Captured (17 page)

“What do we do?”

Ekkatt could see the exhaustion in her eyes.
 
“First you allow me to tend to your wounds.
 
Then we eat and we sleep.
 
Tomorrow will come soon enough.”

* * * *

 
Ekkatt sat Mari at the table in the kitchen, where he cleaned her cuts and bruises.
 
Donning the biomechanical sheaths he began the healing process and
 
relieving her discomfort.
 
When he finished, he heated up a vegetable stew, spooned it into two bowls, and served it with some lehem left over from the day before.
 
When they had finished eating he combed the tangles out of Mari’s hair and plaited it for her with gentle fingers. Finally, he tucked her into his bed.
 
She was asleep before her head hit the pillow.
 

Ekkatt stared at Mari and watched tremors shake her small body, even in sleep.
 
He didn’t think it was the giant durra itself she found disturbing.
 
She claimed to be familiar with large felines.
 
It was the scream.
 
His heart had nearly burst within him when he’d heard it, loud and clear, from his landing pad near the cabin.
 
He’d been terror-stricken as he had believed he’d heard Mari’s death scream.
 

Ekkatt grabbed his light stick and left the cabin.
 
 
Pana’s craft would have to go, and in order to get rid of it he needed to find Pana’s gloves.
 
Most likely, Pana removed them before he searched for Mari.
 
Ekkatt expected to find them in the cockpit, but they weren’t there.
 
He checked the entire craft.
 
No gloves.
 

He did, however, find a supply of dried food, containers of water, and more ominous, a coil of rope, along with syringes filled with sleeping serum. It was the same serum the trappers used when they harvested humans.
 
Ekkatt piled everything into Pana’s gear bag, tossed the bag out of the craft, and leapt to the ground after it.
 
There might come a day when he and Mari would have need of these things.

Ekkatt switched off the light stick, preferring to use his own night vision, and he followed the tread of Pana’s boots.
 
The man had exited his craft and moved first to the far side of the cabin.
 
Mari said she’d seen him step out from behind the rear porch.
 
There, on the railing, sat his gloves.
 
Ekkatt picked them up and stuffed them in a pocket.
 
Good.
 
Now he could fly Pana’s craft and hide it where no one would ever find it.
 
Pana’s desire for secrecy would work in his and Mari’s favor.
 
Obviously, Pana had known that if Ekkatt ever figured out what had happened to Mari he wouldn’t be able to say a word about it
 
without signing his own death warrant.
 

He hoped to be long gone with her by the time I returned. I would never have found her.
 
He would have sold her to the highest bidder, after tasting her himself.
 
Ekkatt felt sick.
 
Over the years, he’d heard the quiet hints of Pana’s predilection for intercourse with unconscious human females.
 
Not on his flights, though, never on his flights.
 
Ekkatt had always supervised the man closely.
 
Perhaps Mari was right. Perhaps a burial was not necessary.
 
Perhaps he should let Pana’s bones lie.
 
Leave the cock-sucker for the scavengers.

Chapter 14

Mari woke to gentle kisses.
 
Ekkatt held her in his arms like she was made of spun glass and as if anything but the softest caress would break her.
 

Mari stroked his long hair.
 
“Stop, Ekkatt.
 
I know what you’re trying to do.”
 
She reached for his hand and stilled it.
 
“You don’t have to be afraid, and you don’t have to apologize.
 
It’s not your fault.
 
I’m not broken.
 
Really, I’m still in one piece.”

“I nearly caused your death…again,” he said.
 
Mari saw the worry in his yellow eyes.

“There are many ways to die, my love.
 
Many ways.”

“But Mari, I would not be the way of your death.
 
Why do you smile?
 
What is there to smile about?”

“You,” Mari replied.
 
“You.
 
Life.
 
I’m alive today.
 
You’re alive today.
 
No one can predict what will happen tomorrow.
 
Who knows?
 
Tomorrow we could be hit by a bus.”

Ekkatt appeared confused.
 
“I do not understand the analogy.”

“It’s something we say on earth.
 
It means appreciate today because tomorrow we may die.
 
I’ll tell you a story.
 
I’ll try to keep it short.” Mari shifted herself up onto her elbow.
 
“When you found me, when you took me, I was dead.
 
Not literally, but my heart had grown cold.
 
My sister had brought me to her farm because she feared I would take my own life.
 
Do you understand what I’m saying?
 
Search your language file.
 
What is it called when a human takes her own life?”

Ekkatt closed his eyes, searching his memory.
 
“A suicide,” he said. “But that is illegal among your people.
 
It is against the laws of your god.”

“It happens.
 
I wouldn’t have followed through, but my sister feared I might.
 
When you found me collecting eggs, I was thinking about it.
 
I wished I was dead.”

Ekkatt pushed the hair out of his face, as he asked, “Why would you wish such a thing?
 
You are healthy, you are intelligent.
 
Why would you wish to die?”

“Twenty months ago, no,” Mari paused a moment to think. ”Twenty-two months ago, my husband and my newborn son were killed in an automobile accident,” Mari sighed as she lay back on the bed.
 
“I missed them, and I wished to join them.
 
I still mourn them, Ekkatt. I doubted in here,” she pointed to her heart, “that I’d ever find another man to love,” her voice broke.
 
“Or that there was a future for me.
 
I didn’t believe in,” Mari began to cry. “I didn’t believe a man such as you existed.”
 

Ekkatt reached for her.
 
There was no sound in the room aside from Mari’s quiet sobs.

“You blame yourself for this automobile accident?
 
I think you do.
 
Why?”

Mari spoke through her tears.
 
“It should have been me.”

“You should have died?”
 
Ekkatt looked incredulous.

“No.
 
I was late.
 
I’d left the baby with my mother, planning to pick him up myself, but my class went late. David, my husband, drove to get the baby.
 
There was an ice storm that night.
 
Do you understand?”

Mari couldn’t quite tell how much he comprehended, but Ekkatt nodded.

“David blew a tire, and the car slid on the ice, plowing over the guard rail of a bridge.
 
My husband and my son ended up in the Iowa River.
 
They drowned.
 
The police told me David tried to get the baby out of his car seat. My husband might have been able to save himself, but instead he went back for the baby. If I’d been driving, if it had been my car, none of this might have happened.” She met Ekkatt’s gaze.
 
“You don’t understand everything I’m saying, do you?”

Ekkatt sighed, running a gentle thumb across her lower lip.
 
“I do not understand all the words, but I understand what happened.
 
Your mate and your child are dead, and you feel responsible.”

“I did, until the moment I woke up on your ship, alone, confused, and terrified.
 
I knew all that blame was pointless.
 
It was pointless.
 
It had been a waste of time.
 
My husband and my baby died.
 
I lived.
 
Wishing to be dead didn’t bring them back, did it?”

“No.”

“When I sat in that cage, cold and naked, and about as far from home as I could get, I realized that if the situation had been reversed, if I’d been in the car, and I’d died with my child, I wouldn’t want my husband to do what I’d been doing.
 
I would want him to live, to be happy, to love again. Start a new family.
 
I wouldn’t want him to pray for death.
 
Ekkatt, I don’t blame myself anymore.
 
I don’t want you to blame yourself for Pana.
 
You are doing the best you can to keep us both alive.
 
I have to admit our circumstances aren’t optimal,” Mari smiled a crooked smile, “but we have to play the hand we’re dealt.”

Ekkatt appeared to search for a moment.
 
“Play the hand we’re dealt?”

“We play games on earth, card games.
 
We are given a certain number of cards, and we have to play with those cards we’re given.
 
In other words, make the most of what we’ve got.
 
Does that make sense to you?”

“Yes.
 
It makes much sense.
 
That is why you said you were dead even before I took you, that I had given you a second chance.”

“You heard that, did you?”

“I hear everything you say, Mari.
 
My hearing is much more acute than yours.”

“Yeah…yeah…yeah…” Mari teased, wiping the tears from her face.
 
“Your hearing is better.
 
Your eyesight is better.
 
Your sense of smell is better.
 
You are stronger and faster and oh-so-much larger in certain places than the average human male.
 
I get it, Ekkatt.
 
Now bring all those marvelous qualities here, and make love to me like you mean it.”

Ekkatt grinned at her.
 
“That will make you feel better?”

“Oh yes, fucking you will make it very much better.”
 
Mari grinned right back.

“Ah, if you feel that way, then there is something I would like to try.”

“Really? What?”
 
Mari asked.

“Yes, a position that is of significance to my people, but I have been concerned about your size in comparison to mine.”

“Sounds intriguing…”

“That is what I appreciate most about you and fucking, little human, you are so eager, so primitive.”

“Oh yes, big Attun,” Mari laughed. “When it comes to fucking, we humans take pride in our primitive behavior.”
 
She let out a shriek as Ekkatt grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her from beneath the blankets.
 
He flipped her onto her stomach.

“I want to watch this dragon mark while I fuck you.
 
The day I saw you in the hot spring, you made me hard.
 
Like now.”
 
He pressed his swollen cock against her thigh.
 
“I find this portion of your anatomy appealing.”
 
He squeezed her bottom.
 
“It is round and smooth, and I like the way your waist meets your hips, with this curve.”
 
His hand stroked her hip.
 
“I can see a hint of pink, here.”
  
He ran a finger through the wet folds between her legs.

“Oh…Ekkatt…”