CHAPTER ONE
Why am I lying face down on the wet grass in the rain?
Jill rolled over, putting a hand to her forehead in an attempt to quell a ferocious headache. Opening her eyes gingerly, she blinked at the vividly colored pink, purple and blue leaves on the tree above her, which certainly had never grown on Amarcae 7. She’d been all around her home colony on various repair jobs, and nothing there had riotous leaves in these colors, much less with spikes at the tips. As she watched, one of the leaves snapped into a tight roll to capture a slow moving insect.
“Thank the Lords of Space I’m too big a bite.” Wary, nauseous, she sat up, swaying a bit, and examined her unfamiliar surroundings. She was in the midst of an old growth forest, with other forms of vegetation besides the carnivorous trees but nothing recognizable.
A loud roar in the distance gave her the shivers, and she forced herself to stand, staggering a few feet to lean on a less colorful tree’s broad trunk to stay upright. Despite the rain, her mouth was dry, and she had a hard time swallowing. “What the seven hells?”
Her mind was curiously blank, no memory of how she’d gotten to this place, or what had happened in the last few hours. She guessed it might be late afternoon here, from the glimpse she got of the white sun above the horizon, before the clouds drifted in front of the orb again. She refused to contemplate the fact that the star providing heat and light to her colony was yellow. If the sun here was white hot, the reality of where she stood, lost in the galaxy, was terrifying.
She remembered eating dinner in her small modular house on the edge of the colony, falling asleep watching an adventure trideo she’d seen a hundred times then…nothing.
“And now I’m here.” She took a closer look at her left arm and did a double take. A black bracelet she’d never seen before was solid against her skin just above the wrist, with no visible hinge or fastening. As she gawked at it, prying at the edges in an increasingly desperate attempt to make the band move, flickers of red and yellow pulsed inside the cool, hard surface. The bracelet and what it might mean scared her more than the loss of short term memory or even the unknown sun above her.
The roar came again, closer, and was answered by another. Something hunting me maybe? Distracted from the ominous mystery of the bracelet, she was briefly tempted to try climbing the tree, but the lightheadedness persisted. Also, the smooth trunk didn’t offer anything in the way of handholds. She pushed off, realizing she was barefoot, wearing her short, pink-and-black nightgown, molded to her body by the rain. Lingerie was her secret luxury after a day spent in technician’s coveralls, but certainly not suited to this experience.
Am I dreaming? She paused, gazing at the sky and pushing her damp hair off her face. The shower had tapered off and now the sun was shining but an ominous gray storm front was advancing. A bolt of lightning arced across the sky, and Jill broke into a zigzag run, forcing her body to respond to her terror. Standing anywhere close to a giant tree in a thunder storm was a recipe for disaster.
I’m in a nightmare, not a dream, but it’s all too real. In her headlong flight, she stepped on a rock or a sharp root and cried out, but she kept going as thunder boomed. She had to find either a stand of small trees surrounded by taller ones or a ravine. Of course, an actual shelter would be better than either of those make-do options but probably too much to hope for.
Running full tilt, ignoring the pain from her foot, she suddenly slammed into an invisible barrier and bounced off, falling on her back. Cautiously she rose, extending her arms. The barrier was a tingling against her palms. She tried going right then left, but the wall ran for quite some distance in both directions. Being in an invisible cage was the most unsettling thing since she’d awakened, especially when coupled with the bracelet affixed to her arm.
A boom of thunder directly overhead startled her into motion, and she ran in a new direction, terrified of being struck by lightning. The rain lashed her face and barely-covered body, like stinging nettles, adding impetus to her desperation to find cover.
The ground gave way under her feet. She teetered on the edge of the sinkhole or pit, but her precarious state of vertigo betrayed her. Screaming, she half slid, half fell into the deep hole, debris raining down with her.
Scrabbling at roots embedded in the wall as she fell, the flimsy vegetation snapping off in her hands, Jill managed to partially break her fall. Landing in a substantial mud puddle, she rose to her feet, staring upward, realizing there was no easy way to climb from the pit. At least the rain was tapering off.
A rumbling sound like an engine behind her made her pivot, to find two huge, faceted glowing eyes staring at her from a tunnel opening into the hole. A giant body lurked in the gloom. The creature blinked and emitted the sound again. Jill retreated one step at a time to the opposite wall of the pit and snatched a loose rock from the small debris pile at her feet. Whitened bones were mixed in with the rocks on the pit floor next to the rainwater puddle. She shuddered and gripped her rock hard enough to make her hand sting.
The creature watched her and moved forward a bit from the tunnel, the front segment of its body sinking onto the ground, while the rest remained in the tunnel. The segmented body expanded like a child’s toy as the predator closed the space between them. Opening an outsize mouth, revealing a yellow, forked tongue, the animal hissed and reared as if preparing to charge at her.
Jill shouted defiance in a combination of rage and fear, and threw the rock hard, striking one glowing eye in the center, shattering the facets. She dodged as the predator made a high pitched sound like an exploding generator and lunged toward where she’d been. As she scrambled in the slick muddy water at the bottom of the trap, she searched for another rock, finding only small ones. She gathered a handful of them as better than nothing and spun around as the half-blind animal tried to locate her.
With a hoarse yell, a man jumped into the pit from above and landed between her and the predator. He didn’t seem to have a weapon but, as the lightning flashed, briefly illuminating the scene in stark white light, Jill gaped. Were those talons? He glanced over his shoulder at her briefly as if to see how she was doing then made a dash at the animal, slashing its neck before dancing away.
Jill moved along the pit wall as the man and the beast fought. Mud dripped from the sloping side of the hole. Resting her palm on the damp dirt, she felt vibrations. There’s another one tunneling towards us. No matter how brave and strong this guy was, he couldn’t defeat two of the animals. Frantically, she searched for more rocks, trying to pry a likely candidate out of the wall with her fingernails. I have to help.
“Incoming! There’s another one about to pop out of the wall,” she yelled. Hefting the rock she’d dug from the muck, she took a few steps forward, waited for the right moment and threw the stone at the first beast’s remaining eye, striking a glancing blow on the brow ridge above the glowing orb. The warrior took advantage of the animal’s distraction to open more gaping wounds along its upper body with the lethal claws he bore.
Something in the rapidly rising water brushed against her leg. She jumped sideways, but not fast enough. As the unseen predator made a stinging bite on her calf, Jill nearly toppled over. Unable to see below the surface of the roiling water, she hurled her handful of rocks a foot or so away from her body, hoping to drive away this new menace.
Before she could find more rocks to use as weapons, another man lowered himself into the pit on a rope, reaching for her and speaking urgently in Basic as he gestured. “He can’t fight them off forever – we need to get out of here. More beasts will arrive soon, attracted by the vibrations signaling prey.”
Figuring whatever might happen later, getting out of the trap was the best plan in the short term, she stepped closer. The newcomer grabbed her by the waist, and unseen comrades above hauled the two of them out of the hole at a surprising speed. Her second rescuer handed her off to another man and hastened back into the pit.
She sank to the wet grass, shaking in reaction and feeling the pain now from her cut foot, the mysterious bite, and the effects of the fall. With a fresh rush of fear, she glanced at the strange men surrounding her. Most were ignoring her, facing away as if watching for an attack, although all of them were oddly weaponless. She’d expected to see spears and knives at least. Then again…Had the one who’d jumped into the pit really had claws?
One man stood next to her, as if appointed as her personal guard.
A final animalistic shriek rose from the depths of the pit then the two individuals who’d come to her rescue climbed out.
The one who’d jumped in to help her first came to her side, picking her up without a word and took off to the south at a dead run, the others following them.
“Nice shot with that rock, by the way,” her captor said.
“Who are you? And where are we going?” she yelled into his ear as she was jostled in his arms.
“My name is Aydarr, and we have to get undercover before the full night falls. You won’t be harmed, not by us anyway, I give you my word.” He redoubled his pace, moving impossibly fast over the uneven terrain and through the stands of trees.
Basic? How can these men be speaking Basic? She remembered the second warrior had addressed her in Basic when they were in the pit, but she’d been so scared and full of adrenaline she hadn’t registered the fact. Where in the fuck am I?
The way the men were running, something big and dangerous must be in the vicinity, perhaps even stalking their party, so she clung to her rescuer and resolved to get a few answers at the first opportunity. On her best day she couldn’t sprint as fast as they were going, even if her foot wasn’t cut, so she didn’t make any attempt to get away. The lacerated skin around the bite throbbed and burned, which meant she was going to have to deal with the problem once the men got wherever the destination might be. In the meantime, she hoped her military anti-venom injects were still viable. Who knew what exotic neurotoxins the creature might have hit her with?
Several individuals raced ahead, moving impossibly fast through the grassland.
“They’re going to ready our shelter, make things as comfortable as we can for you,” he said, not sounding the least bit winded despite the pace he was setting.
“I appreciate the concern, but don’t go to extra trouble for me.”
His laugh was deep and sounded genuine. “Our best effort will be pitiful, I fear. Don’t thank me yet.”
A few moments later, the main group entered a small cave at the base of a cliff slicing through the forest, and Aydarr set her on her feet. She bit her lip to avoid crying out at the pain in her cut foot and leg, clutching his heavily muscled arm to keep her balance as she stared at her companions.
She was the focus of attention for ten of the largest men she’d ever seen, even during her time as a support tech to the Sectors Special Forces. Two teenage boys lingered to the side, not as buff as their elders but clearly growing in that direction. Barely dressed in loincloths, each man rippled with muscles and stood easily six and a half or seven feet tall. At a guess, they each outweighed her by 200 pounds. She saw no sign of weapons or gear. None of the men—not even Aydarr—looked particularly friendly, but she got no vibe of imminent danger to herself either.
Her leg gave way beneath her, and only a quick move by Aydarr saved her from collapsing onto the cave’s floor.
“I didn’t realize you were injured.” Aydarr swept her into his arms again and carried her to a pile of soft, fragrant leaves and grass at the back of the cave.
“I probably could have walked.” Jill raised a hand to her forehead, alarmed at the dizziness assaulting her.
He studied her face then turned to thank a man who brought a hollowed out gourd full of water and a gnarled, gray-white root.
“The cut must be tended to,” he said. “Infections spread into the blood easily here. Allow me?”
She wasn’t prepared to argue.
“You were bitten?” he asked, voice alarmed.
“Yeah, by a creature in the mud puddle at the bottom of that pit. I’m not sure what kind of animal or reptile it was—I didn’t see clearly. I should be fine.” She didn’t feel fine. She was hot then cold, her vision blurring, and her stomach was tied in knots.
“The pit was a nest,” he said, “Dug by the vermore to lure unwary prey to feed its offspring. The cunning creatures leave a thin layer of grass and other plant matter on top so unwary prey falls in. One of the young hatchlings bit you. You were lucky because their poison is less virulent than the adult’s. Unfortunately, their immaturity also means they often pump venom into a victim in greater quantities.”
“I have protection from poisons.” Although she had to admit, given how miserable she was, all those injects seemed to have gone inert.
He bathed her foot and lower leg, rubbing the root in his fingers as he dunked it into the water to generate a soap-like substance with a delicious scent.
Jill looked over his shoulder at their surroundings, trying to concentrate and gather data as she’d been trained to do, despite her physical discomfort. “Not a natural cave then, is it? Some kind of manmade shelter?” The walls were too evenly constructed and smooth, and the smoke from the fire rose efficiently to the ceiling, disappearing into a vent.
“You’re observant, especially given the condition you’re in.”
He moved aside to make room for a second member of the band, although he kept his arm around her reassuringly. “This is Timtur, our healer.”
When the healer touched her, there was tingling at the site of the wounds and momentary relief from the pain. These guys have psychic powers? But the pain came rushing to her nerve endings, along with nausea, and she closed her eyes against the vision of the room whirling.
Senses fuzzy, she realized time had passed before she forced her eyes open again. I must have blacked out. Which was an alarming development, especially since she was basically a prisoner of these unknown warriors. Now she was lying on the bed of fragrant leaves and soft branches. Aydarr sat beside her, holding her hand.
The one called Timtur appeared in her field of vision, holding out a crude cup made from a different kind of gourd. The smell of the murky contents was strong and unpleasant.
“I’m not drinking that—that mud.” Instinctively, Jill scooted as far away as Aydarr would allow her to go. “I told you, I’ll be fine by morning.” I hope.
Taking obvious care not to hurt her, Aydarr locked his arms around her while a second person forced her to open her mouth. Timtur poured the nasty stuff down her throat and, almost immediately, a warm lassitude spread through her body.
Frightened now, and angry, Jill sagged against her captor, making ineffectual efforts to shove him away. “Wha—what is this stuff?”
“The drink should counteract the poison,” he said, laying her on the makeshift bed.
“I can hardly move.”
“An unusual side effect.” He exchanged glances with Timtur, but his tone was reassuring. “I’ll keep watch over you myself. Make sure you come to no harm.”
“I don’t even know you, pal, and I’m supposed to trust you?”
“There may be bad dreams,” the healer said, whether to her or to his leader she wasn’t sure. “She’s experiencing a strong reaction to the poison and the antidote. I did warn you the results were uncertain where she’s not one of us.”
The world was going dark for Jill as the drug circulated in her body.
“I give you my word again; no harm will come to you. I’m sorry the drink is so disorienting—making you dizzy wasn’t my intention, I swear. We sought only to heal.” Aydarr leaned over, his face right above her. “What is your name?”
Unable to form a response, she could only blink. Her pulse pounded hard along her nerve endings, but her brain felt fuzzy, wrapped in cotton.
He gave her shoulders a shake, although the medic uttered a protest. “Your name? How am I to anchor you to this world tonight without your name?”
His eyes were intense, blazing golden which fascinated her. “Jill,” she murmured, lost in the warm golden light. “I’m Jill Garrison.”
“Jill Garrison, rest now. I’ll be close if you need anything.”
She summoned what little strength she had left, to shake her finger in his face. “If you try to take advantage of me, I will make you regret the day you were born, pal.”
“I admire your spirit but direct your energies toward surviving the effects of the poison, I beg you. There’s no need to fear us.”
Jill gazed beyond him, to the healer and then the other men, busy with food preparation activity at the fireside. “Just sayin’ don’t be fooled by my size or the damn nightie, I have plenty of fighting spirit.” It was growing harder to enunciate. The craving to close her eyes and let go of consciousness was overwhelming.
“I have no doubts about your spirit. What more can I say to set your mind at rest? I’m not used to my honor being questioned.” He didn’t seem upset by her antagonistic attitude, or offended. “I swear by the Great Mother of us all, no one shall touch you without your permission, other than to help you heal.”
At the end of her strength, she nodded. “All right then.”
The night was a jarring collection of moments—times when she feared she was dying, times when she burned with fever or shivered uncontrollably with cold. She saw the vermore and screamed, trying to fight it, searching for projectiles to throw at its glaring red eyes. Disturbing hallucinations of the nest of baby vermores plagued her, crawling over her in the bed, making her skin itch. She found herself catapulted through time, dropped in the midst of the pitched battle on the planet Fantalar, terribly wounded buddies falling to the left and right. She was wounded, crawling to reach the safety of the Sectors lines…the torment of mind and body went on and on. Every worst nightmare she’d ever had came to haunt her.
Each time she was recalled from the depths of the poison-induced madness by the golden glow of Aydarr’s eyes, his voice calling her name, commanding her to fight off the dark fantasies of her mind. When she was hot, he bathed her in cool water. When she shivered so hard her teeth chattered, he wrapped himself around her, cocooning her in his warmth, his delicious scent in her nostrils, clearing her mind for a few precious seconds of relief. He made her drink water, held her hair away from her face when she couldn’t keep the fluid down, rubbed her back, talked to her about things she couldn’t remember later, but the soothing nature of his voice calmed the anxiety and terror ripping her apart from the inside.
The world narrowed itself to her madness and Aydarr fighting it for her.
Finally, she slept wrapped in his strong arms.
Aydarr adjusted Jill carefully in his arms, to make her more comfortable but not waken her. “How is she?” This last set of hallucinations had seemed less potent, and she’d been quietly sleeping for a little while now.
“The crisis has passed,” Timtur said, checking the pulse of his sleeping patient. “She’ll survive, mostly due to her strong will and your stubbornness.”
“Don’t forget your potions and power.” Aydarr gave credit where it was due. This Jill was a fighter, a soldier even, given how many of her hallucinations involved combat scenarios obviously based in reality. The worst moments had been when he could tell she was losing her grip on life, slipping away. He’d debated allowing her to go—the oblivion of death might actually be kinder than what life in this place would hold—but he found himself unable to relinquish her. She wanted to fight. He told himself that, and it was a truth but not the entire truth.
He’d never seen a woman who attracted him so powerfully, from the first time he saw her as he jumped into the vermore’s pit and found her doing battle against the huge predator armed with nothing but rocks. Well thrown too. Aydarr smiled to himself. She has excellent aim.
This woman would be a fearsome ally; a comrade to guard a man’s back as well as warm his bed. He smiled ruefully. If she first accepted the man of course. Petite she might be, but she’d made it abundantly clear she belonged to herself and a man would forget her boundaries at his peril.
The alien females brought in on occasion by the Khagrish to provide instruction and demonstration of sexual seduction techniques as another, different kind of tool of war were hard bitten denizens of the interstellar sex trade. Not warm, not soft. Those women were willing to lie with Badari males for the price paid, but were there only for the most rapid encounters possible before departing in their clan ships without a backward glance. Not women he’d want to go into combat with, or even touch if the choice was his. The female Khagrish at the complex occasionally took a fancy to an unlucky Badari male and commanded his presence in their quarters. Those encounters were nightmares of another kind.
Aydarr’s bleak thoughts were interrupted by a murmur of pain from Jill, so he adjusted how she was lying to make her more comfortable and covered her with the softest pelt. There was no telling why the Khagrish had dropped this woman from the Sectors into his pack’s section of the Preserve. He’d have to be guarded and cautious in how he dealt with her. His responsibility to the men he led demanded nothing less.
But he felt powerfully drawn to Jill, which had given him the strength to do battle for her life this past day and night, to keep her anchored in this world. Anchored to him if he was being honest about his motives.
This warrior woman with her short black hair and her incongruous, totally impractical pink nightgown was a new factor in his existence, and one he hoped might signal a change in the status quo. Or else why was she here?
He knew to the core of his being he couldn’t bear to lose her so soon after finding her. Not before he got to know her as a person.
Jill woke to the sounds of a fire crackling, birds singing at a distance, and her lying on a bed of furs, atop sweet smelling grasses and leaves, covered by a soft pelt. Disoriented, she stroked her hand across the plush gray blanket and tried to remember where she was, and why panic was revving her heartbeat.
Centering herself with the mental exercises she’d been given in military training, she sat up, wobbling from light-headedness.
The handsomest man she’d ever seen left his companions sitting beside the fire and rushed to help her.
“Feeling better?” he asked. “Do you think you can eat today?”
His voice and his touch summoned her memories. Aydarr, the man who rescued me from being lunch for the terrifying thing in the pit. There were other memories of him now too, holding her, arguing with her when she wanted to close her eyes and abandon the fight against the excruciating, painful nightmares. “You sat with me all night, didn’t you?”
“Actually, it’s been two days.” He frowned. “The poison and the antidote hit you hard. I feared for you.”
“But you were always right there—I heard your voice.” She blushed, remembering how he’d held her safe in his arms as well. “Thank you for rescuing me.”
A second man she vaguely remembered walked up to them. “I’m happy to see you returned to your senses. I should examine the wound and the bite to evaluate the healing.”
“As long as you don’t plan to make me swallow any more awful potions.” Licking her lips, she grimaced. “I remember that mud stuff you forced me to drink. My throat is still sore.” Jill extended her leg out from under the fur, happy to find she could move her limbs with ease. “You’re Timtur, right?”
Aydarr changed position slightly to give the healer room to work, but he kept his arm where it was, bracing her shoulders. “Poison to drive out poison. The drink was necessary.”
She decided she was okay with Aydarr’s support. There was nothing sexual about his touch, merely lending strength she needed at the moment. “I’m not arguing.” Jill watched closely as Timtur untied the vines holding gray leaves against her entire lower leg and foot. “Take my advice and don’t try it again.” As the medic carefully removed the leaves, she noticed orange stains on her skin from the remnants of a poultice.
Timtur wiped her leg clean with gentle strokes and peered closely at the bite then the cut on her foot. “Excellent progress. “
“Thanks to the two of you, I think.”
The healer made quick work of applying a fresh layer of the mud-like poultice then tying new leaves over it. “Tomorrow we’ll leave the wounds open to the air but, for today, more soaking is required. Stay in bed and rest.”
He bowed his head and moved away. A younger man took his place, handing Aydarr a bowl of soup that smelled delicious to Jill as her stomach growled. He handed her a crudely carved wooden spoon. “I’ll hold the bowl for you.”
She ate about a third of the savory liquid before she was too tired to do any more. As he took the utensil from her trembling hand, she reclined on the improvised mattress, unable to sustain a sitting position any longer.
“I’ll leave you to get more sleep,” he said.
Fighting the lethargy and drowsiness, Jill caught him by the arm. “Stay and talk? I have so many questions.”
“And I may not have answers.” His grin was wide and cheerful.
“Where are we? Because this isn’t the world where I went to sleep a few days ago.”
He leaned against the cave wall. “We have no name for this planet.”
Odd, if they live here. “You’re Aydarr, right?”
“Of the Badari. I lead this pack.”
“Pack?” An odd word to choose.
He shook his head. “You have much to learn and many of the facts will be highly unpleasant to you, I fear. Upsetting. Timtur will give me a hard time if I overtax your mind so soon with too many details of our situation.”
Annoyed, she touched the smooth black bracelet on his arm, noticing they all wore one. Tapping her fingers on the matching band she wore, she asked, “Did you put this on me?”
He shook his head. “The Khagrish placed it there, as they did on all of us.”
“Which tells me exactly nothing.” She took a deep breath. Venting her fear and frustration on this man wasn’t going to help the situation. “I’m grateful for you rescuing me from the bug-eyed thing in the pit and nursing me through the poison venom attack. Can we start the conversation over? The last thing I remember before I had to sprint blindly across the grasslands in a thunder storm and fell in a pit, is going to sleep in my own bed on Amarcae 7. After which I woke up here in the rain. Do you know how I got here? Did—did you kidnap me?”
“My pack and I weren’t deployed on your world. Others may have been—I have no way to know.”
The military term gave her pause. Two of the men approached, with servings of meat and fruit on large, leathery leaves, and one carried another gourd of water.
“These are my enforcers, Reede and Mateer,” he said, as he accepted the food and handed her the water.
Mateer, a burly guy with a friendly expression, was the man who’d carried her out of the pit. “You did well, fighting the vermore the other day.”
“Thanks for coming to help—all of you. I’m grateful.” She glanced from one to the other, trying to keep her face pleasant despite the fact she was itching for real answers.
Aydarr nodded in acknowledgment of her thanks as he chewed a hunk of the meat. He washed it down with a swig of the water then said, “We haven’t decided yet what you are, Jill of Amarcae, but I pledge to ensure your safety to the full extent of my ability to do so. If anything happens to me, my enforcers will watch out for you. Unless you’re the cause of danger to us.”
Jill inferred from their expressions that the two men weren’t entirely on board with their boss’s decision. “What I am? I’m a human woman, obviously, a resident of the Sectors. Why would I be dangerous to you?”
“You could be an innocent trapped in this situation as we are, or you could be a trick of some kind, or worse. The Khagrish never take any action without a hidden purpose and placing you here in the Preserve, in my territory, must carry a meaning.” Mateer and Reede walked away in response to a signal from Aydarr. “Time will tell, but I wasn’t going to leave you to die. The Badari have honor, despite what the Khagrish believe.”
Plucking the water gourd from the spot where he’d set it, she took a cautious drink then a longer swallow, deciding what to ask next. “And who are the other men with us here?”
“Soldiers. And newly promoted cadets.”
The two clearly younger men at the fringes of the cave had been watching her with open curiosity but now lowered their eyes.
Jill did a double take as claws materialized at the tips of Aydarr’s fingers, and he shredded the cooked meat for her, as if he was wielding knives. Then the talons were gone as if nothing had happened, and he handed her the plate leaf.
She swallowed. “How did you do that?”
He shrugged as he bit off a chunk of his own meal. “I’m not prepared to explain myself to you. Forgive me for being rude, however. Not offering to share the meat earlier.”
OK. A bit affronted, Jill scooted further away with her plate and ate a few bites of the savory meat. She set the empty leaf on the sandy floor beside the pile of sweet smelling grasses. “Am I free to go then?”
Aydarr eyed her. “Why would you wish to venture into the Preserve unarmed and unaware of the dangers here? After what you just went through?”
“Merely testing the limits of your hospitality.”
“I would have to risk my men to save you again. No. You’re in my territory, I’ve declared you mine, you will stay safe with the pack.”
Eyeing his muscular frame and undeniably handsome face, she thought maybe in another time and place she might not have minded meeting his possessive claim. The two of them could have battled this out until they got a few things straight between them and most likely ended up in the bedroom because he was flat-out hot. But the situation here wasn’t like anything she’d ever encountered. It felt like she was in an adventure trideo, and she had to walk carefully. “I belong to myself, for your information.”
“I’m aware.” He chuckled. “You told me quite forcefully on the first night. This is a highly impractical garment, by the way.” He gestured vaguely at her lacy nightgown.
“Says the man wearing a loincloth.” She bit her lip after her immediate response. Probably shouldn’t have admitted I noticed. Impossible not to. The skimpy garment didn’t do much to hide the fact he was built to scale everywhere.
With no warning, he swept her close, ignoring her instinctive protest and struggle as she shoved back. “But we Badari can easily regulate our body temperatures to stay warm whereas you, human woman, are freezing again. I see your shivers. You mustn’t do too much until you’ve fully recovered. I think you need sleep more than you need to ask me questions and receive what are inevitably meaningless answers to you.”
Aydarr moved her to the far side of the fragrant mattress, facing the cave wall, and spooned himself around her, one arm holding her close to him. When he didn’t make any other moves, Jill gradually allowed herself to relax into the undeniable warmth he was providing. He was a wall of rock hard muscle behind her and she was cold.
The cave was quiet. Jill stopped fighting the urge to sleep. Who knew what tomorrow might bring? So far these men had done nothing to harm or threaten her, but neither had they answered her questions. Her hosts obviously understood a lot more than she did about where she was, and who or what the ominous Khagrish might be. Jill fiddled with the bracelet on her wrist.
Aydarr hugged her closer to him, closing his fingers over her hand. “Rest,” he said in a low murmur.