Captured: Warriors of Hir, Book 1 (13 page)

“
She
is also right here in the room too,” Jenna snapped. “And can even be spoken to directly.”

This time Doctor Elaran did look a little chagrined. “My apologies, Mata. I meant no offense.”

“Mata?” she wondered, looking at Ra’kur.

“The respectful way to address a female,” Ra’kur explained.

“Like ‘ma’am’?” Jenna asked.

Doctor Elaran regarded her with his eerie yellow eyes. “Should I call you ‘ma’am’?”

His growling attempt at the English word sounded like he was gargling the word. And, at twenty-six, she wasn’t in a hurry to be addressed as ‘ma’am’ by anybody, thank you very much.

“No,” Jenna said. “Absolutely not. By all means, use ‘Mata.’”

The doctor inclined his head. “Mata. I suppose the question is—how would you describe your discomfort?”

“I’m tired,” Jenna said. “Hungry. Thirsty. I ache to my bones.”

“Your
bones
hurt?” Ra’kur cried.

“Warrior, you will allow me to practice the healing or I will send you outside,” the doctor said sharply, then to Jenna urged: “Describe this bone pain please.”

“No, that’s just an expression,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “I meant my body aches. I feel sore, weak.”

“Ah,” the senior physician said, the tension in his shoulders easing. “The muscle aches can be explained by your time in stasis.”

“You guys keep saying ‘stasis.’” She looked at Ra’kur again. “Did you freeze me or something?”

“I placed you in medical suspension,” he said, frowning. “It lowers the body temperature, slows the metabolism.”

“So, yeah, you froze me.”

“You were dying. I thank the All Mother that I reached the ship in time to place you in stasis at all.” He exchanged a look with the doctors. “I do not understand why this distresses you. Is it a human taboo?”

“To be frozen like a turkey for a later, more convenient, thaw?” When she slept—even the time she’d been put under to have her appendix out—she had a sense of time passing. What really creeped her out was that this time—in stasis—she hadn’t. “No, of course not. Why would it?”

“We were able to treat the considerable physical injures you suffered,” Doctor Elaran said. “But you did not emerge from stasis to consciousness as you should have. All our literature pointed to stasis-induced critical failure of the brain’s message center.”

“But I’m not g’hir.” Maybe
that’s
why she had that weird time loss feeling. “So my brain is different.”

“Actually, our scans have revealed the physiology of your brain to be not as different as one would expect in another species. The usual structures of the g’hir brain are present in yours.” The doctor tapped his fingers against his leg for a moment. “It would stand to reason that our standard procedures to return you to consciousness should have worked.”

“She may have been harmed by your ministrations,” Ra’kur snapped. “Not healed.”

“Again, she is my first
human
.” The doctor regarded her. “But if I am to be responsible to treat you, it is best that we learn as much as possible about what is normal for your species.”

Jenna shifted a little at the idea of him, of anyone, studying her.

“What matters now is to make her well,” Ra’kur said sharply. “She is hungry.”

The doctor pursed his lips for a moment, then gave a nod. “Yes, I think we will try some old herder’s medicine. We will provide fluids and nourishment and give the body an opportunity to heal itself.” The doctor glanced at his assistant. “Simple foods, to begin with. A cup of meat broth, perhaps a karlet pie later if she is up to it.”

“Yes, sir,” the younger g’hir murmured.

The senior physician looked back at Jenna. “I will return to check on you again in a few hours, Mata.”

“He didn’t say anything about this thing,” Jenna complained, eying the IV in her arm after the door shut behind the two physicians.

“Does it pain you?”

“It stings a bit, yeah.”

“I will tell them they must remove it,” he promised.

This room had no windows. She didn’t even know if it was day or night.

Oh, my God, I’m on an alien planet!

“How long have I been here, Ra’kur?”

“We arrived on Hir six days ago. You have been here, at the central medical facility in the city of Be’lyn, since we arrived.”

“Six days . . .”

She couldn’t even begin to imagine what was happening back home. Bill injured, herself gone, everyone and his grandmother talking about aliens—

She looked up at Ra’kur. “Are you all right?”

He gave a short, humorless laugh. “You are concerned for
me
—when you have lain bloodied and unable to wake?”

“It wasn’t long ago that I was where you are now,” she said quietly. “Sitting at someone’s bedside, watching them hurt, knowing there was nothing else I could do. So, yeah, I want to know if you’re all right.”

He took her hand in his. “All that matters is that you are alive, awake, and here with me now.”

“On another planet.”

“You are angry, then?” he asked heavily. “You did not wish to leave your homeworld.”

“What’s done is done.” She gave him a faint smile. “And come on. You don’t think I’m busting to see your world?”

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.”