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The Fairy held his hand out to her and assisted her from her seat. Ziggy was a little wobbly but her talent surged up and did a rapid reading of the man holding her hand. He was a medic and he was studying human physiology.

He found her fascinating.

She blinked and tried not to show her nervousness. Despite the folded wings and pointed ears he looked as far from the minute flitting creatures of Earth myth as he could be. He looked more like a professional wrestler with wings.

Ziggy stood and gently withdrew her hand from his.

Instead of being offended, his lips quirked in amusement. “Please follow me, Ms. Alora.”

She inclined her head and walked down the steps and followed his wings through a shuttle bay and into the ship itself.

Behind her, the dwarf from the ship followed them as they walked to an internal monorail. A pod was waiting for them, a glowing crystal banded with metal. It looked to seat around six people, but no one entered but their triad.

She took the seat that the Fairy showed her to and waited with her fingers knotted in her lap. The dwarf sat next to her and with a chime the pod on the monorail sealed shut and they started to move.

When the pod shifted around a corner, Ziggy swayed and the dwarf reached out to help her. He was a navigator and had a wife and two little ones here on the ship.

From his mind she saw star charts and calculations for travelling to planets she had never even imagined.

“Thank you. I wasn’t expecting the turn.”

Her voice was soft but the Fairy turned to smile at her.

He frowned as he noted the dwarf’s hand on her shoulder. “Makinaw, what are you doing?”

“Steadying her. It wouldn’t do for her to get a concussion before she sees the council.”

She swallowed. “The council?”

The dwarf nodded. “Yes. Tomorrow morning, before the ceremony you will meet with the council of the Nine.”

“Why?”

“We are not aware of why you have been called to the ship, we only know that if the councillors want to speak with you, we have to bring you.”

“What am I supposed to do until tomorrow?”

The pod rocked and shimmied as it passed through the ship’s common areas, the vistas of the interior of the huge ship were lost on her as her stomach knotted with nerves.

The Fairy grinned. “We have been ordered to take you to VIP quarters. The other humans are simply being brought in for the event tomorrow, but the quarters have been booked for you for at least a week.”

“Tonos! Need to know.”

The dwarf growled.

The Fairy scowled at him. “Mak, you think she doesn’t need to know that?”

“Gentlemen, please. If it is a problem, I will just wait until tomorrow.”

The pod slid to a halt and the door opened.

Makinaw extended his hand and helped her to her feet. They left the pod and he led her past two guards, both of the tree clan of the Nine.

“You will remain in your quarters until someone comes for you tomorrow morning. Appropriate attire has been selected and will be delivered.”

Makinaw patted her hand lightly.

The doors were framed with ornate carvings and as Tonos pressed the lock to open one of the rooms she noticed that the elegance continued within. She passed the Fairy with a slight nod and he gave her an appreciative leer.

Makinaw punched him in the ribs and the door closed. The pale light panel next to it went from white to red and Ziggy knew she was locked in.

The rooms were huge. An entertaining room was the first that she walked into and the bedroom was just beyond through another ornate archway.

She rifled through the dwarf’s knowledge and picked out the instructions for using the entertainment unit. Seeing as how she was basically under arrest, she spent her evening watching the entertainment options offered by the mother ship of the Nine.

As she watched the images appear on the wall across from the couch she flipped through the options and though she was curious, she steered clear of the sexual programming. There were only so many traumas she was willing to endure in a day and watching members of the Nine having sex was far beyond her tolerance for weirdness.

Councillor Rothaway smiled as the request for entertainment vids came up on the screen. “Do you believe me now?”

He had tried to explain to his people that he had met a Gaian with the ability to speak the language of the Nine. While his survival and that of the rest of his team had proved that someone else had a hand in their escape from the Tokkel ship, it was only in the past week when the salvaged vessel was dredged from the ocean that he was able prove his experience was not just a hallucination born of torture.

“Yes, fine. You are right. She knows our language. I am still not sure what it means.”

Lyneer brought up the scans of the human and blinked rapidly.

“How long have you been out of the tanks?”

Rothaway scowled.

“I have the humidity turned up in my chambers, I am just surprised at how easily she moves in our environment. What have you been able to learn?”

Rothaway sat back and stared at the images of Signy Alora on his screens. “She is third-generation Gaian. There were no reports of her being taken and none of the survivors could recall precisely what the woman looked like. They only know that she released them and sent them all home. Aside from that they were not very concerned with what she looked like.”

“What about satellite scans?”

He grinned. “None of the satellites were operational in the area where the escape pod was found.”

Lyneer blinked again. “How could she know where to land?”

Rothaway smiled. “That is the mystery that I want to solve. Her knowledge base is far beyond anyone from her world.”

He didn’t mention that her lips were soft, she smelled like roses and he wanted to feel the silky skin of her hips under his hands again. She woke every shifter instinct that he had and that alone had shaken him to his core. When he recovered, he did so with the realisation that his mate was down on the planet below and he simply needed to find her.

The issue of finding her had seemed simple until the images of the crashed ship began to stream over the Gaian news reports. His confusion had stemmed from the sense that she was alive and well.

Signy Alora would face the council tomorrow and when the footage from the Tokkel ship was displayed she would have to explain what it was that she did and how precisely she did it.