“Lawgiver Gah-re-al, acknowledge receipt of your orders.”
“Acknowledged,” Gah-re-al ground out.
For many moments after his communicator went silent, Gah-re-al stared at nothing at all, struggling with his rage and the desire to vent it while images flickered through his mind of Lexa dying a slow death on the rocky ledge, or ending up as dinner for one of the beasts his people had reintroduced because she wasn’t able to flee or defend herself. Those images made him sick to his stomach. It took an effort to banish them, but as his anger subsided, he became aware that Lexa’s teeth were chattering. It was the sound that finally penetrated his preoccupation.
He looked down at her, feeling a wave of nausea at her battered face. Swallowing a little sickly, he shrugged out of his duster and carefully draped it across her shoulders while she was struggling to repair her torn clothing by tying the pieces together. She glanced up at him quickly, obviously startled.
Gah-re-al met her gaze for a long moment. Frowning, he looked away. “I’m no medic,” he said roughly. “Do you have any broken bones or cuts that need to be bound?”
“I’m ok,” she said after a few moments, slowly, as if wondering at his motives for asking. “I can walk.”
He snorted. He doubted that, but he had his orders. They had to reach the rendezvous he’d arranged and at the time he’d designated.
He felt like kicking himself. If he hadn’t been in such a damned rush to be rid of his charges …. But that couldn’t be helped now. He’d told him when and where he would deliver them and they were going to hold him to it. He looked around speculatively. Without surprise he saw no branches that could be used to make a litter. “I’ll have to carry you.”
“I can walk.”
“But you won’t,” he said grimly, leaning over to scoop her up before she could object further.
She surprised him when she didn’t argue, but then he could see she was in too much pain for several moments to say anything at all. She was still shivering, but he juggled her until he’d managed to pretty much wrap his duster around her.
He shifted his attention to the villagers, discovering without much surprise that they were all staring. He clenched his teeth to the point that his jaw ached, struggling to tamp the anger that rose again.
They’d known about the attack and not one of the bastards had either done anything to prevent it or tried to help afterwards.
Of course that might have been because of his presence, but he didn’t think so. If he hadn’t come to stop it, if he hadn’t known to look for her, they would have left her without any remorse.
It was the main reason he felt such contempt for them, he realized. It might be due entirely to their personal survival instincts, but their complete focus on their own survival and lack of empathy, or at least an unwillingness to risk anything for anyone else, made it hard for him to sympathize with them or relate to them. Even in battlefield conditions, which was a far more immediate life or death situation, the udai were prone to risk their own lives to save the wounded. If the humans pulled together and helped one another, he doubted they would be in such desperate straits, but that seemed to be against their nature. They were far more likely to seize upon one another’s weaknesses to advance their own comfort.
“Gather your supplies,” he announced finally, his voice as even as he could manage. “And move lightly. We have to make up some time.”
Crossing the plateau, he waited until the villagers started down the trail he’d shown them, struggling for patience as they trudged down the incline, ignoring his order to hurry. Finally, he bellowed at them. “Move!”
Alarm rippled through them, but they picked up their pace.
He tightened his arms around Lexa when he felt her jump.
Despite the tension he felt in her, she lifted an arm and draped it around his shoulder as he started down behind the primitives. Wryly, he dismissed the notion that it was a lowering of her defenses. It seemed more likely it was from concern that he’d drop her.
“Did you … kill the men?” she asked once they’d reached the plain below.
Gah-re-al glanced sharply at her, studying her for a long moment. “Did you want me to?”
She blinked at him, her lips parting in surprise, but then frowned. “Did you beat them?”
“Unconscious,” he responded with satisfaction.
“You left them.”
“Yes. It’s immaterial to me whether they survive or not, but the death penalty was not warranted. It’s up to them to survive … or not. They forfeited any aid they might otherwise have gotten from my people."
Lexa had been satisfied enough with Gabriel’s answers until that last. If she’d been able, she might well have fought the two men that had attacked her to the death and not considered it too harsh. She didn’t feel any less animosity toward them that they’d paid for a beating with a beating, but it seemed fair enough. That reference to ‘my people’ distressed her inexplicably, though.
It seemed a perfectly natural thing to say and she didn’t think he’d intended to emphasize the differences between them by saying it. Nevertheless, it was a reminder—she had her place and he had his.
As unhappy as those thoughts were, she realized it depressed her on another level, as well. She didn’t have any people. She might be as human as the villagers, but she didn’t belong. She had no one she belonged to or with.
Those thoughts made her miss her little sister and brothers more than she had in years, brought her to the brink of tears for the first time in a very long time.
She pushed the thoughts from her mind with an effort and, despite the throbbing from the battering she’d taken, she dozed off.
Gabriel woke her trying to shift her weight.
“I need to put you down to stretch my arms for a few minutes.”
Rousing further, Lexa nodded. She swayed when he put her on her feet, feeling vaguely drunk and more than a little muscle strain. “I can walk,” she muttered, trying not to grimace. “I need to walk anyway or I’m going to be too sore to walk.”
Gah-re-al studied her doubtfully, but he was definitely feeling the strain himself in his back, arms, and shoulders, although he thought part of that was from trying to pulverize the bastards that had assaulted her. After glancing from her to the villagers ahead of them and doing a quick mental calculation of their progress, he decided to let her have her way. It would give him the chance to recover a little.
They’d made good time since he’d managed to inspire the villagers to move a little faster. They were still several clicks from the spot he’d chosen for an encampment, though, and if Lexa could walk part of that distance it was bound to improve his comfort level.
He discovered it only improved on the physical level, though. It was painful to watch her struggling to walk as if she wasn’t in pain. He could see that she was and anger washed through him all over again.
It had taken an effort to stop himself once he’d started pounding on the bastards. He wasn’t certain what had finally lifted the fog of rage that had engulfed him, but he wasn’t sure he was glad for it. He rather thought he was going to regret not finishing them off more than he would’ve regretted killing them. Strictly speaking, assault with attempt to rape wasn’t punishable by death, but he didn’t know that they didn’t mean to kill her before they were done and that would certainly warrant a death sentence.
Beyond that, he didn’t like the idea that they were still breathing and could decide to come after Lexa again. He didn’t think that likely, but then it hadn’t occurred to him before that that bastard would decide to attack her because he’d stepped in to prevent him from beating her before.
It was the same man—one of them, anyway. Ordinarily, he didn’t pay enough attention to the humans to recognize one from another, but that one had made an impression.
His anger shifted after a few moments from the men that had attacked her to the order from headquarters to leave her if she wasn’t able to keep up. He was
completely familiar with standard operating procedure in war situations where focus shifted from the individual to the fighting unit as a whole. Casualties were expected and there were times when it endangered too many soldiers to try to get the wounded out, but this wasn’t one of those situations.
Removal, relocation, and rehabilitation was a mission to save the remaining humans and give them a chance to start over. He’d thought the entire concept was designed to save those most deserving of a chance at a better life. To callously abandon the weakest among them made them no better than the humans they held in contempt!
Essentially, that was what his job as a Lawgiver had been designed to do—to protect the weak.
How the hell could they see that as non-interference and necessary medical attention as unacceptable interference?
It defied logic as far as he could see and it fucking pissed him off!
He dismissed it after a while and picked Lexa up again, ignoring her protests. “Tomorrow—if I think you’re strong enough.”
“It’ll be worse tomorrow if I don’t walk some of it off.”
“You did. That’s enough for now. You should be in the med center,” he finished in an irritated mutter.
“What’s med center?”
“The place we take anyone that’s sick or injured so that they can get medical treatment.”
Lexa thought that over. “Oh. You keep healers there?”
Amusement flickered through Gah-re-al. “Something like that, I suppose.”
“Why is that funny?” Lexa asked curiously, wondering whether to be insulted or not.
“We don’t keep them there. That’s where they work.”
Lexa still wasn’t sure why the way she’d said it sounded funny to him. “Your people go there when they get the shit kicked out of them?” she asked, wondering what the healers could possibly do about bruises and sore muscles.
His amusement vanished. “If you mean by ‘getting the shit kicked out of them’ beaten up, that isn’t something that happens.” He considered that and amended it. “Not often. They treat illness and injuries.”
“Your people don’t fight over things?” she asked curiously.
“Rarely. Not to say they don’t argue, but no one wants to end up fined or imprisoned, so they usually settle disagreements in a more civilized manner.”
Lexa digested that. “You have laws for your people, too?”
Gah-re-al glanced down at her. “We have the same laws for our own people that I enforce among yours.”
“Seriously?” Lexa asked, surprised.
“Seriously,” he responded, amused again, although somewhat piqued, as well, that she was apparently under the impression that his job was merely to punish her people.
Lexa frowned. “But you said your people didn’t fight.
She had a point. “The laws and the enforcers insure that everyone is treated fairly—or as fairly as possible—and the strong don’t prey upon the weak. It’s a failsafe to make certain that everyone behaves in a civilized manner.”
“Soooo …. You’re saying they might not be as nice if they didn’t have to be?”
Good point! “They might not,” he responded grudgingly but honestly. “I’d like to think they would.”
Lexa fell silent for a while, thinking. “Where are you taking us?”
Gah-re-al sent her another look of surprise. “Specifically?”
Lexa nodded.
“To rendezvous with the social workers. They’ll take all of you to a better place to live … teach you how to live better.”
Surprise warred with doubt, disbelief with a near painful desire to believe. “Really?”
“Truly.”
“This isn’t punishment, then?”
“No.”
Lexa frowned, afraid to believe. “Why?”
Because it would benefit the udai colonists if the humans weren’t such a problem!
It occurred to him abruptly and forcefully that he’d been looking at the entire situation wrong. He and the others of like mind might be right. It was possible that nothing they could do would change things significantly for the humans. It was possible that they were beyond redemption or too primitive in their thinking to learn the lessons they needed to make a better life for themselves. In a very real sense, though, the project wasn’t even about the humans. It was about the udai. Were they truly as high minded and superior as they believed they were? Maybe, and maybe not, but if they even aspired to be those things, they were obliged to try to do their best for the less fortunate. “Because it’s the right thing to do,” he responded, realizing for the first time that it truly was.
Chapter Eight
Lexa studied Gabriel speculatively. There was no getting around the fact that he still scared the pee out of her. He unnerved her in an indescribable and completely incomprehensible way considering he’d never hurt her and hadn’t even offered to—not really.
She supposed that was because she still didn’t completely trust him.
But she wanted to.
She’d wanted to before he’d dragged the two men off of her and beat them within an inch of their lives. Since that incident he’d been so … kind to her that she could feel her guard crumbling.
She was afraid to let go of it. She thought she was better off being afraid of him and distrusting him, but the decision didn’t seem to be a matter of will. Slowly but surely her defenses were falling to dust around her, her distrust was giving way to trust, and she found herself less and less afraid of him, enough so that she noticed him in a way she hadn’t before.
In the beginning, she’d looked at him as a beautiful, scary thing, a creature man-like but not human that seemed to fit better in the realm of nightmares than dream regardless of his physical beauty. Even when the seed had been planted in her mind of being his woman she had merely fantasized about it in a dream-like way. She’d been able to see him quite well as a lover but hadn’t really been able to see herself in the role of his lover.
It seemed now, though, that some veil had been torn away and instead of seeing him as merely a man-like creature, she’d begun to look at him through eyes that saw him simply as another person, a man like any other that she’d ever seen or known.
Except he wasn’t like any other man she’d ever known. The differences went far deeper than his physical appearance, but she thought it was those differences in the way he behaved that made it possible to really notice and appreciate the differences on the outside.
Then again, maybe it was the fact that she could actually see his face that made that landscape so appealing? Maybe there were a lot of human men that were just as handsome or maybe even more handsome and she just couldn’t tell because they had so much hair on their faces? She didn’t know if hair simply didn’t grow there as it did with human men or if he did something to remove it, but there was no getting around the fact that his face was the most beautiful male face she could recall ever seeing.
She liked his face best when it lightened and she could tell he was amused even though he never quite smiled—at least not with his lips—but there’d been a few times when he’d looked at her in a way that made her feel warm all over, that made her belly clench low, that made her feel breathless, and hopeful, and scared all at the same time.
He was strong, so powerful that it was almost as terrifying as it was fascinating. She’d guessed that he was even before she saw just how strong he was, because his entire body looked hard and muscular beneath the form fitting clothes he wore. His long, lean arms and legs, broad chest—even his flat belly—rippled with every movement in the way of something solid and powerful rather than jiggling like soft fat and it certainly wasn’t because he was stringy and bony. There was plenty of flesh on his bones.
She hadn’t believed him that night he’d captured her when he’d told her that he had no need to rape women if he wanted to fuck, that there were plenty who were willing. She’d thought it must be the same arrogance that Ralph had from the momen
t she realized the futility of struggling and had stopped screaming and fighting him. Somehow the arrogant bastard had convinced himself that that meant she was enjoying it, that she wanted him to fuck her.
Now she’d begun to believe it wasn’t arrogance, wasn’t simply the truth as he saw it, but really was true, and yet ….
How, she asked herself, could it be different? What could he do that would make a woman like that? Or were the angel women just different from human women?
Because she didn’t think she was alone in the way she felt about it. She’d avoided other people as much as possible since she’d escaped Ralph, but she’d seen plenty of copulation regardless. Men didn’t seem to worry too much about where they were when the mood struck.
The Lawgivers: Gabriel Page 10