The Arcav General's Woman

by Hope Hart

  He’s got a fire going close to the ship’s entrance, cracking it open for ventilation. I’m hoping the smoke won’t draw predators, but it’s either make a fire or risk freezing to death.

  I hand Methi his shirt and he takes it without a word. He’s sitting near the fire, staring into the flames, and I sit down as well, warming my hands.

  “Tell me more about how we ended up here.”

  “Why?” I sigh. “It’s not like you’ll believe me anyway.”

  He narrows his eyes. “It appears that I am the only chance you have of survival on this planet, so I suggest you do as I say.”

  I jerk my head up at that. “You’re threatening me now? Nice. Your mom would be so proud.”

  “You know my mother?”

  “Yeah, and if she could see this shitty attitude of yours right now, she’d do that long-suffering sigh she does and pinch the top of her nose.”

  His eyes widen and I smile.

  He frowns, still distrusting. “When did you meet her?”

  “Shortly after we arrived. She was part of the committee that was created to help humans integrate into life on Arcavia.”

  “Why did humans move? Was your planet destroyed? Are you refugees?”

  “Nope.” Oh god, he has no idea about Korva. His last memory is of having dinner with Korva and his mate. The mate that has been buried for a few hundred years. I have to tell him that not only did his friend die, but her mate— also his close friend— lost his mind and screwed his entire race.

  “What is that look on your face?”

  “I have some bad things to tell you, and I’m worried.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Why would you care?”

  I shift on the floor, turning my attention back to the fire. “Because believe it or not, but we’re friends. I don’t like to see my friends hurt.”

  “Friends.” He tastes the word, and I avoid his gaze. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to see the look on his face when he learns that he’s friends with a small, weak, human.

  “I believe friendship is about honesty,” he says finally, and I meet his eyes. “You must tell me what has happened so that I can make informed decisions.”

  So I do.

  I break his heart when I tell him things that he has had centuries to come to terms with. I rip off the bandaids and lay it all out for him, explaining Korva’s meddling with both Arcav and human DNA, and the resulting invasion of Earth. And then I sucker punch him with the knowledge that traitors have infiltrated his people, one of them a guy he’s known for centuries.

  He’s silent for a long time, and when I glance over, his eyes are wet.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

  “My King has mated?”

  “Yeah. Her name is Harlow and you love her. Not that way,” I assure him as his eyes narrow. “As a friend. That’s how you lost your arm. Our ship was attacked and the Grivath were looking for her, hoping to kidnap her. We were under attack and completely unprepared. There were only a few of you guys, and thousands of humans to protect. You barricaded us in and made a stand, and you were trying to rescue your friend when you were shot.”

  My own eyes fill with tears at the memory. “I saw the whole thing. Harlow managed to save your life by stopping the bleeding, but there was no way to save your arm.”

  He nods, a simple acceptance that his arm was at least lost honorably.

  “Jaret is still alive?”

  I nod. “He also has a mate. Her name is Amanda.”

  Methi is silent for a long time, and I curl up on the floor, depressed. Eventually, I doze, and distantly feel him covering me with a blanket, and then I give in to sleep.

  Methi

  I watch the small female as she snores softly. If she is to be believed, I have lost centuries of my memories, and there is no way to know if I will get them back. If I was on my planet, some of the finest healers in the universe would likely have fixed whatever problem is preventing my recollection, but according to Meghan, we are far from Arcavia.

  I… believe her.

  She has too much information about my people— from my mother to Varian, who she speaks of as if he is a protective older brother. She describes a world in which there are no more female Arcav being born and one in which we are forced to coexist with her race.

  My King has mated a female like her? Weak and intolerant of cold temperatures? What has become of our race?

  Meghan insists that I have a deep friendship with Varian’s mate, but it is difficult for me to believe. To be fair, everything she says is difficult for me to come to terms with. It is as if I have fallen asleep for hundreds of years, only to wake up and be told that the sky is now purple.

  I brood for hours, unable to sleep even though my body is begging for rest. I continually have to force my gaze away from the small female, my eyes tempted to linger. When she is asleep, it is difficult to imagine all that pent up energy in one body. Her knees are curled up like a child, and tendrils of dark hair cover her face. When she was telling me of my history, I caught myself wishing that she would smile, even though neither of us has anything to smile about.

  I stand watch all night, until Meghan wakes and insists I try to sleep. I do not like the thought of turning the task of sentry to this small female, but she is logical. I must sleep if I am to figure out a way for us to get out of here.

  When I wake, the fire is still burning, but we are almost out of wood. Meghan is leaning against the door, staring into the flames as if searching them for answers. I nod to her and get up, locate the bathroom, and then search through the primitive excuse for a medi-center. As I suspected, there is no healing instrument, and nothing I can use to get my memory back. I poke at the lump on the back of my head, hissing in pain.

  “We should’ve found some ice for that,” Meghan says softly. She has followed me into the medi-center and is now leaning against the door.

  She is right. Ice will relieve the swelling, hopefully improving healing. I clench my fists, unused to being so vulnerable. We are trapped here with dwindling food and water and just one weapon between us.

  “Here’s what I’m thinking,” Meghan says, taking a seat on the small bed. “We need to take stock of the condition of the ship. If it’s able to be repaired, we can work on that and then hopefully find some fuel.”

  I raise an eyebrow. This female displeases me in many ways— mostly because she is a distraction I cannot ignore. But her logic is sound.

  “You believe you can help with the repair?”

  She grins, and my heart clenches as I stare at her. I have the strangest feeling of déjà vu, as if I have been looking at that smile for centuries.

  “Oh yeah. Turns out that Darja’s dislike of me may be what gets us out of here. He didn’t want me to learn to fly,” she explains, “so he kept sending me to the engineers for bullshit errands and work. Hopefully our combined knowledge will help us fix the ship.”

  She doesn’t mention that much of my knowledge is missing and I simply nod.

  “I will look for more wood,” I say, and she chews on her lower lip again at the realization that she will need to stay here. It does not please me to leave her alone, and I’m pressing the blaster into her hand before I am aware of it.

  “Don’t be stupid,” she snaps. “You need to take it.”

  “You will keep a lookout and make sure no one sneaks up on this ship.”

  “I don’t need a weapon for that! You’re the one going out there!”

  “Do not argue. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can analyze the ship.”

  She juts out her chin. “Listen. We’re both in this together. You know it’s logical that you take the weapon. You won’t be far from the ship— in fact I’m sure it’ll be in your line of sight for the most part. I promise I won’t go anywhere, but I’m not going to agree to this unless you take the blaster.”

  I stare down at her, incensed and amused all at on
ce.

  “You do not need to agree.”

  She bares her teeth. “Oh yeah? I’ll just follow you and provide cover.”

  I snarl and she smirks at my instant denial.

  “Fine,” I growl, snatching the blaster back and ignoring the smug expression on her face. At least I can travel faster without the human and will be able to carry more wood without her lying limp over my shoulder.

  Meghan

  Methi is in one hell of a bad mood, but I can’t blame him. The Arcav have slowly gotten used to what Varian calls ‘human female stubbornness,’ and if he hadn’t lost so many of his memories, our argument would’ve been shorter.

  There’s no way I’m letting him go outside without a weapon. Just because we haven’t seen any sign of other aliens doesn’t mean that they’re not out there. Watching. And waiting.

  I shudder and shoot Methi a thumbs up as he lowers the stairs to the ship. He frowns at me and hesitates and I scowl back.

  “Just go.”

  He finally nods and strides down the stairs, glaring at me until I raise them again. This is what I agreed to, and even though it goes against all of my instincts to leave him without easy access to the ship, I do it. I’ll be watching, and if I see him sprinting back toward me, I’ll lunge for the button and deploy the stairs as fast as I can.

  I watch his broad shoulders as he walks toward the forest, my heart thumping. If anyone was planning to attack us, doing it while we’re separated would be the smartest choice. I hate being this useless, but the cold is simply too much for me, and hypothermia and frostbite won’t help our situation.

  Methi disappears into the forest and my heart thumps harder. He reappears immediately, scowling at the ship, and I almost grin. He’s showing me he’s okay, but obviously not feeling very gracious about it.

  When Methi woke up this morning, I’d stared at him, hoping with everything in me that his memory had miraculously returned in the night. What will happen if it never returns? What if I never get my Methi back?

  “Focus on what you can control, Meghan,” I mutter. “Like working on getting back to Arcavia.”

  Methi reappears again, and I blow out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. He prowls toward the ship, looking like the biggest predator around, and I sigh. It’s not easy being in love with your best friend. I never admitted to myself how badly I wanted Methi’s hands on me every time we were together. When he left Arcavia, it felt like the biggest rejection I’ve ever had. Even worse than clutching at my father’s leg before he left my mom and me.

  When we crash-landed, all I could think about was the time we’d wasted. Time that we could’ve spent together.

  I press the button to deploy the stairs and Methi scowls, glancing around him as he checks for danger. Then he backs up the stairs again, blaster out and a massive pile of wood in his arms. If I tried to do that, I’d trip backward and end up in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. He drops the wood close to our fire and then hits the button to bring the stairs back up. I add a few pieces of wood, and we both head to the control center.

  The one piece of good news is that the only reason the ship crashed was because it was out of fuel. If it was an Arcav ship that ran out of fuel, we’d be in even worse trouble, since Arcav technology is so advanced and the fuel is completely clean. That makes it less likely that the fuel will be available on planets that are more primitive.

  But this old piece of junk is still running on space fuel. That means that we just need to take stock of the damage it received from our crash landing and see if it’s repairable. Then we need to find some fuel somewhere on this planet and we’re good to go.

  Methi hits a few buttons, and I watch as different parts of the controls light up. Right now, the control center is running on a scant amount of fuel in its backup reservoir. That’s enough to do basic tasks, but nowhere near enough to get us off this planet.

  “The landing gear is broken,” I say as I study the screen, and he nods.

  “I saw this when I was outside.”

  “Okay, we can work with that.”

  “Thrusters, too,” he says and I groan. Thrusters help get an old ship like this in the air. Without them, we’re not going anywhere.

  “You take the landing gear and I’ll take the thrusters?” I can examine them from the lower level of the ship, under the hatch.

  He hesitates and I raise an eyebrow.

  “We have to split up. Look, we haven’t seen anyone around here. If we want to get out of here, we need to divide and conquer.”

  “You are right,” he says, surprising the hell out of me. “I am built more for the cold, but will still need to take breaks to warm up.”

  “Okay, how about we both examine our respective parts— wow that sounded dirty— and then meet back here to discuss?”

  He nods and we separate. The ship is dark, the backup reservoir not powering the lights, so I search until I find a small flashlight and then fling the hatch open, coughing as dust flies up into the air.

  I climb down the small ladder and into the bowels of the ship. It takes me half an hour to locate the thrusters, which look nothing like the long, cylindrical thrusters found on Arcav ships. These are short and wide, and I immediately spot our problem. One of them has a large crack down the side, and attempting to fly the ship will widen the crack, which could then split the thruster completely open.

  If that happens, we won’t be landing anywhere. Well, at least not alive.

  If I can find a half-decent set of tools somewhere, it’s likely that I can fix it. This ship is in such bad shape that I’m guessing the owners were constantly repairing it, which means as long as Methi can fix the landing gear, our only problem will be fuel.

  I climb back up to the main floor and make my way to the exit, skirting around the fire. I watch Methi working below me, his large, strong hands easily removing parts of the landing gear as he examines it coolly. I let out a shuddering breath as I picture those hands on my body, those eyes hot.

  I’ve seen the look on Methi’s face when he thinks I’m not looking. Both before and after he lost his memory. Even though the surly male below me seems to think I’m a helpless female in need of his protection, he still wants me.

  And I want him too.

  Chapter Ten

  Methi

  Meghan walks down the stairs, and I almost order her back into the warmth of the ship, until I notice her drawing in deep breaths, obviously enjoying the fresh air even as she shivers uncontrollably.

  “How bad is the landing gear?” she asks.

  “Fixable— depending on the tools available.”

  “Same with the thrusters. I’m going to have something to eat and then I’ll look for some tools.”

  She looks up at me from beneath her lashes. “You wanna join me?”

  I hesitate, but I need to eat, and I cannot work on the landing gear without tools. I nod and follow her back upstairs, ordering myself to remove my gaze from her curvy rear as it sways from side to side in front of me.

  It does not work.

  According to this female, Arcav are now mating with these humans.

  “Do you have a mate?” I ask suddenly, and she turns her head, almost tripping up the stairs. I whip out one hand to stop her fall, and it lands directly on her hip, inches from where I want to smooth it over her rear.

  “Um. No.”

  This news pleases me.

  We find food, and I order Meghan to tell me more about this new life I have been living. Apparently, my new Queen is now pregnant with the next generation of the royal family, and Varian has never been happier. I ask her about her life, and she fills me in, chattering about things I do not understand.

  “My mom’s a therapist. Probably the reason I turned out halfway normal. Most people who were child prodigies turn out to be kind of weird. Mom made sure I wouldn’t end up being an anti-social freak by making me interact with people. She taught me that people are more than just their brains. They’re also the
ir hearts and personalities.” She’s silent for a moment, and I’m struck by how incredibly young she appears. “I miss her,” she whispers.

  “You are close?”

  “Yeah, I’m an only child, and = mom and me kinda stuck together. When she mated to Arax, she told me that if I didn’t want to leave Earth, I didn’t have to. It would be my choice.”

  “Why did you choose to leave?” I cannot imagine leaving Arcavia for good.

  “I wanted something different. You guys are so far ahead of us in so many ways, and I saw it as a giant adventure. This isn’t quite the adventure I was imagining though,” she says glumly, taking a bite.

  “Tell me more about how we met.”

  She grins. “Well, you probably don’t remember. The real you, I mean. Uh, not that you’re not the real you now.” She flushes and I simply nod. She is friends with the other Methi. The one who remembers all of these things that she is telling me. I am just someone she happens to be trapped with.

  My expression must be dark because she steals a look at my face and then quickly glances away.

  “We technically met when you were protecting us from the Grivaths, although you were completely focused on saving our lives. Then I was in the medi-center, and Harlow said she was going to visit you, so I went with her. You were resting, so it was a short visit. A few days later, I visited you again, and I kept visiting while you were recovering and after your arm was replaced. By the time you were allowed to return to your duties, we were hanging out most days when you weren’t on duty.”

  I cannot imagine this life, where I simply spent time with this female. She smells like fresh grass and innocence, and I wonder why the other Methi was not rolling her underneath him at every opportunity.

  I have seen the look in her eyes when she believes that I am not paying attention. She scans my body with a look similar to the avid way I was just staring at her rear. We may be friends, but there is no doubt that we have chemistry.