Ruth's Bonded (Ruth & Gron Book 1) (14 page)

“We had been tracking the crew that
stole you since we realised what had happened. When you escaped on the planet’s
surface, we already had our agents posing as potential buyers. We were stunned
to see you, of course, but it worked out in the end. Gron had not been selected
by his female for mating, so really, you represent an interesting opportunity
for study, at no loss to the breeding pool of Gandry.”

Ruth suspected she was supposed to
feel excited about that, but it still sent shivers down her spine, the way
T’Lax talked about studying her and Gron breeding.

“What do you mean, Gron has a
female?” she asked.

“The Gandry live in family groups led
by an alpha female. She selects from the males who she wishes to mate with, and
if a male is not chosen, he either leaves the group or does not produce
offspring. There is much we do not know about Gandry social practices though.
It is hard to observe them inside the protected conservation zone,” T’Lax
explained.

So Gron was single. That was a
relief.

“That is all I know about your
situation. Do you have any questions for me?” the alien offered.

“Is Gron going to live?” Ruth said.

T’Lax got up and spoke into the wall,
waiting for a reply. When it came he announced “The poison has been set back.
He will recover.”

Ruth let out the breath she hadn’t
known she was holding. Okay. Gron was going to live.

“Are you really going to take him
back to his people?” she asked next.

The alien sat down across from her
again. “Yes, in a population as small as the Gandry, every individual is
vital.”

“Can you take me back to my planet?”

T’Lax paused for a moment as if
chewing over his answer, and Ruth watched apprehensively. So far the alien had
demonstrated that he cared nothing for, or perhaps simply did not understand,
the feelings and motivations of the people he claimed to be protecting. The Gandry,
and Ruth by association, were to be studied, their numbers maintained for
science and biological diversity.

“I could. But I have no inclination
to do so. Gron has chosen you as a mate. If your breeding proves successful,
introducing another species to the Gandry population could advance their
development by hundreds of years, and rescue them from extinction. Your
protective behaviour towards him in the cave suggests that you have accepted
him as your mate as well. As unlikely as it is that you will produce offspring,
I cannot risk sending you away while that chance exists. All our evidence
suggests that male Gandry are monogamous for life, which means that if Gron is
to ever produce offspring, it will be with you.”

Ruth let that sink in. This dickbag
was deciding she would never go home again, because she
might
, on the
off-chance
,
pop out a baby for Gron, and he wanted to watch. That made her want to ram his
little head into the table. At the same time, the idea that Gron might be
attached to her in some genuine, meaningful, forever kind of way made her
tingle with happiness and quake in fear. She had never intended that, never
considered that
that
might be the consequence of her actions. She’d
certainly never intended to bind Gron to her in a way he couldn’t get out of.
She wanted it to be his choice, she wanted him to be able to go home and rejoin
his life, even if she couldn’t.

“So what are you going to do with
me?” she asked.

T’Lax picked a piece of food from one
of the plates and popped it into his mouth. “For now, keep you and Gron
together. When you are both healthy, you will be teleported to the protected
conservation zone to rejoin the Gandry population there. All efforts will be
made to supply an environment conducive to mating, and if you require anything
in that regard, please do let us know. I understand this is a personal matter
for you, but please consider the greater good. We are talking of the future of
an entire race. I admit you are more intelligent and more advanced than I
anticipated. Perhaps you will be able to help us more formally in our
conservation efforts, and our studies of Gandry society. But that can be
discussed later. For now, is there anything more you need?”

“Am I a prisoner?” Ruth asked.

T’Lax’s face did something that
scared her, but when he spoke he sounded amused. “We are in space. None of us
can leave this ship, if that is what you mean. I am confident you have never
encountered our technology before, so I doubt you are much of a threat. I see
no reason to keep you imprisoned in the way you were when you were stolen from
your home. That being said, I hope you will be a polite
guest
, and not
abuse our hospitality. Your importance to us depends entirely on your
importance to Gron. If you decide you want nothing more to do with him or any
Gandry, then we have no more reason to negotiate with you.”

Ruth knew a threat when she heard
one. Be a good girl and do what we want, and you’ll be treated well. Disobey
us, and be launched into space.

“I want to wash myself, and then I
want to see Gron,” she said. 

Chapter 22

The aliens didn’t have showers, but
Ruth was able to negotiate a tub of water and, most importantly, soap. She’d
still love some proper shampoo and conditioner, but she was one step closer to
feeling like her old self. She wrapped the length of cloth into a very passable
toga, then let herself be led to where they were keeping Gron.

It was clearly their medical ward.
Ruth followed an alien into a large room with lots of clear cabinets filled
with supplies, and strange machines taking up most of the space. Everything was
about three feet shorter than what it would have been for humans, though the
ceiling was high enough for Ruth to stand comfortably.

In the middle of the room was Gron,
still unconscious, lying on a large framed pallet under a bright light. Ruth
hurried to him, and was relieved to see that he’d gained some colour back and
appeared to be breathing more easily now. A strange silvery cuff circled his
arm where the original puncture wound was. There were other aliens in the room,
presumably doctors, who were watching her with interest. Ruth knew she would be
studied every second she was on this ship, more so when she was with Gron. It
made her skin itch. She wanted to send them all out of the room, but she didn’t
even know if these ones would be able to understand her, and the way they were
staring so openly made her think they wouldn’t listen. Maybe she could pick
them up and throw them out.

“We will keep him sedated until we
transport you to the protected conservation area,” spoke one of the aliens, but
she couldn’t tell who.

“He’s going to be okay?” Ruth asked,
gently running her fingers up Gron’s arm, which was warm again.

“He is not in danger anymore,”
answered one of the doctor aliens.

Ruth was almost afraid to touch him
now, which was ridiculous, she knew, after making love to him like she had, but
the memory of him dying cold and still in her arms only hours ago was still
terrifyingly fresh in her mind and she was afraid that she could somehow
transfer it back to him if she touched him. But nothing happened as her fingers
brushed his skin, so she grew bolder and allowed herself to grip his hand as
tight as she could.

“Can I stay with him?” she asked.

“Certainly.”

“Alone?” The aliens looked at each
other and Ruth gritted her teeth. “You can lock us in,” she offered, though it
pained her. She wanted to lie down next to Gron and feel his heart beating and
his chest moving with every breath. She wanted to feel with her whole body that
he was alive, and she wanted to talk to him even though he was unconscious, and
couldn’t understand her anyway, just in case he would recognise her voice and
draw some comfort from it. And she didn’t want to be observed and noted on when
she did it. She didn’t want to go back to the cell, or turn this room into one,
but she wanted the privacy. She just wanted to be with Gron right then, whether
she could leave the room or not. She wouldn’t leave him behind anyway.

One of the aliens went to speak into
one of the wall coms and all Ruth could do was wait for the decision. After a
moment a command came back and the aliens filtered out. The doctor ones stayed
behind long enough to put things away and lock the cupboards, but eventually
Ruth was alone with Gron. She looked down at him - he didn’t even know she was
there. She climbed onto the low pallet with him, fitting herself against his
side, her back pressed to the frame. She knew she was probably still being
watched, but at least if they weren’t in the room with her, she could pretend.
She gripped his chest to keep herself close to him and listened to his
breathing for a few moments.

After a while, when she felt strong
enough to take one hand off him, she began stroking his fur. She stroked his
chest, his legs, his arms. She propped herself up on one arm and tidied his
hair, running her thumb over his cheekbones and down to his neck. His tail was
on the other side of him and she picked it up to run it through her hands
softly, smoothing any ruffled fur.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she murmured,
eyes reflexively going to his face to check for a reaction, but he never moved.
“You gave me a scare for a while back there, but you’re going to be okay. I’m
sorry you’re back here, but I had to. They say they’re taking you home. I don’t
know how I’m going to explain to you how we got there but... I hope you’ll be
glad to be there again. They’re not taking me home. They want me to stay with
you. I hope you want to keep me.”

Ruth found her eyes tearing up. “If
you don’t want me, I don’t know what I’ll do. If you change your mind, or the
rules are different there... But you wouldn’t do that, right? You wouldn’t
abandon me. You’d at least keep me as a pet or something, right?” She smiled at
the image. Ruth had thought herself smarter than Gron at the beginning, then
they had become partners, friends, lovers. They kept each other alive, or at
least, that’s what she thought and she hoped he thought so too. She knew she
didn’t contribute as much as he did, but he wouldn’t just ditch her, would he?
Maybe he wouldn’t be given a choice. They were going to rejoin the rest of his
people. T’Lax had said his people were ruled by alpha females. If it was
anything like on Earth, the alpha might not take kindly to a new female being
brought in, and an alien to boot. Ruth knew T’Lax had also said that Gron was
committed to her for life now, but would he really choose her over the rest of
his people? Ruth couldn’t see it. They’d only known each other for a few weeks.
They’d proven that they could survive in the wild, and their chances were even
better on Gron’s planet where he would know the area, but that didn’t mean Ruth
wanted to live like that for the rest of her life.

She wished Gron was awake to distract
her from these thoughts. He never smiled at her and she didn’t understand a
word he said, but he looked at her softly, like she mattered to him, and he
could kiss her, and stroke her hair. It was silly, she knew. She shouldn’t need
to be cuddled like a child, but he was everything she had, and right then she
felt alone. She lay her head on his chest and thought about her parents, what
her mother would say. She started to cry as she thought about how they would
know she was missing by now, and be scared out of their minds, and how
eventually they’d have to assume she was dead even without ever finding a body,
or live the rest of their lives in false hope that she would come home one day,
that she would be found. The best she could hope for was that they would go
into denial, and believe that no matter where she was, she was happy.

She fell asleep hoping that would be
true.

They were on the space ship for much
longer than Ruth expected, but she guessed it made sense since she’d been in
the cell with Gron for almost a week, and he’d been there for longer. Gron was
fully healed in a day or two, not that days meant much in space, but they kept
him sedated as T’Lax had said they would. In the meantime, they kept Ruth fed,
clothed and bathed. They either had a very competent lab technician or a sci-fi
replicator, because if she described something to them, and its purpose, they
could bring her their best estimation. She described what she liked to eat,
what she used to keep clean including shampoo and conditioner, toothpaste and toothbrush,
a hairbrush, a loofah, a shower, deodorant and so on. She described what she
liked to wear, including shoes and underwear. Nothing was perfect or exactly
how it was on Earth, but eventually she was clean, sitting at a table fully
dressed with shoes and a bra, with clean brushed hair, eating a steak dinner,
so she couldn’t complain. She’d had several full-nights’ sleep on a mattress on
the floor, a pallet much like Gron’s, which had been moved into a corner of the
sickbay once his arm had healed and he was just being sedated.

Ruth understood their reason for doing
it. Gron could decimate them, and these guys weren’t poachers or pirates, but
he would think they were. If he woke up and saw them, he would definitely
fight, and the aliens would definitely come off the worse for it. Ruth supposed
as well that it would be easier for him to fall asleep in one jungle and wake
up in another. But still she missed him. She spent most of her time answering
their questions about her, humans, and Earth. She refused to answer any
questions about her relationship with Gron, which they took notes on at first,
which presumably said something about her aggression or protective instincts
towards her mate, but she didn’t care. Right now, her survival was riding on
them continuing to think Gron could knock her up. She also refused to let them
scan her, or give her a medical exam. She explained what she could about her
body to earn her keep, but she wouldn’t let them find anything out for
themselves, which didn’t mean they weren’t doing it without her permission, but
she had to at least try to establish some boundaries. 

On the whole though, she was growing
more comfortable with T’Lax and his crew. She hadn’t seen anything that
suggested they were lying to her, and while she was escorted everywhere, no one
held a weapon in her face. They asked if they could give her an interpretation
interface chip that would allow her to speak with them and anyone else who had
a chip. She wouldn’t be able to understand Gron because of how his language
worked, but it would come in useful if any other species entered the
conservation zone while she was down there. Eventually she agreed. It couldn’t
hurt. The procedure itself was similar to getting her ears pierced. They placed
a gun-like instrument against her temple, there was a pop and a little bite,
and then it was done. The insertion site healed in a couple of days.

When she wasn’t with T’Lax, she was
with Gron. She smoothed his fur and brushed his hair with her brush, and talked
to him at length about her day, the aliens around her, her hopes for their life
on his planet. She told him stories and made lists of questions she would like
to ask him if she ever got the chance.

She had no way of measuring time
other than when she slept and when she woke up. She knew her sleep pattern and
eating habits had been totally disrupted since she left Earth though. The ship
ran constantly on a rotation of four shifts, with no clear distinction between
any of them. So she separated her day with three meals, and slept when she was
tired.

Eventually, T’Lax told her they were
approaching Gron’s planet. There were no windows on the ship, so she could only
take their word for it.  They had already discussed how T’Lax expected her to
report on what she learned about Gandry culture. They would contact her after a
period of time she didn’t understand. They talked about it as if it would be
predictable and regular, but she had no idea what their measurements of time
meant or how they would relate to the passage of days on Gron’s planet.

When the time came, they pushed
Gron’s pallet out of sickbay and down to the room they had arrived in. Just
like in Star Trek, there was a raised stage area and a control panel, and the
aliens struggled to gently move Gron onto the floor, so she helped them and
they did it together. She had decided to wear the wrapped fabric rather than
any of the clothes they had given her, but she had a bag that contained a
change of clothes, her hairbrush, toothbrush and toothpaste, some underwear, as
well as food and water. She didn’t want to confuse Gron too much with things
she had with her, but they were a few necessities she didn’t want to live
without any longer, and she didn’t want to be cold, hungry or thirsty if they
had to survive without his people, or if she had to survive without him, she added
grimly. She wasn’t taking her shoes, and she was surprised to realise that she
was prepared to go back to being naked if it comforted Gron, but she was still
taking the bag.

“Gron should wake up within a few
moments of arriving on the planet’s surface. We will transport you now,” said
T’Lax as Ruth knelt by Gron’s side, her hands on his chest.

Ruth tried to pay attention this time
to the teleportation, but it made it even more unpleasant. Thankfully it only
lasted a second. She was almost instantly kneeling over Gron on the planet’s
surface, wobbling and trying not to lose her stomach, waiting for her body to
figure out which way was up.

She could hear birds. The trees
around her were huge, like Californian redwoods. The sun was shining. The
ground she knelt on was even and dusty, with a soft blanket of leaves. The air
was warm and when she breathed in deeply her head span a little.

Ruth turned her attention to Gron,
laying her hand on his cheek and stroking his hair with the other hand,
smiling. He was going to wake up for the first time in what must have been over
a week, and she couldn’t wait.

“Hey, wake up, sleepyhead,” she
cajoled gently. She moved one hand to his chest and shook him ever so lightly,
stroking down his fur and skin. She felt free again. She could feel the sun and
breathe fresh air. She was alone with her... with her lover. He was at least
that.

“Gron...” she called. His breathing
hitched and he turned his face into her palm, his tail giving a lethargic
flick, and she laughed. “Gron, come on, wake up...” His eyes flickered open and
he stared at her face as if he couldn’t focus on it right away. “We’re home,”
she said.

Slowly, still clearly not fully free
of the drug, he held the wrist of the hand on his chest, and nuzzled into the
palm of her hand again. She couldn’t help it, she kissed him, just lightly
because he was still dazed, but he followed her mouth when she pulled away
anyway.

“Can you sit up?” she asked, trying
to pull him up with a hand behind his neck. He obligingly struggled into a
sitting position with a grunt, putting a hand to his forehead. She stroked his
back and waited for him to recover while he said something and looked at her,
presumably confused by the way he felt. She wished she could tell him, it felt
wrong for her to know what had happened and not share it. He reached out and
cupped her face.

“I’m okay, I’m fine,” she said,
smiling to reassure him. He dropped his hand to the red fabric she had wrapped
around herself and looked at her questioningly. God, she wished she could talk
to him, she felt wretched not being able to comfort him or explain. She had no
idea what he would think had happened. “I don’t know how to tell you,” she
said, hoping he understood something from her tone.

She had an idea and reached for her
bag, pulling out some food, something not unlike the loaf they had eaten in the
cell wrapped in a leaf. She offered it to him, thinking something in his
stomach might help him get over the drugs more quickly. When he didn’t take it,
she broke a piece off for herself and ate it to show him what she meant, then
forced a chunk into his hands. He obligingly ate it while she watched him,
marvelling at how good it was to see his eyes open and his face animated again.
She dove in quickly to kiss him again, briefly overcome, and again he tried to
follow her, but she laughed and leant out of reach.

“Finish what you’re eating first,”
she told him, smiling. God, she loved him. He was so... Good. Innocent.
Uncomplicated. Whatever it was, she loved him for it. She felt alright
admitting that to herself because she would be the only one to know. She
couldn’t tell him if she wanted to. She didn’t know what that meant for their
future. She supposed all it would mean was that it would hurt more if he threw
her away, that she could be happy making a life here on an alien planet if he
chose to keep her.

Next she pulled out the water bottle
and took a sip, showing him what to do before passing it to him. It was clear
he’d never drunk from a bottle before, but he didn’t spill any and she put it
back in her bag. Gron looked wonderingly at her bag too, but she kissed him
then, taking his face in her hands. She kissed him softly, sweetly, as if for
the first time, but then harder, deeper, tasting his open mouth. His hands went
to her hips and he tried to pull her into his lap. She held his hands though
and gently broke the kiss, kissing his fingers and palms so he would know she
wasn’t rejecting him. She just wanted to establish themselves somewhere before
they started making love on the forest floor. He’d just woken up from many days
under sedation after almost dying as well. She should probably let him recover
for a bit before jumping his bones.

When he seemed to have got the
message, she realised that he didn’t seem to have recognised his own planet.
She tried to direct him to the trees, the ground, the sky, but he seemed
disinterested in everything but her.  She chewed her lip to keep from smiling, flattered,
and began pointing at him then at the world around them. He still wasn’t
getting it, so she laid her palm flat on his chest and said “Gron.” Before she
could gesture again to their environment, Gron reached out and did the same to
her, placing his large, warm hand over Ruth’s heart.

“Gruth,” he grunted, and she froze.
Her happy expression faltered. He wasn’t... He couldn’t be... saying... Ruth
shook herself out of it. That was probably just a human concept, associating
love with the physical heart. He was probably just copying her because she was
confusing him with all her pointing and he didn’t know what she wanted. She
stopped herself from hugging or kissing him again, and instead took his hands
and stood up. He followed, and she turned him around so that his back was to
her. When he looked at her in confusion, she gestured out to the forest around
them.

“This is your planet. Your home,” she
said. Finally he looked out at where she was pointing. She couldn’t see his
face, but after a moment he stiffened, and his tail lashed hard against her
legs. He spun and looked at her.

“Gruth!” he cried, seizing both her
hands.

She laughed and nodded and cried
“Yes! Yes!” He looked so happy, as happy as she would probably be if she woke
up on Earth one morning. But if she did that, then she wouldn’t have him
anymore. It was like watching a child getting exactly what he wanted on
Christmas morning, watching him wonder at the magic of it, while she sat there
and knew every penny was worth it. He might not know how they got there and
think it some kind of miracle, but it didn’t taint his joy at all to still be
ignorant of the aliens watching him and his people. Right now, the mystified
joy he felt was worth everything that she’d had to tell T’Lax and his scientists.

Gron picked her up and squeezed her
to him in a powerful hug. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her
face in the mix of fur and hair at his neck, breathing in his scent. So what if
he was furry? So what if he was an alien? Right then, he was everything to her.

Gron pulled her away from him,
talking animatedly at her. He put her down and cupped her face in his hands,
speaking very emphatically. She pretended he was telling her that everything
would be okay from now on, that they would be okay, that he would take her home
with him and look after her, all that stuff. She kissed him again, and he swept
her off her feet and back into his arms.