Bay's Mercenary [Unearthly World Book 1] Read online

  The creature, Zane, looked at Bay, then into his son’s hopeful expression; he finally nodded, and with a growl, looked up at the ceiling. The child whooped in delight. Blu left; the door closed behind him with a loud bang before Bay had time to react. Bay screeched and went flying towards the door. Blu took care of her, why was he leaving her here? Where was he going? She had been positive he would return her to Finn.

  “Blu?” she cried out in her agonized voice, as she had yet to heal. “Blu wait.” She pounded on the door.

  Bay hammered her fists against the hard wooden surface until they hurt; the double doors were fifteen feet high and a foot thick. She howled for Blu to come back until she was hoarse. Blu took care of her; he fed her and kept her warm. What if this new being was like the Tonan, what if he hurt her? Why did Blu abandon her? What had she done? Bay sobbed in dismay; she sank slowly to the ground calling for Blu, for Finn. What had just happened? Her entire world was torn apart. New creatures stood near her; they weren’t familiar, and she didn’t know them. She felt so alone; once more she had been abandoned, betrayed and handed off to another like some unwanted pet.

  Bay continued to sob and felt a small hand touch her shoulder. The boy Zargonnii held up a funny-looking stuffed creature that had seen better days. His fuzzy hand stroked clumsily at her hair, and for a second, Bay had an overwhelming urge to just shove him away. She realized he was trying to make her feel better by giving her a toy—no doubt it had belonged to his last pet. Bay could have howled her misery. Doomed to spend her life as a child’s pet. The only thing she could do was wait until her throat healed enough to make someone listen, and learn as many new words as she could during that time.

  The boy continued to shake the stuffed creature at her until his father called him back. The boy moaned, walked to the far corner of the room and tossed the toy onto the black mattress. After a woeful look in Bay’s direction, he made his way into one of the other rooms. Bay stayed pressed tight to the door as the father approached her. It was easy to see he wasn’t happy with the situation, but when he squatted before her, his tone was calm.

  Zane looked similar to Blu, but there were definite differences in their facial features, enough to tell them apart. Zane’s cheekbones were higher and more prominent; his nose was a bit smaller. He had full, light bluish lips and Bay could see the purest white of his teeth with their odd spaces. A single white eyebrow stretched across both sides of his face, down his relatively bare neck to his furry shoulders and the top of his back. Since Bay had become used to these creatures, they weren’t nearly as frightening as she once thought they were.

  His crooning tone was genuine and he studied her. Large hands turned her face in his palms, and his thumb rubbed across her cheek; he wiped the moisture from her face. From experience, Bay knew tears weren’t an oddity to the Zargonnii. Perhaps they even understood it was an expression of sadness. Zane threaded his fingers through her long hair and Bay knew her soft tresses were a curiosity to these beings. The creature’s hair flowed to his lower back, but was thick and somewhat coarse like the fur on his body. When a breeze caught Zargonnii hair, it ruffled with its fullness as though the strands came to life, giving the Zargonnii a surreal look, it was intimidating, no doubt a tactical weapon of sorts—to creep your opponent out. There was no breeze in the home she had been taken to, and Zane’s mane-like hair was thicker than Blu’s had been. It lay full but flat against his broad back.

  At one time, when Finn was touching her, Bay had reached to stroke the oval bare spot on his belly; Finn had been a bit surprised, but he didn’t stop her. The skin on these creatures was incredibly hard and wrinkled in a fine line. Where a human man would have a six pack, these males seemed to have a ten pack. Bay understood why, after seeing Blu grow bigger and the skin expand to accommodate him. Just from touch, Bay had determined there wasn’t much that could penetrate a Zargonnii male warrior’s flesh. Zane examined her teeth, and Bay knew better than to bite—she didn’t want to be struck on the nose again. Many warriors on the ship had come to curiously gawk at her, but Finn and Blu didn’t let them touch her.

  When Zane touched one of her breasts over the material she wore, Bay squealed in protest and slunk back. Zane raised his hands in supplication; even pets had areas that were off limits. He fingered her clothes, frowning, and ran his hand down a bare leg; he examined her clear toenails. Her foot looked tiny in his huge hand. Bay suddenly knew how a horse up for auction felt. Finally satisfied, Zane scooped her up and placed her back onto the black mattress. After a quick search around the room, he picked up a small blanket and draped it over her. He motioned for her to stay, and with a shake of his head, he left her alone.

  Bay pulled the blanket snuggly around her. The room she was in was large, high ceilings stretched to about twenty feet; it was quiet…lonely. Though these creatures had managed space flight, and she thought them to be intelligent, she wondered at the primitive—lair. The home was like a den; from outside, it looked deceptively small. Blu had carried her from outside, down into a darker room; his eyes had grown brighter. Once through the darker room, they walked up into the open door—it was apparent Zane had been waiting for them. Zane had smiled at Blu before scowling at Bay.

  The way Blu’s body had tensed when they entered Zane’s home, Bay could tell there was a problem even as he plopped her onto the black mattress. Now, looking around, Bay couldn’t help but notice the quiet. On the ship there had always been noise: the males laughing, the engines humming, Blu’s crooning. Finn had kept her close as had Blu. One of them had always been in sight. She didn’t like being so alone. Bay rose and made her way to where the boy Zargonnii had disappeared. He seemed nice; it wasn’t his fault she was in this mess. She found him sitting on a bed scowling over a piece of paper—homework, no doubt.

  Bay waited, feeling anxious, at the foot of his bed. He noticed her immediately, smiled and encouraged her near him. The child was a miniature version of his father—but his appearance was cute, not frightening. Bay climbed onto the bed beside him, looked at his work and frowned. The odd patterns were the same and it became apparent he was supposed to be repeating different themes. It was simple, really, once you recognized the shapes; Bay didn’t think the child lacked intelligence. She studied him carefully; he was younger than she had first thought. He was so big she just assumed he was a pre-teen Zargonnii, but staring at his frown and gazing at the toys in the room, Bay had the feeling he was closer to a six-year-old in age.

  Bay took his thick pencil and filled in a space, completing a pattern. The child looked at her in wonder, and Bay pressed two fingers to her lips to ask him to stay quiet. She needed to speak before she would be accepted as intelligent. She also needed to find out what type of male Zane was. Would he be kind to her? If not, she needed to escape, and if he knew she was intelligent, he would be watching her.

  Bay smiled at the boy. “Bay,” she whispered and pointed at her chest.

  “Draven,” he replied and looked delighted. Once more Bay pressed her fingers to her lips. The child nodded conspiratorially.

  * * * *

  Zane glanced in the vacant corner where their new pet should be sitting. Damn. It was gone. He hoped it hadn’t slunk off to do its business in a dark corner. He should have turned it off, but for the life of him, he couldn’t find a switch as he examined her tiny body. Zane hurried to Draven’s room; Blu had said the creature was harmless, but it hadn’t been exposed to children. She may have looked harmless, but Zane knew a pet could suddenly turn psycho if provoked. The little female disliked her breasts touched—he would have to mention that to Draven; he would need to be respectful.

  When Zane entered his son’s room, he was surprised to see his son absorbed in the homework he normally detested and the female pet was sitting quietly beside him looking for all the world like she was interested in what he was doing—her eyes seemed to scan over the pages Draven flipped—weird. A toffling would have downed half the paper by now, therefore giving Draven
an excuse for the teacher—“But my pet ate my homework.”

  “Draven, that pet shouldn’t be on your bed,” Zane scolded.

  “Bay isn’t hurting anything, and uncle Blu said he had washed her. Besides she’s…” Draven stopped mid-sentence.

  “She’s what?”

  “She’s um, she isn’t disturbing me; she’s real quiet. Just having her beside me is a big help; I can concentrate.”

  “Really?” There was something strange going on, but Zane wasn’t certain what it was. “Well, go wash up; it’s time to eat and I know you’ve been petting that thing. Your hands are probably filled with germs.”

  Draven groaned and slipped from the bed. “Come on, Bay.”

  As Draven went past him, his pet followed. Zane scooped her up under an arm. “Oh no you don’t. The second you’ve washed your hands, you’ll be touching this thing again. She can sit on her mat until you’re done eating.”

  Draven looked none too happy but dutifully did as he was told. Zane took the pet back to their main living quarters and plopped the female onto her mat.

  “Stay,” he commanded sharply. He was annoyed she had disobeyed in the first place and raised his hand to smack her nose. The female made a high-pitched frightened noise and cowered back away from him. She backed up so quickly, she banged into the wall and howled a pathetic sound. Draven came flying into the room.

  “What did you do to my pet?” he demanded.

  “I was just teaching her some obedience.” Looking from the quaking female to his enraged son, Zane was feeling a little mean. The female’s big brown eyes looked so sad, Zane felt a touch remorseful, which was odd—it was a pet after all.

  “How would you like to be put in a strange place and left all alone?” Draven raged. “It’s frightening.”

  Zane took a deep breath. Draven was no longer a baby, but he still remembered being left by his mother in the jungle beyond the high fence close to their home. Zane also remembered the same experience when he was no more than a month old. At Draven’s young age, he also remembered his mother’s language—he would forget sometime in his adolescence. When Zane had found his squalling infant son, Zane had felt awash with sympathy. He could just make out the shadow of Draven’s mother’s back as she disappeared back in the direction to her own domain. Zane often wondered if it hurt a female to give up her son. It was for the best. The female of their species was unpredictable around males. A young male wouldn’t last, even if it had the protection of its mother in the female’s domain; there were just too many mothers of female offspring who wouldn’t tolerate a male so close to their young ones.

  Draven was on the mat, stroking the hair of the female. He was talking to it as though it could possibly understand their words. Toffs were intelligent, but even they only caught a word here and there. Zane crouched down beside his son.

  “It’s all right, little creature,” Zane soothed and reached to pet the female. “Good female.”

  “Bay,” his son said sharply.

  “It’s all right, Bay. All right, no corporal punishment. I suppose it is too small to be striking.”

  “You should give Bay a treat.”

  Now feeling a little cocky, Zane gave a hard stare to his son. “Really,” he drawled. “Why is that?”

  “Bay needs to know you won’t hurt her; she needs to trust you.”

  Zane sighed. He could see how important this was to Draven. He got to his feet and went to the kitchen. When he returned he held out his treat thinking the little female would like what he held. To Zane’s surprise, Bay screamed at the vida bug; she jumped to her feet, shot past him and fled to Draven’s room where they found her hiding under his bed. Both Draven and Zane peeked at her shivering form. She looked horrified.

  “Father, I don’t think Bay likes vida bugs.”

  “You think?” he drawled sarcastically.

  Chapter 5

  As the days went by, Bay was finding it more and more difficult to keep her intelligence under wraps. Zane was growing suspicious. Bay still wasn’t quite certain where she stood with him and wanted to keep him in the dark a little longer, but perhaps not too much longer. It was getting harder to do; there was something about Zane that she never noted with Blu. Finn and Blu had taken turns with her, with their rotating schedule, but Zane was around her a great deal. There were times Zane seemed so distracted and puzzled, Bay wondered if for a moment he was always like that, until Draven had asked his father point blank—“Father, why are you being so weird?” To which his father replied, somewhat under his breath—“Damned if I know.”

  Bay’s throat was healing to the point she felt she could now be understood, and Draven was teaching her to speak two separate languages. One was his father’s, the other she assumed was a child’s secret language. The secret language was guttural and animalistic, but fun in an odd way. Draven loved it when she spoke to him in the silly language—cuddling beside her and laying his sweet head against her.

  During the day, Bay was sent into the garden. The glass on their home wasn’t glass at all; she could step through it and let herself back into the home if it rained—like some huge doggy door. The backyard was cleared of all large shrubbery and was about the size of a normal backyard on Earth. The sun or suns, shone a bit brighter as there were no shadows lurking in the enclosed space. There were toys she could play with when Draven came home; heavy thick balls he bounced to her; a teeter totter you stood up on, not sat on; and a child-sized obstacle course. Until Draven came home, she mostly ate, slept and tried to stay out from under Zane’s feet; he acted even weirder when Draven was not about. She preferred to be outside as Zane spent many hours at home, she presumed working. His room was off limits, and Bay stayed away.

  Washing hadn’t been easy; as there was no way she would allow Draven to bathe her. Thankfully, Zane wasn’t interested. Once, when Zane left to take Draven to school, she had stepped into their shower and then run howling from it seconds later. It was like being blasted with a power washer, and the water was freezing. The shower had left a nasty red mark, drawing a fine line of blood on her shoulder. Zane had examined it and questioned Draven over it, but of course the boy knew nothing—he had been at school, and Bay knew that Zane knew this. Zane had put cold cloths on her that had helped, and he seemed honestly concerned.

  Bay had been able to convey her distress to Draven, who explained to his father she needed her own washing area. At Bay’s urging, Draven had discreetly mentioned to his father Bay may have accidently stumbled into their shower and ‘accidently’ hit the faucets, harming her delicate skin. It was subtle, but from Draven’s tone, he made it seem his father had been at fault for not watching her.

  Zane dragged out an old drawer he assumed Draven filled each day to wash her, when Bay filled it herself once left alone. Their black soap was unusual but cleaned her well enough. Unfortunately, the Zargonnii only had water with three settings, ice cold, cold, and cool. Bay longed for a hot bath.

  One of her more awkward moments with Zane was when he caught her using the facilities. She had thought he was safely sequestered in his room. There was no way in hell she would squat over the box filled with soil Zane had provided to do her business near her black mat. How embarrassing. Zane’s eyes had widened in stunned surprise when Bay hopped off the huge rounded bowl they used, which flushed itself. Bay had yanked down her wrap and, flaming red, she had tried to run past him. Zane had taken her to her mat, and after plopping her down, he hunkered to her level. When he spoke, she could tell he was asking her questions. This was the first time any of the Zargonnii had asked her point blank questions, expecting answers.

  Bay knew some of Zane’s words, but the angry look on his face was anything but welcoming, and Bay sat, trying to look puppyish. Her big brown eyes were as solemn as she could make them; she crouched low as though being chastened. After he stopped rattling off his questions, he suddenly looked around sheepishly—he was, after all, questioning a pet. It was all Bay could do to keep from s
miling as he sauntered away looking disgusted with himself.

  Bad female pet—did you poop in the toilet? Bay chuckled.

  Another incident was less tricky. Zane had walked in on her and Draven when she was helping him with his homework. Pencil in hand, Bay almost panicked when Zane walked over and gaped at her, wide-eyed and openmouthed—until she stuck the pencil between her teeth and chewed it. Zane wrestled it away and shook it off, marching from the room in a huff, declaring it covered in female Earth slobber. Draven and Bay had to stuff their faces into the pillows, they were laughing so hard.

  Bay smiled with her thoughts as she strolled the backyard. She adored Draven. Earth was a pile of rubble from the natural disasters that had befallen it; Ulsy was a war zone. This new home was as safe as any. She felt she was ready to tell Zane who she was, what she was. He wasn’t cruel, and she was positive he would let her stay. His looks were growing on her. Yes, he was different, but he was intelligent; he wasn’t ugly, just really big and maybe a little scary. At night, he tucked her blanket around her, made sure she had water; and on a few occasions, she had woken to find him simply gazing at her. She hadn’t been afraid, Zane hadn’t done one thing to harm her; he took better care of her than Blu.

  Tinkling laughter filled the air and Draven flung himself into Bay’s arms. He was a big boy and almost toppled her over, but she laughed at his enthusiasm. At twenty-six, Bay was ready to start a family; but there was no point while living on Earth, and all human men were killed once they made it to Ulsy. If all she ever had was Draven to fuss over, she was content. It would be better if Zane knew she was intelligent. There were times she knew Zane had needed to leave and had no choice but to cart Draven off with him. If nothing else, Bay would make a reliable babysitter.

  Draven was sweet and thoughtful; he was kind to a fault. He had to get his manner from someone. There was no mother in the picture, and the way Zane showed his son affection, Bay was positive he could also be kind—maybe even to her, even if she wasn’t a pet.