by Willow Danes
An hour later Ra’kur gave an annoyed growl and pushed away from the open panel. He’d bent over the machinery with the silent focus of one well accustomed to solitude and it made her wonder what his life had been like, flying around alone in this thing for years.
“Well?” she asked. “What’s wrong with it?”
“The calibration matrix is fused,” he grumbled. “I must fashion a new one.”
“I hope you have the parts you need to do that onboard,” she said, concerned. “It’s not like Andy’s Hardware in town is going to stock them.”
“I can take parts from other ship’s systems to use.” He passed his hand over his eyes. “But then I must alter those systems so that they will function as well.”
“But you can make the repairs with what you have on hand?”
“Yes.” He sighed. “But the repairs will take days.”
“That’s not so bad.” She would have days more with him, maybe even a whole week before the thing was fixed. Before he had to go. “And it’s not like I’m gonna kick you off my land.”
His head came up. “Your land?”
“Yeah, this property is mine. Pap left it to me.”
“You are owner of all these woodlands, Jenna?”
“Yep. Five hundred acres of North Carolina mountain that no one can walk on without my say-so.”
He jerked his chin toward her. “What of the horned beasts?”
“You mean deer? On white-tailed deer only the males have horns; they’re called bucks. Well, it’s my land to hunt too. But I’m not much of a hunter. In fact, hypocrite that I am, I’ll eat meat but killing things turns my stomach.”
His chest puffed up. “I am a skilled hunter,” he growled. “I will slay a beast for you.”
“I guess that would be okay,” she hedged, already trying to think of how she’d even get it to Ted Baker, the guy who used to process deer for Pap. “As long as no one saw you. No other humans anyway.”
“Show me the boundaries of your lands. I will hunt only within them.”
“Oh, uh, sure.” She glanced at the panel. “You mean after you’ve fixed this?”
His shoulders fell a little. “Yes, my first responsibility is to repair the ship.”
“Well, I have to get out there and find my phone,” Jenna said, standing. “If you’ll show me how to leave.”
He got to his feet. “We will find your device.”
“You can stay here and work,” she offered. “I’m pretty sure I know where I dropped it. Though after a whole day in the snow I don’t know if it’ll still work. Let me just go grab my coat.”
He was waiting by the door to the outside when she got back from the cockpit. She didn’t have a hard time finding her way around, as it was logically laid out and all in all wasn’t a big spaceship.
She couldn’t imagine spending years on it, alone . . .
She zipped up her coat and pulling on her gloves noticed that he was checking his weapon.
“Really, you don’t have to go with me, Ra’kur. It looks like you’ve got tons to do.”
“You must not venture out unaccompanied.” He holstered the gun. “I will seal the ship again and then we will search.”
Jenna’s eyebrows rose. “You know, it’s not like I’m going to get lost. This is my land, my world, remember? I spent half my life running around these woods. I know them like the back of my hand.”
“And I will go to protect you.”
“I don’t need you to protect me. I can take care of myself just fine.”
A wounded look flashed in his eyes and his jaw hardened. “I will do so even if you do not need me.”
Damn it, she hadn’t meant to hurt him. “Okay, fine,” she muttered. “You can help me look for my phone.”
He gave a short nod and tapped the keypad to open the first door.
“Why are there two doors?” she asked, looking around the foyer-like area.
“Airlock,” he said, closing the interior door and opening the one to the outside.
Guess that makes sense.
She was about to head out when he put his hand up to stop her. His eyes scanned the woods and he breathed in. After a moment he stepped outside and continued his evaluation of the area.
Finally, he gave a nod and stood aside to allow her out. In the next instant the doorway and any evidence of the ship vanished again.
“Thanks,” she grumbled, her boots crunching in the snow as she threaded her way through the trees. “I meant what I said before. Your worst worries out here are hornets and snakes and this time of year you don’t have to worry about them either. Maybe there’s the occasional wolf and you sure don’t wanna come across a mama bear and her babies, but the cubs are only being born about now.”
“With you I must always be alert.”
Jenna threw him a glare over her shoulder. “Because I’m so helpless?”
“Because you are so precious.”
That brought her up short. His alien eyes were stormy, his jaw tense.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice softer and a whole lot more gracious this time. “That was really sweet.”
“It is true,” he said roughly. “You are my heart, Jenna. You are my life.”
And pretty soon you’re going to have to go away forever too . . .
“Hey, look,” she said, forcing a bright tone and heading for the rough path that led up the hill to the house. The trees were thick around this little area and the cabin far enough away you couldn’t see it from here. “This is where we met. Me screaming my head off, ready to brain you with a heavy branch and you trying to tell me alien-style you thought I was hot.” She paused, considering. “You know, sadly, it’s not even the worst first date I’ve ever had.”
“Brain me?”
“I intended to defend myself by bashing in the skull of whatever jumped at me. Didn’t you see me wielding the tree limb?” she asked, poking around in the snow with her foot for her cell.
“You were my prey.” His luminescent eyes met hers across the clearing. “I watched everything you did.”
“Yeah, that didn’t come out creepy at all.” She put her gloved hands on her hips. For such a small area it was going to be a lot of ground to search for a cell probably buried under three inches of snow now. “Did you happen to see where I dropped my phone?”
His eyes scanned the snow-covered ground and she saw his nostrils twitch. Suddenly his gaze sharpened and he took a few steps to the right and knelt. He brushed aside snow with his long fingers, a gentle action in someone so massive, to reveal her cell.
“Wow,” she murmured as he handed the phone to her. It was almost out of a charge but it looked like it had survived all right. “You must be a very good hunter.”
He turned his head to look east. “There are three beasts that way. A female and two males.”
“Probably a doe and two of her fawns from last year.” Jenna glanced in that direction. She couldn’t even see them. “You can smell them from here?”
“Yes. I saw such beasts flee yesterday. They will be challenging to catch.”
“Catch? You mean you’d run after one of them?”
He gave a feral grin. “It will be an exciting hunt.”
Bucks could run thirty-five miles an hour but with Ra’kur’s speed he might actually be able to run one down. The whole idea of being with someone who had that much power gave her a chill.
“You are frightened.” His sharp gaze swept the woods then rested on her again. “Why?”
“It’s just”—Jenna shifted her feet—“you’re so much stronger than I am. So much faster, your vision and sense of smell is much better than mine. I couldn’t hide from you—or outrun you—in a million years.”
“Why would you want to?” he asked, baffled.
She wet her lips. “It’s just—you being so much stronger . . . I feel at a disadvantage.”
His brow creased. “All of what I am as a warrior is meant to serve you. I will run to bring down a beas
t to feed you by my own hand. My sharp sight will detect threats to you. My strength will keep you safe.”
“Some men—human men—use their strength against women.” Jenna gripped the cell in her hand. “Sometimes they hurt them.”
He started to shake his head and then his eyes widened. “Has this happened to you, Jenna?”
She looked away.
“Little bird?”
She turned, heading back to the cabin. “I need to charge my phone.”
In an instant he was there, blocking her retreat, his brow furrowed.
“Look,” she said, her eyes on his chest. “The whole thing was awful. I didn’t even tell Pap everything. I don’t even like to think about it.”
Ra’kur sank into that otherworldly stillness of his, patient as the mountain itself.
And just as unmovable.
She shut her eyes for a moment. “There was this guy in college . . .” she said, her voice low, reluctant. “Ricky. He was gorgeous and funny and charming; I couldn’t believe he was interested in me. And at first, I thought everything was great. But there were . . . little things, stuff that was easy to ignore—him not liking movies I chose or restaurants I’d picked. He didn’t like my friends, complained they were trying to split us up ’til I just stopped seeing them to avoid a fight. He was always putting down whatever I did or liked or wanted, then he’d say he was kidding, that I was too sensitive. He had a quick as fire temper too and I never knew what would set him off. Sometimes when I’d make a mistake he’d call me stupid.” She dropped her gaze, looking at his boots now. “I just couldn’t take it anymore and when I told him how I felt, he just discounted everything I was saying. I told him I wanted to break up and it got ugly. We were both yelling by then and he . . . he threw me against the wall. Next thing I knew he had his hands around my throat.”
She swallowed hard. “I was so scared. I thought he was going to kill me. I fought back hard and ran outta there as soon as I got loose. The cops took a report but nothing came of it and the university wouldn’t do shit. Even after I broke up with him, he followed me around, called me in the middle of the night, said he was going to make me sorry, that I deserved whatever he did to me. He told everybody I was crazy and they fucking believed him.” She shook her head. “Oh my God, I was a mess. Jumpy all the time, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, afraid to go anywhere. I was so embarrassed, so ashamed. I’m still ashamed . . .” She pushed her hair out of her face. “I kept wondering what I’d done to make all this happen. I had to withdraw from school mid-semester and transfer to a new college to get away from him.”
Ra’kur had stayed very still as she spoke but she could detect a faint tremble to his muscles now.
His fangs bared, his whole face savage. “Tell me where this male is. I will kill him.”
“No.” His expression was outraged and Jenna sighed. “Even if I knew where he was—and, thank God, I don’t—I wouldn’t tell you. Yeah, he’s an asshole and he should be stopped, punished, whatever, but I wouldn’t put you at risk for what happened four years ago. And I was lucky that I did get away from him. I mean, I just kept ignoring what my gut was telling me and by the time I admitted to myself how wrong things were I didn’t have any friends. I couldn’t bring myself to go to a therapist. Of course one of them would have seen it all before—the explosion, the sweetie-I’m-sorry roses time, then pretty soon the hurting and humiliating starts again. I know lots of women stay with men like that ’cause they think it’s going to get better, ’cause they get torn down and they don’t have anyone else or any money to go, ’cause they’re afraid if they leave the guy will kill them . . .”
“Jenna,” he growled softly. “Do you fear me?”
She studied his face and listened to her gut. It was funny to remember how alien and frightening he seemed just a day ago. “No. No, I don’t.”
He let his breath out. “I am glad of it. I would never hurt you.” He cupped her cheek, his hand very warm despite the chill. “But I am g’hir and I cannot be other than I am. I sought you under a thousand stars and seeking you gave meaning to my life. I must be permitted to protect you, to provide for you, or I would find my life unbearable.”
She raised her chin. “I won’t let you boss me around.”
He smiled faintly. “Even I do not possess such courage.”
Her eyes narrowed and he caught her hands in his, his expression solemn.
“Do you trust me, little bird?”
The truth was he was already a hell of a lot stronger than she was and it sounded like everything he’d done yesterday was in keeping with the way his people did things.
“Yes, Ra’kur,” she said softly. “I do trust you.”
“Then trust I do not seek to rule over you.” He touched his forehead to hers. “But only to safeguard the gift the All Mother has blessed me with. For me, to do less would be sacrilege. To protect our mates, to honor our women, was always a sacred trust. But now, in the wake of the Scourge—you cannot begin to imagine what a female, every female, means to us now. To harm one is unpardonable, a crime against the Goddess herself.”
“Okay,” she breathed. “Okay.”
He bent his head to rub his nose against hers then brushed a kiss against her mouth.
He drew back to look at her. “You are so beautiful, my Jenna.”
The light reflecting from the snow softened his features, his blue-black hair and rippled brow. “You are too.”
He laughed, his fangs flashing. “Males are not beautiful.”
“I think you are beautiful.” She gave his hands a squeeze. “And there’s no use arguing with me.”
His eyes crinkled with humor and he inclined his head. “If it pleases you to think so.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You know, I was real patient while you were fixing that panel.”
“You were,” he agreed.
“You promised if I let you look at the panel,” she reminded, sliding her arms around his waist, “you’d leave me begging . . .”
Ten
Looking into her decimated pantry, Jenna blew a lock of hair that had escaped her ponytail off her face. The fridge was nearly empty too. She was lucky she could cobble together their lunch and even with her culinary skills she wasn’t sure she had enough to make dinner tonight.
Every morning after breakfast they went to his ship and he’d set pillows out for her so she could sit nearby comfortably and talk with him as he worked. The repairs were going well, but slowly on account of them stopping so often to get tangled up together in his bed. They came back up here, holding hands as they walked through her woods, for lunch and supper and spent the evenings snug together in the cabin. She liked showing off her cooking for him—fried chicken and gravy, biscuits and chocolate cake—as much as he enjoyed polishing it all off.
And in the past three days she’d learned just how expensive it was going to be to keep a seven-foot-tall alien warrior well fed.
’Course it was all worth it for the look on that warrior’s face as he sampled his very first root beer float.
Ra’kur sat at the battered kitchen table, his huge hands wrapped around the frosty glass, straw in his mouth, rumbling happily as he started on his third float.
“I wish to have more of these,” he said with a blissful look at the foamy contents of his glass. “I will have them with every meal.”
“Yeah, I’ll need to hit the Harris Teeter if we’re going to have any meals at all.” She gave a final look at the empty pantry and shut the cabinet door. It probably hadn’t been this bare since the Great Depression. “In fact, I don’t even need to make a list because we’re out of everything.”
“Harristeeeeterrrr?”
“It’s a grocery store,” she said, dusting her palms against her white cook’s apron. “It’s where I buy food.”
His straw made a slurping sound as he finished off the last of his float. He put the glass down and gave a nod. “We may go now.”
“Uh, no. Ra’kur, you can�
��t go with me.”
“My repairs are nearly completed.” He leaned back in his chair and with a practiced eye checked his weapon, then holstered it again. “A hour’s work at the most remains.”
“Ra’kur,” she began slowly. “We’ve talked about this. There aren’t any people on this world who aren’t human. You can’t go into town. You can’t let anyone see you, I told you that.”
His brow creased. “I did not think you meant never let anyone see me.”
“What did you think I meant?”
He glanced at her breasts, her body. “I thought you were shy about letting others know that we have been fucking so much.”
Jenna crossed her arms over her chest, her back against the pantry door. “You know, maybe we could try another word for that?”
“Bashful?” he offered.
She closed her eyes briefly. “I meant instead of ‘fucking.’”
“But that is what we do.” Ra’kur frowned again. “We fuck.”
He was right and, really, it was just how the linguistic chip managed to translate it, but it still got under her skin that he called it that.
“So your people never call it ‘making love’?” she asked, annoyed at how important this suddenly was to her. “It’s always just ‘fucking’?”
His face lit up. “I like this new way of describing how we fuck.”
“You know,” Jenna said, rubbing her forehead, “maybe we tackle that later and get back to the ‘not-letting-anyone-see-the-alien’ part.”
“I will not let you go unprotected.” Ra’kur stood, seven feet of brawn, glowing eyes, and bared fangs. “I am going with you.”
“You can’t.” She took quick steps to stand in front of him. “If anyone sees you they’ll—I don’t know—panic? Or call out the National Guard or something!”
“I will not let you go about alone in on a planet so uncivilized as this.”
“Wait a—did you just call my home, my world, uncivilized?”
“Jenna,” he began, and his growl had an overly patient tone that set her teeth on edge. “This is an unsafe world for females. You have told me so yourself. I will not allow my lifemate to put herself in danger to purchase foodstuffs. I am going with you.”