She flicked a few tears from her cheeks and shook herself. Her task was to get out of this damn hut, although she had no idea how she was going to evade the guard. Lure him inside and take him by surprise? Right, because I can overpower a full grown Tzibir. She wondered if Tratus or Anaby would play along and help her more overtly than they had already.
“Is our guest behaving herself?”
Briator’s booming voice startled her, coming from right outside the hut, as he spoke to the guard, whose answer was too quiet to hear. Gemma examined the knife, remembering how big and overpowering the Tzibir Alpha was. She decided to hope for the best and pretend she was still tied up. Hastily, she hid the knife in the straw behind her, extended her leg toward the stake in the ground as if the rope was in place, shoving straw over the severed strands, and clasped her hands over her wrists behind her.
Maybe he came to gloat and will leave once he’s had his fun.
She might have to wait until the evening to make her escape attempt, even though impatience was grinding on her nerves. Could she sneak out the opposite side of the hut in the dark? She’d need to test the boards, see if she could crawl under or push any aside. The guards might underestimate her, since she was a human. She’d made more than one escape attempt while she was a prisoner on Taranado Three, even though each time she was recaptured and punished.
The door opened and Briator walked into the hut on a wave of feelgood fumes. He staggered ever so slightly and stood, hands on his hips, staring down at her.
Is he actually drunk in the middle of the morning? Gemma bit her lip and stayed silent.
“I’ve been a bit hasty in deciding not to take you for mine,” he said, advancing on her. “Maybe I’ll keep you and another female more to my liking as my own. Or give you to the male I had in mind. Either way, I see no reason to deny myself the experience of bedding you now.”
“I’m not yours to take or give away—I belong to myself.” She grabbed the knife and sprang to her feet, going for his gut since he was so much taller than she was. It was her best target given their mismatch in size and she hoped she could incapacitate him if she hit a vital organ.
Even drunk, Briator had the Badari speed and he deflected her blow. She managed to hang onto the knife as he grabbed her with his other hand and pulled her close. Screaming curses, Gemma slashed his face with the blade, opening a long gash in his cheek before he wrested the knife from her hand. Desperate, she kneed him hard in the groin and had the satisfaction of seeing him double over in pain. She searched frantically in the straw for the knife and exhaled in relief as she touched the hilt. She dodged Briator’s rush toward her stabbed at his armpit, hoping to sever an artery, but he warded off her attack and only suffered a deep cut along the bicep.
The Alpha caught her in a bear hug and tried to strangle her with one huge hand, lifting her off the floor onto her tiptoes in the process. Unable to breathe, she kicked and punched.
All of the sudden his eyes widened, he relaxed his hand and as she fell to the straw, he toppled over as well.
Unbelievably, Camron stood there, stunner in hand. He crossed the distance between them to scoop her into his arms, calling her name, checking her for wounds. Gemma clung to him, trying to catch her breath, trying not to cry. Being in his arms again, both of them safe, was a feeling of pure joy.
Gently, Camron caressed her cheek with a gentle touch and focused on the bruises Briator had inflicted. “It’s healing, I swear,” she said. “The Tzibir healer spent some time here with me.”
“You shouldn’t have had to suffer like this at the hands of Badari, even lowlife Tzibir.” Camron’s voice was low and vibrated with anger.
“How are you here?” she said while wheezing. “How did you escape?”
“Long story. We need to go—”
The door creaked open again and Tratus, Anaby and Stebb entered the hut. The healer went immediately to the fallen Alpha, examining the wounds, which were already healing.
“My mate struck in self-defense,” Camron said urgently, holding Gemma tight.
“So witnessed.” Tratus’s acknowledgment was swift.
“So witnessed,” Anaby said in echo. “He’ll live, superficial wounds only, and of course he’s under the influence of the damn feelgood, as we suspected.”
“Gemma was giving a good account of herself, but the bastard was trying to strangle her. I stunned him.” Camron flashed the weapon but hung onto it. “I should have killed him.”
“When I found out he wasn’t in his quarters I suspected the worst, gathered reinforcements and came to do what we could to help you,” Tratus said to Gemma. “We need to get him into his bed before he wakens. He may not even remember this incident if the wounds are healed by the time he rouses. He’s had blackouts a few times after drinking to excess.”
“Help me get him to his feet,” Anaby said.
The enforcer joined the healer and together the two men were able to haul the Alpha upright, although his head lolled to the side and he was clearly unconscious.
“Don’t waste time here—you need to get going,” Tratus said, looking at Camron and Gemma. “You stole the flyer?”
“Of course.” Gemma could have sworn Camron puffed his chest out a bit over his accomplishment. “Sorry I left you a problem to at the landing field. A few corpses to make disappear.” He lowered his head to meet Gemma’s gaze. “Parryfilmunn has conducted his last hunt. The Khagrish need a new commander of planetary security now.”
“Good.” Relief flooded her, and she leaned on him.
“I made sure the morning guards are all sympathetic, shall we say, but you’ve got no time to spare,” Tratus said. “Your tender reunion is going to have to wait for later. The guard here at the hut will have a tale of being confronted by Camron and stunned, after which he rescued you and you both escaped. Stebb will accompany you out of the encampment to make sure you make it unchallenged, but you must be gone before Briator regains his senses.”
“But he’s a boy,” Gemma said, not willing to allow such a young Badari to take a risk on her behalf.
“He’s an alpha-born,” Tratus said while Stebb nodded. “No one will ask where he is taking you and he can tell Briator if needed that Camron held a weapon on him.” He stuck his hand out. “I’m glad you made it out of the encounter with the Khagrish.”
“With your help.” Camron deployed one talon and slashed his own palm, then extended the bleeding hand to Tratus. “Oath of alliance between us.”
The Tzibir enforcer stared at Camron then at his hand for a moment before slashing his own palm with one of his shorter, thicker nails and then two men shook, their blood running together. “Allies. Now go, quickly.”
Briator moaned and his eyelids fluttered as if to punctuate the urgency of escaping before he awoke.
“If the Khagrish send you human women after all this, please do what you can to have the pack treat them better than I was treated,” Gemma said, touching Tratus’s arm lightly. “I’m grateful for your efforts but it was far from enough.”
“I’ll do what I can within pack law, as set by the Alpha.” The enforcer refused to meet her eyes
Camron took Gemma by the hand and led her out of the hut, walking past the guard who ignored them as if they were invisible. She wondered if Tratus would subject the man to a stun blast to make his story more real. Stebb ran to catch up and jogged beside Camron, indicating which way to go to leave the settlement. Fortunately, the huts used to hold prisoners were on the edge of the fields and seemed to have been originally for agricultural storage purposes. “I assume you landed the flyer on the high plateau?”
“Correct. Close enough to make a quick trip to extract my mate from your leader’s clutches and get away fast.” Camron grinned.
Once they were high on a track winding out of the valley where the cliff dwellings were located, the young Alpha stopped. “I go no further—you’re on your own now. May the goddess grant we meet again under better circumstances.”
“Thank you for your help,” Gemma said as Camron kept her moving. “I’d have been in deep trouble this morning without your knife.”
Stebb only nodded and turned away, heading along the path at a fast pace.
“Will he be in trouble? Will Briator punish Tratus and Anaby for helping us? Should we have asked Stebb or the others to come with us?” The oversight bothered Gemma because, while she had all the confidence in the world in her mate, she had to acknowledge they wouldn’t be free and reunited without the Tzibir assistance.
“No one knows Tratus helped me, and as for you, I’m sure the three of them and the guard did what they could explain or conceal. The human feelgood is taking a terrible toll on their current Alpha. It might even explain some of his actions towards us,” Camron said.
“If Briator is such a bad leader, why didn’t Tratus and others kill him when they had the chance?”
Shaking his head, Camron frowned. “We’re pack animals and we have ironclad pack law. An Alpha can only be killed by another who is alpha or proves his worthiness in the death duel, with direct challenge given and accepted, witnessed by pack members in good standing.”
“So it’s their honor preventing them from deposing a dishonorable leader? Not so sure I’d make the same decision. At the very least couldn’t Tratus take over temporarily and imprison Briator?”
“It’s not our way and the pack probably wouldn’t support such actions.” Brow furrowed, Camron glanced at her. “Does this distress you? Our Alpha is honorable. I’d follow him anywhere without questions or doubts.”
“I’m just trying to understand the world I’ve entered,” she said. “Not casting aspersions on the man you follow. I’ve seen for myself what a high standard you hold yourself to, so I believe you’d demand the same or more from your leader.”
“Fair enough. It’s not much further now—can you make it?”
“I’ll make it. I’m tough.” She wasn’t about to be defeated.
He laughed and the carefree sound soothed her nerves. “Indeed you are. The goddess blessed me when you agreed to be my mate.”
As she reached the top of the steep ascent and prepared to go the last few steps to the plateau above, Gemma leaned over to catch her breath and looked at the Tzibir settlement in the valley below. “I hate to think of other women being subjected to what I endured here, or much worse.”
Camron took her elbow to urge her gently onward. “We can’t do anything about the situation right now. I believe Tratus when he says he’ll try to stand between the women and harm. If you’d been plucked from the lab’s cell and brought here, without ever meeting me, how would you have reacted?”
“Depends on how the Tzibir treated me. If I was allowed to be a member of the settlement and to choose for myself whether to accept a man’s advances or remain alone, it would be better than dying in a Khagrish experiment. If Briator intends to keep a harem and dole out other women like favors, then I’d try to kill him and escape.” She gestured at the desolate cliffs and scrub brush and frowned. “Although escape to where is a good question.”
“I’ve solved the problem for us, by hijacking Parryfilmunn’s flyer.” Obviously pleased with himself, Camron raised his eyebrows and his eyes glowed amber. Cresting a small rise on the path brought the craft into view. “My Alpha will do what he can to help any humans brought here, but the politics are tricky. The best hope overall probably lies in this man Tratus has allegiance to, the would-be Alpha who was sent on the combat mission.”
“Do you know him?”
Camron shook his head. “Our packs were rivals for survival and didn’t mix much. In the labs, although we were also rivals, the pack with canine DNA and our felinoid group spent more time together, in competition in all ways but with a certain camaraderie. The relationship of the two packs carried over into the sanctuary valley. The canine Alpha, Jamokan, pledged a blood oath to Jill, my Alpha’s mate and therefore to Aydarr. We all work together smoothly and one of them, Darik, has a human mate.”
“Stebb told me he had an oath of alliance with someone named Yonn,” she said.
“He’s an alpha-to-be, in Generation 10, a worthy individual.” Camron laughed. “There’s so much to tell you about the pack and the valley and life there that I can’t wait to share. I’m eager for my packmates to meet you.” When they reached the flyer, Camron opened the portal and escorted her inside. “Sit with me in the cockpit?”
“Of course.” She waved a hand at the empty seats. “I’m not going to sit here like some spoiled Socialite. I don’t want to be even this far away from you ever again.”
Walking all the way forward, Gemma slid into the co-pilot’s chair while Camron took the controls from his place in the other seat and prepared to lift off. She repressed a shiver as she remembered the last flyer they’d been in together. Yunnivannx had been in the co-pilot’s seat on the ill-fated trip and Camron had had to kill her after the crash. No time for bad memories.
The flyer rose into the sky with a jerk. As she gasped and locked her hands on the arms of her seat, Camron gave her a grin. “This is only my second takeoff outside of the simulator.”
“Seems fine to me. A bump or two here and there is nothing.” She was giddy with joy at finally being free of Khagrish pursuit and Tzibir imprisonment. “How long till we reach your valley?”
“A few hours. Obviously I can’t fly straight there – we have protocols for how to approach the valley and how to request permission to land.” Camron pushed the seat back. “I’ve engaged the auto pilot for now, but I intend to remain right here and keep an eye on things. No telling if the Khagrish will send someone out to search for Parryfilmunn when he fails to report in. I might have to do some fancy evasive maneuvers but the sky is empty for now.” He held out his arms to her.
Gemma slipped from her seat and took the two steps to his, sitting on his lap and holding tight as he hugged her.
Camron tilted her face to his with one hand and they kissed, gently at first and then more urgently. Gemma licked his lips and the response from her mate was instant, as he allowed her entry and plundered her mouth in turn. She didn’t know if she could ever let him go, her need to be close to him and sheltered by him was so powerful.
“Tratus gave me your message,” Camron said as she cuddled with him after the kiss ended. “I hope I lived up to your belief in me.”
“Absolutely. I knew you’d never leave me, not while there was any strength in your body.” She kissed his cheek as he checked on a beeping instrument and silenced the alarm. “I never had any doubt. I’ve chosen my mate wisely. I love you very much, you know.”
He tapped his chest over the heart and smiled. “I know. The mate bond tells me so with every beat of my heart. And I love you more than life itself.”
“Your goddess blessed us.”
“The Great Mother knows what she’s doing all right.” Now he frowned and touched her cheek carefully. “How badly did Briator hurt you?”
“He broke my cheekbone,” she said. “But Anaby healed me. He had some trouble doing the magic, or so he said, but he was persistent and I was grateful.”
Camron took a deep breath and closed his eyes, which had gone hot and glowing at the news of the injury she’d sustained. “I should have killed Briator when I had the chance, in the hut.”
“I understand why you didn’t. You couldn’t, could you? Not in cold blood.” She admired the Badari code of ethics and was secretly glad her mate was such a principled person.
He opened his eyes again, retracted his talons and nodded. “We Badari have a strict code of conduct for ourselves, whether the Tzibir follow it any longer or not.” Forehead wrinkled in a frown, he opened his mouth to say something else then hesitated.
“What is it?” She smoothed his hair away from his forehead and hugged him. “You can say anything you need to, to me.”
“Do you regret your choice, knowing I’m only a soldier, not an enforcer or an Alpha? I swear I could have killed Briator the first time we met, had he accepted combat challenge from me, because I’d have been fighting for you, which gave me strength beyond my normal state.”
Framing his face with her hands, she stared into his eyes, warmed by their fire and a little dazzled too. “You are exactly the man I need and the man I love. What’s between the two of us is what matters, not your rank in the pack or whether you can pin somebody in a wrestling match or however your pack determines rank. Okay?”
“Soothing words, a balm to my heart.” He kissed her again, slowly and with passion. “I wish we dared to leave the flyer on autopilot untended for a while. The seats in some of the rows fold into one and we could—”
“Not that I’m not willing and eager, but the last time I was in a flyer the ride ended badly, if you’ll recall.” She rubbed noses with him. “I can wait until this pack of yours assigns us a place with a bed. Even if it is a cave.” A memory stirred in the back of her mind and Gemma asked, “Why did you say the people in the valley would be so happy to have another doctor? Are there so many injuries and illnesses?”
“The doctor we have is pregnant with the first Badari-human child,” he said, taking her by surprise. “We have no other medical personnel with any knowledge of babies, other than one nurse but as I understand matters, he’s more of a trauma specialist. Of course the Badari healers not only have no experience with childbirth, their powers are reluctant to work on humans. Are you experienced with delivering babies?”
Gemma laughed, flashing back to good memories of her past this time. “The NGO I used to work for placed a high priority on maternal and infant health issues. I’ve delivered literally thousands of babies in my career. I can’t wait to meet your pregnant doctor.”
“Her name is Megan Garrison and she’s the mate to Mateer, the senior enforcer,” Camron said.
“I think I’ve actually heard of her. I read a few papers she wrote, on trauma issues. When’s the baby due?”
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