by Willow Danes
His brow creased. “You are?”
“It’s an alien planet! I’m on an actual alien planet! Of course I want to see it.” Her head felt like it weighed a ton when she lifted it, trying to see. “Is there a window out in the hall I could look out?”
Just then another g’hir, one she hadn’t seen before but wearing blue scrub-like clothes like the doctors’, came into her room. On the tray he carried was a bowl, steam curling from its contents and giving off a mouthwatering scent.
The man stopped when her gaze met his, his brilliant ocean blue eyes widening.
Right, I’m probably his first human too.
Jenna gave him a friendly smile and the man’s mouth parted.
“Leave it and get out!” Ra’kur snarled with gesture to the side table.
The man hurriedly did as directed, stealing little glances at her.
“That was pretty rude,” Jenna said when the door slid shut behind the man.
“He was the rude one,” Ra’kur grumbled, manipulating the bed controls to help her sit up. “To stare at you so.”
Jenna fought not to groan as the new position made her light-headed. “He was just curious. I probably look really strange to your people. They’ve never seen a human before.”
Ra’kur’s nostrils flared. “It does not matter. You are a Mata. He should have more respect for you.” He moved a table that extended over the bed and placed the tray in front of her.
The utensil they provided with the soup was the size of a serving spoon but Ra’kur had it in hand before she could reach for it.
She fixed him with a look. “Wait—you aren’t seriously thinking you’re going to feed me, are you?”
His gaze didn’t waver. “Yes.”
She studied him for a moment, considering. “If I let you, will you take me to a window so I can see outside?”
“When you are strong enough,” he growled.
She was about to argue further but truth was, she was worn out just sitting up. Ra’kur brought the spoon to her mouth and she could almost hear Pap’s voice in her head—
Best pick your battles, Birdie.
Thirteen
Jenna pressed her forehead against the hospital hallway window, looking longingly out at the sunlit city of Be’lyn.
“Oh, come on, Ra’kur! All I want to do is take a damned walk. I’ve been here cooped up in the hospital for three days now, and that doesn’t count the time I was unconscious!”
“You took a walk yesterday.”
She turned to face him. Now that she had been transferred out of Critical and onto a Convalescent ward she had the freedom to walk about the hospital as well as access to holographic entertainments, fascinating stuff but still—“Five minutes in the hospital’s courtyard arboretum doesn’t count. I want to go outside—into the city!”
“It is too soon,” he growled. “You have only just recovered your strength.”
“I’m fine and you know it. Do you have any idea what it would mean to me to get out of here for a while? Okay and maybe, you know”—she waved toward the city below, the elegant spires and enticing parklands—“explore an alien world?”
“I do not wish to take you among the g’hir until my clanbrothers can accompany us.” He folded his arms. “It is not safe.”
“What if we don’t go far and just stay in populated areas?” she asked, holding the bird charm around her neck between her fingers. “We could stick to the public squares and maybe the market you told me about? Please? I really want to go.”
“It would be irresponsible as your lifemate for me to take any chances with your health.”
“Even Doctor Elaran okayed me for release. He said I’ve made ‘a remarkable recovery.’ I’m not even sore anymore! I’m so barely a patient now that they aren’t making me wear a hospital smock,” she pointed out, holding out the skirt of her new dress.
She hadn’t had anything with her but the clothes on her back and those had been ruined when she was shot. She wore g’hir clothes now and in a place where a female was rare apparently they really played up the girly aspect. The lavender-colored dress she wore now was far more floaty and frilly than anything she’d worn since maybe junior prom but it and the beaded, embroidered boots Ra’kur had purchased for her were both pretty and comfortable.
“I don’t even have the scar left from when I broke my arm as a kid! Credit where credit is due—g’hir medicine beats humans’ hands down. And even my top-notch best-of-the-best sawbones agreed yesterday I shouldn’t even be in the hospital. It was your idea to have them keep me an extra day.”
“Of course he agreed with you.” Ra’kur threw a dark look behind him. It was just after lunchtime—or as the g’hir called it, midmeal—and the hospital hallway was quiet now. Doctor Elaran was not likely to be back till much later for his afternoon rounds but this was one g’hir warrior who had taken a real dislike to her physician. “He would climb the heights of the Bruzaar Cliffs to fetch you a letari bloom if you asked.”
“Hold on—you aren’t seriously jealous of my doctor, are you?”
“He was content to declare there was no more to be done when you did not regain consciousness. Now he is nothing but”—Ra’kur’s fangs showed—“solicitous to you.”
She shrugged. “Maybe he’s worried about getting sued.”
Ra’kur jerked his chin at her. “What is ‘sued’?”
“Well, it’s when you claim someone has caused you a loss and you demand compensation.”
“He should be worried.” His hand brushed the weapon at his side. “We too demand payment for injuries done to us.”
“Uh, where I come from it’s usually monetary compensation. Besides . . .” Jenna put her hand on her hip. “Doctor Elaran’s only interest in me is doing tests. Being that man’s favorite lab rat isn’t a lot of laughs, you know. There’s got to be something unethical about drawing that much blood from a single subject. I feel like a damned pincushion.”
Ra’kur turned toward the window. “I hate that this has been your introduction to my world—healers and their endless treatments. My clanbrothers will arrive here in a few hours to escort us to the enclosure. They have prepared a welcome for you and once we are home, you will see how beautiful—how pleasant—Hir can be.”
“Which means I won’t get to see the city at all before we leave,” she said, and even she could hear the disappointment in her voice.
Ra’kur shifted his weight. “I suppose there will be enough peacekeepers in this area of the city to make it safe for a short time . . .”
“I’m ready,” she said, grabbing his hand. “Let’s go already!”
“You must stay close to me and we will not venture far,” he warned as she pulled him down the hall toward the lift. “I do not think either of us will enjoy the attention you will get.”
“Because I’m human.” Her excitement at going outside suddenly dimmed a bit. The hospital staff had gotten used to her for the most part, though whenever she ventured off the floor she got some wide-eyed stares. And really, what kind of reception would Ra’kur get if she took him strolling down Page Avenue in Asheville? “Because they’ll find me so alien.”
He sighed. “Because they will find you so astonishing.”
He wasn’t kidding either. She was stared at—gawked at, really—everywhere they went. And these men didn’t give hostile glares, they offered fixed, admiring looks that followed her every movement with predator-like intensity.
And it wasn’t fun.
In every arching space she entered, every avenue, every city square, she was greeted by a ripple of stunned silence as the g’hir men paused in whatever they were doing to turn toward her, their bodies unnaturally still as they watched her with wide, luminescent eyes.
And she—with her too-round face, her brown eyes and hair—might have enjoyed creating a stir like a goddamn supermodel if it hadn’t been unnerving to have so many alien males with their gazes fixed on her.
She offered the first man
they encountered outside the hospital a friendly smile. The man took a step toward her, his eyes alight with interest, and Ra’kur gave a low, warning snarl, his fangs out, his hand already at the weapon at his hip.
The other g’hir hesitated and his hungry gaze flicked to her. It was a tense few seconds. Then the man took a step back.
Even with Ra’kur walking beside her and looking about as friendly as a rattler, polite smiles also proved too much of an invitation as did offering a simple nod. Jenna wasn’t about to hang her head, damn it, and she strove to meet their eyes with a measure of cool respect at least.
She could count on one hand how many females she saw and each had their very own entourage of tense-looking warriors.
“Is that usual?” Jenna asked. “For a woman to be surrounded by so many men like that?”
“It was not this way before, but it has become the custom since the Scourge,” Ra’kur said. “Clanbrothers now accompany a warrior and his mate to keep her safe.”
“Safe from what?” The g’hir were an intimidating bunch but the capital city hardly seemed teeming with crime. She hadn’t even seen any litter, for God’s sake. The buildings and parks were in pristine shape, the weather mild and the air clean and sweet.
“There have been—incidents. Women who have been stolen.”
Jenna blinked. “Women are kidnapped here? For ransom?”
“A female is never returned and no ransom could be high enough.”
“But I thought—you said g’hir mate for life.”
“Our males do.”
“And the women?”
“If a male does not have the power to retrieve her, she will deem him unworthy and choose a stronger mate.”
Jenna craned her neck to watch the female and her group of guards. No wonder Ra’kur was so on edge, so reluctant to take her out alone. “How often does this kind of thing happen?”
“Do not fear.” His eyes were savage when they met hers. “No one will take you from me. And no enclosure would withstand the onslaught my clanbrothers will bring to get you back. Every one of them would die to protect you.”
Jenna swallowed hard. “I didn’t know that things were like that here.” She frowned. “Would your, uh, clanbrothers do that? I mean, attack another clan for your sake?”
“Of course.” He seemed surprised. “Females are our hope. You are my clan’s future.”
“Children.” Her eyes scanned the square, the fountains, the benches, all filled with males, none younger than teenagers. “God, there are no children here either.”
“There are some,” he growled quietly. “Perhaps ten thousand or so on this world, on the colony worlds beyond. Perhaps we will see one today. G’hir young are very pleasing to behold.”
So few, when there were millions, perhaps billions, of males here . . .
“And you want children, don’t you?” Her throat tightened. Doctor Elaran had already confirmed what she’d suspected; their physiology just was too different for them to procreate. “But being with a human means you won’t ever have them.”
His gaze on her was soft. “I want for nothing but you, little bird.” He searched her eyes and his expression grew sad. “But you, my Jenna. You wanted children.”
“I’ve thought about it,” she admitted. “Yeah, I guess I did always expect to be a mom someday.”
“And for that,” he said heavily, “you will need a human male.”
Tears suddenly stung her eyes. He wanted kids, she did too, but they couldn’t—and with children here so very precious it wasn’t like there was ever going to a g’hir kid up for adoption.
She took his hand in hers. “You know what my Pap would say about now?” Jenna mimicked her grandfather’s Appalachian drawl. “‘Don’t tell me you done foresaw this a comin’ Birdie, and that means you can’t know what life’s got in store for you next. Could be best thing ever happened to you, for all you know.’”
She wasn’t sure how the translator would handle the North Carolina accent but apparently it worked well enough because Ra’kur gave a faint smile.
“He was wise, your grandsire.”
Jenna threw him a grin. “He’d be the first to agree with you on that.”
Ra’kur tilted his head, his alien eyes brilliant in the sunlight. “I regret I did not meet him.”
Jenna traced his jaw thoughtfully. “You know—if he somehow missed nailing you with the shotgun and actually could get to talking to you—I know he would have really liked you too.” She tugged on his hand. “Come on, show me more of the city.”
“Not much further,” he warned with a look at the uniformed g’hir nearby. “There are enough peacekeepers here in the marketplace but we will not venture past this district without my clanbrothers.”
Jenna suppressed a sigh. At least I’ll get to see the market.
As they turned the corner in that direction, Jenna gasped at finding herself face to face with a large insectoid creature. Horrified, she would have fled if not for Ra’kur’s hand at the small of her back.
“It is a xenari,” he murmured. “They are allies of the g’hir. She will not harm you.”
After a moment, her fright eased up enough to notice that the thing—the xenari—wore a shimmery dress over her dark gray exoskeleton and that her enormous multifaceted eyes seemed to be looking back at Jenna with polite curiosity.
“Good day, Mata,” the xenari said.
Or rather buzzed.
Just like with Hironian Jenna could hear the actual sound the xenari was making but in her head she understood the words.
“Good day,” Jenna stammered. Oh, crap, he said it’s a she. “Uh, Mata.”
Ra’kur inclined his head and in turn the xenari returned the gesture. After a moment of watching the enormous bug-like being warily, Jenna did the same.
Still, she couldn’t keep from watching as the xenari went on her way.
“She startled you,” Ra’kur said. “I should have cautioned you that there were other races who visit the capital city.”
“Yeah, I, uh,” Jenna began faintly, “didn’t stop to think I wouldn’t be the only alien in town.” She glanced in the direction the xenari had gone. “I could understand her.”
“The linguistic chip is standardly implanted and there are a number of other intelligent races that the g’hir have allied with.”
“But none of those allies are . . . compatible?”
“Some are more pleasing to the g’hir eye than the xenari, though they are a very cultured race, but no.” His gaze on her was warm. “None like you.”
Most shops and stalls for clothing were of course geared toward men but there were a very few places that catered to women.
Delighted, Jenna let the smiling elderly proprietor of one such shop dab a few of the perfumes on her wrist. She couldn’t detect any fragrance but the g’hir had a much better sense of smell than humans and the shopkeeper was eager for her opinion. She raised her arm to sniff to see if she noticed anything at all when she met the gaze of a richly dressed g’hir woman just arriving at the shop.
The alien female was well over six feet tall, her ridged brow far more delicate than the males fanned out around her. Her honey blond hair was thick and hung to her waist but she’d braided and decorated the front with jewels. Her radiant eyes were shown off with some kind of sparkly makeup of the same bright green shade. She wore blusher too and shimmery lipstick—no wallflowers here. The bones of her face were also finer than the males, her fitted gown showing off every curve of her rounded, feminine form.
Even in her wispy, frilly gown Jenna suddenly felt underdressed.
“Who are you?” the woman demanded.
Jenna blinked. She’d been stared at all day but no one except Ra’kur had spoken to her.
The woman looked her over. “What are you?”
Jenna’s nostrils flared at the woman’s rude tone and Ra’kur tensed beside her.
“Jenna McNally,” she said coldly. “Human. I know what you are so
I guess that just leaves who.”
The alien woman’s lips parted at having been addressed in kind.
I guess when you’re a gorgeous female g’hir, you get used to a lot of people talking sweet to you.
Jenna folded her arms. “You have a name, don’t you? Or did you leave it back home ’long with your manners?”
The woman’s eyes widened then she gave a sudden, delighted laugh, her delicate fangs flashing in the sunlight.
“My apologies, Mata,” she said, her eyes crinkled with humor. “Indeed, I was impolite. I am Si’hala, of the Yir clan enclosure.” She indicated the warrior at her side. “My mate, Lihr.”
Jenna offered Lihr a nod then felt her cheeks heat when she realized she had to introduce Ra’kur. She could hardly call him her boyfriend and “mate” didn’t sound right either. They hadn’t even talked about what was going to happen next. “This is Ra’kur.”
“Of the Erah enclosure,” he supplied.
“I have heard of your clan,” Lihr growled, his spring green eyes respectful. “The Erah lands are in the Araki territory.”
Ra’kur inclined his head. “Yes. In the Zun Mountains.”
“Good hunting there?” Lihr asked.
Si’hala looked round at him. “Hunting?”
“I am making good acquaintance with an honored warrior, Si’hala,” Lihr said with a narrowed glance.
“Very good hunting,” Ra’kur said, and even Jenna could tell he was trying to smooth things over.
“There is a new alien female standing right in front of us and you are talking about hunting?” She looked at Jenna and gave a headshake. “Males! Are they different on your world, human?”
Jenna threw Ra’kur an impish look. “Not really. But,” Jenna continued, turning back to Si’hala, “we really wouldn’t want them to be, would we?”
The g’hir woman sent a fond glance at her mate and her pretty fangs flashed again. “No, I suppose we wouldn’t.”
Si’hala jerked her chin toward Jenna but addressed the shopkeeper. “Are those the new scents from the Ki territory?”
The elderly g’hir stepped forward quickly. “Yes, Mata.”