrow edge, her body pressed to the building, she inched her way across.
The night’s warm breeze rose to ruffle her hair and caress her back and brought her to sudden, shivering awareness that there was nothing behind her now but empty space and a hundred-foot plunge.
Halfway across, pressed hard against the building, her feet pointed in opposite directions, her arms splayed wide, Summer was too fucking terrified to move.
She felt dizzy but she couldn’t turn her head to see her way back without falling for certain. She couldn’t go back blind and she couldn’t continue.
If she cried out Ar’ar would waken instantly. He would be here in a heartbeat and with the strength of one arm could have her right back on the balcony of his quarters.
She would be safe.
But she would never leave this planet again.
You have to get home, goddamn it! Remember why you have to get home!
Drawing a shaky breath, Summer forced herself to keep going. Trembling, desperate to be off the ledge, she reached out for the wall—
And missed. Unthinking instinct made her lunge and somehow she hooked her arms over the wall’s edge, slamming her chin and chest painfully against it. The ball of her left foot was on the outcropping, her right hanging free over the drop, her upper body and arms clutching the wall. She bit back a whimper as she started to slip.
Fingers scrambling along the small lip where the top edge attached, she seized on a handhold and launched herself forward, scraping her big toe painfully in the process.
Hanging from the wall at the waist, her legs dangling, she grabbed for a chair—heavily built to support a g’hir’s larger body—that was just close enough. She pulled hard, twisting to bring her legs over, and landed on the balcony in a heap.
She huddled there, hugging her legs to her chest, shaking too hard to stand.
Eyes stinging just at the simple reassurance of solid wall behind her, she gazed up at the three moons the g’hir called the Sisters.
Man, they’re go
rgeous. I never even noticed how beautiful the moons are.
Summer wiped the perspiration from her upper lip with the back of her shaking hand.
Guess that’s what not being dead will do for you.
Miraculously, her captor hadn’t been awakened by her little high-wire act, but she wasn’t free yet. Her legs still wobbly, Summer pushed herself upright.
The balcony door opened easily at her push and she was careful to close it behind her. It took a moment to get her bearings. She’d never been inside these quarters. Although uninhabited, the rooms were furnished. Near the balcony doors, the Sisters provided plenty of light but as she moved farther into the apartment the moons’ light was scant and she banged her shin on a low table.
The heavy table made a scraping sound against the tile and Summer half bent over, her hands clenching, her lips pressed together against a groan, taking quick breaths through her nose against the pain.
When the throbbing in her shin let up a little she hobbled forward, feeling her way to the quarters’ large, ornately carved door.
Summer pressed her ear to the door seam. She couldn’t hear anyone out there but the door was old, and made of thick, heavy carved wood. There was no guarantee that she’d find the hall empty when she opened it.
But standing here sure ain’t getting me home . . .
She wet her lips and cracked the door a sliver.
Dimmed for the night, the lumas still gave off enough illumination to reveal the deserted hallway. A quick look toward her captor’s quarters showed that door remained closed. No outraged roar rose to rattle its hinges.
Still asleep!
Even at this time of night she couldn’t risk using the majestic curving staircases at the front of the building. Many of Ar’ar’s clanbrothers—huge, glowing-eyed, fanged warriors like him—resided here in their ancestral hall. Being the only human meant she would be recognized instantly.
Clinging to the shadows, she headed for back staircase. It had been built centuries ago for servants’ use, when this clanhall was full to bursting with their kind, before the Scourge had wiped out nearly all the females of their species, before that plague made this world home to a dying race—
The echo of approaching footfalls made her duck back into a doorway.
The females of this clan—herself included—numbered only nine but there were hundreds of males. G’hir men were huge, the females smaller, far more delicate, and the heavy sound of boots on the ancient floor meant a male was coming this way.
A warrior.
The footsteps paused. A door down the hall opened, then shut.
A quick glance showed the hall empty for the moment. She raced across to the ancient staircase, her trembling fingers skipping along the wall to keep her balance as she descended the steep stairs.
It wasn’t a matter of if her “mate” would find her missing; it was when. And the real question was just how badly he’d react when he found her gone.
Probably pretty fucking badly . . .
Ar’ar bared his fangs at every male who came near her, even his own brothers. As far as he was concerned, she was his.
If he caught her she might very well wish she’d fallen from the ledge instead—as would anyone who assisted her escape.
’Course she knew better than to trust any of these beasts . . .
Two days of crying and pleading to be returned to Earth hadn’t gotten her anywhere but then she’d wised up. Ar’ar was the Betari’s heir. When she’d actually calmed down enough, she’d made a big show of interest in seeing her “new home.” Ar’ar would someday be their clanfather and was proud as hell of it too so it didn’t take much eye-batting to convince him to show her all around the Betari clan’s settlement. She’d cooed over the buildings and stables and gardens of what the g’hir called an enclosure, so she knew her way around pretty well now.
But more importantly, she’d come up with a way out.
She’d also finally put her tears to good use too, three nights ago publicly sobbing to Ar’ar at the evening meal—before two hundred clanbrothers and his father in the clanhall’s soaring dining room—that human women needed alone time and he never permitted her to go anywhere unescorted. Bewildered and embarrassed, Ar’ar insisted she could go wherever she wanted, even without him—provided she didn’t leave the enclosure.
Similar to a village on Earth, the enclosure had been built around the well—now an ornate fountain—where the clan’s ancestors had gathered to draw water. The oldest, and most important, buildings were located around that central fountain with other structures built farther out as needed. Since the plague struck, the sudden fall in population had left a number of these buildings—especially those on the outer perimeter—empty.
Beyond this settlement, for miles upon miles, lay wild forest controlled by Ar’ar’s clan—and her only way out of their territory.
Well, short of trying to steal a transport ship she didn’t know how to operate. Ar’ar hadn’t been quite confident enough to teach her how to do that.
The enclosure grounds were patrolled by clanbrothers but she hadn’t been able to discover how the Betari timed those rounds.
Which left getting past those watchful aliens and into the forest all about plain, dumb luck.
There weren’t any guards visible from her place in the clanhall’s outside doorway, so hopefully wherever they were they couldn’t see her either. She broke from the clanhall and ran to the next building, concealing herself in the shadow it cast. She paused there a moment, her palms pressed to the rough stone, her blood thundering in her ears, but no warrior cried out at the sight of Ar’ar’s human female roaming the grounds in her nightgown.
She winced against the stones bruising her feet as she trotted from building to building, from shadow to shadow, until, shaking, breathing hard from effort and fear, she made it to the outermost structure of the enclosure.
A family home before the plague struck, located only paces from the edge of the forest, it was here that she’d secreted a pack filled with the supplies she’d pilfered over the last few days.
Ducking inside, already yanking the nightgown off, Summer allowed herself a tight smile. With so few females, g’hir women usually dressed as girly as you could get: long embroidered gowns, sparkling jewels, elaborate hairstyles, delicate shoes.
As the heir’s mate she’d been expected to dress like that every day. It was amazing really, what you could conceal under what looked a lot like an alien prom dress . . .
Getting the clothing out here, even the boots, had been easy. The clan had given her a full wardrobe, already prepared for whatever human mate Ar’ar hunted down, though the fit wasn’t perfect. The shirt, pants, jacket, and boots she changed into had been intended for her to use when riding multari—Hir’s equivalent of horses. The food too was a snap; it was plentiful and available to her at all hours in Ar’ar’s quarters as well in the clanhall’s dining room.
Summer’s lip curled. As a fertile human female, capable of reproducing with the g’hir, she was precious breeding stock; they weren’t about to let her go hungry.
And she knew now they sure as fuck were never going to let her go home.
Another change of clothing, rolled into a tight roll, lay at the bottom of the pack but mostly it held food. She stuffed her nightgown inside and fastened the bag. She wouldn’t need a nightie for her trek through the forest but she wasn’t going to leave anything behind that might hint at the direction she’d gone either.
Evolved to be the perfect hunters, these g’hir were fucking fast. The males stood between six and a half and seven feet tall and were ungodly strong too. She’d learned that quick enough when Ar’ar had kidnapped her not fifty feet from her Uncle Lester’s cabin in Brittle Bridge, North Carolina.
But they possessed a keen sense of smell too—the kind the best bloodhound ever born would envy.
Over the past three days of her “alone time” she’d managed to traverse the whole settlement, even the back stai
rs she’d just used. Crisscrossing this way and that, she touched everything she could, even leaving here and there bits of hair from her hairbrush that she’d secreted into her pockets. She wasn’t sure just how well their sense of smell worked but she was going to do every goddamned thing she could think of to confuse it.
She’d managed to secure one of their weapons too, a small blaster lifted from the clanhall’s stores when Ar’ar wasn’t looking. She hadn’t had a chance to try this one out but she’d wheedled her “mate” into letting her fire his blaster out at the practice range so she had a basic understanding of how it worked. The indicator showed the weapon fully charged, but just how many shots that meant or how powerful those shots were, she didn’t know.
She hadn’t secured a gun belt though so she slipped the weapon into the thigh pocket of her pants. Summer adjusted the fastening on her boot and stood, shouldering her pack.
Insects hummed and nocturnal birds whooped from the forest ahead but from the settlement there was no sign that she’d been missed yet. A few quick steps and she was under the cover of the trees, already bound for the stream at the southwest edge of the Betari settlement.
With the g’hir’s inborn skills as hunters she, a human woman alone on a distant world where no one would help her, probably wouldn’t have stood a chance.
But she wasn’t the same person she was four years ago and nothing—not a race of alien warriors or the light years of space between here and Earth—was going to keep her from getting home.
And one thing she had that these alien fuckers didn’t was a great-granddaddy who had once slipped a Georgia chain gang.
D’other men said it was right impossible, PawPaw would wheeze. His hair was mostly gone by then, wisps of white over a shrunken skull, his face leathery. PawPaw had even fewer teeth than hair but his eyes, pale blue like Summer’s own, were alight with pride and glee. That it were crazy to try and I tell ya I was crazy—crazy like a fox!
Praying some of them fox-crazy genes had made it down four generations and right to her, Summer walked into the creek, just like PawPaw had done in the 1920s to throw off the dogs.
Stolen: Warriors of Hir, Book 3 Page 1
