“My full name is Summer Elizabeth Mills. I was Summer Elizabeth Baker for a brief stint there but it’s Mills again.”
Ke’lar’s brow furrowed. “Were you adopted into another clan?”
“I’m divorced.” He looked at her blankly and she sighed. “Okay, ‘Summer’ we already covered. My middle name is to honor my grandmother, Elizabeth. My family name is Mills but when I married I took my husband’s family name, Baker.”
He blinked. “You have a human mate, Summer?”
“Oh, hell no! Not anymore anyway, and thank God that’s over with! Dean is some piece of work—as Uncle Lester says. Dean actually manages to make Ar’ar look good in comparison and Ar’ar is a kidnapping alien monst—”
Ke’lar’s luminous gaze met hers and she broke off, her face heating.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“A salve will aid the healing here,” he said, indicating the ugly purplish bruise on her shin.
He took his time, thoroughly examining and treating even the smallest scrape. And she had dozens of them. On her face from the branches, on her arms and elbows and shoulders where she’d caught herself against the balcony, and other injuries that she couldn’t begin to say where she’d picked up.
“You do not like my kind,” he said finally, applying a bandage seal to the blister on the back of her right heel. “The g’hir.”
Despite his mild tone, his gentle touch, her nostrils flared. “I didn’t get a chance to like—or not like—your kind! I was at my uncle’s house, just heading out to the shed for firewood, and then a humongous demon full of teeth and glowing eyes was coming at me and roaring. I was screaming, running for the house, and something hit me hard in the back. When I woke up I was fucking handcuffed! And when I begged to go home he explained how he and I were going to breed new g’hir! That’s why he took me away from—away from home! To breed with him!”
His expression was shuttered. “Other human women have found g’hir mates pleasing to them.”
“But you aren’t sorry, are you?” Summer narrowed her gaze. “For what he did to me. For what your kind is doing to other human women. None of you are.”
“You are our last hope,” he said, but he didn’t meet her eyes. “In all our searching only human women have proved compatible mates. You are our only chance of survival.”
“If the cost of your survival is the brutal exploitation of another species,” she gritted out, “what the hell makes you think you even deserve to survive?”
“What would humans do?” His eyes flashed blue fire. “If faced with this choice? Would you breed with another species like my kind or watch your own become extinct?”
“Oh, I’m not playing all high and mighty on you. Based on stuff like, I don’t know—the Holocaust—I’m sure we humans would be just as uncivilized, just as selfish and brutal, as you g’hir are. But that doesn’t make it right and I’d have a lot more respect for your kind if you’d just admit what you’re doing is wrong.”
His face was stormy. “No human female has ever been mistreated on Hir. You are honored, cherished, coveted—”
“Never mistreated—?” Her face went hot. “What the fuck would you know about it?”
“My brother’s mate, Jenna, is human,” he growled. “She loves Ra’kur and their daughter. She is happy and content living with my clan.”
“Jenna?” The name came like a punch in the stomach. “Wait, you don’t mean—Jenna McNally? Jesus, I know her! We were best friends as kids. We hung out every summer, whenever she and her grandfather came up from Asheville. We traded friendship bracelets when we were twelve. I don’t believe this! I mean . . . I haven’t seen her since I moved to Alexandria, not since before I—” She shook her head. “And when Uncle Lester told me last year that Jenna disappeared . . . I mean she was always so level-headed, so responsible, I knew she wouldn’t have just up and left. I—we all—thought . . . She’s here? Holy hell, everybody back home thinks she’s rotting out the woods somewhere!”
Summer’s whole body went cold.
And I’ve been gone a week already! What will they think—what would anybody think—with the house door unlocked, holiday cards on the table, the lights and TV on, and me nowhere to be found . . .
Oh my God, if they think I’m dead —
“You have become very pale.” He was frowning. “Do you feel ill? Or faint?”
“No.” Summer swallowed hard. “I’m—homesick. I just want to get back as quickly as I can.”
“I understand.”
Her gaze snapped to his. “You—you do? You mean . . . you’ll help me? You’ll help me get back to Earth?”
“And force my clan into a war with the Betari?” He shook his head. “No, little one, I am taking you back to your mate.”
Four
“What?”
“Ar’ar captured you in accordance with our customs and laws.” Ke’lar’s mouth was tight. “By your own word he has not mistreated you. You must be returned to him.”