“I was thinking just that,”Gaelan agreed.
The baby fixed him with a look when he spoke and narrowed his eyes. Opening his mouth, he uttered a low growl/bellow from deep in his chest.
Absolute astonishment hit Gaelan at the gesture even before he felt the force of it—little more than a puff, naturally enough—hewasa baby—but staggering that one so little would have the instincts to use it.
Admiration followed and, as a reward for his bravery and cleverness, Gaelan faked far more reaction than he actually felt. Grasping his chest, he collapsed to the ground dramatically.
The female’s mouth dropped open in stunned surprise.
Kadin and Hauk turned to gape down at him in disbelief.
“What the fuck?”they asked almost in unison.
Struggling with the urge to laugh, Gaelan made a pretense of difficulty getting up.“He hit me with the voice. You did not notice? It was so clever I felt like I should at least allow him some gratification for his effort.”
Kadin and Hauk exchanged a long look.
“He is protecting her,”Hauk acknowledged.
“He will not take it well if we wrench him away from her and that is not likely to leave a good impression or make things easy for us on the long trip home.”
Kadin agreed with Gaelan’s assessment, but they had no choice in the matter. They had come a very long way to rescue him. His people needed him.“We can spare a few moments for him to grasp the situation and accept but no more. The warriors from that fort are bound to be right behind us.”
“Let us return to the hut,”Gaelan said in his own tongue, gesturing to the woman.
Kadin shook his head at him, both amused and annoyed.“You did not learn their language?”
Gaelan reddened with annoyance.“I did not have a chance,”he responded tightly. “I was not born to an Earthly woman as you were.”
“The infant is not dressed for this cold. Let us return to your home … and talk.”
Emma was so stunned that she could understand what he said that it took a few moments for the meaning to actually sink in.
She wasn’t especially happy once it did. She didn’t trust him further than she could throw him, but the truth was they didn’t have to talk her into anything. The one who’d spoken could overpower her, she was sure, with very little effort. With three of them ….
Bowing to the inevitable, she clutched the baby more snuggly against her and nodded.
They clearly didn’t trust her either. They surrounded her and ushered her back the way they’d come.
Which wasn’t far.
If she hadn’t been so upset, she thought she might have been embarrassed by her poor performance.
She was, though, and things got way worse in a huge hurry.
They weren’t even halfway across the backyard when it was abruptly flooded with blinding light, the sound of what seemed like a hundred rifles being cocked, and echoing bellows of ‘halt, don’t move!’.
Almost as if they’d choreographed it beforehand, the three aliens, instead of halting as ordered, burst into a flurry of action that was nearly as blinding in speed as the floodlights.
The winged alien who’d chased her from the backyard grabbed her and the baby and launched the three of them skyward. The other two, the one who’d come through her front door and the yellow skinned one that had no wings, planted their backs against one another and issued earsplitting bellows.
Emma didn’t see anything, but shehearda lot—explosions, screams, shouts, the rush of air.
Shefeltthe rush of air, too, like racing along a road in a car with no windshield.
Shock had separated mind from body and she wasn’t truly functioning above primal. Her mind filled with ‘impressions’ and sensations, but she couldn’t even actually assimilate them at that point. Frigid air blasted her and she instinctively clutched the baby tightly, so much so that he began to squirm and whine.
She was only marginally aware of it, the sounds of complaint, but she felt like she had to grip him tightly to protect him and, instead of relaxing her hold, shushed him soothingly. “It’ll be over soon,” she murmured.
And yet no one was more surprised than she was when ‘it’ ended almost as abruptly as it had begun. She felt the sensation of descent and then a jolt. Her feet never touched ground, however. Before she could decide what would happen next, she felt the alien carrying her forward.
A sliver of light appeared out of nowhere, almost literally as if the woods had opened a window into another dimension. The dull thud of boots upon metal pierced the blanket of night. They were ascending … something. A ramp?
They stepped through the narrow opening and were engulfed in blinding light.
She was lowered to her feet. Fortunately, she was near a wall. She felt it as she swayed in an effort to gain her balance.
The baby, apparently confused, or awed, ceased his quiet fussiness, went completely silent.
“Are you injured?”
Emma’s brain struggled to interpret the sounds the alien made into familiar words. Stunned when she realized that, despite the heavy, unfamiliar accent, itwaswords she knew, it took a moment more to grasp the question.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded in a sharper voice.
Emma launched an internal evaluation but broke from it almost as quickly as the other impressions she’d gathered abruptly came together.
They’d been surrounded by soldiers who’d tried to shoot them! Had shot at them.
Terror filled her when she discovered the baby was covered in blood and that he’d gone quiet, too quiet.
Apparently, the alien man noticed at almost the same moment. He wrenched the baby from her arms before she could do more than gasp and searched him a little frantically.
“It is not his blood.”
Emma blinked at him, gaping, struggling to make sense of what he’d said. “Not …?”
“You are bleeding.”
Emma followed his gaze and
