Unfortunately, he’d kept his distance since and not allowed her the chance to talk to him about it.
Sighing, she moved away from the window where she’d been staring at the planet they were approaching.
She was going to know soon where she stood and what was to become of her.
Chapter Seventeen
Despite Emma’s misgivings, she was excited when the ship carrying her landed at last. The excitement waned somewhat while she waited to disembark, but she spent the time moving from one porthole to another to look outside and see what was happening.
She saw no sign of a city and actually no one that she was convinced hadn’t been on the ship the whole time.
So … no great fanfare for the arrival of the High King?
Or was that part of the delay? They were waiting for some kind of welcoming party?
The activity she could see seemed to be focused on concealing the craft.
There had been great beasts waiting on their arrival and those were harnessed to the ship and began to drag it slowly. Eventually, she saw that there was an opening that looked like the mouth of a massive cavern—or at least a massive opening. The ship was dragged mostly inside and then stopped and the beasts were unharnessed and led away to what appeared to be a small pond or creak where they were allowed to wander and feed and drink. Then the people who’d brought the ship began to cover the part that was still exposed. They were still working at it when Kadin arrived.
“We must leave now to find an acceptable place to stay the night.”
Emma nodded and got up to collect the baby. Kadin was there before her, though.
“I will carry him. He is a large fellow for a tiny woman to carry.”
Emma felt her face heat with discomfort. Tiny compared to them, she supposed with some humor, but not among Earth people. She didn’t argue, though. “Well, we’re ready. Nothing to pack and take except Nye’s things and those were taken out a while back,” she said when she saw Kadin looking around as if searching the cabin for anything forgotten.
She was wearing the clothes Gaelen had returned to her—not the under things. She wasn’t comfortable wearing someone else’s intimate apparel even if it had been washed. It felt weird to be naked under jeans but it beat the hell out of being totally naked and she’d begun to get used to it.
Once they’d disembarked, she discovered that Hauk and Gaelen and, unfortunately, Valee, were mounted on some of the beasts she’d seen pulling the ship into hiding, and waiting, apparently.
There was another beast between the riders that had some sort of boxy contraption attached to its back.
Emma had a bad feeling about it.
When Kadin led her to it, she had a very bad feeling about it.
Transport.
They traveled all over the universe in space ships and she was expected to ride in a box attached to some beast’s back?
She was almost tempted to volunteer to ride on the animal’s back without the box, but the beasts weren’t even close to the ‘noble’ horses she’d seen. They were scary looking things.
Kadin helped her inside and handed her the baby.
The beast stood up and Emma was convinced it would lose the box before it was standing and braced. Thankfully, although she and the baby were tossed about, their perch remained firmly attached. When it stopped moving, she climbed off the floor and planted her ass on the padded seat again.
Nye seemed to be torn between the belief that it was a fun game and terror.
As the beast started walking, she did her best to convince him it was a fun game.
Within an hour she was so ‘seasick’ from the rocking motion of the box that she had to lean out one window and puke.
She made sure she did so on Valee’s side of the beast.
It was just unfortunate that Kadin was also on that side.
Valee screamed at her like a banshee.
Kadin nudged his beast close enough he could examine her and speak to her. “You are ill?”
She gave him a look. “You try bouncing around this damned thing and see if you don’t feel like puking.”
He bit his lip, struggling to hide his amusement and Emma wanted to punch him. “You can ride on the front of my beast with me.”
Without waiting for a yay or nay, he called a halt and held his arms out for the baby. “Gaelen—you have nanny duty,” he said, handing Nye over to Gaelen and ignoring Valee’s gasp of outrage that he’d completely bypassed her.
When the baby was settled, Kadin helped Emma climb out of the box and onto the front of his saddle.
At Kadin’s urging, Emma settled back against his chest with a sense of profound relief as the beast set off again. The slight rocking motion soothed where the box had rocked enough to make her ill. The fresh air cooled her face and the view from the back of the animal didn’t bounce and make her dizzy.
A sense of awe filled her as she looked around.
Not that there was a lot to see—they seemed to be following a trail through a forest—but it was all alien!
Her parents would be as thrilled as she was if only they could see it and explore it.
The thought brought a wave of homesickness. She dismissed it with an effort. More as a distraction than curiosity, she turned her head to look up at Kadin. “What happened to the other ship that came with us?” she asked Kadin.
“They returned to escort the crippled ship back and guard them.”
As coolly and calmly as he had stated the situation, it brought home the fact that these people were at war with another species that had no conscience where it came to exploiting other species.
And they were a technologically advanced space faring people—which meant no place was safe.
She glanced up at the sky
