Hearts of Ishira (Hearts of Ishira Saga) (22 page)

“Because we’re… overweight,” Arianna sighed, sitting back against her pillows. “Chubby. Like Amy was saying last night. The other girls are considered prettier because they’re thinner, therefore healthier.”

“Beauty is not measured that way on our world,” Jace scoffed. “Your men are fools. A woman is
supposed
to be soft, with stores of body fat for warmth for her men and cushioning for her children. Skinny girls like most of the young ones with you would not yet be ready for the rigors of motherhood. They would not normally even be considered for courtship until they were older, wiser, and had more flesh on their bones. How, I ask you, is a babe supposed to fall asleep on his mother’s shoulder, if that shoulder has bones protruding because of lack of sustenance?”

“Of course, if a woman is naturally slender,” Jace put in, looking at the girls and noting their very different body types. “That is different. If your people tend toward slender when they are healthy, we will adjust our medical standards to reflect that. It might take time for our men to adjust, though. But if you are healthy, what does your weight matter?”

Arianna felt pleased that here, finally, was a place where curvy chicks could have a hope in hell of snagging gorgeous warriors, but she tempered that thought with the reality of her situation. Any warrior that would want her would also want those babies, and she could not provide that. Better to let her girls get ‘healthier’ and then be their mentor or whatever as they grew and had families of their own. She would be alone, but surrounded by loving honorary nieces, nephews, and grandchildren, depending on the relationships she built with the girls. Her heart ached over the decision, but she was trying very hard to be realistic.

Belatedly, she wondered if she’d managed to block that thought before Hunter ‘heard’ it. From the questioning arch of his eyebrow and the soft understanding in his gaze, she figure that, no, she hadn’t. His eyes promised that there would be further discussion about her concerns.
Later,
his expression and his mental caress seemed to say. She shivered at the promise, torn between wanting more time with him and not wanting to have that particular talk.

“Anyhow,” Arianna said to him with a weary sigh as she pushed those depressing thoughts to the back of her mind. “I wish I could get out of here and go with you to the crash site, but I really don’t think I’m up to that kind of trip yet. I’d love to when I’m feeling better, though. I can’t wait to see more of your world.”

Hunter and Jace chuckled at her enthusiasm. Hunter patted her hand where it rested on her thigh and rose with a sigh. He was strangely loath to leave her, though he knew he had duties to carry out and could not stay with her all the time.

“Perhaps you will endeavor to heal more quickly, knowing that we shall do much exploring when you are ready,” he suggested. His eyes were warm and full of promise. They also hinted that he wasn’t just talking about exploring the new world she was in. He meant the double entendre that her dirty, sex-starved mind automatically went to. Or was she imagining that? He caught her thought and his eyes heated a bit more. No, she wasn’t imagining it.

Her heart pounded a good deal harder when he sent her the memory of her breasts in his hands, but she gasped when he added a flick of his fingers over her nipples. Her eyes widened at the mental caress, locking with his. She remembered her incredible shower the day before and suddenly knew that his ‘accidental’ touches had been planned. He grinned a bit wickedly, letting her know that it was
his
thought, not hers, that had added that extra touch and that she was right about the shower.

“I will return upon our completion of the salvage operation and report our findings. We will need to meet again to decide how to divide up the items we find, so that your group also has access to necessities.”

“That’s very thoughtful,” Arianna murmured, fighting the urge to throw herself at him and demand that he make that naughty mental image a reality. “Thank you.”

Hunter stared at her, having caught that thought. His eyes were smoldering and he looked like he wanted to say more, but a shout from outside let him know that he was needed. With a frustrated growl and a mental caress of promise, he bowed to Ri then turned and hurried out of the dorm. Jace was making his way back to the door, but slowly so he could check on the other injured girls, make sure they were all healing properly.

Bev was talking with Trey, her blue eyes alight with his obvious interest in her. Arianna smiled at that. She didn’t have to be a psychic to know that Bev had been teased for her weight for a long time. Ri couldn’t help but be thrilled that when one of the men showed an interest in the sweet, quiet young woman, it was one of the officers and perhaps the sexiest… next to Hunter and Jace. Trey was obviously intelligent, responsible, a very capable warrior according to Hunter… and very much attracted to sweet little Bev.

Arianna sat back, looking at the underside of the bunk above her. She was going to have to squelch the growing ache for Hunter, and just be happy for the girls. He obviously desired her, but she had seen into his heart the day before, when he spoke of mating and families. He wanted one and she couldn’t give that to him. She knew, all too well, the heartache of not being able to have children. She wouldn’t do that to someone else. So she couldn’t let him think that a match between them was a possibility. It wouldn’t be fair to him to pretend otherwise, no matter how much she wanted to. But to protect herself, more than anything else, she would have to keep her emotional distance from their leader. And the physician. From all of the men, in fact, though none of the others had come close to making her heart or body react the way either Hunter or Jace managed to.

Lost in her own thoughts, she was brought back to reality by Bev’s soft giggle. She became aware of Trey’s murmured question and Bev’s shy answer. Then Bev knelt beside Ri’s bed, her eyes shining.

“He wants to show me the command center again, now that we can actually talk about everything,” Bev breathed, speaking quickly in her excitement. “He says that we can go ahead and start working on all the things we talked about in the meeting, and that maybe I can help him figure out how to translate our written language, so that the men can have an archive of that and we can begin to communicate more efficiently and maybe even start sharing information. He even mentioned setting up a computer station for me! And maybe for one or two other women who might be interested in helping with all that.”

When Bev had to stop for breath, Arianna chuckled at her enthusiasm and squeezed the younger woman’s hand in encouragement.

“Go. Have fun. And Bev?” she said softly as Bev got to her feet, “If he flirts with you… let him. I sense that he really is attracted to you. Don’t doubt yourself. It’s a new world, with new rules. Anything can happen here. Live a little.”

Bev’s eyes widened, then she smiled at her ‘fearless leader’.

“Is that an order, Commander?” she asked, grinning.

Arianna fought a smile and nodded with all the regal solemnity she could muster while sitting, broken, in bed. Trey winked at Arianna in silent thanks, then offered his arm to Bev and led her out of the building. Arianna saw that two other warriors joined them as they left the dormitory, and she wondered about that. Perhaps friends of Trey’s? Or did he have his own team to protect him and run errands, since he was basically third in the chain of command? Hunter had mentioned teams at one point. Come to think of it, she had to wonder whether Hunter and Jace had teams, since neither one seemed to have extra men around them that stayed with them all the time. Oh, Hunter had his warriors and Jace had his medics, but she’d seen many of the men working in small groups of three or four. Maybe those were the teams? She’d have to ask Jace and Hunter what it meant to be a ‘team’ in their military.

For now, Kim scooted over to Bev’s bunk so she could talk to Arianna, and after a few minutes, a few of the other girls joined her. Ri was warmed by their attentiveness. Perhaps Hunter hadn’t been so far off track to assume she was their ersatz leader. The girls seemed to want and need one, and she was apparently good enough for the time being. She sensed nothing but genuine, growing affection from Kim and Chelsea, and interest and a subconscious need for guidance from the others who’d gathered. Smiling at them, she listened to their youthful chatter, feeling happier than she’d felt in a long time.

She felt needed, and more than that, wanted.

Though broken, hurting, and loopy from the last injection Jace had given her, Arianna felt better than she had in years.

It was wonderful.

CHAPTER NINE

“The crash site is three clicks to the east,” Hunter addressed his men later that afternoon, pulling out his hand-held scanner. “I do not have to warn you to keep vigilant for predators. But also keep an eye out for meat on the run. As always, if you find any other edibles, we will stop and gather food as we can. No sense wasting the trip or using our stores when we can live off the land while we’re doing this.”

The others agreed, and Trey moved to take his position beside Hunter. Jace was back at the compound, in charge in his brother’s absence. As the group made its way to the crash site, the two officers talked quietly about plans for the women, the winter’s hardships and how all the extra mouths and bodies were going to change the arrangements for a confinement if snow buried them for weeks at a time, as it had in years past. They spoke of enlarging the open-air gardens and of expanding the greenhouses, if there were enough appropriate materials. Trey suggested a hydroponics area to augment their winter stores.

He was proving to be a worthy lieutenant, and Hunter would have to think about giving the young man more responsibility, if he wanted it. Hunter and Jace were perfectly capable of running the compound as things had been for the past decade, but Trey could easily take over some of the patrol scheduling, hunting parties, and work rotations, if the officers needed to adjust schedules to allow for more free time for the men to spend time with the women and hopefully build families.

“I am hoping that we have such a need in the very near future,” Hunter said, grinning. Trey laughed.

“Aye,” the younger man agreed. “We have all worked hard to build our colony, but most of that was out of boredom, as much as need. If the ladies agree to let us court them, the men will all want a lot more time for play, and less for work.”

“We can only hope,” Hunter nodded, chuckling. “And once we have the additional living quarters finished and support buildings in place, I don’t anticipate the need for a constant work schedule, other than to keep up with the necessities. Our men are disciplined enough to adjust, though, as needed. I have no fear that they will shirk their duties.”

“I am hoping that winter will be much more pleasant this year,” Trey said quietly. “I keep thinking about what a warm snuggle Bev might be, and it makes me hurt.”

Hunter laughed at that, and spent the rest of the trip to the crash site teasing his cousin about the pretty little computer expert. Trey, not to be bested, teased him back about a certain small psychic warrior.

It took less time than Hunter would have thought for them to come upon the site of the ruined slave ship. And he had no further doubt that it was a slave ship. The group became somber as they stopped to survey the site and the damaged equipment that had been strewn throughout the forest. When they had rescued the women, it had been a very quick operation, with the men having to see to the injured, help the hysterical females, and protect them, all at once. Now they had time to look around, salvage equipment and parts that might be useful, and try to recover as much of the computer systems as possible. Hunter was eager to find out more about the girls, if possible. Slavers almost always kept some sort of record of their cargoes, along with basic translations and health information, perhaps some information about the cultures they came from, so that the slaves could be matched with appropriate owners.

Working together in the way they’d been trained more than forty years before, Hunter and Trey moved backwards from the crash site, following the trail of broken tree limbs overhead and debris on the ground. As they moved further into the woods, pairs of warriors moved into position, so that the leaders were always within sight of at least one set of watchful protectors. Hunter nodded his approval, proud that his men weren’t growing lazy and forgetting their training just because they were far from home and no longer at war.

When he saw a spot of bright color on the ground near the base of a huge tree, Hunter stooped to investigate. He called to Trey over his shoulder, then picked up the dirty piece of fabric and held it up. It was pink, trimmed in a darker pink, and had white polka dots forming strange designs. Letters? Words? He wondered if Arianna would be willing to teach him her world’s writing, perhaps learn his? He thought about her nurturing and generous nature and decided that she would be enthusiastic about such a project. She was intelligent and eager. She would most likely be very interested in being able to read each others’ books and study one another’s culture. And it would give him a very good excuse to spend more time with her, after the translators were online and he no longer needed her as an intermediary with the girls.

“I have found something, as well,” Trey said excitedly, opening his hand when he reached Hunter. A small box of a strange substance lay there. “It seems to be an electronic device, perhaps for data storage? It has several ports, but I cannot tell what most of them are for without further testing.”