Riding His Sudden Claim

PART THIRTY

Nina

I stare out at the fierce Jakarty warriors on their magnificent, wild-looking, ghinuts.

What the hell has just happened to me?

I blink in the light of the suns and rub my temples. My forehead throbs and there’s a weird taste in my mouth and an odd smell lingers in my nostrils.

There is a male beside me, his big warm hand wraps around my wrist in a possessive hold. He is tall with dark purple skin, scarred in places, and triumph practically oozes from him in waves. His shoulders are tipped back and his chin tilts as he surveys the crowd as though they are his servants.

I remember being beside my vehz about to go and mate with Fa-Ling when a sudden burst of energy barreled into me from behind and everything went dark. It was as if I were floating, a strange dreamy state where nothing was quite real.

But it’s real now.

I am standing in a new land at the mouth of what appears to be a dark jagged crack in the mountainside.

Jakarty land. The Uncivilized Tundra.

I am awake enough to know that.

“What the hell?” I mutter, yank my arm, and try to step away.

He doesn’t let go instead he holds up his other arm and lets out a battle cry that echoes around the cliffs.

The fifty or so mounted Jakarty repeat it and punch the air. The ghinuts whinny and stomp their silver hooves on the ground. A few rear up, kicking the air.

He then launches into a tirade in his alien language, gesturing and pointing, stamping his feet and slamming his hand to his chest as if emphasising his passion.

The warriors cheer and whoop and the ghinuts turn in circles as if also excited by whatever it is he is saying.

And then I am the object of attention. He grips me around the waist, suddenly, and hoists me up as though I am a prize, showing me to them all.

My breasts almost escape my gown and I grapple to keep my balance in his hold.

A hundred or so eyes feast eagerly on me. There are a few deep disconcerting growls and rumbles of lust.

He shouts at them, almost deafening me, and I get the feeling he is staking ownership.

I am his now.

“Put me down.” I wriggle and dig my fingernails into his flesh. “You bastard.”

After a moment he does so, his arm around my waist keeping me flush to his body. I adjust my gown, my knees are weak with fear and uncertainty and my stomach is a tight ball of nerves.

One of the Jakarty, thick black beard and hat pulled low, points up at us.

It’s then I see two more males. They are different. Polished, well-clothed, square-jawed and standing close together.

They are from King Athos’s land. It’s obvious by their cultured looks.

But what are they doing here?

Which seems to be the question the Jakarty male has asked.

The man at my side, who I am now guessing has some status here, is gabbling on. I don’t understand a word.

Then after a few moments he turns to me with his dark eyes flashing dangerously and his mouth a tight line. “Come on, we are going.”

“What? Where?”

He pulls me toward the crowd. “Home.”

“Home? Whose home?” I was sure it wouldn’t be my safe little round house on the other side of the border. “And who are you?”

“I…” He stops and grips my shoulders, turns me to face him. “Am Yar-Sh, brother of Dan-Y, the great leader of the Jakarty.”

“So I am on Jakarty land?” A new grip of fear in my belly. I’d been right. He’s just confirmed it. “How…how did I get here?”

“I carried you through the tunnel the stupid mine engineers accidently formed when searching for prion.”

“A tunnel? Carried?” Was that the dark floaty feeling I’d had? “But…how did you?” I frown. “What did you do to me? I can’t remember a thing.”

“A whiff of prion, nothing more, you had plenty of that on the way here from Earth and survived. A little sleep to help you on your way here.”

“Prion.” I repeat then hold up my finger and wag it at him. “You have to take me back, my mate will be looking for me. He’s in the military, you know.”

“Your mate is a fool.”

“No he’s not.” I pause. “Why do you think that?”

“Because you shouldn’t have been alone that close to the border. You were easy pickings.” He kind of laughs, a rough sandpapery sound, then gestures to the two males who must have come through the tunnel with us. “Get mounted, we have a way to go.”

They look at me curiously and then do as he’s asked by sharing a large ghinut.

One is younger than the other, leaner too.

I don’t think they are brothers they are too different to look at but they are definitely close and comfortable with each other.

The older one sits up front, the younger behind him, arms tight around his waist, mouth by his ear.

“Up you go.”

Before I know what’s happening I am launched onto a nearby ghinut. It is tall and wide, the mane thick and long not like the small horn shaped manes I’d seen pulling King Athos’s carriage.

“Oh!” I grip it as the hem of my gown lodges up to my thighs. The beast smells of horses and hay and something else, sweet and sugary, that reminds me of candyfloss.

He leaps up behind me, his bare chest pressing into my back as he reaches around for the reins. His legs are huge against mine and the ghinut huffs at the extra weight, then throws its head in the air, the long spiked horn stabbing the sky.

“Go,” he shouts and kicks us into a fast pace. “There is no time to lose.”

“You don’t know what you have started with the king,” I say.

“I do, and I don’t care. This had to come to a head at some point.”

I swallow and stare out at the undulating landscape. It’s uncultivated, rocky, and to the right wind blows over the mountaintops, catching sand with it and swirling it ever higher.

“Where are we going?” I ask again. “Tell me.”

“To my home, the Jakarty camp. It’s been a long time since I was there. But thanks to these two males, here I am.” He nods at the two aliens riding at our side.

I study them. “Why did you come through the tunnel? This isn’t your home.”

“We are here to get my mate back. Dan-Y took her much the same way you were stolen,” the older one says gruffly. “A prisoner swap, with the male behind you, to get her back.”

“A prisoner swap,” Yar-Sh scoffs. “You really think Dan-Y will give you a female in exchange for me? A female is the ultimate prize for a Planet Hade male.”

“He gave me his word.”

“And you trust him?”

He says nothing.

“I’d trust him with my life,” Yar-Sh says. “And the very fact he sent you to get me out of that mine, break me free, proves that.”

“We had a deal,” says the younger one, his jaw tightening. “You for her.”

“And you think a deal will be more important than him impregnating a female? Nothing is more important than that.” He squeezes me a little tighter. “Is it, Earth woman?”

I gasp and close my eyes. After those words it’s blatantly obvious what my captor’s plans are for me. A shiver goes through me. He’s so different to Fa-Ling, he’s a force, vibrant and alive, and has a determination about him that gives me a funny feeling in my belly.

I glance at him over my shoulder, inhale his musty, hardworking, underground scent. His nose is dead straight and his lips full. His brows are pulled low as he stares straight ahead and a small tendon flicks in his jaw.

“You like what you see?” he asks.

“This will only lead to war,” I say. “King Athos will search for me.”

“Doesn’t sound like he’s been searching for Dan-Y’s woman, does it.”

I say nothing. He’s right. The palace has issued nothing about a kidnapping or a missing person.

“We didn’t tell him,” the older male on the ghinut beside us says. “We are hoping to keep this under wraps.”

“So you don’t get…” Yar-Sh draws a line around his throat and makes a screeching noise. “’Cause that’s what the dictator king would do to you. All that technology and expense and negotiating with Earth and you lose her. You won’t last five minutes when he finds out.”

“Exactly,” he mutters.

One of the riders to our right shouts.

“Fuck!” Yar-Sh mutters. “Here you will need this.”

“What is it?”

“Sandstorm.”

I twist to my right and see a great swirl of lilac sand rushing toward us, spiralling and dancing as it buffets against itself growing ever larger.

“Oh no,” I gasp. I feel so vulnerable and small. Surely the gusting wind will tear me from the ghinut and the sand will batter my skin like a million bullets.

“Use this. Hold it.” He covers me in a large silky swathe of material. It’s the size of a tent and covers my feet and my head and everything in between. Everything goes dark.

“Stay underneath this.” His arms are fastened around me and I realize he, too, is covered as is the ghinut’s head. We are all sheltered together.

He pulls us to a stop.

“What are you doing?” I ask. “Can’t we outrun it?”

“No. We have to wait it out and hope the ghinut can keep his hooves on the ground, our extra weight will help him.” His body braces behind me.

The sound of the approaching storm is getting louder by the second, a weird combination of screaming and slicing, like a hundred knives being sharpened.

“I’m scared.”

“Don’t be,” he says against my ear. “I’ve got you. I won’t let you go.”

I tremble and grip the tent thing hoping that it won’t get ripped from us.

And then the storm hits. It’s wild. The ghinut unbalances but only for a second and then steadies himself and arches its neck.

I hear the sand blasting against the material. It’s as if a machine gun is firing at us.

He mutters something and grips me tighter. I have no idea if we will survive this. If we are dismounted, if the ghinut can’t take the pressure we will be lifted into the air and dropped down somewhere else.

“It will pass soon,” he says. “Think of something you like, another moment or two and this will be over.”

“Italian food.”

“What?”

“That’s what I like.” My voice is shaking. I close my eyes and visualize as I speak. “I love pasta in a creamy sauce, chicken, herbs, garlic bread, olives and ice cream and a glass of pinot to wash it down.”

“It sounds…different.”

“And if it’s eaten in Tuscany, atop a hill with a view.” My voice is trembling as I try and transport myself. “Then all the better…oh…”