Page 8 of Healer (The Outlander Book Club… in Space! #4)

Hakkar pushed a thorny branch away from the trail, waiting until I passed without incident before continuing.

“Part of our training includes categorizing the information we receive. We spend a year learning how to store and retrieve the information in our brains. Some cannot handle the upload and fail.”

I didn’t ask what he meant by fail . I gleaned all I needed from his downcast expression.

“How do you do it?” I pressed, fascinated.

Hakkar shrugged. “What I need regularly stays in the forefront of my memory. Other things, like genetic manipulation procedures, I recall by using meditation techniques.”

“On Earth, we use meditation to clear our brains,” I told him. “You use it to fill yours.”

“True,” Hakkar grinned. “Do you recall much of your training?”

“All of it,” I sighed wistfully. “Although I liked surgery training most. You practice the techniques over and over until they become muscle memory.” As I spoke, my fingers moved through the steps of a portal vein resection.

Despite it being over twenty years since I held a scalpel, my fingers repeated the process perfectly without the first hint of stiffness.

I came out of the reverie to find Hakkar staring at me, a most curious expression on his handsome face.

“What?”

The golden eyes softened as he gazed at me. “The look on your face. You loved surgery.”

“I did,” I admitted without the least hesitation. “Surgery always felt like what I was born to do. It broke my heart to give it up.”

“Why did you stop?”

In answer, I raised my hands, wiggling fingers that complied much better than the last time I’d held a scalpel.

Hakkar stepped closer, covering my hands with his. “You will perform surgery again, Agnes. I promise.”

Unlike Derek, who’d pulled away, Hakkar clasped my hands tightly.

The moment felt different from when he took my hand to lead me through the jungle.

It felt more like a promise and a question rolled into one, and I had no idea how to answer.

My body did, however, and the giddy feeling low in my belly turned hot.

I felt a strange awareness throb through me, and wetness crept between my thighs.

Shit!

This was only a transference phenomenon. My attraction to him wasn’t real.

Fuck!

Who was I kidding?

Despite my shock at the sensation—I’d found sexual desire while dealing with ALS symptoms non-existent—I enjoyed the feeling.

Standing here with over seven feet of male attentiveness made me feel beautiful and desirable…

whether or not that was Hakkar’s intent.

No rule said I couldn’t enjoy this new lease on life and a brief flirtation. At least, I hoped not.

I watched Hakkar’s golden eyes narrow as his gaze centered on my face. His nostrils flared, drawing in a deep breath, followed by the flicker of something that looked like a shock.

Shit!

Hakkar’s elf-like ears worked better than those of a mere mortal man. His sense of smell was probably heightened as well, which meant he could likely detect my.…

Shit !

Hakkar’s awkward throat-clearing confirmed my assumption as he pointed out the hillside rising above the treetops.

“We will shelter there tonight. The map suggests there are caves.”

A cave. Definition—a small space where one could sleep next to a gorgeous alien male, hopefully, made all the cozier with the addition of a fire.

Ugh. Agnes, get your mind out of your twat!

“Can you get some more of those alien chickens? They were delicious.” I made a point of waggling my eyebrows in a silly fashion to diffuse the awkwardness. Seriously, I probably smelled like the inside of a whorehouse at this point.

Hakkar laughed, which did little to calm my libido. This man was absolutely gorgeous when he smiled. Seriously, did that medi-machine do something to my sex drive?

Hakkar’s laughter died instantly. He grabbed my wrist, pulling me closer and motioning for quiet.

It took a minute to realize why he acted so cautiously.

This wasn’t a natural clearing. To the right, a small plot of land grew crops in neat rows.

To the left stood a split-rail fence made from rough timbers.

Next to a small stone building, a slow-moving waterwheel churned through what appeared to be a man-made tributary. This was someone’s home. But who?

“Hakkar?” I whispered the question.

In answer, he put his considerable bulk fully in front of me, hands going to the curved blades he wore in a sheath across his back. I started to ask if arming himself was necessary when something emerged from a copse of what appeared to be fruit trees to our left.

The creature looked like every Big Foot sighting I’d ever seen, except there was a humanness to his movements that both intrigued and frightened me.

Dark brown fur covered his entire body save for the center of his face, which showed pale gray skin.

He had large button eyes like a teddy bear, but that’s where any resemblance to a cute childhood toy ended.

Three-inch fangs protruded beneath a wide, flat snout, with claws the same length dotting the end of his paw-like hands.

Despite the built-in weapons, the creature carried a massive blade that reminded me of a medieval halberd.

Derek always had what I felt was an unhealthy obsession with medieval weapons.

Hakkar slid his blades from the sheath at his back without making a noise, fingers flexing tightly around the hilts. He turned his head, not enough to make eye contact but so that his words would be for my ears alone.

“If I fall, run. Follow the setting sun, and you should reach the settlement in two days. Find a female called Siereita. She will help you.”

“If you fall….” The words died on my tongue as my body revolted at the idea, ending forever the debate whether my attraction to him was transference phenomenon.

The thought of Hakkar being killed, even being hurt for that matter, terrified me.

More than being kidnapped by aliens, more than being alone and lost in an alien jungle… .

Even more than the threat of ALS.