Zonaton Read Online Free Page B

and she didn't make demands. Even more astonishing, she wasn't a cryer. Yes, there were moments. After all, she was a child. But the whining and tantrums he had heard that these humans were prone to have were not part of Emmala's makeup.
                She yawned loudly, drawing his attention back to her.
                Come . He motioned toward the pallet nearby. Come lie down.
                "I'm not sleepy," she wearily responded, but he could sense she was fighting her exhaustion. It had been a full first day together.
                Neither am I, but I am cold. Can you help keep me warm?
                The ruse worked. Emmala joined him on the pallet, curling herself almost into a ball against his chest. He lowered a wing over her in a protective gesture. In less than a dozen heartbeats, she was asleep.
                Zonaton stared at the little girl sleeping beside him, her body curled against his body heat. Never in all his life had he imagined he would Pair with one of the humans. He himself had been a newly born when the human ships had landed. He had watched as his parents took part in the partial eradication of what they had called the infestation .
                In the years that followed, he had been a reluctant spectator in The Walk, preferring to remain on the outermost circumference within the ring and watching. Observing. Learning. Feeling the waves of hideousness that arose from some of the small bodies moving past. Seeing how the others also caught those waves, then chose to act by removing the worst of them. Taking the child aloft to destroy it in private.
                If the humans wished to believe their kind was fed upon, let them believe it. But there was no way he or any of the other gerons would dare to contaminate themselves with the mental poison spreading inside the little ones.
                The girl moved. One thin arm burrowed closer against his ribcage where she could feel the hard, steady rhythm of his heart. Seeking his nearness, and needing unconscious reassurance of his presence. She was so pale. Vulnerable. Malnourished. Victimized to the point where he never thought twice about his decision. The moment they made eye contact, and he could see her brutalized soul hiding in the depths of her blue eyes, he had known. No doubts, no reluctance. She needed him. And now that she lay in deep, dreamless, restoring sleep, perhaps for the first time in her short life, Zonaton knew this was why he had remained mateless for all of his life.
                She was meant to be with him. He was meant to be with her.
                From this moment on, their lives would forever be intertwined.
     

Chapter Four
    The Miners
     
     
                "How many are there? I can only see three." And not that well, since darkness had fallen. Even though they had a direct line of sight from their vantage point on the rocky abutment several hundred yards away, if it were not for the alien ship's hull lights, Emmala wouldn't have been able to spot them.
                The picture formed clearly in her mind. Eight creatures, one pilot, nine total. Miners. Their drilling ship was old and showed signs of being battered by debris.
                Emmala squinted, trying to see the strangers more clearly. "They look human."
                Humanoid.
                A mental close-up came to her of the stick-thin visitors. Now she could see they had four arms and very large, almost prism-shaped heads sitting parallel to their wide shoulders. They wore some kind of grayish-blue costume with silvery metallic flakes that glittered eerily in the lights coming from their ship.
                "Why are they here? What do they want?"
                A picture of rocks came to her. The dark green rocks with glowing red flakes in them.
                "I always