11 Jessa
Istaggered along behindthe syto assigned to me, my hands held up by whatever invisible force connected my dumb alien cuffs to the dumb alien device he held.We’d been on the move since dawn, and my feet ached, the thin socks I was wearing did nothing to protect me from the hot ground and millions of tiny sharp rocks I was walking over.
Tovis strode along beside me, his huge hooves kicking up the same rocks that were stabbing me like hyper aggressive legos.He seemed fully recovered from his battle the day before and he’d told me turochs could heal from almost any wound if they went into a healing sleep.
Which meant the whole time he’d been unconscious and I’d been terrified he was dying, he’d actually been healing at super speeds.I didn’t know how I felt about that.Actually, between my achy feet, and lingering headache, I was wishing I could magically transform into a turoch.
When they’d pulled up the stake this morning and Tovis had rose to his full height, I’d looked at our captors and realized he could easily free himself.Then they’d told him point blank that if he did anything vaguely threatening, they’d kill me first.
Which meant once again, I was the reason Tovis was in captivity.I was the handicap he couldn’t overcome.I’d never felt more useless.
We’d been walking about a mile from the edge of the city, circling the business district from a distance.I spotted a sign for a strip club I’d passed before and tried to orient myself, but it had been so long since I’d been outside and I never really went anywhere but home, work and the tiny grocery store between those two points.
It had probably been years since I’d been this way, and back when there were humans, it was kind of a sketchy area.
“Were you serious?”I asked Tovis.“About the mate thing?”
His ears perked up and he grinned.“Ulto is the most serious tradition a turoch can undertake.”A slightly naughty look crossed his face, and he batted my hip with his tail.“Other than the gentling of course.”
I peered up at him, wishing the sun wasn’t glaring directly into my eyes.Both his ears were tilted toward me, his eyes sparking and his full lips were pulled up into an almost devilish smile.That look was trouble, no doubt about it.
“From the look on your face, I don’t think I want to know what that is,” I finally decided.
“You do.It’s a gift to our mates, proof of our prowess and affection.I have been planning my gentling since before I left my mother band.It will be worthy of many,manyrepeatings around the fire.”
Yup, wasn’t touching that statement with a ten-foot pole.
“Do I get a say in this?”I demanded.“Or do you just ‘claim’ me and I have to go along with it?”
“You are free to do what you will,” he answered easily, like he wasn’t even a little worried about his chances.“It is not uncommon for a male to claim ulto and a female to ignore him until he is shamed.”
I grimaced.“I don’t want toshameyou.I just don’t want to get swooped up and turned into some kind of slave bride.”
“Turoch mates are not slaves,” he said firmly.“They are precious and beloved.I will not force you to do anything.Ulto simply makes it known that I want you, and that no other male may pursue you until you deny my claim.”
**
The sytos around uswere acting oddly.Their shoulders were tense, their freaky hair tentacles were coiled up tight like angry snakes waiting to strike and they started moving quicker as they turned toward the city.
“Are we close?”I whispered to Tovis.
He shrugged, but his eyes stayed on our captors.“We haven’t found their camp yet, but from the way they’re acting, I suspect they’re bracing themselves for something.”
Bracing themselves.I’d already noticed that none of the sytos seemed happy to be returning to their camp.The guy in charge had already stated that he expected to be seriously punished for being late.
I supposed that wasn’t completely abnormal.Even people who volunteered for the military could expect some sort of repercussion for messing things up.But something about the way these aliens acted about their Kwin made me think they were utterly terrified of her.
“They don’t like the lady in charge, do they?”I asked.
