“I’m getting really tired of being left behind so I can be ‘safe’ while you run off someplace. In fact,” she said, hands on her hips, “this is the last time you get to do that.”
“Even this late hour,” Ke’lar said with a pointed look out at the lights of Hir’s capital city as the door shut behind him, “would not keep you from being noticed by the warriors who inhabit this city. I do not mind fighting for you, my mate, but even I cannot hope to vanquish so many, all determined to have a human female for his own.”
“Well, I can’t just stay here!” she exclaimed, with a gesture out at the public landing area where the transport was parked.
“No, you cannot,” he agreed and shook out the bundle he was carrying.
“A cloak?” she asked. “How does that not make me look like less like a female? I mean, me being a woman is the problem, right?”
“No one will ever believe you are a male, my Summer, even if I dressed you in warrior clothes.” He offered a faint smile. “I am not the only bloodhound here and you smell far too sweet.”
“Right,” she muttered, her face warming. “So much for disguising me.”
“At least we will attempt to disguise you as a g’hir female, instead of a human one.”
She shrugged into the cloak. “You think this will do it?”
“Possibly,” he allowed.
He pulled up the cloak’s hood and regarded her with a critical eye. “It would do better if you were not so short.”
“I’m five-nine,” she objected. “That’s really tall for a human woman.”
“But short for a g’hir.” He yanked the hood further forward to hide her face completely. “Perhaps they will think you are still an adolescent.” He shook his head. “You are too beautiful, my Summer.”
“Wow,” she said, unable to hold back a grin. “No one’s ever said that to me before.”
“You will have warriors fighting in the streets for you if they see your human beauty.”
“How long are we going to be in the city anyway?” she asked worriedly. “I’m sure everyone’s noticed I’m not at the Erah clanhall by now. They must be tearing the place apart looking for me.”
A deeply troubled look crossed his face. “The Betari will be furious; my father will be facing a war with them.”
Summer chewed her lip, thinking of Jenna and her new baby. “You think Ar’ar and his father will attack your enclosure?”
“Not if they believe you might still be within it,” he growled quietly. “But it is possible that our transport was observed leaving. For their sakes, to prevent a war, I hope that my father and Ra’kur have laid all the blame to me and convinced the Betari they are willing join in the search for us. We cannot risk the Betari—or my own clan—finding us if we hope to make it to your world.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“I believe I can secure us a ship to take us to Earth but I must see the owner in person. We will travel to the center of the city and I will do my best to persuade the ship master.” He activated the door control to open it then knelt before the transport’s controls and opened a panel beneath. “But before we go—”
He pushed something inside and snapped the panel shut. There was a loud pop and a flash from inside that made Summer jump and all the power in the transport cut off.
“What did you do?”
He stood. “I have shorted out the transport’s main computer.” He met her gaze. “And erased the coordinates to Earth.”
She raised her eyebrows. “But you memorized them first, right?”
“We will need a ship to know for sure,” he said with a smile. He took her hand and his expression grew serious. “Stay close to me. Usually a female will not venture out to even the most respectable of neighborhoods without a half-dozen warriors from her clan, and this one is far from the most respectable.”
She gave a nod and followed him out.
“A moment,” he said when they were standing on the landing area platform. “I would leave this as inconspicuous as possible.”
While Ke’lar hefted the heavy door and forced it shut, Summer looked toward the spires in the center of the capital, rising high into the sky.
“Summer?”
“I wish I could see the city,” she murmured. “It must be amazing.”
“Perhaps once it was.” He adjusted her hood again. “Little one, you must not speak.”
“Not speak?” Summer’s brow creased. “Why the hell—Oh, right. Because I’m speaking English. Because anyone would know I was human just by hearing me talk.”
Funny how she’d forgotten that. How those growls and snarls were starting to sound natural, to sound normal, how she’d gotten used to hearing them and the translation in her head too.
“The ship master’s home is not far from here,” he said and she noticed that his free hand already hovered by his blaster. “And the sooner you are indoors again, the better.”