Crap, I wonder if it sounded like I was disparaging their Goddess or something . . .
She cleared her throat. “So, to be named a warrior by your clan you have to . . . what?” she asked, hoping to smooth over any blunder by getting back to the topic. “Live off the land entirely for a whole year?”
“From one winter gathering to the next,” he agreed. “If you are successful you rejoin the clanhall as a warrior.”
“What if you aren’t?” she wondered. “Successful, I mean?”
He shrugged. “You die.”
Summer blinked. “You’re kidding.”
He met her gaze, looking completely serious. “Only the strongest must be permitted to take a mate. Especially now.”
“To breed healthy daughters and repopulate Hir. Yeah, Ar’ar—and his father—had a lot to say on that subject too.” She stood. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance my other clothes are still dry.”
“Yes,” he said, offering her the pack she’d brought from the Betari enclosure.
She took it from him, shifting her weight, and his posture stiffened.
“I will not look at you while you disrobe,” he said gruffly, turning back to his work. When she didn’t move, he indicated the rear of the cavern. “There is ample privacy to be had here; you will not lose your way.”
“Thanks,” she mumbled, her face warm as she grabbed the luma. She wasn’t sure which would be worse—that he’d try to look at her . . . or that he wouldn’t.
The luma gave off plenty of light and while the cave was chilly it wasn’t nearly as spooky back here as she feared it would be. She put the luma down, angling it so it would provide her enough illumination as she sorted through the bag.
Ke’lar had been a perfect gentleman—no “accidental” brushes against her breasts, no gropes at her butt, no implying that after all he’d done for her she would owe him big.
But sometimes, when she turned her head quickly enough to catch his unguarded gaze on her, she thought she detected heat in those glowing blue eyes . . .
Stop being an idiot!
Even if he was interested—and in their many hours together he hadn’t shown a bit of it—the last thing she needed when she was busy escaping her alien warrior captor was to get something going with his alien warrior enemy.
It wasn’t like g’hir felt things the same way humans did. Half the time when she was trying to express herself—even to Ke’lar—she had the suspicion that these people couldn’t even fathom how her mind worked.
Certainly she didn’t understand them at all.
They revered a creator Goddess, their All Mother, but hunted women like animals. They stole women from Earth but fawned over them on Hir. They had mind-bogglingly advanced technology but the men spent years training as if everybody might suddenly have to pack up and move to the Bronze Age.
Despite that genetic aberration of human DNA in g’hir that made breeding with humans possible, Summer considered them an entirely different species. Their physical appearance was frightening, their customs bizarre and barbaric, their whole view of life was just . . .
Alien.
She had gotten the damp things off, dried herself with the towel he’d thoughtfully packed in there for her, had the dry pants on, and was just finished buttoning her shirt when she noticed them.
Black smudges. Far too uniformly placed to be natural . . .
Summer picked up the luma and moved closer, shining her light over the cavern walls, her eyes widening as she took them in.
“Ke’lar,” she cried. “Come here!”
He was there in a rush of movement, at her side so quickly she gasped and nearly dropped the light. His blaster was already in hand, his glowing gaze scanning for the threat; a flicker of confusion crossed his features when none was evident.
“Did you see these?” She clasped him by the hand and drew him nearer, her luma lighting the wall to show him.
“Cave drawings,” he murmured.
Summer shone the light on them. The drawings continued at about the same level above the floor but it was impossible to tell if they had been done by one group living at the same time or completed over the generations, if the pictures were part of a story or even a ceremony. “People lived here?”
“The g’hir did once live in caves,” he agreed. “Before we ventured into the forests to live, before we formed the enclosures.”
“These are amazing. They’re just . . . beautiful. I wonder how old they are.”
“Tens of thousands of years.” His fangs flashed in a smile. “It has been very long since my kind occupied caves. We have missed our hosts by millennia.”
Many of the drawings showed humanoids carrying weapons, showed them beside beasts being hunted, showed some that were family groupings. There were dozens of handprints too; marks left by those longing to connect through time, to be remembered, somehow.
Like any humans did.