That stopped him cold, his face shocked. “He cannot. It would break the All Mother’s sacred decree. It would be an offense to the Goddess and violate Hir law. Even Mirak would not dare!”
“Oh, really? Have you met the son of a bitch?”
She could see from his expression that not only had he met the Betari clanfather, he was sifting through what the man was capable of, what he might do to ensure the continuation of his own bloodline . . .
Summer folded her arms. “Yeah, probably starting to see the reason for the whole ‘escape’ thing, now, huh?”
“I cannot deny that they lied to me as to what they sought,” he allowed. “I still cannot fathom why they would not admit they sought the mate of Ar’ar . . .”
“Maybe because they’re a bunch of kidnapping, lying sleezebags.”
He studied her for a moment then gave a reluctant nod. “Very well. You have persuaded me.”
Summer blinked. “You mean you’ll—”
“I will take you to the Erah clanhall,” he interrupted. “There you may make your decision known to our clanfather. He will see to it your choice is heard by the Ruling Council. You need only wait until the moon’s cycle ends and then you will be returned to your world.”
Summer’s hands clenched into fists. Jesus, what does it take to get through to this guy?
“I shouldn’t have to wait at all! It’s my choice—my life—and I don’t have another—what, three weeks?—for this bullshit! I have to be back in Brittle Bridge in seven days!”
“Brittle Bridge?”
She waved her hand impatiently. “It’s the town—territory—where I come from.”
“Why?” he asked, frowning. “Why seven days? What demands you return within that time?”
Summer pressed her lips together and a heaviness seemed to settle over him.
“You do not trust me enough to say.”
“Look at it this way—” she began with a toss of her head. “I trust you a hell of a lot more than I’ve ever trusted any g’hir.” Her throat tightened. “Just believe me when I say I have to get back there in seven days. No matter what it takes.”
“I will take you to the Erah clanhall,” he promised. “I will see to it that you can make your plea to my father.”
“But—will he help me get home? Get home in time?”
“I do not know,” Ke’lar said quietly. “My father is a good man, a fair and compassionate ruler. I know he will do what is right.”
It sure wasn’t much, but at least it was something. At least he wasn’t sending her back to Ar’ar.
Still—
“How long will it take us to get to the Erah clanhall? I don’t have a lot of time.”
He considered. “Three days, at least.”
“Three days! Isn’t there a faster way?”
He shook his head. “I cannot allow the Betari proof of your presence in our territory, not until we have reached the stronghold of our clanhall, not until we have spoken to my father. We must go deeper into Erah lands first to avoid the places where our territories touch those of the Betari, then we will head south to the clanhall. To do this—to keep you safely from their sight—will add a day to our travels. I have only one mount and she must carry the supplies of the camp, as well as us. We can only push her so hard for so long. She will need the nights to rest.” He glanced toward the shelter’s opening, to the moonlight brightening the landscape beyond. “It is late but I think she will be able to carry us a few hours tonight. The sooner we are away from the border of their lands, the safer we will be.”
Sure wasn’t what she’d hoped for, but riding with him on a multari was going to be a hell of a lot faster than trying to get anywhere alone on foot. And there was a chance, maybe even a good one, that she could convince Ke’lar’s father to intervene on her behalf, to get her home in time . . .
“Okay.” She gave a nod. “What can I do to help?”
“Stay out of my way,” he said bluntly. “I can break camp faster if I work alone. I will begin by saddling the multari and getting her ready to load our supplies.” He glanced at her. “You said you had other clothes. You can get dressed.”
Summer’s face went hot. She’d almost forgotten that she was still sitting here in just a towel.
“Right,” she mumbled. “Uh, my boots and my other clothes are still out on that rock—”
“I will tend to your clothes but you should not wear the boots until the medpatches have had some time to repair the injuries to your feet. ” He started pulling things from where they hung about the shelter, pulling packs and supplies together. “We will likely travel hours before I judge it is safe to rest in any case.”
He offered her the pack she’d brought with her, still covered with dried mud. “Empty this and I will clean it as well.”
She reached out to take the bag but he kept hold of it and, confused, she met his eyes.
“Do not underestimate the risks we take,” he growled. “The enmity between our clans is ancient and runs very deep. Despite the treaty that forbids their trespass into Erah territory I do not trust the Betari not to breach our borders in search of you. If we do not reach the Erah clanhall and the protection of my clanbrothers—if they find you with me, the Betari will be incensed; they will accuse me—and with good cause—of stealing you. It will give them every right by law to invade our territory, exact revenge, and take you back by force.”
Summer’s mouth tightened. “I don’t suppose anyone will even stop to consider that I might have a say in this.”
A flash of . . . something passed over his features, gone so fast that she, who had so little experience with their species, couldn’t begin to discern it.
“They must not find us,” he continued. “And if we are to succeed, if we are to reach the Erah clanhall, you must vow to follow my orders at all times. You must obey me instantly, without question.”
“Like a slave? Like a good g’hir mate?”
“Like one who is wholly unfamiliar with the wilderness of Hir,” he said, annoyed. “If a fethon slithers within inches of you I cannot take the time to formally ask that you hold still before I shoot it. If I ask you to stop, you will stop. If I say run, you will run. Are we agreed? Or shall we pass the night here so that you may think on it till morning?”
She wanted to argue, she really did, but Summer was practical enough to admit that she’d been lucky as hell when she’d run into the cay’ik. If she’d missed, or just wounded it, she’d be a cay’ik snack right now. Like it or not, this was an alien warrior who knew his own world very well. He knew the way—and the dangers—and he was willing to risk his life to take her to his family’s clanhall, the safest way he knew how.
All she had to do, for once in her life, was shut the hell up, follow the rules, and they would both come out of this fine.
Man, we are so screwed . . .
“Sure.” She gave a nod. “Fine. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the Jungle Jim of Hir.”
Clearly he caught the sarcasm, even if he didn’t get the reference. His jaw tightened.
Suddenly she sobered. There was a countdown happening and just talking here was wasting precious time.
“Yes,” she said, solemn now. “You lead, I’ll follow. I’ll do whatever you say. Just get me to the Erah clanhall. Help me get home.”
“I will bring you safely to the clanhall and to my father,” he said, plainly unwilling to promise more.” His gaze swept over her. “Get dressed. We depart as soon as I finish breaking camp.”
Five
“What are you doing?” Summer demanded as Ke’lar brought the multari to a halt and slid from the saddle behind her. “Why are we stopping?”
Not that the past couple hours had been fun—or comfortable either. They rode double, a tight fit on the g’hir saddle, she in front, her back pressed to the warmth of his body, his thighs pressed to the back of hers. The saddle had a handhold at the front that—since the multari stood at least eighteen hands high and t
he only light was courtesy of the Sister moons—Summer gripped white-knuckled as they sped over the gently hilly terrain of the westernmost Erah land. But Ke’lar wasn’t content to trust her safety to her own efforts, his massive arm encircling her waist to keep her securely on the beast, the reins held easily in one hand as they rode.
His greater height had her head resting in the curve of his shoulder and neck as they rode, his cheek against her temple, his skin smooth and free of stubble despite the late hour. G’hir males, despite their thick hair and heavy eyebrows, didn’t grow beards.
Her back felt cold without him behind her—g’hir body temperature was naturally higher than a human’s—and she shivered a bit with the chill. Her boots were somewhere in the packs but he’d found her some of his own soft foot coverings—too big of course—to keep her feet warm as they dangled over the multari’s sides.
He took the beast’s reins in hand and started to lead her at a walk. “We are far enough into the Erah territory now. The Betari would be foolish to venture this far into our lands, even to seek a stolen female.”
“I thought the whole point was to get to your clanhall quick. We should be riding like a bat out of hell!”
He gave her a quick, confused look and Summer sighed inwardly. Ar’ar had attached the translator chip to the language center of her brain when he’d first her brought her onto his ship. Since then she’d learned the thing did some peculiar and unexpected things when translating English idioms onto the g’hir side of things.
“I mean,” she began before he could ask what a flying mammal would be doing in the human underworld, “we should continue to travel as fast as we can. Between her speed and your night vision we were making seriously good time.”
“Pushing our only multari beyond her capabilities will only leave us walking the entire way rather than part of it—and shouldering our own supplies as well.”
“Wait, you’re kidding, right? You’re going to walk her? For how long??”
“Beya is growing fatigued carrying so much weight. She is not young. We cannot ride her to exhaustion.”
“You really care about this thing, don’t you?” she blurted.
His gaze snapped to her from his place leading the multari. “That surprises you?”
“I don’t know.” She tucked her hair behind her ears—again. Dozens of girly hair accessories back in the dressing room they gave her at the Betari clanhall and she hadn’t even grabbed a clip to hold her hair back. “Yeah, I guess so.”
His nostrils flared. “Truly, you do think the g’hir monsters if you believe us incapable of attachment.”
“Look, I didn’t mean . . . I’m sure your people have feelings, anyway.”
“How observant of you,” he grumbled then indicated the multari with a g’hir’s nod and his tone softened. “Beya came to me as a filly, a gift from my father when I reached nine summers, with clumsy legs too long for her body and a playful heart.” He stroked the animal’s nose with the palm of his hand and she tossed her head a bit as if to encourage him to continue. “I trained her myself, rising early to feed and water her. She was my sole companion on the many long and lonely ventures into the wilderness needed to earn my place as a warrior. But that was twenty years ago. She has this summer left . . . perhaps one more.” His voice was fond but heavy too, his touch gentle on the mount’s nose. “And then I, like so many of our warriors, will walk alone.”
“Why haven’t you gone to Earth then?” Summer demanded. “Captured yourself a human woman like Ar’ar did?”
He turned his face away, leading the multari again. “Very few are selected for the competitions. Even fewer win the chance to journey to your world to hunt a mate.”
“I thought—”
He made a huffing sound, a bitter g’hir chuckle. “What? That any male who wished it was provided with the location of your homeworld? That we would let loose millions upon millions of warriors to hunt there unchecked?”
“Why haven’t you?” she demanded. “You could. I’ve seen your people’s technology for myself, up close and personal. My world wouldn’t stand a chance against you.”
“You—human females—our last and only chance of survival,” he said grimly. “To invade your world—we would bring you to the brink of destruction as readily as those who unleashed the Scourge upon us have.”
“The Zerar.” That story—of how their enemies created and introduced the plague called the Scourge, the disease that had killed nine of ten of the g’hir female population in a matter of weeks, while leaving the males alive—she’d heard during her time with the Betari.
“How old were you, Ke’lar? When the plague came here?”
“Five summers,” he said, without looking back, without breaking stride. “I do not remember a time when Hir was not a graveyard, when mine was not a race looking into the face of its own extinction.”
“I’m sorry.” Her throat was tight, recalling the Betari enclosure’s monument, the thousands of remembrance stones sparkling under the suns to honor their lost females, women, girls, babies . . . “I’m sorry for what the Zerar did to your people.”
He didn’t reply. She shifted in the saddle uncomfortably, the unspoken retort hanging in the air—that if she were truly sorry, truly cared about the survival of their kind, she would accept Ar’ar as her mate and provide the g’hir with the children they needed so badly.
“So you seem young and healthy,” she said, her throat tight. “Fast enough to catch yourself a human woman for certain.”
“I would gladly hunt a mate from your world if I could. I would lay down my life for her. Bleed myself dry for her happiness.”
“Her happiness?” she scoffed. “You know, I don’t understand you at all, Ke’lar. How can you claim to feel any respect for women—for our rights and wishes—if you’d hunt us like animals?”
His fangs flashed in the moonlight. “I would give a day’s blood to the Goddess in thanks for the chance. I would have treasured her, my human mate, with every breath.” He turned his face away, walking again. “But I will never be permitted to compete. I will never be among those who journey to your world.”
“Why not?”
The reins in his hand were slack and Summer realized Beya, her big head lowered to be level with Ke’lar’s, was not being led at all but walking contentedly with him.
“A number of reasons,” he said, just when she had begun to think he wouldn’t answer her at all. “I am the second of our clanfather’s sons. My brother Ra’kur has his Jenna to lead when he becomes clanfather. My mate would have little chance of becoming a clanmother. I will not be chosen when other clans lack a female to lead. I am a second son but had the plague not come . . .” His voice was tight. “I love my brother. We have always been best friends as well as brothers and no one knows me better but—may the All Mother forgive me—I . . . envy him.”
“Because he will lead the clan? Because you want to be clanfather?”
Ke’lar gave a short huffing laugh. “If you knew me better you would not ask that. A clanfather must be the perfect balance of the All Mother’s sky children: powerful as the Brothers’ morning rise with the coolness of mind of the Sister moons.”
Summer glanced at his shoulders, the breadth of his back, the astonishing strength of his body. “And you don’t think you’re powerful?”
“I am too much of the Brothers, with too much sunfire in my essence,” he said easily. “And not nearly enough moon. I am told I take after my mother in that way but I could not say. My father loved her greatly but from what I have been told of her, she, like me, would follow her fire and go her own way. Ra’kur was once like me, one who also always chafed against the rules. That is the fire that sent him into the stars and ultimately to find your world. My fire sent me to forest. Perhaps it simply suits my nature better. That way I have no one to argue with but Beya”—he threw Summer a smile—“and out of pity she lets me win. But since he found his Jenna, Ra’kur has found his balance, the moonli
ght to his fire. It is best for all that Ra’kur will be clanfather and in that I am content.”
“Was that why Ar’ar got to go to Earth but not you? Because he’s the heir?”
“The Betari are a powerful clan and wield great influence. Mirak would do whatever was necessary to ensure that their enclosure has a clanmother.”
“What will they do?” she wondered suddenly. “Now that I’ve run off?”
“I do not know. To publicly forswear a mate—as you intend to abjure Ar’ar when we reach the Erah clanhall—is shaming to him. Even more so to a proud man, the heir of a powerful enclosure.” By the light of the Sisters his shoulders were tense. “His father may demand compensation from the Council for the loss of potential clanmother by our interference.”
Her hold tightened on the saddle, her heart thumping in her chest. “Wait—you don’t mean Ar’ar will get a crack at another human woman? If he can’t have me he gets to go back to Earth and grab some other woman?”
“You are jealous?” Ke’lar was looking back at her, his glowing blue eyes cool in the moonlight. “That your mate might seek another female?”
She grimaced. “God no! But that means—I’m saving myself but condemning another woman to take my place here.”
He gave a shrug. “Human females have shown themselves just as happy as g’hir women to be claimed by a strong mate. Ra’kur’s mate is loved and happy, content to live at our enclosure.”
Summer shook her head. “I still can’t believe Jenna’s here. I can’t believe she’s—she’s—”
“Mate to my brother? Mate to an alien monster?”
“Hey! I didn’t say—!”
“You did,” he growled sharply. “Not a few short hours ago while I tended your injuries.”
“I was talking about Ar’ar,” she grumbled. “In case you didn’t notice, he’s kind of a dick.”
Apparently that made it through the translation matrix just fine because he burst out in a g’hir’s huffing laugh.
He looked back at her, his luminous eyes crinkled with humor, and Summer, for the first time in a week, laughed too.
Stolen: Warriors of Hir, Book 3 Page 5
