Kadin jerked a look up and around. “What?”
“Sorry! I’m sorry. I was just shocked to see two suns up there.”
He looked annoyed—which didn’t surprise her since she’d obviously startled him—but dismissed it fairly quickly. “It takes some getting used to, I am certain.”
“I can see why you wouldn’t think twice if the planet you were born on had two,” Emma said apologetically, “but we only have one.”
“The planet where I was born also.”
Emma stared at him. “You aren’t from this world?”
He shook his head. “This is Ach—the world of the Hirachi people.”
She was curious to know how he’d ended up on Ach if he’d been born on another world, but since she recalled abruptly that he’d said he was taken and enslaved by the Sheloni before he was full grown she decided it would be tasteless and painful for him for her to pursue her curiosity.
“It’s … well, a very interesting place. I think I will have to get used to it because it’s really very different than Earth … well in most every way.” She laughed. “The air seems … lighter. I can smell all sorts of plants. I don’t think I could really smell the forest where I lived. I mean, I guess I was just so used to the smells of plants and dirt that I was nose blind.”
“How fascinating,” Valee intruded in a bored voice. “Ob course we most pleased you find our world interesting.”
Emma hadn’t noticed she’d rode up beside them.
She was sorry she didn’t have any more ‘ammunition’—and tempted to pretend she was going to puke.
Except that wasn’t the sort of image she wanted firmly planted in Kadin’s mind. She wanted him to think she was attractive.
She struggled for a few moments to think of something to say and couldn’t and finally just closed her eyes, pretending to dose. It didn’t take much of that before it wasn’t pretend anymore.
When she woke, she discovered there was only one sun in the sky and the forest around them was darkening.
“We will stop soon to make camp,” Kadin said when she sat up.
Thatwas what Kadin had meant by ‘finding an acceptable place to stay the night’?
“Yes, how timely for her to wake up in time to bed down for the night.”
Emma narrowed her eyes at the woman. “It’s called jet lag back home—when you travel somewhere very fast and the time is different so your body is on ‘old time’ and you’re out of sync with everyone that lives there.”
“And, of course, you are de only one who has dis problem?”
“I’m really surprised your parents didn’t smother you as a child and start over,” Emma said before she could stop herself. “But being a bitch doesn’t make you a princess. It just makes you a bitch.”
Kadin coughed and then kneed his beast so that it surged forward. “Take care that mouth does not get you eaten alive by that female,” he said in a low growl that gave the lie to the amusement she’d seen moments before.
A shiver skated down her back at the warning.
He was right, unfortunately.
She couldn’t fight her way out of a paper bag and she had a feeling Valee was no stranger to fighting—besides having the advantage of weight and reach over her.
She bit her lip when she overheard Valee asking Hauk ‘what is beech?’.
It might be funny that Valee didn’t know exactly how she’d been insulted, but she’d certainly figured out that itwasan insult.
Thankfully, Kadin kept her well away from Valee when they stopped to make camp, helping her to set up the tent where she would sleep with the baby.
She hadn’t realized they had an escort of about a dozen warriors trialing them until they’d stopped. The discovery, far from making her feel safe, made her more uneasy. “Are the … uh … soldiers for the Sheloni? Or something else I don’t know about?”
Kadin flicked a speculative look at her. “Nye is High King. He goes nowhere without an escort. Any time.”
A modicum of relief flickered through her until she realized he was under guard because of a possible threat to him. “Is this because of … uh … an unknown, possible, threat? Or because there is some danger you know of?”
He seemed to wrestle with himself. “There are some not glad that an heir to the throne of the High King was found, it is true. But, so far as I know, they would have no way to know that we had arrived with him.”
“Unless they saw that city sized space ship when it came in to land,” Emma said dryly.
He grinned at her. “Except for that.”
“Soooo … we’re not really expecting a threat from anyone in particular?” Emma asked for clarification.
“No. However, these are the wilds and there are other things that might be a danger to the infant king.”
Emma felt the hair on her neck stand up. She didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to her that there would be wild animals in the woods. There were plenty in the woods around her place—even the occasional wild cat, which could be a danger—and sometimes animals that were rabid, but the woods around her cabin seemed … safe. Maybe just because they were familiar?
“Uh … what kinds of things?”
He shrugged. “This is not my world. Gaelen is familiar, however, and it was he who suggested a large escort.”
Abruptly, a dozen giant warriors built like bodybuilders didn’t really seem like enough of a wall between her and the wild.
It was an alien world! God only knew what might be out there in the gathering dark, just waiting for an opportunity to drag her off and eat her!
And she couldn’t run worth a shit carrying Nye!
Well, if she was honest, a snail could almost outrun her completely unburdened. She actually couldn’t claim to be a good runner or a good fighter, which meant she sucked ass as a survivalist. She would
