Emma's Heart (Brides of Theron 3) (13 page)

Lars had been giving the commander trouble for years
, so the commander had taken matters into his own hands lately and was trying to get the warrior transferred to another ship or a more isolated duty station once they returned to Theron. This was especially important, now that the commander had the earth female that everyone knew had gotten the best of Lars. Lately though, Lars had been confined to his quarters and seemed to be behaving.

Brylon
hadn’t told Emma about the ship departing from Earth. He had convinced himself that she really didn’t need to know, because she was never going to be able to go back anyway. Besides, he did not want to find out how she would react if she knew they were leaving. His relationship with Emma had taken a turn for the better since he had given her the rewa, and he was terrified that if he told her they were going back to Theron, he would be back to square one. This way, she might only be mad for a little while when they arrived at his planet, rather than stewing in her anger for days. He kept telling himself this over and over, like a mantra, so that he would actually believe it.

“Fire the main engines, Ceran. Shields up and engage the cloaking device.” The commander’s voice boomed through the command center as he gave the orders to start moving the ship.

“Bring the ship around, Ceran, and slowly increase our speed. Brylon, how are the engines?”

Brylon gave him the thumbs up, “She’s purring like a rewa.”

“Alright then, bring her around and head on course 2-2-4. We will approach the entrance to the worm hole in five minutes.”

All syst
ems were a go as they headed towards the first worm hole that would bring them closer to home. It had been so long since they had been home, Brylon wondered if he would even recognize the place. When they had left Theron on their mission to find mates, Theron was still in the process of recovering from the war with the Drylons. Their cities had been reduced to rubble and most of their females were gone, at least the ones of breeding age. A baby Theron had not been born in almost five years now so it had been imperative to find compatible females.

But
, before the ship had set out on its mission, the council, Zeb and Brylon had all worked closely together to build a new city, a city that would be better protected and hidden from the Drylons. It had been Brylon’s idea to move the remains of the city into the forest and make their homes within the trees, but they had to figure out a way to be able to carve into the massive trees without causing any harm to them. The forest had always been considered a very magical place to the Therons because there was a lot of energy in the forest that was created by the network trees. The Therons held the trees of the forest in great respect and honor, and viewed the forest as a gift from the gods and goddess. This gift was what they intended to use in order to protect their loved ones. They had lost so many in the war with the Drylons and never again wanted to experience that level of loss of life again. So, by working together, they were able to figure out how to use the trees as homes.

The trees seemed to welcome their advances as if they knew they were going to be able to thrive off
the Therons living within them. Nothing was wasted in the building of the new homes, every scrap of wood was used in one way or another, flowers and bushes were transplanted to new spots rather than discarded. The trees seemed to show them which tree was good to build in and which weren’t. Once the building had commenced it didn’t take long for a new city to emerge. Stores and markets were once again set up within the forest while a new tree house seemed to pop up every day.  Paths for the streets were cleared throughout the forest and everything else was left in an otherwise natural state. Their streets were no longer made of stone as they had once been, and the forest was kept as intact as possible. A large park was created that was similar to the one that used to exist in their former city, but this time it had a large stream that flowed through its core that meandered its way in between the houses and markets. It was such a beautiful place to live. The gods and goddess had blessed them with a second chance at life and they sure as hell were going to protect and use what the gods had given them wisely.

***

Everything was going as planned on the return journey home until the mother ship ca
me out of the worm hole. Waiting for them, in full combat stance, were the Drylons ships. There had been absolutely no way for the mother ship to have avoided the surprise attack. How the Drylons found out what worm holes they were traveling through had baffled Zeb and the rest of the crew, because Zeb had not programmed their route into the ship’s computer until the last possible moment. They all surmised that there was a traitor in their midst, and that they were betrayed. It didn’t take the commander very long to figure out who had been the mastermind of the betrayal. Lars had gone missing from the ship along with another warrior, Hano, sometime during the fight. Ceran had searched through the computer for ships that had departed during the conflict and had found only one that did not have clearance.

Not only had Lars escaped the ship
, he had also held captive the commander’s mate, Avery, who Lars had attacked in her quarters along with the Zane’s mate, Gracie. Gracie had been found unconscious in the commander’s quarters, but she was able to tell them who had taken Avery. This led to a dramatic rescue by Zeb and Kurtz, who was the commander of the Pernmock’s, and had come to the aid of the Theron’s at just the right moment. It had taken them hours to track down and rescue Avery, and in the end she had been found, but she was wounded severely.

When Zeb and Kurtz left to find Avery,
Brylon had stayed behind on the mother ship to analyze the damage. For the moment, the ship was stranded, but it was not alone because the Pernmocks had agreed to shadow them and protect the disabled Theron ship until repairs could be made to get the ship operational again. Kurtz had brought over several members of his crew before he left, to help with the injured and with the repairs. Brylon knew the ship inside and out, and knew that it would take a lot of manual labor to get the ship ready to travel through wormholes again.  He was thankful for the additional help from Kurtz’s crew, because this was something that Brylon couldn’t do alone.

As soon as the last of the Drylon crafts left the battle,
Bryon had taken off in the direction of his quarters. He had to see Emma and make sure that she was alright. She was alone in their quarters during the battle and would have no idea of what had happened when the ship was quaking with each pulsar blast. She was probably scared shitless with the streaks of light hitting the ship and with the small explosions that periodically were heard as the pulsars hit their targets. The entire ship had trembled and groaned with each hit that it took, even with the shields up at full capacity. Gradually, with the frequency of the hits on the shields, they started to fail which would have sealed their fate altogether.  However, that was when the Pernmocks made their most welcomed appearance.

In record time he got to his
quarters and went into the darkened room and called out, “Emma, Emma where are you?” He rushed through the quarters searching, eventually finding her on the floor next to the bed. Her rewa was sitting next to her making a crying noise, holding on to one of her fingers.

“Emma!” He knelt down next to her and pulled her black hair away face. She wasn’t bleeding
, but her eyes were closed and there was a large lump on her forehead that was turning black and blue. He caressed the side of her face and scooped her up in his arms, cradling her like one would a small child.

“Emma, honey, wake up. Please wake up
and look at me.” He patted her face and then let his hand move down to explore the rest of her body as he was checking for any other obvious injuries.

Emma
moaned as she started to come to. Her eyelids fluttered a couple of time before she finally open them. She brought her hand to her head and felt around for the source of her pain, “My head hurts.”

Brylon sat her
up in his lap and brushed her hand away from the growing lump, “Don’t touch your head, baby. You have a nasty bump up there. I am going to take you to the infirmary and have you checked out.” He got to his feet then scooped her up into his arms again as if she weighed nothing.

“I’m ok Brylon. You can put me down,” she mumbled.

Marc
hing out of the bedroom and out of their quarters, he said in a stern yet gentle voice, “I will not put you down, Emma. You are going to be checked out by Zane to make sure you do not have any kind of internal injuries.”

“It’s just my head for crying out loud. I hit it when I tried to get up out of the bed. An explosion or something knocked me off balance
and I hit my head on the night stand. Come on, please put me down Brylon.” She wiggled her legs in his arms as if she were giving him a clue that she wanted down.

“No E
mma.” He reached his hand around her back to where she could see it, “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“That’s ea
sy, two.” She smiled.

“You are definitely going to s
ee Zane now.” He shook his head and smiled down at her.

“Why?”

He looked down at her with a serious face, “Because I was only holding up one finger.”

“Oh wow!” She
seemed to have given in as he felt her lay her head against his chest and giggle then moan. “Damn that hurts!” She held the side of her head in one hand.

They didn’t say anything else
to each other for the rest of the walk to the infirmary. The corridors were crowded with warriors and crew members who were either injured or helping to repair the ship to get things back in order. Once inside the infirmary Brylon sat Emma on the first available bed. Zane must have seen them enter the clinic because as soon as Emma was on the bed, Zane was standing right next to him.

“Hey Doc, can you look at Emma’s head? She hit it
pretty hard on the night stand and is seeing double,” Brylon spit out quickly before Emma could say add word.

“
I told him I was okay,” Emma said as she sat on the bed with hers arms folded, staring at Brylon, “I have a mild headache that’s all.”

“Umm…Let’s not forget that you told me you saw two fingers when I was only holding up
one,” Brylon smiled over to Zane.

“Okay
, enough you two. Let me have a look at your head.” He watched as Zane leaned against the table in front of Emma and began to examine the lump on her head. He pressed lightly around the outer edges and stopped when he heard his patient hiss in response to his touch, “I see that hurts?”

From between clenched teeth she said, “Yessss.”

Next he took out some kind of pen light and shined it into her eyes. “Look into my light and follow it with your eyes,” Zane started with the light directly in front of her eyes, and then he made a cross from side to side and up and down then turned the light off, putting it back into his lab coat pocket.

“I think you have a mild concu
ssion Emma. This happens whenever you hit your head this hard. Do you feel as if you need to vomit?” He stepped back from the bed.

“No
, just got the headache.” Emma was blinking her eyes hard to try and rid them of the aggravating black blur she saw each time she blinked.

“She should be alright Brylon. I would just
advise you to watch her for the next few hours and keep her awake. If the headache doesn’t subside by then, bring her back. I am going to give you an injection that will help with the headache, Emma,” he turned to call for someone, “Laura, would you please bring me that tray on the counter next to you.”

Emma sat up straight and scanned the room when she heard he
r friend’s name, “Laura? Laura’s in here?” She craned her neck in order to see around the huge doctor blocking her view.

Laura walked the tray over to Zane but didn’t pay attention to who was sitting on the examination bed u
ntil she heard the female voice.

“Laura!” Emma shouted loud enough for the entire room to glance her way.

Laura stopped dead in her tracks, “Emma!” She handed the tray over to Zane and then grabbed Emma in a sisterly hug, “I have been wondering what happened to you. I have been so worried and Ceran wouldn’t tell me anything! Are you doing okay? Who is your mate?”

“I hit
my head during that big explosion, and Brylon brought me here to be checked out.”

Laura pulled back some from Emma and looked at her head, “Ouch, that’s got to hurt,” She turned her head to look at Brylon, a warrior she hadn’t met yet, “Is he your mate?”

“I guess if you want to say that. He bought me at the auction. What are you doing here in the infirmary?”

“
My mate, Ceran, worked this out. When I was on Earth, I was six months into my medical residency. Dr. Zane is allowing me to continue my residency with him. At the moment, I have been helping out with all the injuries from the battle. I couldn’t sit around doing nothing, when I knew others had to have been hurt. After that surprise attack, I am surprised that there weren’t any major injuries. We were all really lucky,” Laura chatted on not noticing Emma’s confusion.

“Wait a minute, what battle? Was Earth attacked?” Emma’s eyes moved to each of three figures standing near her.