Free Taken: Warriors of Hir, Book 2 by Willow Danes Page B

haven’t your people contacted ours, R’har? I don’t mean showing up and helping yourself to a woman. I mean officially.”
    “There are many who argue that is what the g’hir should do,” he said reluctantly. “That we should go to your world now in the greatest number possible and take the females we wish by force.”
    “Oh, you probably wouldn’t have to force anybody.” She tossed her hair. “If you showed yourselves openly I bet there’d be thousands of women who would go with you willingly.”
    “Would you be one of them, Hope?”
    She brushed her hands briskly against her jeans. “I’m not afraid of you anymore, if that’s what you mean. And I bet—if you gave them the chance—other women wouldn’t be either. If you showed yourselves openly and gave them a chance to get to know you.”
    “We cannot,” he growled. “As much as we would prefer to. Our nature as warriors is to act with integrity but for our warships to suddenly appear in orbit around your planet would destabilize your world. Politically, economically, socially . . . The repercussions to humans would be devastating.”
    He was right. Panic would grip the planet, governments would either declare martial law or fall; there would be riots, violence—
    “But the g’hir would get what they wanted,” she said hoarsely and crossed her arms, leaning back against the corridor wall. “You don’t care what the taken women might want. Why should you care what happens to a whole planet of humans?”
    His brilliant eyes widened. “You think we do not care? That I do not? My people are not brutes; we are not monsters. We know how precious this chance is. If pairings between humans and g’hir are truly viable, then your kind are our hope, our future.”
    Her face went hot. “That’s what you meant. Why you said it was perfect that my name is Hope.”
    “Yes,” he rumbled. “For you are mine.”
    She glanced away. “What do you mean ‘truly viable’ anyway? You said you already knew we were compatible.”
    “Jenna and Ra’kur were able to matebond. She is carrying the first g’hir-human child. We believe other human females are also capable of this but we do not truly know. It is possible that she is unique in this.”
    “Wait—” Hope straightened. “Jenna’s pregnant? With a half-g’hir baby?”
    “Do you see?” he asked, his tone low, urgent. “That is why we must always act to safeguard your kind, no matter the cost to us. If the All Mother so blesses us, the next generation of g’hir young will be half-human.”
    “Oh my God . . .” she whispered.
    “That is why we cannot simply come to your world in great numbers. The location of your planet is our greatest secret. We must preserve this secrecy or we will be forced to conquer your planet quickly to protect it.”
    “Conquer it to protect it? Oh, come on! That doesn’t even make any fucking—” she broke off.
    R’har’s glowing eyes were grim, his jaw tight.
    “Oh, yes it does,” she murmured. “If the Zerar would infect your people with a plague that killed billions of women in order to destroy you, what would they do to the species that could save the g’hir? If the Zerar could bring horrors like that to your people when you’re so much more advanced than we are, we wouldn’t have a chance in hell. But reproducing with humans isn’t saving your species,” she pointed out. “It’s making a new one.”
    “No, it is not. The g’hir are a hybrid species.”
    “A hybrid species?” Hope’s brow creased. “What does that mean?”
    “My kind—all of the g’hir—carry human DNA.”
    “Human—?” She shook her head. “How is that possible?”
    “The only explanation is that at some point, long ago, our species—g’hir and human—successfully interbred.”
    “Wait, so we aren’t the first—I mean, Jenna isn’t? But if all g’hir carry human DNA it would have happened tens of thousands of years ago! Somehow a human and a g’hir—”