by Roxie Ray
At that news, my eyebrows shot up and my face went pale. “Um. How…how do you know that?”
Adskow looked concerned for a moment, then chuckled. “You are one of the first humans we have come upon—but not the first. Back on our home planet, a female human is married to one of our kind. They have a cub together. It is our High Council’s hope that perhaps, if more human females were to be interested in doing the same…” Adskow paused. He must have noticed that his words weren’t exactly reassuring me right now. “Though, the potential for reproduction is not the only reason we made efforts to rescue you, mind you, or the most important one. Please do not misunderstand me. It is far more significant to us that you are happy, safe and whole.”
I nodded, but my arms folded instinctively over my stomach anyway. He hadn’t meant to, but Adskow had just answered one of the big questions that had come to my mind after the Luna-whatsits had rescued me from the Rutha-whatevers. I appreciated being saved from being beaten and driven crazy by the red demon guys, sure, but no matter what Adskow said to try and cover his tracks, now I knew that there was a good chance these Lunarians weren’t exactly as noble as they might pretend to be.
They were going to be disappointed in me on that front, anyway. The Lunarians might have rescued me, but I wasn’t any happier about being seen as a potential baby momma by them than I was about being tested for breeding by the other guys.
“Um. Do you need anything else from me, then?” Now that I had an idea of the Lunarian’s ulterior motives, the awkwardness in the room had suddenly returned twofold. “Or am I free to go?”
Adskow moved the clipboard back to the counter and gave me a bashful nod. “Of course. You will want to bathe, I am sure, and perhaps some food. Your scan tells me that you are somewhat malnourished from your time aboard the Rutharian ship, so—”
“Adskow. How are our new females?” A tall, hulking mass of orange muscle dressed in military whites came in through the exam room’s door. I’d recognize that those flames of red hair anywhere. It was the guy who’d carried me to safety earlier—but he didn’t seem to recognize me, or even notice that I was in the room. “If their examinations are complete, I will need a full health report for each as well as their status of breeding testing—”
Adskow cleared his throat and inclined his head toward me. As soon as the red-headed alien caught sight of me, he stiffened and straightened.
“Consent,” the redhead finished, staring me down. “Forgive me. I was not aware that Healer Adskow was still carrying out his preliminary examinations.”
“I should have completed Sawyer’s already,” Adskow said apologetically, though I wasn’t sure who he was apologizing to—me, or the red-headed guy. “But as she is the only of the females currently conscious…”
“He was catching me up on my, uh… my situation here,” I finished for Adskow. He was obviously even more nervous around my red-headed savior than he’d been around me. Judging by the number of medals on my rescuer’s lapels, I could guess that he was trying to avoid getting in trouble with his boss. And despite the weirdness of all this breeding talk, he’d been nice to me. I figured if I could help him avoid getting a stern talking to, I probably should. “It’s all a little much to take in still, but…”
Adskow gave me a grateful look before turning back to the other guy. “I was just remarking that perhaps Sawyer would like a shower and some food. She has been through much over the last week. Perhaps you would like to show her to her temporary quarters?”
I scowled. So much for gratefulness. Was he seriously going to shuffle me off onto the guy who’d just come in asking about breeding testing, right after telling me that putting a baby in me wasn’t the reason I’d been rescued? “I think I can probably figure out my own way to where you want me to stay, actually. Just point the way and…” I hopped down off of the exam table and immediately had to raise a hand to my head. The world had gone all spinny again, and little black dots were flaring up in my vision. Suddenly, my knees felt weak and my body felt way too light. “Oh, crap.”
The second I felt my knees buckle, the redhead rushed to my side and caught me in his arms. I wasn’t exactly about to faint or anything, but apparently Adskow’s scan results were right. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten, and I was obviously a lot weaker standing up than I’d felt when I was sitting down. Luckily, my hero was more than capable of holding me up while I got my bearings.
Unfortunately, I was no longer convinced that he was doing it out of just the good of his heart.
“Careful,” he purred down at me. “You should not push yourself, Sawyer. If you will allow me to carry you—”
Oh, no. I’d already fallen into that trap once with this guy. Being in his arms was nice and all, but until I figured out how safe I really was with these Lunarian people, I needed to set up some boundaries. Some strict ones.
Gently, I pushed him away.
“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Just a little lightheaded. Just give me a second, and…”
I can walk for myself, I wanted to tell him, but the moment I tried to move from his arms, my legs were buckling all over again. Being unconscious, hit, knocked out and not eating for a week, plus the way the muscles in my legs must had atrophied without being able to walk around, had obviously taken a lot out of me. More than I wanted to admit.
Luckily, he was stubborn or kind enough not to let me fall over. He caught me in his arms again, this time stooping down to stare into my eyes.
“You should save your strength,” he told me. “There is no need for pride after all you have endured. Please, allow me to help you to your rooms.”
“I don’t even know who you are,” I grumbled. But I knew better than to push him away this time. He’d already stopped me from falling over twice now. I didn’t want to push my luck on a third attempt.
“My name is General Haelian Mihor of High House Mihor,” he said calmly in reply. “You have my word, Sawyer. On my honor, you will not come to harm from me or any other on this ship. Do you believe me?”
With a sigh, I nodded. I wasn’t sure how true anything he’d said really was, but if I couldn’t even walk for myself right now, I didn’t see how I had much of a choice. “Okay, big guy. Have it your way, then.”
Maybe I was mistaken, but I thought I almost heard him chuckle as he swept me off my feet again. I didn’t want to admit it but being held against his chest felt just as good and safe this time as it had when he’d pulled me off the Rutharian ship.
But even though he’d given me his word, I knew I couldn’t let my guard down. He sounded sincere, but that was the problem with men.
If I’d learned anything from my failed engagement to Aiden, actions spoke a heck of a lot louder than words.
6
Haelian
So. The human female had a name.
“We’ve gotta quit meeting like this,” she mumbled against my chest. I could tell that she was not happy about the prospect of being carried this time. Her nose did not nuzzle against my sternum, and though she wrapped her arms around my neck, she did not cling to me as she had when I carried her from the Rutharian ship.
“Meeting like what?” I asked her. Sawyer. It was a strange name for a female, I thought, but not too difficult for my tongue. I had learned her name before I even knew she existed, reading human literature as part of my research into Earth and its culture. Hundreds of years in Earth’s past, a writer had used it in a title for a book about two runaway boys on an adventure to find treasure. It made me wonder, had she been running away from something too before she was caught by the slavers who had torn her away from her home planet? Had she been on an adventure of her own, perhaps? And if so, what treasures did she seek? These things, I knew not, and I knew not how to ask.
“Like this,” she repeated. “I’m not, you know. An invalid. You don’t have to carry me everywhere.”
“Except that I do,” I countered. I wanted to laugh at her protests, but that seemed cruel
, especially when she was obviously trying hard to be brave. I liked that about her, that she did not want to be seen as weak. But, as I hoped she would quickly learn, there was no shame in accepting help when she was in need. “Your legs are not fit to carry your weight at the time being. You may not like it, but until you regain your strength, this is a necessity.”
“Either that, or you just like hauling me around like some kind of war prize.” When I looked down at her beautiful lips, they were pushed out in an annoyed little pout.
At that, I could not help but chuckle. “You nearly fell in the infirmary.”
“I was fine.”
“Twice,” I reminded her as I carried her down the hall toward the room she would inhabit aboard the ship until we reached Lunaria. “In fact, I believe you were lucky that I was there to catch you. I would not wish for you to become more injured than you already are.”
“I was fine!” she snapped again. “Besides, it’s not me that you’re worried about, is it? Just my precious, breedable womb.”
At that, I stopped in my step. Partly because, though I knew she meant her comment to be scathing, the mere mention of her womb brought to mind the way I had stroked myself to the thought of her earlier. Partly because, to my annoyance, she had been aboard the ship for less than an hour since her rescue and she had already managed to form the wrong idea about me and my kind.
Gently, I placed her back down on the floor, but there was a growl in my throat. My voice was booming and stern.
“You are an ungrateful little brat.” I sneered down at her as I drew myself up to my full height. This female was taller than Kloran’s wife, Bria, but I was taller still. The top of her head was barely level with my shoulder. As I pressed her to the wall in my frustration, my hands encircled her waist so completely that my claws touched at her ribcage and spine. “I would ask that you do not misunderstand me, but it seems you have already, as your race would say, beaten me to the punch.”
The tone of my voice should have made her cower. I could still recall the way Bria had trembled when Kloran first yelled at her. But instead, Sawyer braced herself up against the wall of the corridor and raised a finger to poke me in the center of my chest with.
“You are just as bad as those Ruthy-whatsits,” she snarled back at me. “Don’t act like you’re not. You and your friend, Adskow, already let it slip that you want human women for the same reason they did. I’m not stupid. I know all about your creepy little plan.”
My nostrils flared at her insult, but my curiosity at her anger kept my temper at bay. By Ruthy-whatsits, I could assume she meant the Rutharians I had just saved her from. How in the galaxies had she determined that we Lunarians were no better than the brutes who had beaten her and kept her caged?
“And what is my cree-pee little plan, Sawyer?” I raised an eyebrow and stepped back, allowing her to say her piece.
She shrugged. “You thought you were going to be able to play knight-in-shining-armor to me, then I’d just be ever so keen on letting you use me like an incubator for those babies you people are so desperate to get from us.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at me. “Am I wrong?”
For a moment, my jaw lowered slightly. Yes, I wanted to tell her. You are very wrong. In fact, you could not be more incorrect. But to her credit, she was not so far from the truth as I wanted to admit. The Lunarian High Council had approved of our rescue efforts for the humans trapped aboard Rutharian ships, in part, because Kloran and I had convinced them that perhaps the females we freed would find Lunarian men as desirable to mate with as Bria had. That was not all there was to it, of course. No Lunarian who had seen the brutality of the Rutharians could, in good faith, allow innocents to live at the mercy of Rutharian snakes. Mercy was not in the Rutharian vocabulary, nor was consent. They took what they wanted when they wanted it, resistance be damned. To say that there was not some hope that females like Sawyer might someday come to find interest in mating with Lunarians, though…
I closed my eyes and held up my hands.
“Your womb does not concern me, human,” I told her as I backed away even further. “But please, if my hospitality and assistance is not desired by you, feel free to find your own way to your room. I would not dream of forcing something on you that you did not want.”
I let the words hang in the air for a moment before I turned to walk away. I could not tell her that she was wrong in her suspicions, but I could make it clear that she had every bit of autonomy she wished for here aboard my ship. If she would not accept my help, then I would not force it on her. My help, or anything else, for that matter.
I made it three full steps before I heard her yelp.
“Wait!”
When I turned, she was still braced against the wall, but her face was paler than it had been when I had placed her back on her feet.
“Yes, Sawyer?” I wanted to grin in triumph, but again, I knew it would be impolite. She was a feisty little thing, in spite of her lack of claws. Feisty and proud. I had not meant to come upon her when I entered the medical bay. In fact, I had not meant to see her again at all. But fate, yet again, had pulled us together and I knew she had been through much.
If our destines were as intertwined as I feared, then I knew she would have to come to trust me. To swallow her pride and ask for my aid while she was in need.
She leveled her glare at me for a moment longer, then let it fall as her shoulders slumped forward.
“Okay. I’m sorry. You’re right.” When she looked up at me again, her ice-blue eyes had softened slightly. “I’m not going to pretend to believe that you rescued me and the other women for purely selfless reasons, but…ugh. You are right.” This time, when she shrugged, it was a surrender. “I’m too dizzy to walk on my own, and even if I could, I don’t even know where I’m supposed to go.”
A ripple of warmth fluttered through my chest. I knew how hard it must have been to release her pride as she had just done. I was a proud man myself. Most Lunarians were. I would not goad her for relenting. I could appreciate the difficulty of asking for assistance when one did not wish to admit defeat.
“You will allow me to carry you, then?”
Sawyer sighed, then nodded. “Unfortunately, I don’t really have much of a choice.”
This time, when I scooped her up into my arms, she did not stiffen as she had before. I could still sense tension in her shoulders as I cradled them against my bicep, but when she wrapped her arms around my neck again, she held tight.
“There is no shame in being carried when one needs to be.” I struggled to find the words to soothe her at first, but I was an educated man. I rarely wrestled with words for long. “When our soldiers fall in battle, they allow themselves to be lifted to safety, too. This is not so different than that.”
“Except that your soldiers probably aren’t usually kidnapped and tested for breeding.” She turned her face toward my chest so I could not see her expression. It was as if she did not wish to be seen at all. “It’s embarrassing. This whole situation is…it’s mortifying. It has been from the very start.”
This, too, I could sympathize with. No one deserved to suffer the indignity of being probed without their consent, beaten or locked away in a Rutharian cage.
“All wounds heal with time.” My tone softened further as I addressed her again. “Wounds of the body and wounded pride.”
“And I’ve got a whole heck of a lot of both right now,” she agreed.
“Please believe me when I say that no harm will come to you now that you are in my care, though.” I blinked as I caught my choice of words. “Our care. We Lunarians are a civilized species, Sawyer. We will not force you to do anything you do not wish to do here on this ship. Nor will that change when we return to Lunaria.”
“You’re not taking me home?” Her face snapped upward suddenly. Concern was knitted into her brow. “I didn’t realize—why aren’t we going back to, um, to Earth?”
“Returning to Earth would require a lon
g journey through many galaxies, and there are many more human females like yourself still in the clutches of the Rutharians. Those of you who wish to return to your homes will be taken back to your planet together when all of your stolen females are safe once more.”
“There are more of us?” I had hoped that my words would reassure her, but instead, Sawyer seemed to only become more worried by this new information. “How many? Why humans?”
“Those are…difficult questions to answer,” I said truthfully. Explaining the complexities of intergalactic politics, the breeding slave trade, Rutharian attitudes toward claiming women and the particular desirability of the human female anatomy would take the rest of the afternoon to lay out for her completely, and even then there was a good chance she would only want to ask me more. Annoyance rumbled in my chest. Everything I told her only seemed to breed more confusion. More concern. “Let us focus, for now, on taking measures to assist you in regaining your strength. Unless you would prefer I spent all my time during our journey back to my world carrying you around like a pack animal?”
To my pleasure, she let out a little laugh, though I was certain that it was not in quite such good humor as I might have hoped.
“Sorry. Again. This is all…a lot to take in.” She shifted her arms around my neck, drawing herself more tightly against my chest. “As of, I guess, a week ago, I didn’t even think aliens existed. And now…”
“It will take some getting used to, yes.” As we came to the door to her chambers, I lowered her back down again with a gentle smile on my lips. One that I hoped she would find more reassuring than my words had been. “But in the meantime, I believe Healer Adskow has prescribed a shower and a good meal. Accustoming yourself to all that has transpired can come after that.”
I braced Sawyer at her waist with one hand as I raised the card that would unlock her room up to the scanner on the door. It slid open to reveal a set of rooms that included a small kitchen and living space, with a bedroom and a bathroom branching off of the main area.