Nikhil(7)

If they became injured, they would be killed.

If they just didn't move fast enough, they would be killed.

Apparently, the Zaludians thought the Ganglians could obtain an unending supply of slave labor. Mac didn't know how long they'd been on the Ganglian ship. She normally judged time by the position of the sun. There was no sun on that ship. There was no sun in the caves, but it became readily apparent that she and Jen were not going to be able to do the work the Zaludians demanded.

Mac had inspected the cave they'd been led to, hoping to find a way out. Instead, in the deepest part of the cave she found a narrow opening, hidden behind a large rock. Working her way into it, she found it opened up into another smaller cave. Returning, she told them what she had found.

She and Jen had hidden there, remaining relatively safe, as one of the guys worked a double shift to cover for them. Mac had never felt more useless in her life as she watched the men come back shift after shift exhausted and with small injuries. She did what she could for them while Jen attempted to make the food they were given go farther.

That's how the Zaludians had discovered her. She'd been in the larger cave, treating a cut on one of the guys when a Zaludian suddenly appeared. He took one look at her and knew from the condition of her clothes that she was female. She could have made it back to the smaller cave, but that would have led the Zaludians to Jen, who had been badly injured. If they found her, the Zaludians would kill her. She'd told the guys not to fight, to let them take her. There was no reason for all of them to die for her.

She'd waited until they were away from the cave before she started to run. She wasn't going to let them rape her like the Ganglians had done to the Jerboaian females. She got away for a moment but ran straight into another Zaludian, and with one hit her world went black.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Nikhil stood as still and as silent as the mountain he was often compared to. His glowing, green eyes kept close watch on the deep-repair unit as it continued to work on his True Mate. How had this happened? What could he have ever done in his life for the Goddess to bless him with a True Mate? Especially such a small and fragile one.

He knew what others saw when they looked at him. A monstrously, large male that they only wanted around when there was a threat. When the threat was gone, they wanted him gone too for they worried he would demand more than his share of their food stores because of his size. It had been that way since he was a very young male.

He'd been lucky. He knew that. While his father wasn't a Warrior, he had worked for Minister Descarga on the planet Dzhalil. Minister Descarga was one of the few ministers that shared the excess food stores he and his family didn't need with his people instead of selling them for extra credits. It made him very popular with the citizens he served.

When Nikhil started growing astoundingly large, Descarga had been one of the few that hadn't believed it was because he was receiving extra rations. He sat Nikhil down and told him he was this way because it was the will of the Goddess, that she must have something very important for him to do, and she needed his size to achieve it. It was only then that Descarga made sure Nikhil received what he needed to accomplish it; education, training, and yes, extra food rations. But Descarga made Nikhil understand that he expected Nikhil to make sure extras would go to others when Nikhil was in the position to receive more than he needed.

Nikhil had vowed that he would, and he worked hard to keep that promise. He was only twenty-one when he'd achieved Elite Warrior status, and then became the youngest Warrior to ever become a Squad Leader.

Thanks to his father's continued position with Minister Descarga, Nikhil didn't have to help supplement his family's food stores, as so many other Elite Warriors did. So to keep his vow to Minister Descarga, he began distributing his extra rations to individuals wherever he was stationed. If he couldn't do that, then he would distribute credits, so the citizens were able to purchase what they needed.

That couldn't be enough to be gifted with a True Mate, could it?

Seeing his True Mate twitch slightly as if she remembered something painful, he took a step closer and cursed the closed dome of the repair unit that kept him from reaching out to comfort her. Knowing she couldn't feel it, he still put his hand on the dome as close to hers as he could.

"She knows you are near." Luol walked up to stand beside him.

"Truth?"

"Yes. I came to see why her heart rate had increased, but as soon as you moved closer and put your hand on the dome, it returned to normal."

"It did?"

"Yes."

"What am I to do, Luol?" Nikhil finally pulled his gaze from Mackenzie, and Luol saw the anguish in them.