Somehow, she realized, the ‘facts’ just didn’t seem to fit.
So, maybe it was all made up?
Maybe she was on a wild trip from some hallucinogen that she’d accidentally ingested or that was given to her?
Oddly enough that sounded even more farfetched than what she thought was real.
She couldn’t completely dismiss those thoughts. They lingered in the back of her mind, teasing her with a sense of unreality, adding to the fear, the deep down, trembling terror, that she could barely hold at bay.
But the baby, Nye, grounded her. Any time she snuggled his warm little body close, she knew in her heart of hearts that he was absolutely totally real. Whatever else she doubted, everything she felt and experienced with Nye was indisputable truth.
The rest of it—well maybe she just didn’t want to accept it?
Being targeted by soldiers as if she was some kind of monster—shotby them. Being swept off her feet, literally, and flown by a winged man to safety.
The kiss that had knocked her for a loop, for instance, bestowed by an alien man that more closely resembled the human concept of a devil than a man.
Granted, she hadn’t seen a great deal of Hauk since he’d shown her to her cabin. He seldom even joined them at meals over the next few days.
But when she did see him, he was completely cool and distant—not at all like someone who’d kissed her stupid.
She was actually comfortable with that, she decided.
At first.
She’d been seriously tongue tied and jittery during their first encounter afterward, but his cool demeanor had definitely thrown up a wall, shielding her from the sense of awkwardness she’d felt about her reaction, and the uneasiness.
She’d graduated from there to a nagging suspicion that it hadn’t happened at all and shortly behind that to absolute certainty that it had and discomfort and confusion had followed.
Why had he kissed her to start with?
Why didn’t he want to again?
It wasn’t as if she wanted him to, but it was actually kind of insulting that he’d done it and then just brushed her off like she didn’t exist.
So,whyhe’d done it mattered, but only in the sense that it was a complete mystery to her.
Of course, hewasalien so maybe she was just expecting him—all of them—to behave and be governed by human motives?
They generally shared meals together. The guys surprised her by not only taking turns keeping the baby to allow her to relax and eat without dealing with the baby, but also taking turns tending him and entertaining him throughout the days that followed and that gave her way more time to observe them and begin to know them than she’d really expected.
In some ways, actually a lot, they seemed very human—in their interactions with one another and the conversation she was able to hear and understand.
But she had only to look at them to perceive the alienness.
Not that they weren’t surprisingly attractive once she’d gotten over her initial shock and been able to look past the things that made them alien to see the features that were as human as her own. They were. They had very nice physiques and pleasingly formed facial features.
The alien features continued to jolt her, though, for what she thought must have been a progression of days, maybe weeks—the skin tones, the wings and horns and what appeared to resemble fins on the ones called Gaelen and Kadin.
Despite that, she began to lose her fear of them fairly quickly since they seemed to have pretty much dismissed her once they had settled her with Nye, which, she supposed, was mostly what had opened the door to speculation about them.
Primarily Hauk, but really all three.
Gaelen seemed very ‘at home’ with the baby for someone who claimed he had not fathered a child. And Nye seemed very ‘at home’ with him considering Gaelen said he’d never met the child before.
She was reasonably certain he’d told her that, although she was never one hundred percent convinced that she’d correctly interpreted his rendition of the English language.
Whatever the case, and despite the language barrier, it was clear that he had already formed a bond of affection with baby Nye.
She tried not to be jealous, but it was a struggle when she’d been the sole beneficiary of Nye’s affection for so long.
Kadin was the scariest of the three. She wasn’t completely certain of why she felt that way unless it was because she sensed he was in command and that he was the least welcoming of the three, the least inclined to accept her as a travel companion. It wasn’t because of his appearance, per se. He was actually the most handsome of the three in her opinion, but also the most fierce looking and she thought probably the most dangerous.
Fortunately, she had no trouble keeping her distance. She spent most of her time in the cabin with Nye, only leaving to share meals with the men.
Under the circumstances, she wasn’t completely sure how it was that she began to get the impression that all was not well. She thought, at first, that the tension sprouted from her inclusion in the group when she hadn’t been anticipated. Try though she might, however, she couldn’t think of any looks or comments to support that and she finally concluded that it was either something to do with the ship or their destination.
Either of those possibilities were unnerving, but it got way worse in a very big hurry when they had been traveling for a space of weeks and she was warned to take baby Nye to as safe a place as she could find and hide if the ship was boarded by their enemies, the Sheloni.
* * * *
“That’s all they said?” Kadin demanded, struggling with a sense of outrage. “’We come.’?”
Surprise flickered across Gaelen’s features and confusion. Those emotions were
