“We thought you were dead!” Kat shouted against my ear.
“Same,” I replied. “I mean, I thought I was the only one who got away!”
Kat pulled back, tears shining in her huge blue eyes. Her buzz cut had grown out a bit over the last few days, soft, short hairs coming in the palest shade of blonde.
“Nope. All these nutters scooped us right up off the sands and killed all the crab things. Then they brought us here.”
“Were they good to you? Were any of you hurt?” I looked from face to human face, searching for signs of mistreatment.
“Don’t even get me started,” huffed Kat, but Theresa shook her head, cutting in.
“I mean, they didn’t roll out the red carpet for us or anythin’. But we’re fed and clean. We had a place to sleep. No one hurt us.”
That was good to hear.
“Look,” I said quickly, pointing back at Buroudei, my poor mate who looked beyond exasperated and confused. “That guy is the leader of the tribe I’ve been staying with. They’ve taken good care of me. We’re here to rescue you guys.”
The others didn’t look convinced, eyeing Buroudei warily.
“Honestly, hun, we don’t know him or any of those others. We got used to these people, the ones we’ve been with. You should come back and stay with us. There’s more safety in numbers.” Theresa sounded concerned.
Uh oh. I hadn’t anticipated this.
“I can’t,” I said, my voice breaking. Kat’s invisible brows drew inward immediately.
“Why the fuck not? What did they do to you? Are they using you to coerce us somehow? Why can’t you leave?”
“No, no, it’s not like that.” How the hell was I going to explain all this? That I’d fallen in love with an alien tyrant, the monster behind us now? “It’s more like... I don’t want to leave.”
“You sure hugged him tight when you saw him,” Melanie said from beside me, her dark eyes watching closely. Heat raced through me.
“Oh, girl. Oh, no, honey. Tell me you didn’t. You didn’t have to trade sex for safety, did you?” Theresa’s eyes were huge in her pretty, tanned face.
“God, no! OK, this is going to take forever to explain. But I will say right now that that guy, Buroudei, he loves me and thinks I’m his mate. And I agreed to go along with it. Not because I was coerced. Because I wanted to.”
“You must have hit your head somewhere along the way,” Kat said, wrinkling her nose. Theresa had grown pale under her tan. Melanie remained expressionless. A girl whose name I didn’t know piped up from towards the edge of our little huddle.
“Oh, come on, none of you guys have thought about it? They aren’t bad looking.”
Twenty human voices broke out at once, some professing their own bizarre attractions, other spluttering in horror. Buroudei’s growl cut through the noise instantly.
“My mate, would you kindly let me in on the conversation?”
“They don’t want to come with us.” It hurt me to say it, but I could kind of understand. Even if I didn’t have Buroudei, I wouldn’t want to leave the tribe I’d been welcomed into. It was the closest thing to home I had on this planet.
Buroudei’s tail thrashed.
“They will not come with us?”
The scarred alien who’d come with the other Gahn, Taliok, stepped up next to Buroudei, jaw working, eyes ablaze.
“I refuse to leave my mate with Gahn Fallo’s men.”
Excuse me? His mate? That was new information. Taliok was staring into our huddle with a look of pained hunger. But I couldn’t tell who he was looking at.
Great. One more complication.
“Guys, let’s hurry this up. I don’t think he’s going to last long.” Chapman was speaking, looking down at the alien at her feet. He was still on his knees, but now slumped forward on his elbows. I recognized Buroudei’s axe sunk deep, in above his shoulder. I swallowed. This was exactly what I’d wanted to avoid. This bloodshed. But this was their culture. And I wasn’t going to change generations of their ways by batting my human eyelashes.
I moved out of the huddle, standing next to Buroudei.
“I want to remain with Buroudei. You want to remain with your group. But I don’t think we should be separated.”
My mind worked, playing scenario after scenario in my head.
“What if,” I started slowly, a plan unfurling, “we set up a human camp in a central area. Between all the tribes. So that no one is cut off from anyone else, and all the humans can be together.”
Nobody looked impressed with my plan. Taliok snarled, and Buroudei’s tail thrashed. The other women stepped back, alarmed.
Charming, fellas. Really.
“OK, look, I’m going to be straight with you guys because you need to understand the situation. These people have this alien being, this spirit... I don’t know what to call it. It’s like a dragon with no arms or legs or wings. Anyway, it summons men and then shows them the face of their future mate. This is, like, soulmate level stuff. It means everything to them. Buroudei saw my face before we ever even got here.”
Gasps and looks of confusion met my words, but I kept going.
“I have a feeling that more and more warriors are going to get assigned human mates and are going to want to split us off from the group. There are three alien tribes represented here right now, and there are others out there, maybe looking for some of you even now.”
“Well, that’s terrifying,” somebody said.
“Look, it all seems really weird right now. And it is. But if we want to head this off, and head off future battles like what just happened, we need to come together on this right now. If we all live together in a central location, not tied to any one tribe, we can avoid a lot of bloodshed.”
I turned to Buroudei, pleading.
“And you.” Then I looked at Taliok, and the other warriors, speaking to them in their language. “If you all agreed to move closer together, to move into neutral territory, you could all be near the humans. And no more blood would have to be spilled over who will take us home.”
We had to do this. If we didn’t stake out our territory now, and force the tribes to come together for us, we’d be screwed. Just because Buroudei had said women could refuse their mate didn’t mean that every alien man out there would feel the same. There were tribes I hadn’t even encountered yet, and who knew what they’d be like.
Jeers and complaints ran through the crowd of watching aliens. Buroudei drew me into his side, growling. Taliok turned to the watching men, stepping forward to speak.
“Gahn Irokai is dead. As he died he named me Gahn. It was witnessed by Oxriel.”
A warrior nearby thrashed his tail in agreement.
“In my first act as reigning Gahn, I decree that our people will leave the mountains to reside in neutral territory near the new women.”
Silence fell. I stared, slack-jawed. Out of everyone, this scarred, moody alien was the last one I would have expected to agree to my idea. Buroudei’s arm tightened around my waist.
“I, Gahn Buroudei, I will follow my Gahnala wherever she goes. I decree that we, too, shall stay near them in neutral territory.” Then he turned to the alien with the axe in his neck. “What say you, Gahn Fallo?”
“What’s he saying?” Chapman asked, her eyes never straying from Buroudei.
“They’re agreeing to my idea. They’re agreeing to have us all live together in a neutral place, near to all of them. They’re saying they’ll relocate to live near wherever we are.” Chapman pursed her lips, eyes narrowed.