“OK,” I said, my bravado starting to slip.

I hadn’t exactly thought past this part.

“Now what?”

OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER THIRTY Cece

“How much longer do you think it will be?” I asked Galok. I was seated backwards in my saddle, staring at him, as if by staring I could make him somehow end the battle. As if I could make him tell me that Buroudei was OK. I wanted to be on the ground. I would be pacing if I were. But Galok wouldn’t let me. He said it was for my safety, so that if things went south we could take off immediately. But I had a feeling it was more to do with the fact that he was watching me like I was some kind of flight risk. Like I would take off running after Buroudei the first chance I got.

To be fair, he wasn’t that far off.

I was desperate to see Buroudei. To make sure he was OK. To help him, if I could. But instead, I was stuck in some fucked-up staring contest with a very loyal, very stick-to-the-rules alien.

Great.

Galok sighed and opened his mouth to tell me, for the umpteenth time, that it would be over when it was over, when we heard the startling call of his name echoing through the dark air. Galok straightened immediately, his ears and tail twitching, looking out over my head. I swiveled in the saddle in time to see one of our warriors, a guy named Malachor, riding his irkdu, fast, really fast, through the hills towards us.

My heart leaped into my throat. This would either mean something very good or something very, very bad.

“Gahn Buroudei requests the immediate presence of the Gahnala,” he panted, raising then lowering his tail quickly. Relief melted inside me, warm and sweet.

“He’s alive,” I said, the words coming out in a soft whoosh.

“Yes. Gahn Buroudei is alive.”

Galok gave a victorious whoop behind me.

“So then we have won!”

Malachor didn’t seem excited, and something like dread settled in my chest.

“Gahn Fallo is still alive,” he said. “But the battle is over. For now.”

He stopped speaking to Galok, turning his eyes to me.

“Please, Gahnala, the Gahn requests you right away.”

I nodded vigorously.

“Of course. Galok, go, let’s go!”

With that, we followed Malachor out of the hills and onto the battlefield.

Only there was no battle. Not being fought right now, anyway. I saw a small number of men who looked to be dead, and others badly wounded, lying on the plain. The rest stood silently, watching in a broad circle, the men we’d come with on one side, and men I did not recognize on the other. We pressed into the circle to see what was happening.

And I tell you, I almost lost my shit. I mean, I knew we were coming here to find the others. But actually seeing one of the humans I’d come with, alive and in the flesh, hit me like a ton of bricks. And it wasn’t even a human I liked. It was Chapman, the soldier from the space ship. But in that moment, she looked like a red-headed angel. I laughed and screamed her name, and her head jerked towards me, her eyes widening.

Grinning, I took in the rest of the scene. Buroudei was facing Chapman, and I noticed now that Chapman held a giant alien knife out in front of her. Behind her, slumped over on his hands and knees, was a massive alien I didn’t recognize.

Buroudei turned to look at me, and before Galok could stop me, I slid out of my saddle and careened down to the ground clumsily. I sprang back up, running to Buroudei’s side. As I collided with him, breathing in his scent, counting every heartbeat to make sure he was OK, I realized that he was bleeding. Black blood coated his chest and abdomen, coming from a long, jagged wound along his upper chest. Fuming, I whirled, staring at the weapon in Chapman’s hand.

“You better not have done that,” I muttered, and she rolled her eyes.

“I didn’t. Relax. And why do you care, anyway? They’re aliens.”

My gaze flitted from her to the alien behind her. It kind of looked like she was... protecting him?

“You tell me.”

Even in the darkness I could see her freckled face grow red.

“That’s different.”

I was about to tell her that it didn’t seem a whole lot different, when I heard the excited shriek of my name. Kat was barreling towards me, followed by Theresa, Melanie, and the other women from the space ship. My face broke into a smile so wide it hurt. They were alive. They were all alive.

Kat reached me first, crashing into me and laughing, followed shortly by Theresa and Melanie, and then the others, until we were all lumped into a massive human hug. Half of us were laughing, half were crying. I was pretty sure I was doing both. The only one who didn’t join in was Chapman, who kept her knife raised, her eyes on Buroudei.

“We thought you were dead!” Kat shouted against my ear.

“Same,” I replied. “I mean, I thought I was the only one who got away!”

Kat pulled back, tears shining in her huge blue eyes. Her buzz cut had grown out a bit over the last few days, soft, short hairs coming in the palest shade of blonde.

“Nope. All these nutters scooped us right up off the sands and killed all the crab things. Then they brought us here.”

“Were they good to you? Were any of you hurt?” I looked from face to human face, searching for signs of mistreatment.

“Don’t even get me started,” huffed Kat, but Theresa shook her head, cutting in.

“I mean, they didn’t roll out the red carpet for us or anythin’. But we’re fed and clean. We had a place to sleep. No one hurt us.”

That was good to hear.

“Look,” I said quickly, pointing back at Buroudei, my poor mate who looked beyond exasperated and confused. “That guy is the leader of the tribe I’ve been staying with. They’ve taken good care of me. We’re here to rescue you guys.”

The others didn’t look convinced, eyeing Buroudei warily.

“Honestly, hun, we don’t know him or any of those others. We got used to these people, the ones we’ve been with. You should come back and stay with us. There’s more safety in numbers.” Theresa sounded concerned.

Uh oh. I hadn’t anticipated this.

“I can’t,” I said, my voice breaking. Kat’s invisible brows drew inward immediately.

“Why the fuck not? What did they do to you? Are they using you to coerce us somehow? Why can’t you leave?”

“No, no, it’s not like that.” How the hell was I going to explain all this? That I’d fallen in love with an alien tyrant, the monster behind us now? “It’s more like... I don’t want to leave.”

“You sure hugged him tight when you saw him,” Melanie said from beside me, her dark eyes watching closely. Heat raced through me.

“Oh, girl. Oh, no, honey. Tell me you didn’t. You didn’t have to trade sex for safety, did you?” Theresa’s eyes were huge in her pretty, tanned face.

“God, no! OK, this is going to take forever to explain. But I will say right now that that guy, Buroudei, he loves me and thinks I’m his mate. And I agreed to go along with it. Not because I was coerced. Because I wanted to.”

“You must have hit your head somewhere along the way,” Kat said, wrinkling her nose. Theresa had grown pale under her tan. Melanie remained expressionless. A girl whose name I didn’t know piped up from towards the edge of our little huddle.

“Oh, come on, none of you guys have thought about it? They aren’t bad looking.”

Twenty human voices broke out at once, some professing their own bizarre attractions, other spluttering in horror. Buroudei’s growl cut through the noise instantly.

“My mate, would you kindly let me in on the conversation?”

“They don’t want to come with us.” It hurt me to say it, but I could kind of understand. Even if I didn’t have Buroudei, I wouldn’t want to leave the tribe I’d been welcomed into. It was the closest thing to home I had on this planet.