19. Harper

19

HARPER

I knew something was wrong as soon as I heard the rumors that more guards were being sent beyond the fence. But no one knows what’s going on. I make a laundry delivery as an excuse to leave the building and to find out more.

Everyone tells a different story.

The hunt was so successful they needed help to bring back the kills.

Someone was injured.

Someone is dead.

The aliens attacked everyone and have fled.

That could all be true, and they could all be lies.

Yva explained that hunting was dangerous because no animal wants to be killed and eaten. But he also explained how they do it, and that hunting in a group was much safer than trying to hunt alone.

I’m sure he’s fine, but my argument with Brett this morning has left me unsettled. My own doubts and fears have made me snappy.

I return to the laundry and throw myself into work. I don’t want to think.

There’s no point in guessing what the problem is, or if there even is one. Perhaps they had a good hunt. Yes, they caught extra so more people can join the feast. That makes sense.

I’ve almost convinced myself that is the truth when Sunif steps into the laundry. There’s blood on his shirt, and his face is streaked with dirt. “Harper.”

My stomach lurches and I want to vomit. “No.”

He’s here to tell me Yva is dead.

I step back. I don’t want to hear what he has to say. Because if I hear it, then it will be true.

“Yva is alive, but he is wounded.”

It takes me forever to understand what he is saying, even though he spoke in English. “Alive? Then why isn’t he here?”

“He is in the hospital. I am here to take you to him.”

The longer I stare at him, the more damage I notice. His shirt and pants are ripped and there are scratches on his arms. “Are the others…”

I can’t say it. I can’t be glad that Yva is alive while others are dead.

“One guard died. There was a stampede.” He offers me his arm.

I don’t remember taking it, but then he is walking me outside. His body hums, then his voice is in my head. Yva said the guard attacked him. We are calling at a stampede as his attacker was trampled to death.

Was he attacked because of me?

Sunif doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. His silence says everything.

If I wasn’t seeing Yva, he wouldn’t have been hurt. This is my fault.

It may not have been Brett who attacked, but there are plenty of human men who are unhappy that there are two more men in the colony. Two alien men who mate for life and who will do anything for their mate. There are three women for every man, but that isn’t enough for some of them. Or perhaps they don’t like the way the Honey warriors make them look like flaky fuck boys.

I stop walking. “If it was because of me, I should stay away.”

“It is not your job to protect him.”

“Yes, it is.”

Sunif shakes his head. “Do you not want to see him?”

“Of course I do.” Tears prick my eyes. I don’t want to lose him, but I don’t know how to keep him. “Does he want to see me?”

“He will when he wakes.”

He’s not awake? How badly is he hurt? I’m almost too scared to ask. “How can you be sure? He may think human women are too much trouble.”

Sunif laughs. “His last thoughts were of you, and how much he loves you.”

His last thoughts? He’s unconscious? I need to be prepared before we reach the hospital, and every step is taking me closer. “How badly is he injured?”

“If we were on our own, I do not think he’d make it. The stab wounds were too deep.”

“Stab wounds? Won’t that giveaway that he was attacked?”

“You didn’t see the beast we were hunting.” There is a measure of pride in his voice.

“Was the hunt successful?”

Sunif nods. “And we learned about the beasts and the creature that hunts them.”

My eyes widen at the mention of something else hunting the same animals they were hunting. Every time he opens his mouth, this whole thing gets worse. “Is there anything else you need to tell me?”

Or is he giving me bite-sized pieces in case I freak out?

He is silent for several paces, and the hospital building looms closer. My stomach is winding in tighter and tighter knots. “Sunif?”

There is more bad news.

“One of his kam was broken during the stampede. We will not know if it works until he wakes up. If he cannot make a charge, he may not be able to hunt again.”

“He doesn’t need to hunt.” Though if he needs meat to survive the way they say they do, then he will need to ask his friends to hunt for him.

Sunif places his hand on my arm. “He may not need to hunt, but he will see himself as an unsuitable mate, as he cannot provide for you or defend you.”

“He doesn’t need to.”

“I am preparing you for what you will see and what he might say. It would be different if you were already mates.”

“Because I wouldn’t be able to leave him?”

“Because you might, and he might prefer that outcome.”

I stare at him for several heartbeats as my brain struggles to process what he means. A Honey warrior without a mate will suffer and most likely die. If we were mates and he was badly injured and I left him, he would die.

I shake my head. Yva won’t want to die. He’s too full of life. “He’ll be fine. The doctors will stitch him up.”

“Not all wounds can be stitched.” Sunif holds the door open for me and I step into the cool, bright interior of the hospital.

The nurse sees Sunif and knows why we’re here without us speaking. She ushers us toward Yva’s room.

The hospital isn’t very big, one surgery, one room for scans, another for the treatment of minor injuries, and a few rooms for those who need to be monitored. Most of the time, according to Grace, it’s minor injuries like cuts and breaks that they are treating.

The nurse stops outside the door. “It’s meant to be one at a time.”

“You go in,” Sunif says.

I’m not sure I want to go in on my own, but the nurse opens the door for me, and I don’t have a choice. If I choose to run now, then this is over, as Sunif will tell Yva when he wakes.

I don’t want it to be over. I want Yva.

I decided that this morning, and for me that hasn’t changed.

Hrad leaves as I enter. Like Sunif, his clothes are ripped and smeared with blood. Hrad nods at me and closes the door, leaving me in the very pristine gray room. I take a few seconds before I look at him. I keep hoping that it’s not Yva in the bed, but his friends, his brothers, wouldn’t make that mistake.

My gaze finally settles on the man in the bed. He’s breathing on his own, and there’s a bandage on his head, no doubt to protect or hold his damaged kam together. The human doctors probably didn’t know what to do. But they would’ve stitched the stab wounds, and other cuts, and set any broken bones.

Yva takes up all the bed. It’s barely tall enough or wide enough for him. I keep expecting him to open his eyes and laugh as though this was a bad joke.

But he doesn’t move.

I drift closer, not sure what I’m supposed to do, even though Sunif thought I needed to be here. Whatever Yva has been telling them about me must only be positive. He must be convinced that I will take the leap and become his mate.

How is he so fearless when it is he who will suffer the consequences if the mating doesn’t work out? But it’s that same fearlessness and lust for life, for adventure and experiences, both good and bad, that attracted me. I didn’t even realize I was attracted to him at first.

I sit on the chair Hrad vacated. “Hey.” My mouth dries, so I place my hand over his. My fingers trace the dark markings on his arm the way they have done so many times as we lay in bed and talked. They help direct the charge from kam to fingers, or sword.

“I guess you know they caught some animals…why did you have to get hurt?” I bite my lip. It’s not as though he wanted to be injured. No, he was attacked and the man who stabbed him is dead. Was Brett behind it? I never thought him capable of violence, only arrogance.

I shake my head, trying to force away the angry tears.

“You’d better wake up because I can’t choose you to be my mate if you don’t.” I don’t know if he can hear me. Doctors think humans are aware when unconscious, so there’s no reason to believe the Honey are any different. I watch as my finger traces the marking that tells which tribe he is from, and that he is the son of a chief.

When touching him we can talk without words, something to do with his kam. Can he hear my thoughts even now? Or will his damaged kam prevent that?

“Sunif warned me you may not want a mate now. Well, you get that option. Not now. You chose me, you lured me into your bed and this morning I went back to tell you how I felt, but you were already gone. Now you need to wake up so I can choose you and make this thing official. I don’t care if your kam is broken and you never hunt again. But I am going to be very pissed off if you don’t wake up.” I’m not sure if this is a motivational talk, or if I’m talking through my own turmoil. Maybe it doesn’t matter. “You don’t get to leave me like this. We are supposed to have a chance at being happy, like in the fairy tales.”

I lean in close so I can whisper in his ear. “You don’t want to die before you taste your princess’s pussy.”

Okay, that is the wrong thing to say to an unconscious man, but the number of times he’s buried his face between my thighs like he wants to rip off my pants and claim me…even though it goes against his culture’s rules… I hope it will give him a reason to live.

“If you wake up, I’ll…I’ll climb on the bed and sit on your face to claim you.” I draw in a breath, as if I’ve somehow spoken the magic words to make him wake.

He doesn’t stir.

Shit.

“Please don’t leave me, Yva. I love you, and I want you.” Tears break free and roll down my cheeks. I rest my head on his shoulder. “Please wake up.”

By the time my tears run dry, he hasn’t even twitched. I don’t want him to be alone all night. What if he wakes up and doesn’t know where he is?

I press a kiss to his lips, then leave him to ask the nurse if I can stay.

When I step out, Tiril and Edilk are waiting. They are dressed in colony clothes, but they are bearing the scratches and bruises of the hunt.

“If that was a successful hunt, I don’t want to see the results of a bad one,” I snap.

Edilk inclines his head. “A bad one ends with no food.”

I snort.

“We will stay with him overnight. It has been cleared by the doctors.” His lips twist. “They do not want him to wake and panic.”

“That’s what I was worried about. I can stay.” But I’m glad his brothers are thinking of him and want to make sure he is safe.

Edilk shakes his head. “You don’t have the strength to restrain him if needed. If he wakes, you will be called.” He nods at the nurse waiting not far away.

He’s right, but that doesn’t make this any easier. “Will he wake?”

Tiril nods. “I believe so. There is a charge running through his body and brain. The doctors said that while he lost a lot of blood, there is no major damage. He said it’s shock from blood loss and kam damage.”

“Not internal damage from being trampled?”

“He was lucky the beasts’ claws only punctured him twice.” Edilk lifts his arm and hooks his pointer finger. “They are equipped with a savage claw on each front limb.”

He gives me a look, which I now recognize as when he wants to say something silently, so I touch his arm as I speak. “They sound ferocious.”

They were running from another predator. It is only because they have such large claws that we can lie about the stabbing. He was partially protected by the tree. We think his kam was damaged when an animal collided with him, smashing his head into the tree.

“They were not so bad,” Tiril says to keep the conversation going. “It was the golden furred beast chasing them. That was rather more terrifying.”

I let my hand fall away, having been given a far too clear image of the stampeding beats and the thing that chased them. I’ve seen pictures of the animals that used to live on Earth, but the animals they were hunting are too strange for me to compare them to anything. I’m sure a scientist is working on naming and categorizing the animals and plants on this world.

“It won’t be as good to eat, but we brought it back with us. It will make nice leather.” Edilk says aloud.

“And good jerky,” Tiril adds.

They do not seem overly worried about Yva. “You really think he’ll be okay?”

Edilk nods. “I will walk you to your room.”

I’m sure he says something silently to Tiril as I sense the static. I don’t argue with him, even though I am quite capable of walking through the compound on my own.

It’s dark now, and very few people are walking around. Exhaustion sweeps through me, and for the first time in several days, I will be sleeping alone. And so will Yva.

“I’m worried it might happen again.” I keep my voice low and hope Edilk understands that I’m not talking about the dangers of hunting.

“We all are,” he says softly.

“What will you do?”

“For the moment, nothing. Because there is nothing we can do without making the situation worse. Did the man take a chance, or if he was acting on orders? Either way, there are plenty of people who do not like that we are here.”

I don’t understand why people, men and women, are so upset. “Does that mean you’re considering leaving?”

“No.” He stares up at the stars for a moment. “None of us have anything to go back to. We have joined our mates’ tribe. This is our home, and we will make the best of it.” He smiles. “Though we will make mention of the negative sentiment being expressed.”

“I wish I hadn’t waited. That he knows I want him to be my mate.”

“Not every mating starts smoothly, but Yva enjoyed all the time he spent with you, getting to know you. He is very good at getting what he wants. No doubt it is something he learned from his mother.”

“It took me a while to realize that he chose me.”

Edilk laughs. “He did, and he was enjoying waiting for you to catch up.”

Now I’m waiting for him to wake up.