Stolen: Warriors of Hir, Book 3
Willow Danes
One
The alien warrior, naked beside her, gave a soft snore, his thickly muscled arm thrown over Summer, keeping her close as he slumbered.
When he had first captured her on Earth, she had only seen beast—his full mouth, his gleaming fangs, his inhuman ridged forehead and heavy brow. Now, lying beside him, his bare tan skin smooth and warm against her own, his eerie glowing amber eyes shut, she knew how very intelligent he was, this wild creature who had brought her to his planet. He, like all the males of his kind—the g’hir—was tall, powerfully built, fast as quicksilver.
Summer wet her lips. She could see the movement of his eyes behind his lids.
Dreaming.
She’d never get a better chance.
Escaping a seven-foot-tall alien warrior who’s claimed you as his mate and taken you halfway across the galaxy is impossible.
But when it’s your only chance in hell of ever seeing home again, you just tell “impossible” to fuck off.
Six days after her abduction, her heart hammering so hard she feared the sound of it would wake the warrior at her side, Summer eased out from under his heavily muscled arm and slid from his bed.
He stirred, reaching for her. She froze, crouching beside the bed, praying his vibrant eyes stayed shut, his face slack with slumber. His long, silky, red-brown hair was spread across the white pillow, his swarthy coloring a stark contrast to her own pale complexion.
When she’d first awoken to find herself captive on his ship he’d looked her over with his unnervingly brilliant alien gaze. He’d taken a lock of her pale blond hair between his large fingers, frowned at her skin, and asked if such pallor in a human meant she was sickly. Trembling before the huge warrior, thinking he’d kill her if he thought her ill, not even understanding how she was processing those growls of his as language—Summer swore she was completely healthy. He’d given a satisfied fanged smile; pleased, she knew now, that she’d be able to produce the robust, healthy offspring he wanted.
The warrior—Ar’ar—gave another soft snore and Summer straightened to standing.
Clad only in a whisper-thin nightgown, the polished tiles cold under her feet, she padded silently through his luxurious quarters. Sweet spring air drifted through the open balcony doors, the fine silk curtains fluttering in the breeze as she passed them.
The balcony of Ar’ar’s rooms—the opulent living quarters of a clanfather’s heir—overlooked his family’s vast holdings, and the three moons of his world—Hir—lit her way. The wind stirred her long hair, momentarily blocking her vision, and impatiently Summer tucked the bright strands behind her ears to keep them out of her eyes.
She had one chance at this.
If they caught her she’d be watched constantly no matter what concessions Ar’ar—her new alien “mate”—made to his female’s pleas. He was confident enough, and proud enough, that he had dismissed the honor guards his father, Mirak, tried to attach to her. Ar’ar gave a huffing, indulgent laugh as he’d waved them off at her request. After all, compared to him, Summer, even at five foot nine, was just a slip of thing.
A weak, harmless, helpless human female . . .
Using the building to help her balance, she climbed up to stand on the balcony’s wall.
Eight stories above the ground of an alien world.
Summer swallowed hard. There was a reason she always insisted on having a room on the first floor of a hotel. Just glancing out the glass-wall window of her high-rise office back home left her woozy.
But there was only one way out into the hallway—and ultimately to Earth—that wouldn’t wake the glowing-eyed fanged warrior snoozing back there. She had to get from these quarters over to the unoccupied rooms beside them. That door she could open without fear of waking him, then get the hell out of this monstrously large building they called a clanhall and run for freedom.
It wasn’t even very far over. Twelve feet, maybe.
All she had to do was get to the next balcony.
Never mind that the only way there was a small decorative outcropping on the side of the building barely as wide as her foot . . .
Summer hardened her jaw and scooted her right foot out along that tiny space. It was a little lower than the wall she was presently perched on and that made the balance extra tricky. When her right foot was as close to the gap as she dared, she brought her left foot out and shifted her full weight onto the edge.