Kaitlyn O'Connor (29 page)

* * * *

If the sound emanating from the gathering room was any indication, Loren thought as she and Dakaar approached, everyone was in a far better mood than they had been since they
‟
d begun the trip. She felt her own spirits, already high, surge upward a notch, felt a heady sense of anticipation thread her veins. For the first time since she
‟
d been offered the „exciting
‟
job by the government, she felt as if she was looking at future that held infinite promise. Even the thought of having the face lizard-man food for a while longer wasn
‟
t enough to deflate her mood.

Kael
‟
s face was.

He turned as she neared the table with Dakaar to give her a welcoming smile. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw his face, so fast that Dakaar, who
‟
d been following only a step behind her with one hand riding possessively along her waist, nearly ran her down. He caught her as she was jostled forward, righting her, but Loren hardly noticed. As soon it pierced her shock that the lumps on his face were from fists, her gaze shifted to Daeman. Almost as if he felt her gaze, he lifted his head and looked straight at her, flicked a glance at Dakaar, and then returned his attention to the plate in front of him.

It was enough, however, for Loren to see that his face looked as bad or worse than Kael
‟
s.

Dismay descended over her like a black cloud. They
‟
d fought and it was her fault! If she
‟
d had any sense at all she would
‟
ve told Kael she
‟
d found the damn suitcase herself!

Or she would
‟
ve hidden it!

He
‟
d caught her by surprise, though, when she was trying on the clothes she hadn
‟
t seen in 129

so long—or ever thought to see again—that it had felt like she
‟
d gone shopping and returned with all sorts of exciting new things. She hadn
‟
t had time to reverse engines when she
‟
d seen that Kael was suspicious. Truthfully, it hadn
‟
t occurred to her that it would make him angry at all!

The swift descent from glory to purgatory left her feeling disoriented as she took her place between Dakaar and Kael. She had a feeling everybody at the table knew about the fight and knew why it had happened and she felt too guilty about causing dissention in their little group to look around.

Kael leaned around her to talk to Dakaar in their own language. She thought at first that he was recounting the fight, but then Dakaar grinned and sent her a look that was part appreciative and part disapproving. [“You no tell find place hunt!” he said chidingly.]

Loren had already opened her mouth to tell him she
‟
d been preoccupied when she caught a glance of the other people at the table. She closed her mouth again, feeling her face heat.

Dakaar chuckled, tapping the bottom of her chin. He leaned closer. “Tink dey know why late.”

Loren met Balen
‟
s gaze when Dakaar leaned back. His eyes were warm. “We talk after eat?”

Disconcerted, she flicked a look at Dakaar, turning redder at the look on his face. “Wait see if puke,” Dakaar advised him.

She glared at him, but she realized he was joking—at her expense, of course. She shrugged.

“I
‟
m getting better at holding it down—There won
‟
t be any bouncing involved in our chat, will there?” she asked, batting her eyelashes at Balen innocently.

He laughed out loud, drawing the attention of half the table.

Rolling her eyes, she glanced at Kael speculatively, but decided not to open that can of worms. Hopefully, they
‟
d settled the dispute. It seemed like a bad idea, if that was a possibility, to bring it up.

Dakaar leaned close. “Him no pretty now. Lumps. Daeman rearrange.”

Kael sent him a deadly look and grimaced. “Hard talk. Deisen
‟
s face no pretty neider.”

Loren cleared her throat and reached for the platter as Kael passed it to her. The food looked about as appetizing as ever—which was to say it didn
‟
t. The guys took turns cooking. After she and Karen had puked all over the pantry, they
‟
d apparently decided not to risk letting them cook it. She certainly hadn
‟
t argued. As disgusting as it looked, and was, cooked, she didn
‟
t want to know what it looked like before.

“Kael
‟
s face is always pretty,” she murmured, sliding a glance at him. “Even with lumps.”

He sent her a smoldering look that would
‟
ve been far more effective without the lumps.

“Bad eyes,” Dakaar said. “Kael not pretty without lumps.”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Loren said tartly.

“An
‟
Lau-ren have bad eyes,” Balen agreed.

The comment brought to mind the night he
‟
d brought her off with his mouth and she squirmed a little in her seat. “My eyes work just fine for what I need to see. I can feel the rest—and that can be fun.”

Daeman got up abruptly and stalked from the room. Her attention caught by his sudden departure, Loren gaped at him in dismay. He didn
‟
t look at her, however, and she returned her attention to her plate, wondering if they
‟
d been talking loud enough he
‟
d overheard the 130

conversation.

She flicked a glance at the other two men Kael had referred to as Deisen and saw that neither one of them looked particularly happy. That was when she realized that most of the „happy sounds
‟
were coming from the Hirachi and the women.

Apparently, they
‟
d made it pretty obvious that they were chirping like songbirds because they
‟
d all gotten laid—or had the prospect of it.

Guilt smote her. Not that she didn
‟
t think they had a right to a little happiness, but it seemed inconsiderate to rub it in the faces of the other men.

Karen seemed to think so, too. She caught the eye of one of the Deisen and smiled at him.

Frowning, Loren glanced at Karen
‟
s „men
‟
, more than half expecting a fight to erupt. To her surprise, although they followed the look, and they didn
‟
t look especially happy about it, none of them took exception.

Well, she thought, Karen was something else if she was thinking about adding a Deisen to her collection. She already had four Hirachi!

When she finally glanced around the table again, she saw that Shara seemed equally fascinated with the other Deisen. Shaking her head, she focused on the battle between her stomach and the food. She didn
‟
t push it. She never did because her stomach simply rebelled and chucked it if she tried to force it. Her stomach had shrunk so much, in any case, that it didn
‟
t take much to feel full.

As she
‟
d more than half feared, she wasn
‟
t feeling jaunty enough to anticipate her „talk
‟
with Balen. He seemed grimly determined, however, and she decided she could at least try for his sake.

Not that it was her fault that they
‟
d avoided her so long!

Well, she mentally amended, maybe it hadn
‟
t been altogether their fault. No doubt she
‟
d been sick regularly enough that they wouldn
‟
t have approached her even if they had gotten over being angry about the assault.

Of course, she suspected her pregnancy had a lot to do with being sick, but she couldn
‟
t be sure that she wouldn
‟
t have been sick anyway. She was
so
looking forward to setting down on whatever planet the computer took them to! She thought they ought to be able to find something that was at least sort of familiar to her. After all, she reasoned,
they
were all different and still really similar in a lot of ways.

Something cow-like or chicken-like would be really welcome! Even if it didn
‟
t taste the same, maybe it would be similar enough she could
pretend
it was.

Balen surprised and pleased her with his thoughtfulness. He seemed perfectly content to curl up with her on the bed and simply cuddle after he
‟
d given her the gift he
‟
d found for her. He actually seemed more focused on talking about the new planet.

“Feel good get off dis machine, feel wind on face—see ting besides stars and walls.”

Loren sighed blissfully, enjoying the slow, massaging glide of his hands. Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine what it might look like. “There must be green things like on Earth,” she murmured. “Sad to say, I never really saw that much greenery when I
was
on Earth. It
‟
s weird that I could miss it so much.”

“Why no see green?”

She shrugged. “There isn
‟
t a lot in the cities—some, but not like the countryside. And I 131

spent most of the last four years on Earth underground in a secret government facility.” She sighed. “It was in the middle of a desert anyway, so there wasn
‟
t much green to see.”

She shifted to look at his face, wondering if it would bother him to talk about his own world, and finally asked him.

His expression tightened.

“It
‟
s alright. We don
‟
t have to talk about it,” she said quickly.

He shook his head. “Remember bad tings. Was good, too.” He fell silent, thinking. Finally, he lifted his hand. “Land roll to sea. High land behind dat. Mountains. Sky an
‟
sea like Lau-ren
‟
s eyes.”

Loren closed her eyes, trying to imagine it. “You didn
‟
t live in the sea?”

When he didn
‟
t answer, she opened her eyes again. His expression made her hurt. “Yes.

Much time. Need air breathe, though. The sheloni know dis. Find de pods…de village. Blow up.

Catch Hirachi when must come up to breathe. No can fight dere. No can run or hide. We move away from de sea, build new village. Make look like de mountains. Still no good.”

She supposed from that that the people that had captured him were the sheloni. She hadn
‟
t heard the name before. She wondered how they
‟
d ended up at the space station, if the sheloni were like the trader and simply went around stealing people from their lives and selling them into slavery.

It passed comprehension that there was so much technology so far advanced from anything familiar to her, and yet so much barbarism. But she supposed they considered the Hirachi beneath them and fair game.

She lifted a hand to his hard cheek and stroked it lightly. He met her gaze and the unfocused look left his eyes. His gaze flickered over her face. “Was angry and very sad. Find Lau-ren, dis go away.”

Loren felt the sudden urge to cry. Instead, she lifted up and pressed her lips to his. “I
‟
m glad you found me, too.”

It was strange, but the moment she said it, she realized just how very true it was. She hadn
‟
t thought, even once before, that the road she
‟
d been thrust so unwillingly upon had led her to the Hirachi and that she would
‟
ve missed that one worthwhile thing if none of it had happened. It put everything else into perspective as never before. She smiled faintly. “Maybe we were meant to find each other?”

“I tink dis, too,” he murmured, following her as she leaned away and covering her mouth in a heated kiss.

She dismissed her qualms about her stomach, enjoying the rise of heat, and found she needn
‟
t have worried. He made love to her slowly and carefully, with infinite patience belied by the tremors of need she felt in him and he carried her to glory.

132

Loren, Karen, and Shara were near a state of hysterical excitement as they stared at the view of the planet below them via the ship
‟
s monitor. Loren didn
‟
t think she would
‟
ve been quite as wrought up over it if it hadn
‟
t come as such a surprise. It had taken them weeks to reach the first world where they
‟
d been chased off. It hadn
‟
t taken much more to reach the target planet the computer had told them about.

Of course, she hadn
‟
t told the computer before to „put the pedal to the metal
‟
, and, unfortunately, the hyper drives had ate up a good bit of the fuel.

She dismissed that anxiety for the moment. She didn
‟
t think they would
‟
ve survived much longer in space on the rations they had. All of them were far too thin. As much as she enjoyed being thinner herself, she hadn
‟
t enjoyed it long before she
‟
d dropped enough weight that she
‟
d begun to be seriously alarmed because of the baby.

She thought the men were almost as excited as they were, though, naturally, being men, they seemed to think jumping up and down and squealing with excitement like a bunch of cheerleaders just wasn
‟
t manly.

The trip down to the landing point the computer had chosen was long enough that it had worn a good bit of the edge off of Loren
‟
s excitement. She was still ready to race everyone else to the lift and head down to the bay as soon as the computer announced that they had landed.

She had to turn around and race back to the console to tell the computer to cut the engines and prepare to open the bay doors. The first group had already headed down by the time she reached the lift again, and she looked at her men apologetically as waited impatiently for the lift to return.

“No look like dat,” Kael said. “We see together.”

Relieved, Loren smiled more brightly. “Ooooh! I can
‟
t wait!”

Even Daeman, whom she discovered to her surprise had waited to go with their group, looked more light hearted than he had for a while. She smiled at him tentatively, wondering if he was still angry with her about the fight he
‟
d had with Kael because of her big mouth.

He stared at her for a long moment and finally smiled back.

It wasn
‟
t much of a smile, but it made her feel better. She
‟
d had the distinct feeling that he
‟
d gone out of his way to avoid her ever since.

Not that she was surprised. It couldn
‟
t have been very pleasant to be forced to fight over something he shouldn
‟
t have had to defend. She
still
didn
‟
t really understand why Kael had gotten so angry about it. He didn
‟
t get angry like that when either Dakaar or Balen did far more than that…in front of him!

Maybe it was because they were all Hirachi and Daeman wasn
‟
t?

Not that that actually made any sense to her. She
‟
d always thought it was a territorial thing with guys and if that was the case, shouldn
‟
t they feel the same way about each other?

133

Maybe it was a…race thing? They didn
‟
t seem to have any problem with him otherwise.

She dismissed it when the door to the lift opened, surging inside.

There was something about being in such a tight enclosed space, she discovered, that made her more aware of the size of the men towering over her than she
‟
d been in a very long time. She looked up at Kael and Dakaar, who were standing on either side of her.

Dakaar grinned at her and patted the top of her head. “Little ting.”

She supposed, wryly, the close quarters had made them notice it more, too. “Pole,” she retorted without heat.

“What pole?” he asked, still grinning.

“Tall and skinny.”

His brows rose. He looked down to examine himself. “No skinny.”

Loren
‟
s amusement died as she studied him. He was much thinner, regardless of the dispute.

She just hoped they could find food before they all got weaker.

The smells of the new world assaulted her as soon as the lift door opened. The air felt thick with the wealth of aromas—not all of them entirely pleasant. They discovered when they
‟
d left the lift that the rest their group was standing at the top of the gangplank, surveying the new world.

That thought sent a shiver through her that was part excitement and part trepidation. There was no telling what it would be like, what sort of animals must roam this world, but the view she had as she neared the open bay doors was more than a little scary. Before them lay a wild tangle of growth that had clearly never seen the hand of any being born of a civilization. She was actually stunned that the computer had found a location that was relatively flat to land.

As she stepped through the opening, she heard a sound she hadn
‟
t heard in years…the crash of ocean waves on a shore line. She glanced up at the Hirachi sharply and saw the sheer joy in their eyes to hear it.

“Sea,” Kael said, his voice harsh with a yearning she
‟
d never heard before.

Loren felt her throat close and she looked at the others. She knew they were sea people and yet she hadn
‟
t realized exactly what that meant until that moment.

The sea was their true home.

She
‟
d always loved the sea—from the shore.

Maybe they liked the view of the land from the sea, but it emphasized the differences between them as never before.

“Hunt first. Go to sea later,” Kael said after a long moment.

He turned to Dakaar. “
We need tools to clear a wide area and make a camp.”

Nodding, Dakaar turned and called to three other men and disappeared into the ship again.

“Where are they going?”

“Get tings cut dis,” he said, waving a hand toward the jungle before them. “Make camp. Den we hunt.”

Loren looked at Karen. This was where they should
‟
ve stepped up. „Oh no! We can make camp!
‟
She inched a little closer to Karen. “Have you ever been camping before?”

“In an RV,” Karen said dryly. “This doesn
‟
t look like the KOA.”

134

Loren smiled at Kael a little uncertainly. “What can we do to help?”

The approval in his eyes, she decided, was worth it even if she had to do battle with creepy things. “We cut. Women
‟
s make pile for burn.”

“How are we going to start a fire?” Karen asked blankly.

“The guys can do it.”

Karen lifted her brows, but she didn
‟
t question it. “I
‟
m wondering if it
‟
s really such a good idea. There
‟
s an awful lot to burn,” she said uneasily.

“I think they know what they
‟
re doing. I hope so, anyway.”

Dakaar and the men who
‟
d gone with him reappeared a short time later, carrying blades of some kind. Apparently, they
‟
d discovered them among the trader
‟
s goods because they looked like they worked surprisingly well once the men started swinging them.

Tired of standing, she sat down on the gangplank when Karen and Shara did, watching in fascination as the men formed a line and laid waste to the brush.

“My god they are beautiful men,” Karen said dreamily.

Loren was mesmerized by the play of muscles herself. “What?” she asked vaguely.

“Nice,” Shara agreed.

It wasn
‟
t until the men paused and looked back to gauge how much they
‟
d cleared that it dawned on Loren that she
‟
d told Kael they would help. Nudging Karen and Shara, she got up and moved down the gangplank.

There were
things
crawling along the cut brush they discovered very quickly. Karen managed to grab one with the first branch she picked up and let out a shriek when it wiggled in her hand that echoed for miles Loren was sure. The men swung around instantly, lifting their blades. After watching Karen dance in a wild circle for several moments, slinging her hands frantically, two of her men crossed the clearing they
‟
d made and searched the ground for whatever it was that had distressed her.

“Bug!” she squealed, pointing.

Kadar beheaded it and sent Karen a look that was a mixture of amused tolerance and irritation. “No scream. Scare beasts.”

Karen looked at him indignantly. “But…it bit me!”

Frowning, he took her hand and examined it. “Bite where?”

Karen stared hard at her hand for a long moment. “I thought it bit me,” she muttered.

He patted her head and pointed to the gangplank. “Sit dere. No scream!” he added chidingly.

“Scare away food.”

Karen released a huff of irritation when Kadar and Gaden left. “
Some
bugs are poisonous,”

she said defensively. “How are we supposed to know whether these are or not?”

Loren studied the ground uneasily. “I guess we
‟
ll just have to be careful they don
‟
t get the chance to bite…or sting.”

“Do you think there might be snakes?”

Loren blinked at her. “Will you stop it!” she finally said crossly. “This creeps me out already. You want them to think we
‟
re useless?”

They
‟
d already started a pile when Kael strode back to them. Catching Loren
‟
s shoulders, he 135

turned her and pointed to the outer edge of the clearing they
‟
d made. “Put dere. No set machine on fire.”

“Oh.” Loren studied the pile at the foot of the gangplank and then looked across the clearing at the spot Kael had indicated. “Won
‟
t the fire scare away the animals?”

He nodded, giving her an approving look. “Yes. Keep beasts out ob camp when dark.”

He pointed to the sun that was sinking toward the tops of the trees in the distance.

“Oh hell no!” Karen said when he
‟
d left. “If they think for one second that I
‟
m sleeping out here, they have another thought coming!”

“Me neider,” Shara agreed.

Loren glanced at them unhappily. “Surely they won
‟
t expect us to?”

“It sounded to me like that was what he was suggesting,” Karen said tightly. “There
‟
s no bed. There
‟
s no bathroom. There are bugs everywhere! My black ass is going to be barricaded in that cabin in the ship come dark! I
‟
ll tell you that!”

Loren couldn
‟
t help but grin at her. “My white ass will be, too.”

“An
‟
my blue ass!”

They grinned at each other and then turned to survey the clearing again, the smiles dying.

“Ok,” Loren said, girding herself. “Let
‟
s do this.”

They high-stepped across the clearing to the spot Kael had pointed out, trying to touch down as little as possible. Loren was breathless by the time they arrived and she found a spot to place her feet.

The men, they discovered, had paused in their work to watch them.

Deciding to ignore the grins, Loren bent over to grab a branch and tossed it. It actually took a pretty good while to clear the area directly around them since they examined each piece of foliage and each branch for wild life before they picked it up, but Loren was more enthusiastic when she saw clear ground. It made it easier to see the crawling things scurrying in every direction, but that wasn
‟
t altogether a bad thing since it also made it easier to dodge them.

Discovering after a little bit that it was growing darker, Loren decided to focus on clearing a path from the burn pile to the ship to make for an easier retreat when the time came. She discovered when she stopped to stretch the kinks out of her back that nearly half the men had disappeared. Uneasiness immediately assailed her. A search beyond the clearing finally gave her a glimpse of a couple of the men moving away from the ship and the clearing.