She was only barely aware of the words. He smelled of spices. He was very warm. She felt safe in the shelter of his strength. But the sensations were frightening to a woman who’d never felt them.
He searched her eyes quietly. “I damaged you in the process of saving your life,” he said curtly.
“Hahnson can heal the wounds,” she said simply, fighting to breathe. Claws had punctured her lung in one of the lower lobes. Still...”I would have been dead, had you not intervened. Thank you.”
He hadn’t blinked. “You obeyed me without question. Yet you thought I was commanding you to leap to your death.”
“Of course,” she said, puzzled. “I’ve never refused a command from you, sir. Well, not unless it involved carrying a firearm,” she added facetiously.
That was true. It touched him, at some deep level, that blind trust.
His eyes had darkened again and narrowed. His lean hands, propped beside her ears, tensed. The low growl came again.
“Sir?” she whispered, uneasy.
“We are predators,” he said in a rough tone. “There is a saying among us, that nothing in the known galaxies is as dangerous as a Cehn-Tahr male who is hunting.”
She wondered what that had to do with their present situation and what he meant by “hunting.” Did he mean the combat with the Rojoks? She started to ask. But even as she nursed the thought, the sound of footsteps, running, broke the tense silence.
Dtimun got to his feet in a quick, graceful motion and drew Madeline up with him, steadying her when she stumbled.
Hahnson came into view, huffing a little from the exertion. “We saw her fall!” he exclaimed. “Is she all right?”
Several human crewmen, and Dtimun’s Cehn-Tahr bodyguard, fetched up beside them. The humans were astonished.
“A tree broke my fall,” she lied with a laugh. She couldn’t admit that Dtimun had touched her. If anyone repeated the story, he could be spaced for breaking such a basic law among his own people as contact with a human female, even in the act of saving her life. “Well, several trees broke my fall,” she amended. “I’m fine, except for a hell of a backache,” she told Hahnson with a wan smile. She winced as she moved. The punctures were deep. “I got hit on the head, too. I need some patching up.”
Hahnson glanced at Dtimun, who was looking more dangerous by the second. “I can do that. We need to get you back aboard the scout ship.”
“That can wait,” she returned. “There’s a battle to win.”
“Indeed,” Dtimun said coldly. He whirled, shooting orders in his own language at his bodyguard. “The rest of you, wait here. And you will say nothing of what you see to anyone outside this unit. Is that clear?”
There was a chorus of affirmatives. Even as they died on the air, Dtimun and the four members of his bodyguard vanished like red smoke. The Terravegans had seen their C.O. move fast before, but never like this; not in almost three years.
Hahnson ran his wrist unit over Madeline while the other crewmen spread out, looking for survivors of the battle, along with a handful of medics.
Hahnson gritted his teeth. “These wounds are bad. One of them would have been fatal if I hadn’t been close by,” he added as he mended bone and muscle.
“He didn’t mean...to do it,” she panted, wincing as the pain bit into her. She’d hidden it from Dtimun, but she didn’t have to hide it from Strick. It hurt to breathe. “He saved me, Strick,” she said in a low tone. “He came up the cliff and caught me in midair, leaped from rock to rock to get me safely to the ground. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”
“They have incredible strength and flexibility,” he said as he worked.
“You won’t mention this?” she worried and relaxed when he shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to land him in trouble with his own people. I’m not sure it’s safe to tell our own crewmates that he carried me down.”
“They wouldn’t tell.”
“They wouldn’t mean to tell,” she corrected. The pain eased as he mended the punctures. “The Cehn-Tahr keep so many secrets.”
“More than I can ever tell you,” he returned solemnly.
She studied him curiously. “He said an odd thing.”
“What?”
“That there was nothing in the galaxies more dangerous than a Cehn-Tahr male who was hunting.”
He let out a breath. His eyes met hers and concern was in them. “Oh, dear.”
“What do you mean, oh...?”
Suddenly, in the distance there were horrible screams. They were coming from the top of the mesa. Everyone looked up.
Bodies erupted from the bare rock and, falling heavily from the mesa, came to rest in the forest, breaking tree limbs as they careened down toward the canyon floor. Seconds later, Dtimun appeared with the small Rojok officer who’d taunted him with Madeline. The humans gathered close, fascinated. They’d never seen such speed.
Dtimun had the alien by the collar of his uniform. He shook him and threw him at Madeline’s feet while the nearby humans gathered closer.
“I...apologize,” the Rojok said in a thready voice.
“Again!” Dtimun prompted.
“I...am...sorry,” came the obliging reply.
The little alien had rips all over his uniform, and lacerations on every visible inch of skin. It occurred to Madeline that he was much like a mouse that had been caught by a cat.
“An appropriate analogy,” Dtimun thought to her.
She looked at him with surprise. “You were playing with him,” she thought back, shocked.
He cocked an eyebrow. He still spoke only in her mind. “It is not a game. He would have allowed us to watch him cut you to ribbons before he killed you. He is a sadist who enjoys torturing his victims. He has killed females who did not please him.”
She blinked. “There are still laws. Even a prisoner is entitled to trial...”
He closed his eyes. The Rojok arched. There was a loud, violent snap. He lay still. Dtimun’s eyes opened, stormy and cold, and looked, defiantly, right into Madeline’s.
No one spoke. Their commanding officer had killed an enemy combatant with the power of his mind alone. For the first time, Madeline realized what he could have done at Ahkmau if the dylete hadn’t caught him unaware. Perhaps it was also why Mangus Lo had been so desperate to capture him. Had the Rojok tyrant known the power of Dtimun’s mind?
“That is not a question I will permit you to ask,” came the terse reply, but only in her mind.
The humans had unconsciously moved closer together in the wake of their commander’s violent response to the Rojok. He glanced at them, slowly calming.
“There are things Holconcom never share with outworlders,” he told them quietly. “We have genetic enhancements which give us great advantage in combat, far beyond our natural strength. In addition to the enhancements, I can kill with my mind. Of this, you will never speak.” He had broken another taboo. But, then, they were his people, these humans. He was protective of them.
Higgins, the engineer, moved forward. He was pale, but not intimidated. “Sir, we are Holconcom, too,” he said with dignity. “It would never occur to any of us to betray any confidence you share with us.”
“Exactly,” Lieutenant Jennings, the communications