“He thinks everyone is dead,” Doctor muttered. “Though in this case, yes, the English are very much dead.”
Colban at last looked up. “Eventually we all die, old mon.”
“Well we don’t need you putting everyone into early graves!”
Colban shrugged. He looked back down at James who was finally stirring. “I’m not feeding him like you fed Lady Octavia. A mon is not a mon if he canna feed himself.”
Chapter Six
She liked the Highlanders. The remaining four had found their way to the makeshift camp an hour ago. All of them save Angus and Colban were jovial, quick to humor men. Of course, she supposed Angus had to be the serious one since he ruled so many. And Colban, she’d quickly learned, was just Colban. The warrior could giveSNL’sDebbie Downer a run for her money any day of the week. Either her or that little boy who saw dead people everywhere inThe Sixth Sense.
As luck would have it, the laird was getting an accounting from Niall and the other four Karrik warriors. It gave Octavia a chance to confer with James and Dr. Kincaid. She was especially interested in knowing what the professor had told Angus about their escape from Rome while she’d been knocked out.
As it turned out, the good doctor had been quick on his feet despite the grilling Angus had given him. Then again, she supposed he would have had to develop quick reflexes in order to stay alive under the Xenocanns’ close watch for all those years. Still, Dr. Kincaid had been wise not to stray too far from the truth. He’d merely wrapped up the truth about their origins into a story the Highlanders could understand.
James, on the other hand, was still quite busy freaking out about the translation device. “I wonder how the thing works,” he said, his tone amazed.
“It doesn’t matter. What concerns us is that it did work and we can now speak to our traveling companions. Speaking of which…” Octavia sighed. “For their safety and our ability to hunt, we better part company with them sooner rather than later.”
The words didn’t feel right as they came out of her mouth. She wasn’t the type of female who threw caution to the wind just because she was harboring an innocent little crush on a man, though. She had a mission—to kill the feeder—and everything in Octavia’s life had always come down to work. Truthfully, it was the only stability she’d known in her precarious thirty-two years.
Taken away from her opioid-addicted mother at age ten and never adopted, the commander simply didn’t understand the concept of family and friends. The closest thing she had by comparison had been SEAL Team 9. At the end of each mission, her men went home to their women while she went home to a threadbare apartment. Between missions she kept herself busy perfecting her training in the martial arts. She’d dated here and there, but never anything serious. Yet now there was this huge, battle-scarred warlord from the ancient past, a relic in his own right, who had managed in one damn day to get under her skin. She didn’t like it, but neither could she seem to help it. It was ironic that she’d finally felt an instant attraction to someone she could never tell the full truth about herself to.
“And let’s suppose for a moment you manage to track down the Xenocann and kill it,” Dr. Kincaid said, interrupting her thoughts. “Then what?”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “You’re stuck here whether you wish to be or not. All of us are. So what happens after you kill the feeder?”
“I haven’t really thought about it.” Octavia blew out a breath. “We find someplace and start over, I guess. Someplace safe.”
“My dear,” Dr. Kincaid reasoned, “this is the Middle Ages. As a woman, the only safe place for you is beside a man.”
“We’ve all seen the way Hercules looks at you.” James grinned. “I highly suspect he’d like to be that man.”
“Unless you and James are…” the doctor began. He coughed into his hand. “I mean to say—”
“We’re not,” Octavia cut in. “He’s like a brother to me.”
It was true. She and James had always gotten on like a big sister and younger brother. Theirs was quite possibly the most stable relationship of her life, but there simply was no spark between them. Besides, James had been married clear up until a year before the invasion. He had still been licking his divorce wounds when the aliens came. No, she simply couldn’t think of James in that way.
“Look, Octavia,” James said, his expression serious. “I’m beginning to think the doctor is right.”
“What do you mean?”
“It can’t hurt to go home with them. It’ll not only give us time to regroup, but it’ll also give us somewhere to go back to when the feeder is dead.”
“Well…”
“It’s not like we can ask for their address and rejoin them at a later date.”
The lieutenant had a point. She wasn’t altogether convinced it was the right plan, but it was the only one anyone had suggested thus far. If she was honest with herself, going with the Highlanders did hold some appeal. Her biggest worry was that the Xenocann would get too far away from them. It would surely head south, not north.
“All right,” Octavia slowly agreed. “But once we get there we have to regroup and track it quickly.”
“Of course.” This from James. “Just give me a day or three to check out the local Karrik maidens.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
She half-snorted and half-laughed. “Don’t get us kicked out of Karrik country by angry papas wanting to bash your brains in.”
