Free Zonaton by Linda Mooney Page A

got the impression she already knew this person, but a name refused to come to her.
                "Emmala?"
                "Yes?"
                "I'm Hawse. Do you remember me?"
                Hawse. Without trying, she recalled the image of the little boy who lived a few houses down from her, and she almost laughed with joy.
                "Hawse! I do!"
                She held out her arms as she ran to the young man to hug him. He hugged her back, and his body reminded her of her mystery lover. All hard and muscular in the right places, right down to the bulge in his pants. He even held her like her lover. Reluctantly, they stepped away from each other, both of them grinning from the moment.
                Hawse examined her from head to toe before gazing at her face. "When you showed up in the village, I didn't recognize you at first. You have...you're no longer that skinny little girl I went to school with. You've become a beautiful woman, Emmala. How are you doing?"
                "I'm doing very well. I'm very happy. Say, was it you I saw standing on the rooftop yesterday?"
                Pink tinged his cheeks. "That was me. I wanted to speak to you, but the crowds were too thick." Taking her hands, he tugged on them, drawing her down onto the pale blue grass where they could sit and talk. "I saw you speak with the councilmen."
                "There are miners between the mountains and the village. Humanoid miners. Zonaton told me the gerons had encountered them in the past. They had fought them, and managed to defeat them and drive them away. Now that they're back, the geron Elders sent us to warn the village, in case the miners were thinking of invading the villages. The Elders sent us for your own protection."
                "From the looks of it, and from what I hear, things did not go well."
                Emmala frowned. "They didn't believe me?"
                "Let's just say it was hard for them to take you seriously when you have that big ugly creature hovering over you."
                Jerking her hands from his grasp, Emmala scooted backwards. "Zonaton is not ugly. How dare you judge him like that when you know nothing about him."
                Hawse paled. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to sound that way. What I meant―"
                "Why are you here?" she abruptly interrupted him. Her initial feeling of happiness was quickly fading.
                He stared at her. "Why?"
                Emmala gave a quick nod. "Yes. Why are you here? Why, after all this time, did you come here?" She pointed toward the village. "Aren't you taking a risk, being this far away from the perimeter? I thought there were stiff penalties for people who went beyond the boundaries."
                "I've been coming this way lots of times to pick berries. I know a way out, where no one will see me leave. Besides, the gerons usually keep to the opposite side. They rarely fly around this section of the fields."
                He was right. In all the years she'd been with Zonaton, this was her first time to this area.
                "You still haven't told me why you approached me."
                "To be honest, I thought you were dead."
                "But you saw me fly away. You saw Zonaton take me away from The Walk."
                "How was I to know it wasn't going to eat you?" Hawse argued. "I was five years old. I saw it take you away, but I thought it was going to kill you and eat you."
                "He. He took me away," she corrected him again in a terse voice.
                "What?"
                "Zonaton is a he, not an it."
                Hawse wiped a hand over his face. "Again, my apologies. I'm only..."
                "You're acting like the other