The Choosing (The Pruxnae Book 1) (2 page)

He dropped the
bag he held onto the floor and strode toward her, moving rapidly through the
tiny space, one hand slashing through the air at the light fixture.

Her eyes widened
and she stumbled backward. “Don’t come any closer.”

He leapt forward
and grabbed her wrist. His fingers pinched into her skin, and she winced. “Let
go. Please, there’s no need…”

He yanked her
toward him and placed her hand firmly on the glowbulb, and the light dimmed to
a low glimmer, barely lighting the room. A moment later, scuffles sounded on
her stoop and something thudded hard against her door. She gasped and jerked at
her wrist. The man’s grip tightened painfully.

“Tuh, tuh, tuh,”
he said softly. He stared down at her, his gaze hidden by the green strip, and
his gloved fingers brushed her lips.

Was he trying to
tell her to be quiet?

She shook her
head and her hair flew loose from the braid she’d woven it into before going to
bed. Forget it. Tersi hospitality or not, this man was a stranger in her home
and had no right to tell her what to do.

Another bang
sounded and the solid wooden door protecting her home’s entrance groaned and
bent. Ziri hissed in a breath, her fear forgotten. Wood was rare on Tersi. What
few forests had survived the pest plague a century ago were protected by law.
Most wood was imported from off planet and was exorbitantly expensive. She
couldn’t afford to replace the door if the lanoos outside broke it down. And
why would they anyway? Had everybody in Arden Hollow forgotten how to turn a
doorknob?

The man holding
her shoved her into the bedroom and brushed his fingers over her lips again.
“Tuh, tuh, tuh,” he said, and Ziri leveled one of Mag’s unyielding stares at
him. She’d be quiet when people quit entering her home in the middle of the
night without knocking and calling the traditional greeting first.

The door cracked
and broke, and a man staggered through its remains. He was easily half a head
taller than the one holding her, broader of shoulder, and wore the same black
armor. He stopped dead in his tracks just inside her home. “Ryn abid Alna. Shtyu’un
isik galkhuv?”

The man beside
her laughed and crossed his arms over his armored chest. “Shtyu’un galkhin isik
tyerwey, Dyuvad?”

Ziri backed
slowly away from the two men, easing toward the open window on the far side of
her bedroom, out of sight of the man standing by her ruined front door. Whoever
these men were, they weren’t from Arden Hollow. Though she couldn’t believe
they meant her any harm, the very fact that they were speaking an off-world
language concerned her. Tersi was a peaceful planet in good standing with the
peoples of the surrounding star systems. It wasn’t unheard of for foreigners to
visit the distant provinces, but it wasn’t a frequent occurrence either, and
never had one entered another’s home without permission, not that Ziri recalled
hearing of.

Then again, hadn’t
Mag said something about raiders being spotted in a neighboring star system a
few days ago?

Ziri pressed her
lips together and ventured another step back. Why had that rumor not been the
first thing she’d thought of when she’d heard something in her home? Oh, no,
not that. Instead, she’d blamed a garri and gone investigating like a
dim-witted lanoo.

The man in her
bedroom’s doorway glanced over his shoulder and shook his head at her. She
froze, her eyes wide, and curled her hands into fists. Great. Caught in the act
of escaping. Now what would she do?

He drew his
blaster and shot the other man as casually as anybody else would pick up a
book. The weapon pinged and a loud grunt echoed to her from the main entrance,
followed by a heavy thump. Ziri’s hands flew to her mouth, covering a gasp, and
a fine tremor ran through her. He’d
shot
somebody, had killed another
man in her home. Her gut clenched around a wave of nausea. She swallowed it
down and whirled, racing toward the open window away from the murderer behind
her. She had to get out, had to warn somebody, had to leave before he shot her,
too.

Rapid footsteps came
from behind her. Almost there, almost
…
She stumbled into the wall and
shoved the shutters back just as a hard arm slid around her waist, pinned her
arms in place, and jerked her away from the window. She bucked and screamed,
and his hand covered her mouth, cutting the sound off, and dug into the soft
skin of her face. She squirmed and kicked, struggling to escape the firm grip
of the man holding her. Every blow bounced off his armor, every single one. It
cut into her back, bruised her heels, and protected him from the fury of her
blows.

She screamed
into his hand and redoubled her efforts. He couldn’t have her. She had to
escape, had to get away from this off-worlder and the dead body lying on the
floor of her home.

The man’s breath
whistled through his head apparatus next to her ear. He dragged her into the
living room and dumped her on the floor by the body, then bent over, hands on
knees, shoulders heaving.

She scrambled
away from him, put her back to the wall by the door, and wrapped her arms
around her knees. “Why are you doing this?” Her voice hitched on a sob. She
lifted trembling fingers to her face and found tears, and the man grunted and
murmured to her in his strange, guttural language.

The man on the
floor groaned and rolled the back of his head along the area rug.

Ziri abandoned
the relative safety of the wall and crawled quickly to him. He was alive. Thank
Onu, he was alive. She patted his armor, searching for a broken spot and blood,
and found none. No blood. How could that be?

She glanced over
her shoulder at the first man and immediately wished she hadn’t. He was
kneeling beside her, bag in hand, so close her heart leapt into her throat. He
jabbed stiff fingers into her shoulder. The room whooshed and swirled around
her and she winked out of existence with a dizzying
pop
.

The sound of
metal striking metal woke Ziri. A sharp pain shot through her forehead. She
inhaled, smacked her lips together. Her mouth tasted like she hadn’t scoured
her teeth in a week. How long had she been asleep? Surely not that long. If she
was late by even a fraction of a sun’s pace, Mag would come by and rouse her,
and scold her the whole time.

Ziri was never
late, though. She always woke exactly when she was supposed to, spent precisely
half a sun’s pace in her garden, then had a hearty meal of homegrown produce as
she read through the morning’s news. She’d done that for the entire three
Galactic Standards she’d worked for Mag, only varying her routine on
non-workdays.

A boring,
predictable routine, but it got her through.

She rolled onto
her side and was stopped short. Something was holding her wrists in place above
her head. A familiar voice murmured to her from nearby, the words strange and
awkward, and memory rushed in. Reading
Onu’s Tears
, finding a stranger
in her home, the urgent fear pushing her to get away from him, and then passing
out as reality melted around her and disappeared.

She slit her
eyes open. The world was blurry, distorted. She blinked once, then again,
clearing her vision, and gradually her surroundings swam into focus.

A man stood on
the other side of the room, his back to her as he shrugged out of matte black armor.
Was this the man who’d taken her? His head apparatus was gone, revealing
straight, shoulder length black hair, but his size seemed a good match. A
tendril of her earlier fear returned. Maybe this time she could get away. Maybe
this time she could find help somewhere, somehow.

She jerked her
arms downward. Something firm bit into the skin around her wrists and her
stomach twisted and dipped. He’d bound her. By all that was holy, what would
she do now?

The man glanced
over his shoulder, and her breath caught in her throat. His face was tanned,
the features starkly beautiful in spite of two scars marring his skin, one
along the high ridge of his left cheekbone, the other bisecting the flat plane
of his right cheek. His eyes were nearly as black as his hair under thick,
straight eyebrows, his nose was long and slightly crooked, but his mouth. She
swallowed and jerked her gaze away from the sensual curves of his lips. That
was not the hard mouth of a would-be murderer. It was a kind mouth, a sweet
mouth. Shouldn’t it be bitter and cruel, a perfect match for his dastardly
behavior?

His expression
softened as he walked gracefully toward her. He sat down next to her on the
edge of what appeared to be a raised sleeping pallet. The mattress shifted
under his weight, jarring her balance. She rolled away from him and stared up
at the flat gray, metal ceiling.

“Ryn.”

Without the
distortion of his armored facemask, his voice was low and smooth. She turned
her face toward the equally gray wall. “I don’t know if you can understand me,
but please let me go,” she said, as evenly as she could manage around the panic
rising within her. “My parents will reward you. We have money and jewels,
things a man of your sort would want, if you’ll just please let me contact my
parents and have them bring a reward here.”

The mattress
shifted again and fabric rustled. He stretched out beside her, his larger body
warm along her nearly bare skin, even through his clothing. Her breath rushed
out of her. What was he doing?

“Ryn.” His hand
touched her stomach briefly, then was gone. “Ryn,” he said again, and
exasperation got the better of her. She peered at him around one of her arms,
pinned in place by whatever he’d used to bind her hands together.

“I don’t know
what Ryn means,” she gritted out.

He touched long,
well-formed fingers to his chest and said, “Ryn,” then placed his hand on her
stomach.

Understanding
dawned and Ziri scowled. “Maybe you should’ve gotten my name before you
kidnapped me. That would’ve been nice. Hello, I’m Ryn. I’ve entered your home
without permission or the proper greeting and I let another man tear up your
very expensive wooden door, a door that was an heirloom, mind you. That cottage
was built around the door, not the other way around, and it’s been standing for
nearly a century without so much as a rough knock hitting its surface, and then
you and that lanoo came along. My father will be so upset when he sees what the
two of you did…”

Tears clogged
her throat, cutting off her diatribe. Her father would probably be a good deal
more upset when he realized she was gone.

Ryn stroked her
stomach. “Tuh, tuh, tuh,” he murmured, and she snapped. What right did this man
have to tell her to be quiet after he’d shot somebody and kidnapped her and
chained her to his bed?

“I will not
tuh,
tuh, tuh
.” She sucked in a breath and yanked at the chains holding her,
wiggling as far away from him as she could without hitting the cold wall. “Let
me go now and I won’t find your blaster and leave
you
lying on the floor
wounded.”

Ryn rolled onto
her and straddled her legs, one hand braced on the mattress, the other holding
her wrists in place. He shook his head and his mouth thinned into a hard line.
His strength was palpable in his weight and the long length of his arm
stretched out beside hers. He was bigger and stronger, and Onu help her, she
was completely at his mercy.

Panicked fear
raced through her. She squeezed her eyes tight and breathed through it,
struggling to think, racking her muddled brain for a solution. Things like this
didn’t happen on Tersi. Men didn’t kidnap women and chain them to a bed. She’d
never had a man harm her, never heard of it being done, not once. The Tersii
were peaceful, cooperative, respectful. Political discussions occasionally
became heated, but that was generally the extent of their troubles. Local
police forces were called out more often to deal with sand leeches wandering
into settled areas than with violence among the residents.

Ryn’s arm brushed
along hers. Something clicked and the pressure around one of her wrists ceased.
Ziri blinked at him, surprised. He’d let her go. He’d really let her go and
this might be her only chance at escape. She arched her hips up and scissored
her legs, trying to throw him off of her, and clawed at the manacle holding her
other wrist. Her fingers fumbled along the smooth surface. Why hadn’t she
looked at it earlier and at least figured out where the release mechanism was?

He dropped his
weight onto her, crushing her breath out, and she twisted underneath him. “Tuh,
tuh, tuh,” he said in a gentle chide. He caught her free arm and forced it into
the manacle, clicking it into place around her wrist.

She sobbed out a
breath and sagged limply into the mattress. “No. Please, no.”

He murmured soft
words to her and gently dried the tears off of her cheeks, and then he released
her again, and on and on they went, him releasing her, her struggling to get
free, and him binding her again until her breath panted out of her chest and
her strength was sapped and exhaustion seeped into every muscle of her body.

At last, she
closed her eyes and gave up. She couldn’t get free, couldn’t escape with one
wrist still bound above her head and his weight pinning her to the sleeping
pallet. Why did he tease her with freedom? Why wouldn’t he just let her go?

He eased off of
her, and her skin chilled with the loss of his solid warmth. The manacle
slipped off her left wrist, but she was too tired to care. What good would it
do to fight him? He’d already proven he’d win. She’d just have to find another
way to escape, hopefully before he did anything she’d regret.

He brought her
arm down slowly and draped it across her stomach. She groaned. Her arm muscles
were stiff and achy and sore, and blood tingled painfully into her numb hands.
She flexed her fingers, winced. This was worse than the season she’d spent
digging clay for the master potter. At least then she’d had a hot bath to look
forward to at the end of each day. Here, wherever here was with its stark walls
and meager furnishings, seemed too primitive to have running water, let alone a
large bathing area, assuming Ryn allowed her to use them in the first place.

Ryn cupped her
hand between both of his and rubbed briskly, kneading small circles up her arm.
Her blood settled into its normal, undetectable thrum, and she sighed. “Thank
you.”

He
mmmd
and released her other hand, treating it in the same fashion. His fingers were
sure on her skin, as if he’d done this many times before. Ziri bit back a tired
laugh. For all she knew, Ryn had a whole roomful of women he’d kidnapped and
locked away somewhere. She was probably one in a long line of many.

He stretched out
on top of her and braced himself above her. She blinked up at him, too empty
for fear or anger. His hands smoothed her hair away from her face. He touched a
single finger to the tip of her nose, sniffed her throat, grazed her hair
across his cheek. She held still, riding out his inspection, and eventually, he
eased away from her and off the pallet. He stood beside it staring down at her,
his dark eyes impassive, and held out a broad-palmed hand.

She gazed at it
for a long time, caught between the need to escape and the worm of curiosity
wiggling its way into her brain. Curiosity had always been her biggest flaw. It
had pushed her into exploring areas her parents deemed forbidden, had urged her
to continue searching for her place in Arden Hollow long after she should’ve
found it. It kept her awake at night pondering possibilities, and now, it
encouraged her to take Ryn’s hand and see where he wanted to lead her.

Curiosity was
probably the last trait she needed right then.

She met his calm
gaze. Not once had it wavered. Not once had his hand moved as she’d studied it,
and that decided her as much as anything. She placed her fingers along his and
scooted off the pallet. If curiosity got her into trouble, it couldn’t be much
worse than the trouble she was already in, and it might help her find an answer
to the dilemma facing her now.

* * *

When the woman
placed her hand in his, satisfaction and a small spurt of triumph surged
through Ryn. He kept his expression carefully blank, sure she’d fight on if she
saw it and understood it for what it was. She’d scolded him relentlessly
earlier, her lilting words edged by temper and annoyance. If the kraden primary
AI had been working, he could’ve had it translate for her, but this was fine.
Without it, they’d be forced to learn each other, and in the end, that learning
would bind them more completely together.

She was so soft.
As he’d lain on top of her waiting out her struggles, he’d faced his own
struggle, trying to rein his body in, groping for the patience Gared had taught
him.

“Gentle her to
you, son,” Ryn’s second father had said. “Never force her unless she’s in
danger. She’ll forgive you for taking her if you’re good to her, but you’ll
never sway her to your side if you harm her.”

Ryn had taken
that advice to heart.

He grasped her
hand gently, careful not to bruise her, and helped her stand. She swayed and
her knees buckled, and he steadied her with a firm grip on her elbow. The jump
from her home to the cargo bay had knocked her out, not unusual the first time
somebody transported through space-time that way. It took practice to navigate
the jump successfully, even in a ship the size of the
Yarinska
with inertial
dampeners fully operational. She’d learn, but not now. Now, she needed to
understand where she was and some of the whys.

As soon as she
pushed away from him, he led her into the head, a tiny room off his sleeping
quarters where she could tend to her hygiene and personal needs. He showed her
where to relieve herself and how to use the narrow sink, flipped the switches
on for the shower. She stuck a testing hand under the thin stream of lukewarm
water trickling out of the showerhead and relief flashed across her expression.

She whirled
toward him and, her eyes hard and determined, pointed to her teeth.

He nearly
grinned. Not even a day in captivity and she was making demands. She’d do well
among the Pruxnæ.

He showed her
how to clean her teeth and left her in the efficiently planned head, giving her
what privacy he could. Though he’d set aside two rooms for her use, one for her
plants and the other for the personal items he’d scavenged from her home, they’d
be sleeping together and, until she officially accepted him, spending most of
their time training for the rigors of the Choosing.

While he waited,
he stripped off the rest of his gear and stored it in a wall unit along with
his weapons. As soon as he’d finished retrieving what he could from her home, he’d
jumped away from her planet and hidden the
Yarinska
in a deep crater of
a barren moon in another star system. He’d opted for a slower journey back to
Abyw, though it meant skirting more well-known travel routes once they returned
to familiar space. It also meant making the journey alone, but he’d expected
that. A battleship had accompanied the umlek or so of personal ships to the
outskirts of the system where the woman’s planet was located. That was the only
protection the men and women seeking spouses would get. Once a mate had been
captured, it was up to the individual to sort it out and find their own way
back home.