Taken: Warriors of Hir, Book 2 (23 page)

“He lied to me! Or didn’t he tell you that? He
lied
to me!”

“He—” Jenna offered a half-shrug. “
Fibbed
. . . a bit.”

“Fibbed,” Hope repeated flatly. “That’s what you’d call it? He kidnapped me—”

Jenna held up her index finger. “Captured!”

“—and he told me that we couldn’t go anywhere because the—
perfectly functioning—
ship we were on was too damaged to move!”

Jenna gave a short laugh. “Didn’t you ever have a boy pretend to run out of gas so the two of you could get stuck someplace private together?”

“No,” Hope said coolly. “But then again, none of my boyfriends drove me home in a pickup truck though the Appalachian backwoods.”

Jenna’s eyes narrowed. “Smoky Mountains. The Appalachians are farther north.”

“Point is,” Hope continued, “he lied.”

“The
point
is,” Jenna returned sharply, “he’s crazy about you.” Her eyes flickered over Hope. “Though I guess there’s no accounting for taste.”

“You know,” Hope said, stepping back, “this has been really great—catching up with a fellow human and all—but I think I’m all ‘girlfriended’ out for now.”

“Maybe he should have been honest with you!” Jenna called, doggedly following. “But I’m willing to bet you made it plain that this playing for time stunt might be the only chance he thought he had with you!”

Hope turned to stare. “So this
my
fault? He barefaced lies to me and it’s
my
fault?”

“He made a mistake. He paid for it. From what I understand the Zerar almost killed him for it.”

“You don’t have to remind me,” Hope said roughly. “I was there.”

Jenna took a step closer and softened her voice. “Do you know what it must have been like for him to wake up out of that and find that he’d lost you, his lifemate? You didn’t even tell him yourself. He says you wouldn’t even speak to him.”

Hope’s felt her nostrils flare. “I don’t have anything to say to him.”

“Oh, it strikes me that you got yourself
tons
to say to him. R’har loves you, Hope. And I’d bet the necklace my Pap gave me,” she said, touching the tiny gold bird charm around her neck, “that you aren’t even really mad at me at all—or him even really. I think you’re mad cause you love him too and it scares the hell out of you.”

“You know, I really don’t think I need to psychoanalyzed by someone personally acquainted with mountain men,” Hope sneered and turned away.

“Did it work?”

Hope threw an annoyed look back. “Did
what
work?”

“That whole pretending to run outta gas so the two of you could spend some time together. Did it work?” Jenna raised her eyebrows. “Did you start to see him as a man, not an alien? As not just a man but a damn good one?”

“What he did—kidnapping . . .
capturing
me.” Hope shook her head. “What he did was
wrong
.”

“Wrong for humans maybe. Right for g’hir. And he’s g’hir.”

He’d saved her from the bear, thrown himself between her and danger without hesitation. He’d saved her life on Olari and nearly died doing it. He’d been gentle, polite—
alien
polite, anyway—kind but . . .

“Yeah, well, however he intended it,” Hope said, her throat tight, “that’s
not
how a man treats a woman he cares about.”

Jenna sighed. “He’s a warrior of Hir. R’har hasn’t had an opportunity to find out the rights and wrongs of courting a girl—human or otherwise. You and me, Hope, we grew up way different but not that far from each other—in the scheme of things. What I think is okay and what you do might never match up . . . and we’re both human. You might want to give R’har a bit of slack on account of him, you know, being from an entirely different
planet
.” Jenna gave her a searching look. “How well would you say you’ve treated him—from a g’hir point of view?”

“Goddamn it!” Hope burst out. “I’m
human
, Jenna, just like you! Are you even thinking about whose side you really should be on here?”

“You mean between an honorable g’hir warrior who loves you with his whole fool heart and some stuck-up city bitch?”  Jenna pursed her lips for a moment then gave a firm nod. “Yeah, g’hir warrior. All the way.”

Hope’s hand balled into fists. “Don’t you get it? I
trusted
R’har! I never really trusted
anyone
after my dad!”  Hope’s eyes stung. “And I thought . . . R’har was different.”

“He is.”

“Yeah,” Hope choked, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “He’s not human.”

“That’s part of it,” Jenna agreed. “He’s not a human man and he’s not going to act like one or think like one. And he feels things a whole lot deeper than you can probably imagine. He loves you a whole lot more than you’d believe.” Jenna gave a sad, fond smile. “That’s how they are with a lifemate. But Hope, the real question is—Do you still love him?”

“Even if I still did—” She looked away. “You don’t understand, I mean. . .what if this lie—this
fib
—is just the start? What if he’s like . . . my father? And my ex-fiancé, and the others?” Hope asked, her voice very low. “What if he cheats on me too? I just . . . I can’t handle that again, not from him. I just—I’m sorry, I
can’t
. Look, once I’m home—I mean, he can just find someone else that could—”

The expression on Jenna’s face made her break off.

“What?” Hope’s brow creased. “What did I say?”

“Uh . . . did R’har explain the ‘lifemate’ thing to you?”

“Well, yeah.” Hope frown deepened. “It’s like being married, right?”

“No . . . I mean a man and his lifemate marry but that’s later, at the winter gathering.” Jenna scrubbed her face. “Jeez, R’har really should have explained this to you.”

“Explained
what
to me?”

“Okay.” Jenna regarded Hope for a moment. “Okay . . . Wait, I know—How much do you know about ducklings?”

Hope blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Baby ducks.”

“I
know
what ducklings are! I
meant
—what the hell are you talking about?”

“Have you ever seen how baby ducks imprint on their mothers?”

Hope threw her hands out in frustration. “Again—what the hell are we talking about?”

“
Have
you?” Jenna persisted.

“I guess so. Yeah, I saw a video of it in psych class—attachment theory or something.”

“Right, ducklings imprint on their mother. It’s just a natural, biological force.”

“And, still,
really
not seeing how any of this is relevant.”

“Well, lifemating has a lot in common with imprinting.” Jenna bit her lip, looking a little sympathetic now. “R’har has lifemated to you—imprinted on you, Hope, if that makes it easier to understand. There isn’t going to
be
anyone else for him.”

The breath rushed out of Hope’s lungs. “He’s
what
?”

“That’s what male g’hir do—when they mate with a female, they bind to them. Imprint on them. For life.”

“Wait, what about the women?”

Jenna shook her head. “Nope, just the men. So if you’re leaving because you’re scared he’s gonna run around on you, because you’re scared he’s going to leave you? Well, girl,” Jenna sighed, “you’re leaving for the wrong damn reason.”

Hope turned her face away, suddenly remembering what he’d said just before the Zerar attack—

You will never truly understand what it means to me to have lifemated to you!

R’har waited for Jenna, his heart thudding with slow, heavy beats, offering a prayer to the Goddess with every breath.

He did not have to wait long. It was only midmorning when he saw the Erah clan’s shuttle approaching his campsite.

He hurried forward to meet the shuttle as soon as it landed. R’har shifted his weight restlessly as the shuttle door opened and the ramp extended. He was waiting at the bottom as soon as the ramp touched the ground.

Jenna came to the shuttle doorway and R’har’s heart dropped.

There was no reason to ask Hope’s answer to his plea; the look on Jenna’s face said it all . . .

The future clanmother of the Erah descended and placed her delicate hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, R’har. I tried.”

He nodded, his throat too tight for words.

“If it makes any difference, I think she’s making a mistake. And I think, deep down, she knows it too.”

There was, around Ra’kur’s mate, just the smallest scent of
her
and he shut his eyes to breathe it in deeply, to take that much of her into himself.

A drop against an ocean of need . . .

“Please, Mata, is she—is she well?” He hated this, having to ask another about her well-being when every fiber of his being demanded he be there, safeguarding her. “Is she . . . happy?”

Jenna sighed. “I’d say she’s hale ’n’ hearty, all right, but happy? No.”

“But my clan—They treat her well? They are kindly to her?”

Jenna hesitated, her lovely eyes pitying.

“Ah,” he murmured and his stomach churned. “They are competing for her, my clanbrothers. Vying against each other in hopes she will choose one of them as mate.”

“Yeah,” Jenna admitted reluctantly. “Nobody said anything, but you’d have to be blind not to see them tripping over themselves to impress her.”

Which would condemn me to a greater hell? To have her leave Hir—and me—forever? Or have her chose another among my brethren and end my banishment so I could gaze upon her all my days, but only as mate to another?

“Does she . . .” He had to force the words out. “Is there one among the warriors she favors?”

“No there isn’t,” Jenna said quietly. “And I’m sorry, R’har, Hope has made up her mind. She’s going back to Earth.”

Twenty-six

With the last day of R’har’s claim on her ending tomorrow Hope felt positively claustrophobic at the Yir clanhouse. The Council allowed each warrior thirty days from the time he landed on Earth to find a human woman willing to bond with him—dawn would bring an end to Ra’kur’s time. They called it the Day of Choosing and tomorrow Council Member Mirak would be on hand to make the announcement and to escort her to the vessel that would return her to Earth.

The Yir warriors, even Ha’kin, who’d escorted her from the capital city, saw this time as their last chance to present themselves as suitors before she returned to Earth.

Unable to take it another minute, Hope headed for the only place that she could be sure no warrior would be, where none would follow her and certainly none would think to court her—the Remembrance Stones.

Dressed in feminine g’hir clothing of tunic, trousers, and soft boots, her clothes—thanks to Si’hala’s taste—were a little too fancy but still suitable for the walk. Every warrior she encountered on the way offered to escort her on her stroll—until she named her destination.

Situated a good hour’s—for her anyway—walk from the Yir’s clanhall the memorial was accessible by a quiet road surrounded by forest. A prayer gate marked the entrance to the lush, walled-off garden and paved paths within led through the flowers and fruit trees to the center of the space, where jewels had been placed in an outward swirling pattern, like the arms of a spinning galaxy— the g’hir symbol for eternity.

The flowers and plants surrounding the space were gorgeous and lovingly tended but visitors here were rare. The entire clan came once a year on the anniversary of the day the Scourge came to their enclosure to honor their fallen but none needed a stone to remember the lost. Now, at midmorning, the place was deserted.

Hope let her breath out as soon as she was through the prayer gate, relieved simply to have escaped the warriors and their hopeful eyes, glad to have a moment’s peace since Si’hala, so eager for the company of another woman her age, thought nothing of dropping by Hope’s quarters day and night.

She paused on the path to lift her face to the suns and breathe in the sweet air of the gardens around her and the forest beyond. Listening to the birdcalls of this alien world, she tried to let the tension ease from her shoulders but the thought that plagued her since her talk with Jenna wouldn’t let her be.

Because if what Jenna said was true—

It still didn’t stop him from lying to me!

Hope folded her arms, her shoulders hunched as she followed the winding path through the gardens to the center of the memorial.

Open to the sky and set alight by Hir’s suns, the Remembrance Stones were a breathtaking outdoor sculpture. Nearly fourteen feet across, it would have been a beautiful piece of artwork— except that each of these rainbow-hued stones represented a woman, girl, or baby the Yir clan had lost to the Scourge.

The precious jewels, varying in size, represented an astonishing investment, a treasure equal to hundreds of the finest diamonds on Earth. 

Hope stood at their center, taking in their beauty, imagining what this world would have been without the Scourge. The g’hir would be a thriving race, instead of a dying one. There would be matings and weddings at the winter gatherings, glowing-eyed children aplenty playing in the clanhalls, and women filling this world instead of millions of warriors doomed to watch their kind end.

If it weren’t for the Scourge these people would have no interest in humans at all.

And R’har would never have come to Earth.

Hope thought too about the g’hir women, the girls, how their lives and dreams and futures had been stolen from them.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly to the stones, to the women and girls and babies they represented. “I’m so sorry.”

The suns were warm on her but a chill suddenly raised goose bumps on her arms. As if all those women were suddenly surrounding her, scowling, angry that their lives had been torn from them and that
she
, who could offer a chance for their kind to survive, was turning her back on them, making a mockery of their loss—

Hope took a step back, her gaze darting around the quiet, empty space.

Man, I’m losing it.

Still, getting the hell out of there and back to the clanhall seemed like a freaking great idea. Hope backed away from the stones as if those spirits would appear in truth if she dared look away.  She stumbled in her rush to escape and had just made it to the path that led to the prayer gate, to the road beyond that would take her back, only to stop short.

The man blocking her way was a g’hir warrior but not one that she recognized from the enclosure. He wore the usual leather clothing of a warrior but his hair was darker than the Yir usually had, a warm brown in color, his eyes a startling lavender.

“Oh,” Hope blurted. “Hi. I didn’t see you there.”

“I have come to honor the dead,” he said gravely.

His serious manner was appropriate for a memorial to genocide but Hope had a sudden impulse to retreat back into the Remembrance Stones and take the other way out.

You’re being ridiculous! Of course he’s not all smiles. He’s grieving—probably the loss of his whole family!

“Of course,” Hope mumbled, stepping to the side to go around him. “I was just leav—”

He moved quickly, blocking her way, but his gaze was over her shoulder. “You are alone here.”

Hope’s mouth went dry.

He’s the only g’hir who hasn’t called me “Mata” . . .

“Oh,” she said, her voice high and tight, and sent an airy wavy in the direction of the clanhall. “They’re right behind me. Should be here any second. In fact, there they—”

His eerie eyes focused on her. “I am g’hir.”

“Yeah, I know that,” she stammered, taking a half-step back.

“This world is ours,” he said, his advance driving her further back. “Given to the g’hir by the All Mother. We will not let the Zerar defeat us. We will not let our own fears defeat us. We are g’hir. We will die g’hir.” His fangs bared. “Your presence here dishonors our dead. Your very presence on our world offends them, human.”

Hope felt herself blanch. “You’re a Purist . . .”

The fact that he’d gotten onto the Yir enclosure, that he’d managed to elude hundreds of warriors to get to her, paled beside the horrifying realization that she was utterly alone with him in a place no other would accidently venture.

He came closer, looming over her. “It is better that we all return to Goddess pure than offend Her by sullying our blood with your kind.”

“Hey, you don’t have to worry about anybody sullying anything with me,” Hope offered as she retreated. “I’m going back to Earth. Tomorrow.”

“They will just bring more in your stead to pollute our world,” he snarled, his alien visage hideous with hatred. “More like
you
to whelp their half-breeds.”

“Please . . .” she whispered as he closed the distance between them. “The Yir—”

“
You
will be our message to the Yir, human,” he spat, his hand rising to her throat. “Your torn corpse staining the stones of the dead will be our message to all the enclosures. The All Mother will not tolerate this sacrilege.”

He had a g’hir speed, a g’hir’s strength. Hope drew a breath, already knowing she wouldn’t have time to scream—