The Yarian (Women of Dor Nye Book 3)

by Poppy Rhys

  The last rays of sunlight were barely visible, shrouding the jungle in shadows. She stood there shivering, her skin pebbling with goosebumps as Hunter made quick work of getting a fire going so she could get warm.

  Of all things to die of in a jungle, hypothermia seemed lame. If she was gonna croak, she wanted to go down with pizzazz. At least run through by a tribal spear, or decapitated by some voracious beast.

  Not. Hypothermia.

  The nightly mist began to roll in, bringing with it that dreaded chill of darkness.

  A small flame turned into a popping fire, and she got closer, soaking up the heat.

  “Take off your ru’mi.” Hunter gestured toward her bottoms.

  “If you wanted to get me out of my loincloth, you could at least buy me dinner first.”

  “Human.”

  She gazed down at the soaking hide, the ends still dripping with water, splashing the tops of her feet with fat droplets.

  “It’s okay.” Fin’s teeth chattered. “I’ll just stick by the fire. It’ll dry.”

  “I’ve seen your body.” He rose, making his way toward her.

  She stepped back.

  “It needs to dry.”

  “I said I’m fine.” Fin clenched her chattering teeth together, damning her jaw.

  “And I said, take it off.”

  When he reached for the knotted string belt upon her hip, she smacked his hand away.

  A menacing slant pulled his black brows down.

  “No.”

  Her chin quivered, from the cold as she tried to look fierce, stand her ground. He couldn’t just push her around! If she wanted to wear a soaking loincloth, then by God, she would.

  Hunter captured her hands, pinning them together, and eliciting a surprised squawk from her.

  “Let go of me!”

  In the next blink, he pulled the knot loose with one hand, the loincloth slapping to the ground in a wet heap.

  She watched as his eyes raked down her body, but they didn’t linger. Instead, he released her, swiping the loincloth from the ground before she could grab it herself.

  Fin stood there, naked as the day she was born.

  “Insufferable.” Hunter propped the loincloth on a stick planted into the ground next to the fire.

  Next to his spot.

  He made his way back to her afterward, gently grabbing her hair and squeezing the excess moisture from it. The act was oddly kind, thoughtful, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it.

  While his eyes lit with an intensity she couldn’t pinpoint, he didn’t attempt to touch any other part of her. Maybe it was her clammy wet skin that put him off, or the ‘touch me and die’ glare she pinned him with.

  She couldn’t decide.

  Fin sat down as close as she could to the fire while she ate the vegetable he gave her.

  The next while she spent glued to the fireside, her skin drying, her body temperature skimming the surface of normalcy. But she was still cold.

  Her gaze longingly watched the loincloth. It wasn’t dry yet, and her lids were beginning to droop, begging her to rest.

  Fin lost count of how many times her head dipped before she would snap awake again.

  By the time she felt Hunter urging her body to lay down, she didn’t fight it. Her nudity was a far off worry when the waves of heat emitting from his skin beckoned her.

  She thought she heard herself moan when he lay alongside her, wrapping his body over and around her own.

  Tomorrow, Fin would meet his tribe, his people.

  That was her last conscious thought.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  By late afternoon the next day, Fin and her captor had been navigating the jungle for hours. It was muggy, miserable, and the giant gnats were a plague.

  The only upside was that the crack in her toe had completely closed over, which made it easier to walk and keep up with the alien. She’d lost her makeshift bandage in the river anyway.

  Fin was nervous, exhausted, and slightly fearful of what was yet to come.

  How did his people view humans? Did they know she was coming? Were they hostile? Was she in danger? So many questions bombarded her brain from the moment she woke that morning.

  Though she imagined they were used to seeing newcomers to a degree, if abducting women was their M.O., as Hunter described, regarding Shu’Lee’s.

  She wondered how many Shu’Lee’s there were, and how many abducted women resided with his tribe. Were there any other humans?

  It made her curious.

  One good thing came out of her tumble in the river, though. She was relatively clean, which improved her mood tremendously upon waking that morning. That, and being able to put her loincloth back on.

  Hunter fed her more of the pink, pulpy fruit she really liked, and forced her to eat the gritty saesoni garbage again. By the time she finished it, she was shivering at the texture and musty taste.

  Why he kept insisting she eat it was beyond her, aside from his insistence that it was ‘good’, the big green jerk, which it most definitely was not.

  She tried not to think about last night and how her body felt against his. Though it kept resurfacing.

  Her eyes roved over his toned back then, remembering the feel of his skin and muscles beneath her fingers. Waking up to his large hands holding her tightly against him, his leg wrapped over hers; it made her body feel things she didn’t want it to.

  Instead of letting her freeze last night, and die a disappointing jungle death, he’d warmed her body with his, and kept her alive, safe.

  For his own nefarious purposes, no doubt. As he’d pointed out yesterday, he didn’t plan to walk the planet alone. She was his captive, and so far, it didn’t look like he would let her die.

  Bastard.

  Fin twisted the ring upon her finger when she realized that didn’t dampen the physical response she felt at her core when he simply looked at her.

  When he called her Mi’ska.

  She shook herself, narrowly avoiding tripping over a thick stick in her path.

  “What’s going to happen when we get to your home, Hunter?” She trailed his heels, finally voicing her worry.

  “What do you mean?”

  She opened her mouth to answer him, but something caught her eye.

  Fin slowed to a stop, gazing at a purple plant that was as tall as her. Atop its thick stem was one of the most beautiful, extremely large blooms she had ever seen. And she’d seen many.

  There was nothing like it on Dor Nye, not even from the off world merchants in the capital, and she could think of a few clients that would pay a fortune to have it in their botanical solariums.

  Ten wide, cream colored petals she counted, with green veins snaking through each. They spread open, revealing a luminous lavender center with a cluster of tall green stamen jutting from its depths.

  She raised a hand, her fingertips inching closer to touch the petals.

  “Finley, no!” Hunter bellowed, but it was too late.

  Her fingertips already landed upon the strange, velvet petals, and just as the alien’s hand roughly gripped her arm, the entire plant shook, shrieked, and then sneezed.

  A dust cloud of purple pollen rained down upon Finley, fogging up the entire vicinity, and choking her airways.

  She began coughing, sneezing, and gasping for oxygen as her captor pulled her out of the cloud, and into clean air.

  “Human?” Was that concern lacing his tone? “You can’t touch e’do’ka.”

  The back of his hand wiped at her face as she continued to hack and sneeze.

  “It spits when it thinks it’s being attacked.”

  “Thanks-,” she choked, “for telling me sooner.”

  Hunter looked nervous when she opened her eyes.

  “Why are you staring at me like that?”

  His hand lifted her arm pointedly.

  Finley wiped at the purple pollen dusting her body, but with each brush of her fingers, the color wasn’t coming off.


  “Oh no.” She continued rubbing furiously.

  “Oh no!” She repeated over and over. “Hunter, I-I’m purple!”

  He helped with dusting the pollen off, but she was already losing her cool. Not that she had much left to begin with. “Why am I purple!”

  “E’do’ka.” He tilted his head to the side, like she was slow. “Come, I’ll take you to water.”

  She followed him to a small stream as she continued to try and rub the color from her skin. Finley splashed handfuls of water upon herself, scrubbing, and scrubbing to no avail.

  Once she was soaked, most of the pollen gone, she stared at her extended arms and hands. Her gaze traveled down the front of her body, noticing patches that weren’t as dark as others. Her legs were mostly untouched.

  Her wide eyes lifted to Hunter as he stood there, an amused glint in his gaze, lips twitching.

  “It’s not coming off, Hunter,” she said faintly. “What will happen? Is it poison?”

  “No.” He shook his head, his shoulder length locks moving. “You’ll just stay… purple.”

  She squawked. “For how long?”

  He rolled a shoulder. “Days.”

  “Oh my God,” she breathed. “Oh my God!”

  “What’s wrong now?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She tossed her arms in the air. “Maybe the fact that we’re nearly to your tribe home, and I look like a purple people eater.”

  He looked confused. “What’s a purple people eater?”

  “Never mind.” She waved. “Is my face purple too?”

  Hunter gave a short nod, black brows raising.

  Finley groaned, her fingertips scrubbing her forehead.

  An animal call sounded from behind her, causing her to take a quick step closer to Hunter, her head whipping around.

  The alien stood up straight, barking a single ‘whoop’.

  Two beings that looked like her alien stepped out from the trees.

  Not her alien, she mentally corrected.

  When her eyes did a quick once over, she came to the conclusion they didn’t really look alike other than their green skin. They were the ones with the cargo ship on Vishik. She recognized them.

  The burly one had long, solid black hair with one side pulled back into three rows of braids close to his scalp. His jaw was square, a proud jut to it. His purple eyes were darker than Hunter’s, and much more calculating, if that was possible.

  Raised scars encircled his right bicep in the shape of two thin bands that were too perfect to be accidental, and the top curve of his exposed ear was pierced with a thick ring of silver that stuck out against his dark skin.

  The leaner one said something in his tongue, the language she still couldn’t understand. He looked younger, even though his height was just as impressive as Hunter’s and the burly alien.

  He, too, had purple eyes that examined her curiously, but held a friendly feel. That angular face tapered to a pointed chin, his hair like Hunter’s with its flecks of color, only it was pale blue instead of gold.

  It fell just past his shoulders, swept over the right side of his head. A lone blue feather matching his hair hung just over his ear there, grazing his defined shoulder.

  The big one said something to Hunter then.

  The two aliens barked with laughter.

  She didn’t think anything of it until he pointed at her, cracking up again. That’s when she remembered she was newly purple.

  Just great.

  ****

  “You let her touch e’do’ka?” Roki laughed, and bumped his qin, the ridges along his arm, with Nik.

  “Shut up.” Hunter tossed a hand at them, noticing then it was purple as well.

  He remembered he’d grabbed Finley before the plant sneezed on her. The coloring etched up to his elbow, and faded at his bicep.

  He shook his head.

  “Even newborns know to stay away from the mad flower.” Nik grinned.

  “Are you sure she’s all there?” Roki tapped his temple and looked Finley over. “We still have time to take her back.”

  “Yes, she is.” Hunter said defensively, surprised at his annoyance that his tribe brothers questioned his mate’s sanity. Why would he care?

  His fingers smoothed over his female’s hair as she stood close beside him, her arms crossed over her chest. He figured it was to cover her nudity, but she looked miffed.

  “And no, I’m not taking her back.”

  “Suit yourself.” Roki shrugged.

  “Maybe we should’ve stayed behind to help protect your female, eh?” Nik teased.

  Hunter chose to ignore him, laying a hand upon Finley’s back. Why was he touching her again?

  When she lifted her dark eyes, he rubbed his palm against her skin. It bothered him that he was trying to assure her his friends meant no harm.

  Let her think what she wants. It mattered not.

  “What are their names again?” She inquired.

  “That one’s Roki.” He gestured to the bigger one. “And he’s Nik.”

  His Mi’ska surprised him by greeting his friends politely, even though they laughed at her.

  When she looked back up at him, he schooled his features, but couldn’t stop his fingers from running over her damp tresses. Even while she wore the e’do’ka stain, he found her features pleasing.

  Ugh.

  “Don’t be rude to my female.” He taunted in his native tongue. “Greet her.”

  They spoke the official greeting of their people in the same instant. “Ka.”

  ****

  The alien’s friends, Roki and Nik, she corrected, accompanied them after the three males exchanged more words she couldn’t understand. The language they spoke sounded primitive, though some of the words had an eloquent, almost melodic, inflection to them.

  Soon, her feet were touching the hard, dark dirt of a beaten path. Roki led the way, Hunter in front of her, and Nik brought up the tail.

  She periodically glanced over her shoulder to find him staring at her, and then he would give a friendly smile.

  Those teeth, she thought, returning the smile with a closed lipped one of her own. Fin still had yet to get used to them, even on her alien.

  Not my alien.

  Just then, Hunter fell in line beside her, a curious expression knitting his brows, and then he asked seriously, “What is purple and eats people?”

  She implored the sky for patience.

  Her ears pricked, hearing the buzz of multiple voices. In the next few minutes, they were entering a village.

  A massive village.

  Those colossal trees she’d seen on her first day at the cabin were everywhere, their tops obscured with a white mist high, high up. She had to crank her head back upon her neck. The rusty colored trunks could be hollowed out for enormous homes, she imagined, but they weren’t.

  Instead, there were wooden lodges built right along the trunk, too many to count. Multiple lodges upon each tree, and there were many, many behemoth trees.

  So they don’t live in caves afterall.

  Wooden bridges swooped between the homes, skillfully strung together by thickly braided vines, and held up by tall stilts, and rope-like suspension connected to thick branches.

  Green and blue moss cascaded from the vines, giving the primitive village an ethereal appearance as torches along the bridges, and the small wooden decks outside each lodge, flickered and glowed as the sun continued to retreat.

  The hard packed ground, nearly cleared of any shrubs and brush, was covered in copper colored pine-like needles. Roaring fires littered the scene as far as she could see, lighting up what she assumed was the main, extremely large community area, as Yarian’s, young and old, mingled, ate, and buzzed with conversation.

  Bands congregated around the glowing pits, individuals moving from group to group and socializing.

  Fin had never seen anything like it.

  She was momentarily ripped from her reverie when a gaggle of younglings squealed, runnin
g past them in miniature ru’mi’s, as Hunter called the loincloth.

  That was all anyone wore. She’d never seen so much nudity in her life.

  Dranza, where her family lived, was a colder, seaside territory. The style of clothing was meant to cover, keep warm, unlike high temperature territories such as Curra, or Ejinn. Even in the warmer months, the breeze off the Keeg Sea could be chilled.

  A couple younglings stopped short, seeing her.

  And then they started laughing.

  Fin pursed her lips, eyes narrowing as she cursed her curiosity for touching that ridiculous plant.

  Nik growled playfully at the stragglers, crouching as if to chase them, eliciting more squeals as they turned and high tailed it.

  He said something to her in his language, and then smiled, shrugging a shoulder.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled, unsure how else to respond.

  “He said, ‘younglings will be younglings’.” Hunter translated. “No harm meant.”

  Joh ran past them then, surprising her, as he’d been absent most of the day. This caught the attention of a few adults standing near the main fire.

  A female dropped her clay cup, her hand flying to her chest when she looked at Hunter. Then she was slapping the arm of the male beside her, and nearly running as she made a beeline.

  She gasped, speaking in rushed waves until she slammed into Hunter, hugging the alien, and blubbering excitedly.

  Fin took a couple steps to the side, letting them have their space, especially when the male dove in for a hug as well.

  He was tall, larger than Hunter, but similar facial features from what she could make out. Older, a little wiser looking, with salt and pepper hair.

  More individuals gathered around, crowding them.

  So many voices spoke, all different tones, a lively buzz as they greeted Hunter, seemingly thrilled he was home.

  The first female laid eyes upon Fin, her gaze soft, yet curious. She raised a hand, quieting the crowd.

  A zip of uncertainty spread over her skin, raising goosebumps. More and more eyes fell on her, and it was making her a little too uncomfortable.

  Especially since she was purple. She tried not to groan.