Gaelen was laying on the bottom with his eyes open.
“Oh my god!” Emma gasped in horrified shock, whipping a quick look around for something to help her get over the wall and into the tank.
Seeing nothing, but certain time wasn’t on Gaelen’s side, she began struggling to climb over the wall to get to him.
Abruptly, he sat up.
She nearly had a heart attack. “You’re ok?” she asked faintly, feeling as if she was about to pass out.
He frowned. “Yes.”
Emma felt her face crumple, struggled with the urge to burst into tears.
Gaelen grasped her arms. “What is wrong?”
She did cry then. “Youscaredme!”
He stared at her blankly. “How I scare?”
She sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “I thought you’d drowned! My god! You were just lying there!”
He looked alarmed and confused. “No can swim dis ting. No big enough.”
“Swim?” Emma blinked at him, feeling so blank at the comments that she was distracted from tears.
That question seemed to sink in. Enlightenment dawned. He looked uncomfortable. “Hirachi people lib in sea.”
Emma just stared at him, blinking, trying to make her brain function. Fins, she thought abruptly. Those odd looking flaps of skin along his forearms and calves that had reminded her of fins. Theywerefins.
The aliens thought she could breed with sea people? Like … mermen?
Kadin had those, too.
Not Hauk.
“I’m … uh … sorry I … uh … interrupted,” she stammered, whirling and heading back into the other room in complete disarray.
She discovered when she got there that food had been delivered, shoved through a tiny opening in the outer door. She stared at it uncomprehendingly for several moments and finally decided to ignore the immediate response of her stomach demanding it—whatever the hell it was—and climbed on the platform.
Gaelen made no attempt to follow her, struggling with his anger over her reaction to the ‘discovery’. Itwasa discovery for her, he reminded himself. There were many of her kind that had been taken that were very familiar with his people, but Emma was not one of them.
He should have thought about that long since, but there was no getting around the fact that he had not, and therefore he had not expected such a negative reaction to him when she learned what she had not known.
He tried to look at it from her perspective but found he could not.
He had thought that she was beautiful as soon as he had seen her,becauseshe was not like the women of his tribe.
It was not that he did not find their women attractive. He did. There had been one that he had wanted for many seasons. But he liked that Emma was so different.
On the other hand, she was not the first of her kind that he had seen. He thought that he would have felt the same, but he could not know that.
Hewas the first of his kind that she had seen.
He could do nothing but give her the time and space she needed to find acceptance.
Or not.
She was sitting on the sleeping platform when he returned to the cell, which surprised him, but he was not a fool to take that as an invitation or even encouragement. She had chosen it because it was more comfortable than the floor.
And ignored the food that had been brought that was their only meal of the day.
And that did not bode particularly well.
Pretending he did not notice that she had stiffened when he came in, he strode past her and collected the ‘bread’. He supposed, wryly, that they were fortunate that it was mostly tasteless. It could have tasted horrible and it would still have been all that they had to eat.
Very carefully, he halved it and moved to the edge of the platform and extended his hand with her half.
She simply stared at it for several moments until he had begun to think she just did not want to come close enough to take it, but finally she reached for it.
“This is half,” she said once she had looked at it.
“Yes.”
She looked at him. “I don’t need half. You should have more. You’re bigger. You need more.”
He shook his head. “Am ok.”
Emma gave him a stern look. “If this is all we get, you definitely need more to keep up your strength up. I wouldn’t be much help in a fight,” she finished, only half joking.
Amusement flickered in his eyes. “Emma strong, brave woman.”
She shook her head. “I’m not delusional. I’m not strong or brave. My first choice would always be to run.”
His gaze flickered over her face. “Protect Nye. Fight with just hands.”
Emma felt her throat close. “Tried,” she said flatly.
“We also.”
Discomfort flickered through her. Instead of arguing more about who was stronger and braver, she broke her piece in half, climbed off the platform and held it out until he took it, and then settled beside him on the floor and began munching on the other half. “This wouldn’t be half bad if it was something else,” she muttered.
Gaelen chuckled.
The sound made Emma smile in return, lightening her mood.
The next sound she heard snatched that moment away as quickly as it had come.
It was the hiss of gas.
Emma knew exactly what it meant.
And she hadn’t had a chance to smooth things over with Gaelen!
She whipped a quick look at him, and managed to slip an arm around his waist before she fell down into the black pit.
When she came to, she was on the platform again, alone.
Disoriented, she tried to recall if she’d been lying on the platform when she passed out. She couldn’t, but she did remember that she’d been with Gaelen.
Struggling upright, she looked around, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t discover that she’d been tossed in with another male for breeding.
Relief flooded her as she spied the giant, yellow skinned warrior crouched near the door.
It was short lived.
As soon as he turned to look at her, despite the dim lighting, she knew it
