Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 85272 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85272 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
“Danielle,” he growled softly. “The Goddess knows I wish I could bond you to me—and I’d try if we’d known each other longer. But we’ve only been here a little over a week. Even if we could bond, I’m afraid you’d hate me after we got back to the Mother Ship and you found yourself permanently tied to a male you hadn’t even known a month yet.”
“I feel like I’ve known you forever,” Danni whispered, as tears trickled down her cheeks. “I feel like I’ve been waiting for you all my life and now that I’ve finally found you, you don’t want me!”
“I feel the same way, little girl,” Bravik said earnestly. “But that’s just the Mother Stone working on both of us. It’s really affecting us—can’t you tell?”
“I…I know it is,” Danni admitted, with a sniff. “But I just don’t care anymore! I don’t care what the cause of our feelings for each other is—it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but being together always!”
“We have to care, little girl!” Bravik told her. “We have to remember that we’re not here forever. After we observe the H’rakens for a while and establish a political relationship with them for the Kindred, we’re going back to the Mother Ship. And once we get back there, you’re going to feel different about me.”
“No, I won’t—I swear I won’t!” Danni told him.
But Bravik would only hold her close while she cried herself to sleep. No matter how she begged, he wouldn’t even try to bond her to him.
And she didn’t see any way to change his mind.
Thirty-Three
Another week passed and now the idea of the Mother Ship and all the people aboard it seemed like a dream to Danni. She sensed that the memories of their old life were growing dim to Bravik too, although he still mentioned their mission from time to time.
Though he still refused to try bonding her to him, they were closer than ever. It was getting more and more difficult to imagine ever leaving Soluu Four again. It seemed that they had always been there, among the H’rakens, and that they would always be there.
The two of them were noticeably younger now. Anyone who looked at Danni would have thought she was a young woman in her twenties and anyone who looked at Brav would have seen a virile warrior in the first bloom of youth and strength.
But again, the youthening process—which showed no signs of stopping—didn’t seem to matter. Nothing mattered but being together and the Adoration of the Mother Stone, which they performed every night on a couch made of the sentient sand.
They might have gone on like that until they got so young and forgetful that they were unable to return to the Mother Ship at all. But that was when the harvest happened and everything changed…
Thirty-Four
“You’re sure you’re ready?” Kozen asked, taking a firmer grip on his long, curving scythe.
“Ready.” Brav nodded and took a firmer grip on his own tool. The long metal hook they would use to harvest the grain the H’raken’s grew in a field outside their village gates looked lethal enough, but he also had his blaster clipped to his belt. He hadn’t forgotten the last time they’d gone outside the protective fence and what had happened to Jerber. This time the entire village was going so he needed to be even more vigilant.
Harvesting was an event the H’rakens seemed to look forward to and dread at the same time. It was a celebration of life—a time for everyone to work together for the communal good. At the same time, it was a time of fear.
From what Brav could gather—though most of the males wouldn’t talk about it—the Riivers had been getting more and more aggressive lately. At the last harvest, they had dragged away one of the young females who was not yet Joined and she had never been seen again, though her name was still spoken in whispers by some of the H’rakens.
Brav had tried asking why no one had gone after her, but he couldn’t get a clear answer. No one, it seemed, wanted to talk about the deadly Riivers and the threat they posed to the village.
He was determined to keep an eye on Danielle, who would be coming with the other women to gather the sheaves of long, purple wheat after the men cut them. From what he had heard, the Riivers almost always went for the younger members of the tribe—maybe because their meat was more tender and juicy—when they were looking for prey. And right now, the curvy little Earth female looked at least twenty-five years younger than she had when he’d first met her.
Brav knew he was looking and feeling considerably younger himself. Occasionally he thought that they needed to go back to the Mother Ship and tell what they had found here on Soluu Four. But then that idea would get chased out of his mind by the need to concentrate on some work he was doing, or seeing Danielle again after a whole day apart at the nightly feast, or pleasuring her during the Adoration of the Mother Stone, and he would forget why he was there and that he had ever been anyplace else in the first place.