The Morcai Battalion: The Recruit. Diana Palmer

she frequently made him furious. But if he lost her...

      He put on another burst of speed as he looked for any sign of her. He found her boot prints in the soft dirt. They were joined by two larger pair. Rojoks! Her footprints vanished and those of one of the Rojoks deepened. She’d been carried out of here. But to where? If he couldn’t access her mind, he couldn’t find her!

      He closed his eyes and searched for her thoughts. “Ruszel,” he called silently. “Ruszel, answer me. Where are you?”

      There was a hesitation that he actually felt. “Sir?” Her thoughts were disoriented and layered in intense pain. But she was alive! He hated the intensity of relief that he felt. His overreaction to her danger was disturbing.

      “Where are you?” he persisted.

      Madeline’s head was splitting. She sat up and caught her breath. She was in a Rojok camp atop a mesa, overlooking the battlefield. The ranking officer of the Rojok squad was staring down at her with an expression that made her want to kick him.

      “So you wake,” he said. “You are Ruszel,” he added surprisingly. “We have heard of you. The Holconcom has caused the deaths of many of our comrades. How fitting that we should now cause yours.” He gave an order. Two of his men jerked Madeline to her feet, worsening the headache.

      The Rojok gave her a scrutiny that, if she had been herself, would have propelled her fist into his thin-lipped, slit-eyed face.

      “You are comely, for a human female,” the Rojok purred. He reached out a six-fingered hand and ripped her tunic open. “Such white skin,” he laughed, gripping her soft flesh in his fingers.

      She kicked him as hard as she could and was trying to land another blow when the Rojok’s hand connected with her cheek. She took the blow without flinching and used a Rojok word she’d heard from Komak. It made the officer furious.

      “Here,” the small, muscular Rojok called to them as he poised on the edge of the cliff. “Bring her! We will show this bad-tempered, worthless female how we reward bad behavior among our own people!”

      The taller aliens half dragged her to the precipice. Below, she could see the red uniforms of her colleagues. Her eyes weren’t focusing. She could barely think for the pain.

      “Where are you?” Dtimun demanded again.

      She blinked. “I’m on the edge of a cliff,” she thought to him. “Above one of our units. My head is killing me. These two-legged lizards must have hit me on the head. Which is nothing to what this little tyrant just tried to do...” She pictured it in her mind.

      “Holconcom!” the small Rojok officer interrupted her, calling down to her comrades. “Can you hear me?”

      Dtimun looked up. There was Ruszel, in the grasp of two tall Rojoks. A smaller one was posed there, his hands on his hips.

      “We have your warwoman!” the Rojok officer yelled down. “Retreat, or we will throw her down to you!”

      Dtimun felt the others group around him. Hahnson moved to his side. The husky blond medic was tense, still. His concern was almost physical.

      “The Holconcom do not bargain. Return our crewman, or face the consequences,” Dtimun called back, in a tone like steel hitting rock.

      The small Rojok only laughed. “I did not think you would bargain. But this one is much known among soldiers. Even our commander in chief has respect for her,” he spat. “She is nothing special. Just a female.” He caught Madeline’s arm and dragged her closer to the edge of the cliff. “But you will not replace her easily, Commander of the Cehn-Tahr,” he added. He laughed again. “What a shame, to kill her! You should obey me, and quickly, if you wish her to live. Which would break first when she landed, I wonder—her back or her skull? Perhaps we should remove her brain before we toss her down to you!”

      “Dear God,” Hahnson whispered, his voice barely audible as he saw the certainty of what was going to happen next. “He’s crazy.”

      Dtimun tensed. “Be still,” he shot at his comrade. He closed his eyes. “Madeline,” he called silently, using her name almost unconsciously. “Do you trust me?”

      “With my life, sir,” came the quiet reply.

      “You must close your eyes, hold your breath and throw yourself over the cliff.”

      She didn’t question him, or argue. She knew it would be a leap to her death. No being in the galaxies could possibly save her without a force net, and she knew that her unit carried none of those. He wasn’t going to let the Rojoks have the satisfaction of causing her death. He expected her to die like a soldier, and bring honor to her command. And she would. Lack of courage had never been one of her faults.

      “Now?” she asked.

      “Yes.”

      She didn’t even hesitate. “Malenchar!” she yelled, giving the battle cry of the Holconcom. At the same moment, throbbing head and all, she jerked out of the shocked Rojok’s grasp, took a breath and dived headfirst over the edge of the cliff. She closed her eyes. Free fall was exciting. Of course, there would be a sudden stop, she thought with gallows humor. Hopefully, she wouldn’t feel it.

      About halfway down, she felt something warm and solid wrap itself around her. She opened her eyes, startled, and found the commander enveloping her. He made leaps against the face of the cliff that her mind told her were impossible. She’d seen great cats bound from high place to higher place, liquid with grace and strength, but she’d never seen a Cehn-Tahr do it.

      With grace and elegance, holding her easily against him, he flew like the wind, finding a foothold, using it to leap to another foothold. Claws extended on one hand, and he used them to help keep his balance as he jumped. He made his way down the cliff in a matter of seconds, his strength unbelievable. Belatedly, Madeline wrapped her arms around his neck and held on for dear life. She was dead of course, but her mind had somehow lapsed into dreams before she hit bottom. None of this was real. No species in the universe could do what her mind told her that Dtimun was doing.

      With a soft thud, he hit the ground at the bottom of the cliff, still holding Madeline close in his arms. The momentum cost him his footing. He rolled with her, protecting her with his body, so that the hard ground didn’t bruise her too badly. His grip was painful, like steel, and the genetically engineered claws that his hands produced in combat had come out involuntarily with the stress of the rescue. She flinched as they bit into her back like knives.

      He felt the pain in her and forced his claws to retract. But there was a more intense reaction, which he could not control, prompted by her nearness and the flood of pheromones suddenly exuding from her soft body at the almost intimate contact.

      As they rolled to a stop, he lifted enough to see her face. He looked down into her wide, shocked eyes and fought to catch his breath and control his hunger. A low, dangerous growl echoed deeply from his throat, involuntarily, as he stared at her without blinking.

      Madeline was shell-shocked. She was still alive; the pain told her that. Her head hurt. There were deep punctures where his hands had gripped her, in her lungs, making breathing painful. She felt the sudden tension in his body and was amazed not only at its strength, but at the weight of it above her. The Cehn-Tahr were feline in origin, or so the legends went, but cats were lightweights. The commander was as solid as a wall, and he was heavy. She stared into his eyes with mingled fascination and scientific curiosity. The growl was puzzling. She’d only ever heard it in combat. No, that wasn’t true. She’d heard it at the Altair embassy, when Ambassador Taylor had touched her...

      “You...caught me,” she stammered. “But that’s impossible! I fell from over a hundred feet!”

      “One hundred and fifty,” he corrected, slowly calming. He scowled. “Your body is cool.”

      “No, sir,” she said unsteadily. “Your normal body heat is three degrees higher than that of humans. I only feel cool to you.” She swallowed. His nearness was producing some odd