Stolen: Warriors of Hir, Book 3 (20 page)

“Be’lyn City. There I will secure a ship to return you to Earth.”

“But . . .” She frowned. “I thought Earth’s location was secret. That it was kept that way so warriors couldn’t just go there whenever they pleased.”

“It is,” he agreed. “But it appears that encrypted into this transport vessel my brother has also provided the coordinates of your world . . .”

Nineteen

“Finally!”

Summer stood as soon as the transport door opened and Ke’lar stepped onboard. The window tinting kept anyone from peering inside to see her but being stuck in here while he ventured into Be’lyn City had her gritting her teeth.

“I’m getting really tired of being left behind so I can be ‘safe’ while you run off someplace. In fact,” she said, hands on her hips, “this is the last time you get to do that.”

“Even this late hour,” Ke’lar said with a pointed look out at the lights of Hir’s capital city as the door shut behind him, “would not keep you from being noticed by the warriors who inhabit this city. I do not mind fighting for you, my mate, but even I cannot hope to vanquish so many, all determined to have a human female for his own.”

“Well, I can’t just stay here!” she exclaimed, with a gesture out at the public landing area where the transport was parked.

“No, you cannot,” he agreed and shook out the bundle he was carrying.

“A cloak?” she asked. “How does that not make me look like less like a female? I mean, me being a woman is the problem, right?”

“No one will ever believe you are a male, my Summer, even if I dressed you in warrior clothes.” He offered a faint smile. “I am not the only bloodhound here and you smell far too sweet.”

“Right,” she muttered, her face warming. “So much for disguising me.”

“At least we will attempt to disguise you as a g’hir female, instead of a human one.”

She shrugged into the cloak. “You think this will do it?”

“Possibly,” he allowed.

He pulled up the cloak’s hood and regarded her with a critical eye. “It would do better if you were not so short.”

“I’m five-nine,” she objected. “That’s really tall for a human woman.”

“But short for a g’hir.” He yanked the hood further forward to hide her face completely. “Perhaps they will think you are still an adolescent.” He shook his head. “You are too beautiful, my Summer.”

“Wow,” she said, unable to hold back a grin. “No one’s ever said that to me before.”

“You will have warriors fighting in the streets for you if they see your human beauty.”

“How long are we going to be in the city anyway?” she asked worriedly.  “I’m sure everyone’s noticed I’m not at the Erah clanhall by now. They must be tearing the place apart looking for me.”

A deeply troubled look crossed his face. “The Betari will be furious; my father will be facing a war with them.”

Summer chewed her lip, thinking of Jenna and her new baby. “You think Ar’ar and his father will attack your enclosure?”

“Not if they believe you might still be within it,” he growled quietly. “But it is possible that our transport was observed leaving. For their sakes, to prevent a war, I hope that my father and Ra’kur have laid all the blame to me and convinced the Betari they are willing join in the search for us. We cannot risk the Betari—or my own clan—finding us if we hope to make it to your world.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“I believe I can secure us a ship to take us to Earth but I must see the owner in person. We will travel to the center of the city and I will do my best to persuade the ship master.” He activated the door control to open it then knelt before the transport’s controls and opened a panel beneath. “But before we go—”

He pushed something inside and snapped the panel shut. There was a loud pop and a flash from inside that made Summer jump and all the power in the transport cut off.

“What did you do?”

He stood. “I have shorted out the transport’s main computer.” He met her gaze. “And erased the coordinates to Earth.”

She raised her eyebrows. “But you memorized them first, right?”

“We will need a ship to know for sure,” he said with a smile. He took her hand and his expression grew serious. “Stay close to me. Usually a female will not venture out to even the most respectable of neighborhoods without a half-dozen warriors from her clan, and this one is far from the most respectable.”

She gave a nod and followed him out.

“A moment,” he said when they were standing on the landing area platform. “I would leave this as inconspicuous as possible.”

While Ke’lar hefted the heavy door and forced it shut, Summer looked toward the spires in the center of the capital, rising high into the sky.

“Summer?”

“I wish I could see the city,” she murmured. “It must be amazing.”

“Perhaps once it was.” He adjusted her hood again. “Little one, you must not speak.”

“Not speak?” Summer’s brow creased. “Why the hell—Oh, right. Because I’m speaking English. Because anyone would know I was human just by hearing me talk.”

Funny how she’d forgotten that. How those growls and snarls were starting to sound natural, to sound normal, how she’d gotten used to hearing them and the translation in her head too.

“The ship master’s home is not far from here,” he said and she noticed that his free hand already hovered by his blaster. “And the sooner you are indoors again, the better.”

Summer was careful to keep her face hidden, looking out from under the hood to see, clutching the garment to her from the inside so no one would see that she was far too fair to be g’hir.

The city had an air of hopelessness to it and seemed too empty for a metropolis this size. It was clean, much better maintained that any city on Earth, but the warriors here were narrowed-eyed men, some of them clearly drunk, and Ke’lar sped her past more than one brawl.

It was a tense trip to the city’s center. It was full night and the streets well-lit but Ke’lar wasn’t kidding about her drawing attention. Even cloaked, her face covered, she drew the interest of every passing male. It wasn’t her attractiveness—hell, what could they see of her under the voluminous cloak?—it was that she seemed to be the only woman around.

Certainly she didn’t spot any others—accompanied by a half-score of warriors or not.

A few of the warriors were bold enough to step in her path but even those few were warned off by the viciousness of Ke’lar snarls, his bared fangs and ready weapon. She bit the inside of her cheek at every encounter, frightened she would give herself away as human and double their interest in her.

And I was just going to show up here alone with a pack of jewels! Ke’lar was right, I wouldn’t have made it ten feet without one of these guys trying to capture me.

She was trembling by the time they reached their destination, a building near the center of the city, set back from the empty street and fronted by a very neglected front yard. The houses beside it seemed to be abandoned and the whole area rundown and forlorn.

Ke’lar stood before the security panel and thankfully whoever was in the house recognized him because the gate opened.

“That was pretty awful,” she said as soon as they were safely inside. There was no one about to hear her just then but she kept her hood up and her voice low.

Ke’lar threw a narrowed look back the way they’d come. “Not nearly as bad as I expected. We were fortunate.”

“Who is this guy anyway?” Summer asked worriedly as they reached the door. “Is he really going to give you a ship?”

“She,” he corrected.

The door opened and Summer gasped and reared back, away from the large insectoid creature standing there.

Ke’lar caught her, frowning at her. “This is Ezzari, the ship owner I told you about.”

Summer turned toward the creature that regarded her with enormous multifaceted eyes. She wore an elaborately beaded dress over her dark gray exoskeleton and seemed to be looking back at Summer in equal astonishment.

“A human!” she exclaimed—or rather buzzed.

Summer blinked. This creature wasn’t speaking English any more than Ke’lar was but Summer could understand the buzzing as words.

“You did not say you had a human!” Ezzari continued, looking her up and down. “I have never seen one.”

“May we come inside?” Ke’lar asked, throwing a look over his shoulder. “No one must see her.”

“Of course!” she buzzed. “Forgive me!”

She stepped back to allow them entrance and only Ke’lar’s pressure on her back got Summer’s feet moving. Ezzari shut the door behind them, content, it seemed, to stand just inside and stare at her.

“Is that your natural coloring?” the creature asked.

“Yeah,” Summer stammered. With platinum hair she got that question a lot. “It’s all mine.”

The creature tilted her head. “Then all humans are this pale?”

“I thought you were—No, not all of us. But what—what are—”

“She is a xenari,” Ke’lar said with a puzzled how-could-you-not-know-that look.

“Oh,” Summer said faintly. “I didn’t—I mean I thought there were only humans and g’hir . . . and the Zerar. I didn’t realize there were other intelligent species too.”

“The xenari are allies of the g’hir,” Ke’lar assured. “They have been great help in defending us against the Zerar’s incursions. They are an honorable people and great friends to ours.”

“Thank you.” Ezzari inclined her large head but her buzz sounded amused. “But I do not think you have come to my home when the Sisters are so high in the sky with a disguised human in tow to pay homage to my species.”

“I have come to ask a favor,” Ke’lar admitted.

The xenari glanced at Summer. “If you have a human consort your clan would provide all you could wish and more.” Her head tilted. “So I am thinking that she is not yours, Erah warrior.”

“She
is
mine,” he said, his fangs showing.

“Then what do you need of me?” Ezzari asked. “If you already possess what the males of your species all clamor for?”

“I need a ship. A xenari ship. Tonight.”

“Since you cannot make use of any g’hir vessel?” The xenari regarded him with curious eyes. “An expensive favor since you will need xenari exit codes to leave orbit. So you need the ship and my help to disguise you as a xenari vessel leaving the system?”

Ke’lar’s jaw twitched. “Yes.”

“And what do you offer me in exchange?”

“What do you want?” Summer asked sharply. Despite the bug eyes and the buzzing language Summer was starting to feel like she was standing on a used car lot in Alexandria instead of an alien world.

The xenari turned her big bug eyes on Summer. “Perhaps I do not want for anything, human.”

“Yes, you do.” She hated buying cars and had learned the hard way about getting screwed over. “Or you wouldn’t still be talking to us. You’d have thrown us right out into the street.”

Ezzari stared at her then suddenly started making a weird chirping sound.

It took Summer a moment to realize the xenari was laughing.

“These humans are delightful!” she said. “Even if they are primitives.”

Summer’s eyes narrowed.
What I wouldn’t give for a can of Raid . . .

“Ezzari,” Ke’lar prompted, no doubt noticing how Summer’s nostrils had flared. “The ship?”

“Yes, yes.” The xenari waved an appendage. “What will you give in exchange for such an . . .
expensive . . .
favor?”

Ke’lar indicated the jewels Summer wore and named a sum that made Ezzari’s appendages flutter a bit.