Chapter Two
As hard as it was to accept in many ways, Zhor knew without a shadow of doubt that his captive was not of their world.
The vessel she had arrived in was a dead giveaway, of course.
They did not have anything like that—never had—not even before the fall and they sure as hell had not had the wherewithal to produce anything like it since.
He would have known instantly, however, even if he had not been close enough to witness the attack that had disabled and then caused her vessel to crash into the canopy, even if he had not seen the vessel at all.
She was not zorph … she had only two legs and two arms—not the six appendages of the zorph that served them so well. That made it possible for them to scale a cliff—fully armed—in less time than it took to blink—or suck in a breath to call out an alarm.
That made it possible for them to run on four of those appendages almost faster than the kerri could fly and still cast projectiles with deadly accuracy.
And she certainly was not one of his kind—kerri.
She had no wings nor any sign that she had been maimed.
She had been born with neither wings nor an extra pair of appendages and so she was clearly neither zorph nor kerri.
What she was, was a mystery.
But she was unquestionably a she—a female—of her species and he was not as interested in breeding as he was in fucking.
Gods! Of all the things he had missed, the body of a warm, breathing woman was one he missed the most.
And next to that the sound of a woman’s voice.
And next to that the skills to give comfort that seemed to come naturally to women.
But they were few now as a species and there were fewer still of their counterparts, few females, and those who had a woman guarded her with his life.
Because there would be no more in their lifetime—possibly ever.
Oh they had tried for a time to pull themselves together after the fall. They had managed to pull together small pockets of civilization. They had struggled to lift themselves from the brink and establish a quality of life well above survival, something worth living.
He had been born into those days. He had not known their realm before the fall or traveled their world to see and experience the wonders of other realms.
But his childhood had been almost magical by comparison to the life he now had, before the scavengers had breached their village walls and raped and killed and destroyed what they could not carry away with them.
His throat closed as his last memory of his parents invaded, but as always, he thrust them away. It was too painful to relive them. When he allowed himself to think of his past at all, it was only memories of the good things.
And of course, those tortured him in another way, reminding him always that life had once been more than a day by day struggle to survive.
The female could change that … if she survived, if she was not too damaged from the crash.
She would give him comfort, gods willing.
She would give him something to strive for.
He hoped.
Of course, none of those things had crossed his mind when he had seen the crash, naturally enough. It was curiosity that had brought him closer, the hope that there might be something worth having in the wreckage, to be sure, but he had not in his wildest dreams considered that there might be a female.
He had thought of food, items he might trade for food, and items that might make life a little more comfortable.
He had realized that he had stumbled upon a fortunate circumstances—from his side—and that he must move very, very fast before the zorph that had brought the ship down reached the wreckage and took everything for themselves.
The zorph were no doubt dismayed that they had failed to bring it down on the plateau above, but, luckily for him, it had crashed into the canopy rather than the ground far below. It was not likely there would have been anything of any consequence left in one piece if it had. And also it would have been easier for the zorph to beat him to the prize that had tumbled out of the wreckage just moments before he reached it.
It was also a fortunate thing for her since she was apparently too disoriented by the accident to realize she was not on the ground.
He could take her to the ancient city, to the rooke he had taken for shelter—eventually. Not right away—because he was fairly certain the zorph had seen him make off with the prize and they would be waiting and watching for him to settle with her somewhere so that they could steal her back.
At least he had enough of his wits about him to think about that!
Although he was definitely rattled and distracted, his instincts had guided him to move as far from the zorph as possible, to evade their keen, watchful gazes before he even took a moment to collect himself.
This was difficult since the female fought him every time she came around from a swoon and nearly got loose from him again.
Unnerved by the realization that she was going to fall to her death if she succeeded in her aim, he settled finally and pulled some strips of leather from his pouch to bind her wrists together. He checked her quickly for bleeding wounds while he was perched on a broad limb with her and then, when he found nothing particularly alarming, settled to think of a more convenient way to carry her.
She was surprisingly heavy considering how small she was. Every muscle in his body was already screaming from the strain of trying to hold onto her and fly, but he thought at least part of it was having to also fight her to retain his grip.
He kept a wary eye out for zorphs, hostile kerries and particularly the conkerries, while he caught his breath and considered the situation. The woman’s eyes fluttered open several times, but he was not sure if she was truly conscious. If she was, then she was surprisingly composed for she did not give any sign of alarm—did not scream, thankfully! Or try to fall off of their perch to evade him.
She was shivering—so much that her teeth chattered.
He thought it might be shock, but he was no physician and, even if he had been, she was not as he was.
There was little to nothing he could do about any of her problems, however, until he could get her to safety.
He finally took the rope he kept coiled at his waist and fashioned a harness of sorts. Even to him it did not look comfortable, but he thought it would hold her securely and prevent her efforts to get away from him and/or to make him unable to maintain the height and speed he needed to stay in the air.
Finally, he looped her arms around his neck and shifted her to his back, settling her between his wings. Hoisting her legs to his waist, he slipped a loop beneath her thighs to hold her in that position and then looped the end of the rope around the two of them and tied it. When he’d finished, he tested his wings to make sure he could move them in the full range and easily.
Satisfied, he launched himself into the air again, easily catching an updraft since they were near the top of the canopy.
His captive came around at some point and tested his knots, trying to break free of him.
Unfortunately, he did not deduce that immediately. The bindings prevented her from doing anything but hunching his back and for many moments he was simply unable to get his mind past the instant certainty that she was trying to mate with him.
Possibly because he had had very little else on his mind since he discovered a female had literally fallen from the sky into his arms.
The area she was grinding into his back, however, was clearly a cavity—not a phallus—thankfully!—from which he deduced that she either was not trying to have sex or that the males of her species had their penises on their backs.
Despite the state of his body in reaction to her movements and his heated thoughts, and the gooey consistency of his brain in response, he decided that seemed unlikely.
It still took all he could do to focus on the danger they were both facing.
Fortunately, as keen as the eyesight of the zorphs was, they could not see particularly well at night, so although he spent several fairly miserable hours evading the determined bastards and only managed brief periods of rest, he finally managed to return to his rooke with her.
To his relief, he managed to evade the watchful eyes of the other kerries he occasionally spotted in the area and slip inside without incident. As soon as he had loosened the bindings and eased the woman from his back, he moved to the opening, rolled the heavy timber door into place, and secured it.
In the thick darkness, he moved from the entrance with the surefootedness of one completely familiar with his surroundings, found the primitive lantern he used for lighting the room when necessary and a flamer and set fire to the oil inside to illuminate the main room.
The rooke he’d lain claim to was surprisingly comfortable and elaborate given it was built in the time of the ancients—far more comfortable than anything he had had use of in a very, very long time, at any rate. It boasted several rooms beyond the main gathering room at the entrance and a fully functioning, if uncomfortably primitive, latrine and bathing facility utilizing the water that had been piped from the river above to flush the latrine and provide a bath with running water.
At least he assumed the water had been piped from the river. It wasn’t actually as frigid as the river water—although it was damned close.
He stood still when he’d lit the lantern, allowing his eyes time to adjust to the sudden glare, staring at the woman assessingly.
She was shivering again.
Residual shock? Or was it just that she was not accustomed to the temperature?
To him it seemed perfectly comfortable, but he was accustomed to the cooler temperatures high in the atmosphere. It was warmer near the ground where the air currents were restricted by the trees and brush and, although her clothing seemed pretty much intact as far as he could see, she was clearly a creature accustomed to living at lower elevations, regardless of the craft she had arrived in.
Shaking his preoccupation after a moment, he left the main room, taking the lantern with him, and went into the room he used as his sleeping chamber—because as miserably uncomfortable as his bed was, it was the only bed!
Lighting a second lantern, he set both down near the bed and went back into the lounging chamber to discover his captive gnawing at the bindings around her wrists.
He struggled with dark humor at the realization that he had been concerned she was dying when she had clearly been faking—at least the magnitude of her injuries.
She sent him a wide-eyed look when she saw he had returned and began to babble at him in a tongue he discovered without any surprise that he could not understand at all.
“I do not speak your tongue—whatever it is.”
She went silent instantly, gaping at him as if he had grown another head.
His humor vanished, replaced by angry resentment that arose when the suspicion hit him that she thought he was some kind of dumb animal.
He looked away from her, scanned his surroundings in an attempt to assess it through her eyes.
He had been relieved to find it because he had been sleeping fully exposed—when he was able to sleep at all—for months now.
It was primitive even by his own standards, though, he thought with disgust.
That realization only made him angrier, however.
“You have got your work cut out for you to make this place even minimally comfortable,” he muttered, wondering even as he said it if there would be a future of any appreciable length of time that included the two of them.
He supposed, if she survived and if she stayed, he would need to find something a little less primitive to use as an abode, wondered if it would be worth the time, effort, and danger of trying to find a place in the city.
Those had not held up nearly as well, however, as the ancient city and beyond that they were far too vulnerable to attack in these desperate times.
And then there was the disease.