Chapter Fourteen
Zhor settled on the canopy of a giantMotavetree, ignoring the urge to move closer, and released Annika from her harness.“I think we are safe enough here. I have been this close many times and have not gotten ill.”
Annika glanced at him questioningly when he spoke.
Zhor lifted one arm and pointed out the building that had once been the center of government for their realm.“That is where our Sovereign and the lawmakers met ... in the time before. They are all dead now, of course, and the laws they made gone ... just like most everything else is gone.
“Not that I saw any of this or know about it firsthand. It was already gone and fading from memory when I was born. But thatwasin the days when they thought that they could rebuild and pick up where they left off.
“My parents used to talk about it--my mother especially. She would tell me I had to do my lessons because when everything got back to normal I would have no place if I was ignorant, no job—no assets to earn a mate.”
He grimaced at the memory with a mixture of wry amusement and pain.“As you see, that prediction came to fruition! I had no interest in the lessons she was trying to teach and now I have no mate and nothing to offer one ... beyond the skills I learned at hunting and the strength I could offer at fighting off rogues and such.”
He turned to study her assessingly, feeling a hard knot of misery form in his belly as the veil of fantasy was peeled away and reality set in.“But I have nothing to interest you at all, do I? Mayhap a woman of Qintara—for in these times having a protector and provider are the only thing of any true value since they mean the difference between life and death—but not one from the world you left behind.”
He moved closer to her, lightly stroking her upturned face.“What do you say, my pretty Ah-na? Will you give up all that you left for this strange alien man? This being who is called Zhor and who is from a crippled world that has very little to offer—perhaps a little more than he does?
Annika stared up at him with an overwhelming sense that he was asking her something very important. Frustration flooded her. Everything about his body language seemed to say he was asking her the one question she had always wanted to hear. She thought, from the few words she understood that that supported her ‘feeling’ that he was saying he wanted her to stay with him, but she wasn’t sure. Sheneededto be sure!
How embarrassing would it be to jump up and down and scream ‘yes’ if he wasn’t saying what she thought, asking her to be his?
And did she feel like jumping up and down with joy if itwasa declaration?
She frowned when he dropped his hand and turned away, felt a nearly overwhelming urge to weep.
Had she lost her chance?
Saying she was right and he was asking her to stay with him, did she want to say yes?
Stupid question!
She knew she wouldn’t have instantly leapt to the conclusion that he was asking her to be his woman if it wasn’t something she wanted—at least on an emotional level.
On a practical level?
Could she honestly see herself living like the people on this world lived?
Truthfully, that was a damned scary and sobering proposition ... despite the nearly overwhelming urge she felt to scream ‘yes’ at the top of her lungs.
On the other hand, it was beginning to look like she might not have a choice.
That thought jolted her unpleasantly, filling her with a sense of guilt.
Zhor deserved better than to be chosen because there wasn’t another option, she thought, upset that that thought had even crossed her mind. He wasn’t just ‘better than nothing’. He was a prize!
He was handsome and sweet and thoughtful and he took care of her and protected her!
She shook the thought after a moment as something more compelling occurred to her. She didn’t evenknowthat that was what he was trying to say and she couldn’t take him up on it anyway—not now. This city wasproofthat this world/his people were advanced enough to decide whether to allow the company to claim the land they wanted. It belonged to Zhor and his people—and the others that had fought and died and worked so hard to tame this world and build a civilization.
This wasn’t about her anymore.
It wasn’t even just about Zhor!
It went beyond both of them!
Shehadto get back and make sure the company knew they couldn’t just claim this world for themselves!
God! She hadn’t eventhoughtabout it that way before! All she’d been thinking about was her job! She’d thought about it being a political nightmare if she’d guessed right, but even at that she hadn’t realized just how advanced Zhor’s people had been—what it meant tothem!My god! Looking at the city, she could see they couldn’t have been more than a few hundred years, at most, behind Earth people in their advancement and technology!
