Page 13 of Devin
It was neither. It was a woman. A human in the ugliest outfit Jane had seen in a long time. Her long, baggy pants and gigantic gray sweatshirt were not going to last long in this heat. Her long black hair was pulled back into a scraggly ponytail, wrenched partly out of place. The acrid smell of puke lingered in the jungle air. That wasn't unusual. Jane herself had nearly tossed her cookies when she'd come through that particular un-amusement ride.
With her boot, Jane flipped the woman over with a firm but gentle shove.
"Jesus Fucking Christ," she said after a closer look at the woman.
The left side of the woman's face was a mass of unattended bruises. Someone had punched her hard. Maybe it was the hormones, but Jane immediately went into mother mode. It was a new experience for her.
"Zenik!" she called out.
Her husband came running, knife in hand. He was good like that. There was nothing finer than an Etlonian Mahdfel bursting out of the jungle like a green panther, ready for danger.
"We need to get her back to the transport," he said. Jane nodded.
If Jane had been alone, she would have thrown the woman over her shoulders and taken her to the ship herself. Now that she was thinking for two and her husband was oh-so-handy, she let him do the heavy lifting. He picked up the prone woman like she weighed nothing and carried her back to the transport. Jane followed along behind, watching her husband's butt flex in his tight shorts. There were definitely some advantages to taking the rear guard.
Zenik laid the woman gently on the side bench in the back and then took his spot at the controls. He fired up the engines and closed the hatch ramp in quick succession.
"Where's the med bay kit?" Jane asked as she searched around for the large box that generally was mounted to the inside of the transport.
"It is not there," Zenik called back.
"Where is it?"
"Scrubs wanted it for training." He paused and then as if angry at himself, "I should not have brought you with me in the absence of a med kit."
Jane rolled her eyes. The Mahdfel med kits were practically magic compared to human standards. It could fix her face up in a blink with no scarring. Jane was just worried about traumatic brain injuries. She searched the woman, lifting the big sweatshirt. She didn't appear to have any other bruises. Good. Internal injuries had a way of sneaking up and killing a person en route.
"We should go to Scrubs. It's closer," Jane suggested.
"No. Let's go home. She'll be fine on the way," Zenik assured her.
Jane felt the craft accelerate and head upwards. Zenik was taking the fast way home, pulling up into the upper atmosphereand then dropping down near the camp. It used a lot of fuel but it was a hell of a lot quicker than flying slowly near the surface.
"Where did you come from?" Jane asked as she stroked the woman's hair and tried to gently pull strands of it away from her bruise.
No response, although from the look of her, Jane didn’t expect one.
"She is Terran, is she not?" Zenik called.
"Yeah, but I didn't think that there were any warriors left to match up with."
"They all have their mates. All except..." Zenik didn't have to finish. All except the architect, Devin, who had made it clear that he could care less about women. She'd never met a Mahdfel so adamant that he didn't want nor need a mate. Apparently, Athen, the warlord and boss of the planet, had had similar protestations, but once he'd met Odette, his heart had melted. Jane hadn't been around for that. She and the rest of the Earth girls had all been matched after Kave took over.
Kave felt that every warrior should be matched. To not want a woman was unnatural. Jane thought that was full of shit. There were plenty of Terrans that wanted to go it alone, and many who chose to live and work in unconventional relationships. Whatever floated your boat, that was Jane's motto.
"She looks like she's just escaped from somewhere. Maybe she's not matched, just somehow thought here was better than wherever she was. She didn't have any luggage. All the matches have luggage."
"Then she will probably be sent back to Terra. Though Mahdfel can technically claim any property that comes through the portal."
Jane said nothing. One reason for going to the new settlement rather than the old one was that Kave was in charge of the new city while Athen was in the settlement. Kave wasdefinitely easier to manipulate. He practically did everything Jane suggested as if it were his own idea. She'd learned that talking to Kave was an easier way not to piss off the architect who, let's just say, was slightly prickly when it came to the wives. Jane had been under the command of a man like that before, so every time she went in to speak with him, Jane went full soldier, everything short and to the point with no frills attached. Devin seemed to appreciate that communication style. He always listened and took her words under advisement.
Either way, Jane was not about to let them send this woman out and back to where she came from. They had plenty of space, and a whole city on the way. There was definitely enough room for one more on Noven 90, or Etlon 2 or whatever they ended up calling this place.
Right now, the city had no name. Kave had quickly been talked out of ‘Humility’ by his wife who thought that her name would be a ridiculous one for a city. Since then, they had dithered back and forth, and no one had quite settled on a name. Everyone just called it ‘the city’, which was fine by Jane, as long as they only had one city. It would probably be at least five years before that one would be finished and who knows how long for another to pop up.
"Don't worry, sweetheart,” Jane whispered to the unconscious woman, smoothing her hair back out of her face. “I'm gonna take care of you."
Chapter 8
