One
Miranda
“I told you, I’m fine.” Reba struggled to sit up, but Ward placed a firm hand on her shoulder, keeping her in place.
“You nearly fell, and I won’t have my mate endangering herself, or our chit,” he announced as he sat down beside her on their bed. “I’ll stay here to make sure you take care of yourself.”
“You know it pains me to agree with his big blue ass, but he’s right,” I said from my standing position at the end of their bed.
Reba glared at me as, “Traitor,” was mumbled under her breath.
I held back a laugh. “You fell and could have hit your head. Val said your blood pressure was a little low. So, relax, drink your fluids, and enjoy the company of your baby daddy.”
“Yes, mother.” Reba sassed as she avoided my gaze, ruffling the ears of her pet welf, Luna. She knew I was right. I could understand not wanting to be confined to a bed, but too bad. It was her own fault for getting knocked up on a foreign planet by a horned alien.
She sighed and reached for Ward’s hand. “But you wanted to go hunting with your brother. You should have your sibling bonding time.”
Said brother, Gar, stood in the corner of the hut looking like he wanted to be anywhere else. I knew Gar well enough to know he had no idea what sibling bonding time was, nor did he care.
“Gar and I have gone hunting thousands of times and we’ll go hunting thousands more.”
“Fine,” Reba sighed. “I’ll just sit here, I guess. God, I miss trashy reality TV. I could really go for some 90 Day Fiancé right now.”
“You’re on your own, brother,” Ward said. “I’m staying with my mate.”
And just like that, I pounced. “I’ll go with him!”
Reba lifted her eyebrows at me and from the corner of my eye, I saw Gar jerk his big body in surprise. “Nit,” he growled.
I whirled on him, knowing this was going to be a fight. “Yes, I’m going with you. I’ve been wanting to learn how to you track and hunt.”
“Why?” Ward asked. “It’s not safe for you out there and we have dozens of males here who can hunt.”
Okay, I knew that. I knew I was supposed to be quiet and sit pretty inside the walls of the clavas for the Night Kings—a Drixonian warrior clan on Torin where we’d been deposited by some other asshole aliens who’d snatched us out of our beds on Earth.
The problem was I didn’t want to sit back and let these aliens take care of me. I didn’t want to rely on them for every aspect of my survival. I wanted to be an active participant, to learn how to stay alive and provide for my girls. They were my priority. The other Earth women—there were seven of us now—were everything to me. I’d practically raised my five younger siblings on Earth because my parents worked long, odd hours, so the maternal protector in me couldn’t quit.
There was another reason I wanted to learn about tracking, a reason I hadn’t told anyone about yet, because the last thing I wanted to do was worry the girls. It was my job to worry about them. Three of them were pregnant by these aliens. They didn’t need to worry about me, the girl who could barely see because I relied on contacts. When I was drugged and taken from Earth, my captors hadn’t been accommodating enough to grab my glasses off my nightstand. So, I’d been walking around this damn planet in a perpetual, near-sighted blur.
I’d adapted … sort of. I could distinguish people from a distance based on their stature, posture, and walk. Which was okay as long as I stayed within these walls. And while I was confident in the ability of these aliens to protect me and the girls, I had never been comfortable relying on anyone. The best person who could watch out for me was me.
Therefore, I needed to make up for my lack of 20/20 vision. And that meant getting up close and personal with the wilderness outside of these gates under the tutelage of Gar Garundum, the deadliest warrior on this whole planet.
The other women might have been shacking up and getting knocked up, but that wasn’t for me. I never wanted kids, and I never really wanted a husband either. On Earth, I’d liked my independent life and my apartment with everything where I wanted it. My bed had stayed made, my closet organized, and my toilet seat down. Just because I was on an alien planet didn’t mean I suddenly changed my mind about finding a life partner. I would be perfectly fine enjoying my freedom and being there for my girls.
“I don’t like knowing I can’t take care of myself,” I explained. “I want to learn things. And I can’t learn all I need to do if I stay within these walls.”
Gar growled low in his throat, turned, and stomped outside, his tail slapping the door as he went.
I grinned triumphantly at Reba, who snickered.
“See you soon, sweetheart,” I called over my shoulder.
“Love you, Miranda!” She hollered back. “Stay safe!”
“Always,” I shut the door behind me. I spun to see Gar already striding toward the gates. I had to sprint to catch up with him, the long-legged jerk. “So,” I chirped happily as I reached his side. “What’re we hunting today?”
This was the thing with Gar and me. He could “nit” at me all day and grump and give me the silent treatment, but I knew deep down he liked me. We had an easy-going brother-sister type relationship. Well, one where I talked at him, and he scowled back, but there were times I felt him relax in my presence. There was something about him I felt a connection to, and he must have felt it too, because I was the only female he tolerated for more than a few minutes.
“Antella,” he grunted back as his tail thumped the ground once.
I grinned. I’d won this small battle.
Antella were a deer-like antlered animal with a thin furred skin the Drixonians used for a variety of purposes. The meat tasted like chicken, and we’d had a lot of fun in the kitchen experimenting with sauces and native spices to spruce it up.
“Meet me at the gates in a yora,” he grumped and then stopped to narrow his eyes and assess me. I glanced down at my clothing, which was a loose shirt in the cotton-like material Anna made, along with a pair of leather shorts and sandals. “Wear long pants in the forest,” he grunted. “And proper foot covering.”
I grinned at his back as he walked away. Gar could frown all he wanted—deep down he had a big heart.
I lived in the end unit of a row of rooms that resembled a one-story motel. The guys had built it in a day for us because we weren’t keen to share the multi-story barracks with the rest of the warriors. So me, Tabitha, Justine, and Naomi each had our own space. I loved it. In the corner was my palette piled high with furs. Hap had made me a dresser where I stored my few items of clothing. The rest I filled with flowers and plants. The flora of this planet captivated me.
Back on Earth, I’d filled my office at the law firm with succulents and perennials. At my home, my balcony was practically a jungle and on weekends—when I wasn’t dealing with a crisis from one of my five siblings—I could be found elbow deep in dirt in my garden. I was so grateful this was a lush planet with colorful blooms and enough blue-leafed plants to fill my room and then some.
I opened my drawer and pulled out one of my three pairs of antella-leather pants. I closed the drawer, remembering when all of us women had explained to Hap what a dresser was. He’d been so eager to get started, and even carved decorative handles. He had been our favorite from the start when we arrived on this planet, confused and terrified. He had a gentleness about him we’d responded to immediately.