She kept trying to convince herself the bastard hadn’t killed him, but she knew in her heart that Zhor would have come after her and tried to protect her no matter how badly he was hurt—if he was able.
Grief embraced her in a cold, black shroud and threatened to pull her down into an abyss. She wept. She didn’t know if she would’ve been more in control if she hadn’t been weakened by the pain of her own injuries, but she couldn’t seem to care enough to try to preserve her pride. “He’s not dead,” she muttered over and over like a mantra that she could use to convince herself was true. “He can’t be dead.”
“Bird man no dead,” Tor growled after a while.
Annika sucked in a sharp breath, a shaft of hopefulness penetrating her gloom. “He’s not? You’re sure?”
“Sure. Now shut mouth.”
Anger flickered through her, but she honestly just didn’t have the energy for anger, or the strength.
He’d given her a tiny flicker of hope to hang on to, however, and she was able to divide her mind between worry over Zhor, wondering whether her own injuries were severe enough to kill her, and trying to figure out how thezorphhad managed to learn enough English to manage rudimentary communication.
They had to have been around English speaking people, she knew. She just didn’t know how that was possible.
Briefly, she considered the possibility that Zhor had been right about thezorphcapturing her crewmembers when they’d taken the ship. She didn’t think she could rule that out—not completely—but she had a major problem with it.
Thezorphseemed to have a stronger grasp on English than Zhor did—or that she’d managed to learn of his language from Zhor.
From that she could either deduce that thezorphwere smarter than her and Zhor or that thezorphhad been exposed to English speaking people much, much longer.
Well! Not for one minute was she going to consider it possible that thezorphwere smarter than Zhor was—let alone smarter than her!
But if she discarded the captive theory, where did that leave her?
There’d been other manned expeditions before she and her crew had arrived?
That was almost as hard to believe.
Why send her and her crew to survey if they’d already sent people?
And what had thezorphmeant when he’d saidtheywanted her dead?
‘They’ who?
* * * *
Annika was fairly certain by the third day that she was going to survive the attempt to bash her head in by the bastard that had probably killed Zhor.
She wasn’t so sure she was going to survive her grief—or that she wanted to.
She felt as if she’d lost the only beautiful thing she’d had in her life and she had nothing to look forward to.
She kept going over and over everything that had transpired between her and Zhor from the time he’d caught her, saved her life the first time. And all she managed to convince herself of was that she hadn’t appreciated enough how special he was or realized how very dear he’d become to her.
She didn’tcarethat he was a different species—an alien being! She loved everything about him! He’d made her feel beautiful, desirable, feel safe, protected.
She hadn’t been truly afraid of this world as long as he was with her.
Not that he hadn’t scared her shitless with his flying acrobatics, but she hadn’t felt threatened by any of that. She’d known he wouldn’t hurt her or willingly allow her to be hurt.
She couldn’t remember not feeling that way—when she was with him.
Now, even through her pain and grief, she felt terror clawing at her mind, threatening to completely unhinge her.
In vain, she tried to convince herself that Tor was right and Zhor wasn’t dead.
Days had passed, though. She knew Zhor would have come after her if he was able.
