Chapter 9
Rose curled her back into Rohn’s chest. He held her from behind with his legs entwined with hers. She chilled from her burning passion as the day descended into evening, and she huddled against him for warmth. An unquenchable fire burned in him, and he never got cold. His warmth seeped into her back and kept the chill away. She held his hands.
“We should go back to the Keep. It will be dark soon.”
Rose was in no hurry to go. “Is it dangerous?”
“No. I sleep out alone all the time, but the others will wonder where we are. Your friends will get worried if you disappear the way Moira did.”
“Do you have any idea where she went? How could she disappear when she was too injured to move?”
“I wouldn’t want to guess. The important thing is to get you back.”
“How far away is it?”
“Not far. We’ll be there before dark.”
“I don’t want to go just yet.”
He fell silent.
“Rohn?”
“Yes?”
“Are you glad we’re here together?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t. If I wasn’t glad about it, I could get up and walk away. I’m not a prisoner.”
“That’s not what I mean. I mean, do you think there’s any chance for us? Is this all just a nice idea that will disappear when I go back to the Allies?”
“What other option is there? I won’t go to the Allies, and you won’t stay here.”
“Would you like it if I did?”
“You won’t stay. You belong to another world. This is all very pleasant, but in the end, you’ll decide you belong somewhere else and you would be right. You’ll leave, and your authorities will assign you somewhere else. For all I know, you might even take a lover from some other alien race. You’ll wonder if he’s just a nice idea the way I was.”
She clamped her eyes shut tight. “Don’t talk like that.”
“You said it. You said you would go back to the Allies. You never said anything about staying here.”
“Then why did you take me in the first place, if you thought it would come to nothing?”
“I wanted you, and I could see you wanted me, so I did it.”
“Don’t I mean anything to you at all?”
“Of course, you do. You mean a great deal to me. That doesn’t mean there can be anything between us in the future. You’re only here for a year. We can enjoy each other’s company in that time and then say good-bye and good luck.”
Rose sighed. How could he talk about it with such casual indifference? “Have you said good-bye and good luck to very many women?”
“A few. I’ve gotten together with them at the gatherings, but by the end of it, we both knew it wouldn’t come to anything, so we said good-bye. It’s better that way, when you know you don’t really want to settle with one particular person. They can go their way and you can go yours and look for someone you do want to settle with.”
“Tell me more about the gatherings.”
“Clans hold them when they have a lot of young people in need of mates. Other Clans from the surrounding area come, and everybody enjoys feasting and drinking and tournaments and a lot of talk.”
“How long does a gathering last?”
“Until everyone’s had enough. The young people get together and have a wild time. The young men wrestle and fight and try to kill each other. At night, they pair off with the young women and everyone has a sweaty time screaming and rolling and squirting all over each other.”
Rose blushed. “Oh, my God.”
He chuckled under his breath. “It’s loads of fun. The old people get together and talk, all night long. After a while, maybe three or four weeks, everyone is so exhausted, they all go back to their own homes until the next time. If anyone wants to pair off and get married, the girl goes home with her husband’s family.”
“What if a girl gets pregnant but doesn’t pair off with the guy? What happens to her?”
“That doesn’t happen.”
Rose sat bolt upright and spun around to face him. “What?”
“It doesn’t happen. No one gets pregnant with anyone they haven’t paired off with.”
“How can they prevent it? If they have sex with each other, she can get pregnant.”
“Maybe that’s how it works with your people, but not here. The girl decides when to get pregnant, and no girl would get pregnant at the gatherings. She waits until she has a husband and a home with her husband’s family. Then she gets pregnant.”
Rose shook herself free of his arms. “I can see I have a lot to learn about your physiology.”
He rested his head on his arm. “So...do you want to go back now, or do you want to keep talking about the gatherings?”
“Who did you get with at the gatherings?”
He sat up and put his arms around her. “I have a better idea. Let me show you what we did. I bet I can make you scream the way I did with her.”
Rose succumbed to his kiss. He could turn her on and off like a switch. He ran his hands down her back to her ass and hoisted her up on his lap. Her body came alive, and she pressed herself against him.
His tongue slithered into her mouth, and he rocked her against his crotch. She closed her eyes and moaned, but at that moment, a loud screech stood every hair on her head on end. She leapt clear of him and landed on her feet a few yards away when the great dragon from the mountaintop swooped low and landed right in front of her.
She never imagined it could be so big. She’d only ever seen it before at a distance, in some cases a great distance. It always looked as big as a medium-sized truck—nothing she couldn’t cope with. Now, at close range, she realized it was enormous, as least twice the size of the morlock that attacked her. A hot wind rushed off its leathery wings, and smoke trailed from its mouth and nose.
It swung its head around on a long neck, and its tail sliced the air with a menacing hiss as it lashed back and forth. The creature’s eyes burned red with hatred, and its skin glowed devil red. A metallic sheen glittered on its scales in the dying light of the sun.
Rose braced herself, and Rohn jumped to his feet, but the lizard head darted out faster than the eye could see. The dragon grabbed Rose in its mouth and took to the air. It beat its wings, and the rush of wind knocked Rohn off his feet. The creature lifted off the ground, and with a few wing strokes, sailed over the forest toward its mountain.
She must have passed out somewhere in the air, because when she started to awake, the first thing she noticed was the sun dropping behind the horizon. She sat up and looked around. She was on a mountaintop. She could see Harkniss Keep from here. The dragon must have taken her to its perch at the summit.
Branches with their needles still fixed to them lay underneath her to form a nest. A warm updraft of air puffed between the branches from inside the mountain. The same volcanic lava that warmed Harkniss Keep must warm this nest as well. No wonder the dragon made his perch on this mountain.
Then Rose saw lying unconscious at her side the still, pale body of a human female. Rose crawled toward her. “Moira! Can you hear me? Moira!”
Moira didn’t move. Rose made a quick sweep of her body and found several dangerous wounds, but none of them bled anymore. They didn’t even seep. Something must have stopped the bleeding.
On closer inspection, Rose discovered they were puncture wounds. That explained the stopped bleeding. The flesh closed up and locked the blood inside, but the wounds could still be deadly. Moira could be bleeding internally, but without her instruments, Rose could do nothing to save her. She couldn’t even discover which wounds might be bleeding.
Rose passed her hand over Moira’s forehead. Her skin lay damp and cold under Rose’s touch. She was in shock from loss of blood. Who knew what other injuries Moira sustained from that wild pig?
Rose looked around her. She had to get Moira back to the Keep, but how? She couldn’t find her way back to the Keep from a short distance away, let alone across the valley through that forest.
Even if she managed to get Moira back to the Keep, Rose couldn’t help her. She couldn’t perform surgery without equipment. She couldn’t treat infection without medication. She couldn’t even give Moira a blood transfusion. Rose knew the blood types of everyone on her team, and none of them matched Moira.
She slumped down in despair. Here was the Allies representative for their team, dying in her hands, and there was absolutely nothing Rose could do but sit back and watch. What would she tell the Command when she got home? As Commanding Officer, she bore the responsibility for the whole team’s safety.
Oh, Moira! Why did you ever wander off? Didn’t you think this planet would be dangerous outside the Keep? Didn’t you see that dragon sailing through the air? He must have smelled Moira’s blood after the pig attacked her, and he carried her here to make a meal of her. She stood up, wavered and sat down again. The nest rested on a pinnacle of a rock overlooking the valley. Would she ever see her family and friends again?
Rose covered her eyes with her hand. She couldn’t break down now. She had to find a way to save Moira and herself. She inspected the branches underneath her. Maybe she could lash them together to make a sled to haul Moira back to the Keep. Maybe the Krataks knew a way to treat these injuries. Their men must sustain terrible injuries fighting these enormous animals, and they all remained vital and healthy.
She swallowed a lump in her throat when she thought of Ben. At least she had a chance to see him grow up. He tested his independence on this planet, so he must be ready to strike out on his own. Her heart really twisted in knots, though, when she thought of Reyna.
She and Reyna were best friends growing up. They stuck together all the way through college, and they even joined the Allied Command together so they could work together after they left home. Why had Rose treated her so foully when Reyna questioned her about Rohn? How could she disgrace herself in the eyes of her favorite sister—and over a man, too?
If she ever got back to the Keep alive, she would make up to Reyna. She would keep her head screwed on straight and not get caught up in some alien man who came sweeping to her rescue. She would knuckle down and do her job, and when this was all over, she would go home and forget all about Kratak.