Abducted (Blue Barbarian Series Book 1)

by Rena Marks

  Valencia nods. Still in my arms, she opens her eyes wide. I concentrate on the thingy in my head and feel the pulsing grow. I stare into her eyes and hope it hits quickly, before she blinks and misses it. Hell, I’m not even sure how I’ll control it. I know I want to transfer just two languages, but that’s easier said than done.

  The laser of red light shoots out like electricity, lighting up the entire cave and scaring us all. I gasp with the pain of it, and so does Valencia.

  I feel myself falling, and Drakar reaches for me. I’m not even sure what happens to Valencia.

  Lucie:

  Niki looks like she’s gone into shock. Her face freezes when the beam shoots out and she stares sightlessly ahead. Both she and Valencia fall, and Drakar reaches for Niki, so I grab Valencia. Rayhaan, who is always nearby, helps me settle her into my lap, and I rock her. Hell, it’s our fault she’s so terrified. If I hadn’t been shamelessly flirting with the big savage beast, I would have paid more attention to her. I would have explained that the barbarian named Atareek was interested in her and wouldn’t hurt her. But no, I was too focused on exploring things between myself and Rayhaan than taking care of poor Valencia.

  “What the hell was that?” Jezebel asks. She’s the most vocal of the group.

  “That was a language-transference.”

  “I thought she wasn’t going to do it until we arrive?”

  “She decided to do it today because Valencia is too confused. She’s terrified. She’s the only one that doesn’t know what’s going on. Imagine being surrounded by people who don’t know your language and there’s huge blue men. The rest of us can communicate with them without fear, because we have Niki to translate. She doesn’t even have that. I tried with my mangled French, but it’s not good enough.”

  Valencia moans, and I calm her like I would a baby. “Shh, it’s all right. Relax.”

  Her eyes spring open. “Wha—what?”

  “English,” Miranda says, excitedly. “You spoke English.”

  I switch to Blaedonian. “Do you understand this?”

  She answers in the alien language. “Yes. What is it?”

  “It’s the language of the blue men.”

  “How is this possible?”

  I sigh. “You’ve missed out on a lot of information that the other girls could understand. When we were abducted by the gray aliens, they altered Niki to speak other languages. She can transfer them, like she did for me and now for you. But it takes a lot out of her and she wasn’t healed yet. But she decided to do so for you because you were so terrified.”

  “One of them,”—her eyes dart to one of the men—“one of them reached for me.”

  Atareek speaks out in his language. “You cried out in your sleep. You were distressed. I wanted to tell you to awaken, that morning was here anyway. I thought perhaps we could go outside and I would show you the beauty of the sunrise.”

  Valencia stares at him. “That’s what it was? I—I’m so sorry. I was terrified from my nightmare and I didn’t understand.” She turns to me. “Things are so much clearer now.”

  We both look over at Drakar, who holds Niki in his arms. “How is she?” I ask him.

  “She is unconscious.” His face is grim.

  I try to comfort him. “She’s a strong person, Drakar. She’ll be fine. We’ll hurry to your village where your doctor can help her.”

  “Medicine woman,” he murmurs. “The healer is my mother.”

  The blue barbarian who had frightened Valencia holds out his hand to her. “Come. Let us go outside to enjoy. We will gather the mouth-cleaning brushes from the Ikticor tree for the others. The fruits that keep your skin moist so that you do not burn in our sunlight. I will teach you about our land, so that you may enjoy it as we do. And our king may tend to his mate.”

  Translation is magic, I think, as Valencia trustingly places her hand in that of the much larger blue barbarian. He helps her to her feet and slowly pushes the boulder from the mouth of the cave. Together, they wander outside.

  “Where are they going?” Miranda asks.

  “To gather us toothbrushes and sunscreen for the trip. We need to get to the village as soon as possible.” I look at Niki, trying not to say anything to remind Drakar of her fragile health. He’s busy staring down at her, and holding her against his hugely muscled chest. I try to imagine things through Valencia’s eyes, and I’m immediately ashamed that I didn’t pay more attention to her.

  When I first awoke from the alien-induced sleep and met Drakar, he didn’t wear the fierce warpaint he has on now. It makes him look much more savage. And now, there are other huge, blue warriors? I know they’re safe, but her first memory was of seven feet of muscled, terrifying, vicious-looking barbarians.

  Rayhaan takes over. He is Drakar’s second in command and steps into the role whenever Drakar can’t.

  “Maca and Aschero, go make the trail mix from the meat we smoked last night. Jeroc and Kalki, go gather some fruit and nuts for their mix. Loshi and Nyok, prepare the cave for clean up. Each of you try to communicate with a female to take with you, so they may start learning our ways.”

  I explain what is happening to the girls, even as the men who’ve had instruction rise to do his bidding. “I’ll help you,” Jillian says to one, even though they don’t understand each other. She points to the outer cave and he holds his arm out for her to take. She’s a little bit of a tramp and doesn’t hesitate to wrap her hand around his forearm. They begin to disperse and someone asks me the word for the bathroom.

  “Try…yon..got or something.”

  It has a weird pronunciation and isn’t the easiest to remember.

  Rayhaan helps me out. “Trisgnot.”

  “Tris-n-yot,” I say.

  He motions to someone and he rises to lead the women.

  “Bathroom run,” I murmur.

  The rest of the gals head with him and now it’s just me and Rayhaan with Drakar.

  “Take her back to your bedroll,” Rayhaan says to Drakar. “Take care of your mate. Lucie and I will gather materials to make a travois. We will carry Niki as much as needed. She is our reverent queen.”

  Reverent queen? Like the reverent mother? Oh, boy, poor Niki has no idea.

  Drakar nods, and then lifts her to hold close to his chest as he heads back to where they’d spent the night. Men start to roll up the bedding, hanging the furs in one of the storage caves.

  “So the next person who stays in the cave is well supplied,” Rayhaan tells me. “We leave things the way we find them. You replace the wood you have used for the fire. You replace the supply of dried meats and trail mix you have used so there is always a fresh supply.”

  I nod.

  “Come, we will gather thick branches to use as poles for the travois.” He leads me outside, where the light is a soft glow of morning. A pink of a day.

  He’s completely businesslike today.

  Like last night he wasn’t fingering me in the furs to the sounds of Niki and Drakar having sex.

  Chapter Eight

  Drakar:

  I knew there was no way to convince Niki not to do the transference. As chief of my tribe, my head knew it was necessary. But as Niki’s mate, my heart believes otherwise. I can’t help but feel terror that we have damaged something inside her head for another girl’s convenience.

  As soon as I think this way, I feel bad. I know it was not convenience. The one they call Valencia was terrified to the point of an inability to function. But her function comes at the cost of my Niki’s health.

  I bathe and re-dress my mate. Tenderly, I braid her hair and make a crown of feathers to weave into the front portion. The feathers will jut out and block the sun from her face as she lies on the travois. I bathe quickly also.

  Atareek enters with the small female, Valencia. He brings me a piece of the Aglaia fruit to rub onto Niki’s skin. Tenderly I rub it in, and then gather her into my arms again. Atareek brings the fur from our nest and Valencia gathers her cape.

/>   “The white of her cape will help reflect the sunlight,” she says, quite comfortable in my language. My Niki did well with the transference. She would be proud of Valencia.

  I nod.

  I see the way Atareek watches Valencia and I know there is something more there between them. Soon he will ask my permission to advance. I am leery, because we do not know yet of the differences between our cultures. It is up to me and Niki to figure these things out.

  I carry my mate to the outside where four of my men each hold a pole for the travois that will carry Niki. The poles have been plucked smooth of the smaller sucker branches that normally grow from them. Atareek hands her fur to Rayhaan. With a knife, Rayhaan pokes holes into the sides. From experience, he knows exactly how far the placement of each should be to keep strength in the skin of the leather. I lay her gently onto it and Valencia hands me her cape to tuck around her. Her feather headdress shields the sun from her face, and gives her a regal look, like the queen that she is. But I worry. Not once did she wake.

  I think back to the days when I first saw the human females, with their strangely colored skin and hair. They are a tiny people with barely any muscle tone. Who would have thought I’d find this creature’s beauty breathtaking? I cannot wait for the people of my tribe to meet her.

  And soon enough, this beautiful female will bear the next heir to the throne. I wonder what my babe will look like? Will his skin be blue, or pink? Will she be small like Niki? Or larger, like me? I even wonder if his hair will take on the glorious colors that Niki’s has.

  I find I cannot wait until she swells.

  Two of my men roll the boulder over the outside of the cave, and we set out. A skin of trail mix is passed to me, and I begin to snack. I must keep up my strength for my mate.

  It worries me that Niki didn’t even get food in her before her collapse.

  She sleeps the entire day away and it makes for a somber trip home. We stop only for an hour to rest, eat fruit and roast a small bunlak. Finding the bunlak nest is a treat. The creature scuttles across the ground on many legs. The legs of one creature will feed six people. I know the human females love to eat legs of creatures. One human who ate it back on the spaceship called it Kentucken something. They probably prefer the darker meat.

  I take a piece of fur, dip it in my water skin, and wet Niki’s face.

  “Niki,” I whisper. Slowly my mate wakes, though her eyes look glazed. “I need you to eat a little and drink.”

  She takes a few bites and a couple of swallows of water and then falls back to sleep. Rayhaan takes the inner, hollow vein of a sharhysk. Niki called it a bird-fish. He sets it in the sun to dry and harden while we eat.

  “Where did you find that?” I ask.

  “It was in my box of food you brought from the alien-ship.”

  The ship’s strange vessel processed the vein, which is convenient that it ended up in Rayhaan’s meal. The humans would have thrown the piece away. It is rubbery and inedible until it is dried, where it becomes quite strong.

  Rayhaan gathers the vein when we are ready to leave. It is stiff and hard now. He pokes it through an aglaia fruit with ease, and I wake Niki again. He holds it to her lips to take a sip. She takes one and I beg her to take one more. Then she falls back asleep, and he hangs the fruit around my neck from the vines which grow around it. I will continue to nourish my mate with it.

  We travel at an exhausting pace, and I refuse to let the humans stop when they are weary. Every now and then, a hunter will pick up a small female and carry her. It hardly takes any strength for one of us, as they are small and weigh nothing. But for the independent females, it feels odd and they squeal when we lift them.

  Once their tiredness reaches a certain level though, they no longer complain but welcome the rides.

  We reach another cave right before dark and head in for the night. This night is somber. The females are weary. The men go to hunt dinner and I lay Niki down inside, adding more furs underneath her travois to make a soft nest. Then I show the one with the strange-colored hair what the hu-maans call a bathroom and I show a handful of the females how to make fire in the pit and arrange the rocks to have a baking ledge. It takes less time for dinner if the fire is already roaring by the time the hunters arrive.

  This cave is a bit smaller and does not have a pool like the other. I show the females that what they call the bidet is also used as a quick wash up to remove the day’s dust and sweat.

  Finally, I wake Niki.

  She moans, but I need her to stay up. She must eat a meal. I worry that reverent mother—our healer—is too far away. I cuddle her in my arms and keep kissing her face until she wakes fully. She tastes of the aglaia, which I rubbed onto every inch of her delicate skin.

  “Drakar?” she whispers.

  “Who else would it be, my love?” I chide.

  “Head hurts.” The pain shows in her voice.

  “I know. I need you to eat and drink, and tomorrow we will carry you again.”

  “Again? What do you mean?” she opens her eyes and looks around, and sees the rest of the people down at the end of the cave. “This is a different cave?” she asks.

  “Yes. We traveled all day.”

  “We did? I must be too heavy to carry.”

  “Of course you are not. We carried many of the women. I drove a hard pace today, and they are exhausted. Do you hear how there is no chatter?”

  The entire crowd is strangely silent, with just the smacking of lips as they eat the roasted meat and mehkyakki the men brought. At this cave, the mehkyakki conveniently grows around it and is plentiful. I prop Nikki higher with the roll of furs behind her back, and begin to feed her.

  A bit of mehkyakki to start. I have smashed her portion with my fingers and added water to make a smooth paste. A plant one of the women called a cactus was used to extract the creamy inner liquid to add richness. She had watched me, horrified as I squeezed the leaf dry of its fluid into the bowl of mehkyakki.

  “What is it?” Nikki asks.

  “Mehkyakki. You ate the leaves of the plant for dinner last night. This is the same plant, but the tuber portion that grows beneath the ground.”

  “Tastes kind like mashed potatoes,” she says. “But it’s more yellow.”

  I do not know what that is. I give her a bite-sized piece of meat.

  She chews. “It’s good.”

  “Why are you continually surprised?”

  “Because the creatures are so ugly.”

  “Here, have a drink.”

  She sips. “Is this a straw?”

  Is that her word for the vein we have hardened? “I imagine. You suck on one end to draw the liquid up.”

  “Yes, that’s a straw,” she says happily, and sucks up the juice from the aglaia. She seems a lot better.

  I am satisfied she eats enough right before she tires again, and pushes my hands away when I offer her more. “Tell me what’s going on with everyone,” she says. “How’s Valencia?”

  “She is good now that she understands what is going on. She was the first to go outside this morning with Atareek. They gathered what you call toothbristles and sunscreen for our travels.”

  “Toothbrushes,” she says and her voice is starting to slur as it does when we drink too much of the rancid sap from ancient trees. When we add water, it burns like fire as it goes down the throat.

  I motion to Rayhaan and he brings me a bowl of water with a small soapcake and a washrag. He sits with us as I begin to sponge Niki’s arms.

  “How long before we arrive?” Niki asks Rayhaan.

  His eyes wander over to the women, as if he’s distracted. “We picked up speed today. We should arrive tomorrow instead of spending one more night in the caves.”

  “Who are you watching?” she asks in the same tone of voice. Too late, I realize it’s a trick.

  Distracted, he responds. “Lucie.”

  When he realizes what he’s said, his eyes cut back to me.

  “Do you like her?�
�� Niki asks, eyes narrowed. She is protective of her first friend.

  “She is my duty,” he says.

  I can tell it’s the wrong answer by the angry flush across Niki’s delicate cheeks.

  “We’re not duties,” she tells him. “If you don’t wish to care for her, set her free.” Niki’s voice carries, and Lucie looks our way. At first I think she’s heard, but then she turns back to Aschero and laughs at something he says.

  Rayhaan looks crestfallen.

  I sigh at the sappy look on my right-hand’s face. It is disgusting the way a seven-foot tall warrior with the strength of the royal line pines for a small, feisty, female half his size. I scowl, until Niki scowls at me.

  I immediately clear my face of my mood, and continue to scrub her tiny toes. There is color on the toenails, and it is as blue as my skin. How odd, the color matches me. We are so perfect for each other. I scrub harder, and I am alarmed when a small piece falls off.

  I have broken my mate. I pick up the piece of blue and try to put it back onto her toenail.

  “Baby, it’s just toenail polish. It’s okay.”

  Rayhaan grunts, but I ignore him as I focus on her slim ankles.

  “Call her over here,” Niki says to Rayhaan.

  He turns over his shoulder and says the one English word he knows. “Looshie.”

  Lucie looks up and then rises. She walks slowly toward us, and ignores Rayhaan as she approaches. “Hey, girlie, how are you?”

  “Much better. How’s everyone else?”

  “Exhausted. Blistered. Bone-weary.”

  “You should have called me,” Rayhaan snaps at his mate-to-be. “I would have carried you over.”

  Both small humans stare at him, their mouths hanging open. I realize this is not acceptable to them, though I have no idea why.

  Lucie ignores him and speaks English to Niki, effectively shutting us out. We do not like this, and both of us scowl.

  Eventually Lucie sighs and turns to me, still ignoring Rayhaan. “How are you holding up, Drakar? Niki’s color is much better and she looks like she’ll be fine with more food and rest.”