Shadows of the Son

by E L Strife

  “Put your game face back on. If you can’t, come find me,” Bennett said.

  “Copy.” Porter breathed deep and left, heading for Azure’s position in the hangars above.

  Bennett scratched his head and entered Gym Three. He’d been working over ideas of using the metals in weapons against the Kyras. A waste of precious time if they’re gone.

  In his first ten minutes, Bennett destroyed two punching bags. Slinging another on his shoulder, he scanned the pile in the storage room. It was odd to see so many stacked in such a tiny closet.

  At present, however, few things were normal.

  Clipping the bag’s karabiner into the overhead loop, he heard Master Yashina’s words echo between his ears: The mind governs the body and the heart. It can bring you strength or weakness, whichever you allow. Train the three as one unit, and you will never fail.

  The trouble was all three were swirling in chaos.

  He closed his eyes and replayed the sounds of crashing waves, calming the rushing blood in his veins. Thrusting an uppercut into the bag with a thump, he felt his wristband slip forward on his arm. Bennett stopped to tighten the straps.

  Rio leaned a shoulder against the doorway of the otherwise vacant gym. “Is that the third bag today or tonight?”

  Eyeing the dent he’d placed in the bag, Bennett stepped back. “Three tonight, sir.”

  Rio chuckled, popped off the frame, and walked to the edge of the mat. “Those fingers will be so swollen you won’t be able to pull a trigger if you keep this up.”

  Bennett studied the older shepherd, taller than average, and his figure still fit despite being assigned to a lab. The man stood in olive cargo pants and a black long-sleeve shirt, one sleeve rolled up, exposing the S.S.O Command wristband that covered his entire forearm. His peppery high-and-tight haircut looked puffy like he’d been outside in the wind.

  “What can I do for you, Rio?” he asked, ramming three more punches into the fabric. “Where’s Kios?”

  “He’s with Ramura in the group room. Took him up to play in the tide-pools again. That boy is curious about everything and afraid of nothing.” Rio tilted his head, shifting his weight to one side. “Haven’t checked in on you in a while. Figured I’d find you here.”

  Bennett’s brows furrowed against the whispers crackling in his mind like a hot shower of welding sparks. The power he was acquiring seemed limitless, fitting for a connection to the universe.

  It’s too much for me. I’m—one—human. Pummeling the bag as fast as he could, he tried to cover the voices. Bennett felt energy surge when it should’ve waned from exhaustion. He launched a front kick at the fabric in frustration when his release didn’t work and tore the bag from its support straps. It slammed into the steel wall with a thud and crumpled to the floor. Sand whispered as it poured out of a hole.

  Rio’s band beeped, and Bennett knew it was his profile pulled up on the screen.

  Bennett arched back to stare at the ceiling, his hands on his head. He’d kept his fire inside, by himself, though it might not look that way to anyone else. Curling forward, he braced himself on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

  The breakdown didn’t faze Rio. The man had mastered the art of impassive military bearing. Slack cheeks. Tight jaw. Eyes pinned and unblinking.

  Bennett shifted between his feet. “Everyone is looking to me for guidance and protection. But I had to separate some of the best pairs in UP to fill mission jobs, even on my team. If I’m compromised, how can I trust myself to make the right decisions? It feels like utter insanity.”

  “You have always fought and led with your heart,” Rio said. “Rules and logic only last so long as the times for which their prefaced design presides. This is why Command isn’t leading. They’ve been rigid in their ruling structures for too long. They’re going to crack.

  “You are of the people, Bennett. You feel what they feel. But you know your responsibilities come first. After you opened up to Earth at the ceremony, they took a liking to you.” Rio lifted his wristband and typed something on the screen then gestured to Bennett’s. “Look at this.”

  Opening the message Rio had sent him, Bennett studied the images of a spray-painted golden man in shepherd’s gear with black wings and a face like his—like his father’s—on the sides of buildings, food carts, and trucks.

  The added pressure of measuring up to his father didn’t help. “I need serum,” Bennett said, voice hoarse under the conflict of his swelling physical energy and mental exhaustion. “I can’t get a grip on myself.”

  Crossing his arms, Rio frowned. “I’m not giving you serum and making you a mindless machine again. I did it once because it was mandated. I will not do it again.”

  “I can’t live like this.” Bennett opened his quaking hands before him. “It’s like I’m fourteen again, but instead of one part of me that’s out of control. Every single cell literally burns because of some instinct I’m not fucking privy to! I want to—” He trailed off. Merge with Nakio was the closest Bennett could find. It sounded strange between his ears. It wasn’t a bodily interest. Well, it was. But mostly his heart—his spark—wanted to surround hers and protect what was precious within.

  “I feel as though I could blow up the universe and not give a damn if it meant I’d be able to hold her in my arms, if only for a single breath. And I feel so guilty thinking about her when there are all these lives around me I’m playing chess with,” he blurted.

  Rio smiled to himself as if thinking of some distant memory. “Your father felt the same with Lily.”

  Bennett’s hands fell to hang at his sides, his frustration crashing to despair. All this time? “You knew my father? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Rules One and Six, Jameson. There are some lines Command doesn’t let me cross, and some I won’t until the time is right.

  “He was my best friend. Your father helped transition us from the Shepherds United to the Universal Protectors with a handful of members in Command. Hyras, Krett, Miskaht, Mavene, Libesh, Dequan, Zembahki, who you know as the Coordinator. They knew him too.”

  Bennett’s entire body grew numb with disbelief.

  “I remember the first time I saw you—you weren’t even a day old. He was so proud.” Rio let out a short breath, which sounded almost like a laugh. “Called you ‘Little J’ until Lily had Jack, and you became a big brother. Your father was kind, protective, skilled in negotiations and tactical strategies, always placing the well-being of others above himself. You take after him.”

  Beeping from Rio’s wristband cut him off. He scanned the message, and his smile fell. “I must go.”

  Bennett nodded to himself. Of course, the moment he started getting information about his past, the universe seemed to shut him out of it once again. He shuffled across the mat and picked up the torn bag from the floor, tossing it, spilling sand and all, into the garbage cart with the other two.

  Rio aimed for the gym doors. “No matter what happens, you just keep the spark alive.” His chuckles made Bennett straighten and turn around. Rio waved a hand at the storage closet then disappeared into the hall. “No pressure, but your old man could hit harder than that.”

  —Lavrion—

  Chapter 13

  ALWAYS PICKING UP THE PIECES of others. Lavrion tugged his sweatshirt off and plopped down on his bottom bunk in the empty group room. He glanced at Ramura’s remade bed across the floor. The Agutrans carried on them comforting scents of warm summer grasses and gear grease, covering the acrid tang of ammonia and floor wax, which enhanced the sterile heartlessness of Home Station. It was a callous, drab place in his eyes.

  I should check on Panton. Forcing his tired legs to put him upright, Lavrion started for the door. It flung open, sending him lurching out of the way.

  Ramura clambered back, hiding her eyes. “Can I enter? Are you covered?”

  A flare of excitement sent his heart racing. He swallowed to prevent his voice from cracking. “Yes.”

  She s
pun inside and pushed the door shut.

  He watched her graceful, younger figure hustle toward her bunk. Oily splotches stained her blue coveralls. Lavrion glanced at the door, expecting her shadow to follow. But no one else came. “Where’s Teek?”

  “Installing a thing on a collector.” She tore through the small pile of standard medical supplies in the cabinet between the bunk beds. Oh come on, there’s got to be something in here.

  “You’re injured?” Instinct kicked in, steadying Lavrion’s nerves. In two strides, he was at her side.

  “I cut my hand on a console box. I’m not as dext-de—” Whatever. Ramura’s free hand flew through the packages as her body curled around the other. “Small stuff is hard. And stupid.”

  Lavrion kept his voice quiet and soothing despite the blood bolting through him. “They gave me a few hours off from working Medical. May I look?”

  She straightened and hesitantly offered her wrapped palm to him. “It won’t stop bleeding. I-I didn’t tell Teek how deep it was, because I didn’t want him to worry.”

  He studied her glossy, averted eyes. “If you need healing, you shouldn’t be concerned with someone’s worry. It’s when you don’t get injuries cared for that will be an honest cause of worry in others. They can get infected.”

  “Teek gets angry when I get hurt,” she mumbled.

  “Are you two together?” Lavrion cringed at his impulsiveness and busied himself with delicately unwrapping the shop rags from her palm.

  She flinched. “What? No. Why?”

  “Maybe he’s not angry at you, but at that which hurt you.” He peeled the last strip of fabric from her skin, revealing a large gash oozing navy blood. The silver flecks reminded him of stars in a night sky.

  He tossed the rags into the trash without leaving her side.

  Drops of blood splattered to the floor between their boots. His insides twisted and cramped. Enough Xahu’ré life-fluid had spilled under Suanoan rule.

  Ramura sucked air in through her teeth with a grimace. “Can you fix it?”

  Lavrion towered over her and had to dip his head to get a closer look. The energy within her cells sung their distress to the fingertips he grazed the perimeter of her injury. Lavrion’s thumbs pushed the sides of the split together and sealed it like butterfly bandages made of blue sparks. Each arc danced down into her skin, tacking tissue back in place. Yes, easily.

  She covered her mouth with the back of her free hand, releasing a groan through her nose. Ramura sniffled once, wiping her eyes free of their moisture.

  “The nausea will fade. Just breathe.”

  The bleeding subsided as his fingers worked their rhythmic magic, back and forth, along the length of the slice. Touching her skin played a beautifully sad melody in his body. The patterns of vibrations he detected from her cells held multiple signs of damage. For now, he listened to the loudest ones. The rest he could heal later if she wanted.

  “Almost there.” Once into the healing, Lavrion no longer had to watch. His fingers would relay the necessary pattern. Looking up, he gawked at Ramura’s scarred cheeks framed by long, dark-charcoal hair falling past her elbows. A fluttering sensation in his stomach made him stutter and return his gaze to the task in his hands.

  “Sometimes—” Ramura’s voice squeaked, and she looked away. Sometimes I feel like such an inconvenience to others, just in the way, using up precious food and water until— I want to disappear.

  Inside, Lavrion cried with silent relief. You’re not the only one who feels that way. “But you shouldn’t. You’re trying to help. You’re doing more than most.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder, catching him off guard. “Agutra is nothing like Earth. We survive, or we don’t. I know what my father had to sacrifice to keep me alive. I force myself to make the best with what I’ve got in honor of him, not to waste what he died to protect.”

  “A mature way to look at things for someone so young.” He noted her skin had sealed up and grayed over. He suddenly wished he wasn’t so good at his job.

  “I’m not young. Nineteen, I think, or whatever Teek is. Usually, only Saemas and Healers live beyond thirty-five long cycles.”

  Placing a palm over and under hers, he closed his eyes. “If nineteen is not young, am I considered old at twenty-four?”

  She laughed softly and pulled back to peer up at him. “You don’t look your age.”

  I hope that’s a good thing. Lavrion telekinetically traced the path through her skin, making one last map of the damage and remodeling what he could of the ligaments and bone.

  Her hand squeezed his.

  Lavrion’s eyes flew open to a smile on her face, bringing light to a scar on her jaw he hadn’t noticed before.

  It is a good thing, she said.

  The notion made him lightheaded. “Reckless drift. I apologize.”

  Ramura closed the space between them. Warm breath from her nose cascaded over his neck.

  Lavrion released a hand from hers in shock. His eyes rolled shut at the sweetness of her scent. From his skin to his marrow, everything thrummed with a high from being near her. His body ached with unfamiliar, wild desperation to be pressed to hers.

  She drew in a sharp breath. “You like me?”

  The muscle in his chest drummed hard, and he worried she might hear it too. “What do my eyes and my scent tell you?”

  Ramura bit her bottom lip, the deep indigo of her eyes brightening. Something I won’t put into words.

  “I hope I didn’t offend you,” he said. “I can’t stop it. I mean, I know I’m not Xahu’ré or from Agutra, but—” Oh diete, I’m rambling! “I want you— I mean I like you. I don’t intend to—”

  A giggle from her cut him off. Ramura rested a fingertip to his lips. “None of it bothers me.”

  Instinct overruled as Lavrion’s mind fell victim to panic and daring hope. Straining for breath, he slid his free hand around the curve of her waist and pulled her gently against him. He’d never held a woman so close. Her warmth against his body was addicting.

  The door to the room burst open. Teek froze when his eyes landed on them, standing beside her bunk. “What going on?”

  Lavrion pushed back. His crashing lust coiled guilt around his stomach with nauseating effectiveness. I do not want to impede your friendship, Ramura.

  “He healed my hand,” she said, displaying the scar where the cut had been. Hanging her head, the light in her eyes went out.

  “Why did you not tell me?” Teek demanded, glaring at the pile of bloody bandages in the trash behind them.

  “I didn’t want you to worry. I wanted you to focus. I’m one kiatna.” Ramura gestured toward the bay. “Those modules will help us save everyone.”

  Teek’s hands curled up, his ears flaring back. “Why did he touch you?”

  Ramura’s shoulders sagged. “He is like Chamarel and Miush.”

  “I’m Mirramor. I heal others. It’s how I survive.” Lavrion interlaced his fingers behind himself, so he wouldn’t fidget. “I was here when she came in searching for bandages.”

  Teek’s nose wrinkled. “You use skills to manipulate her.”

  Surprise lifted her brows. Ramura looked over at him. “Is this true?”

  An acerbic heat flared in Lavrion’s stomach. He wasn’t like his father, was he?

  Fists squeezed at his sides, Teek stiffened. “You hold more than a hand!”

  It was true. With a shallow bow to her, a custom Lavrion picked up in Sand Zone Eleven, he turned to the door. “I apologize for overstepping my boundary. It will not happen again.”

  Ramura scoffed at Teek then snagged one of Lavrion’s wrists, stopping him. “Please stay,” she begged. “I want to know what I can do to return the favor.”

  He scoured her shorter, muscular figure, stout curves in her hips and chest, narrow at her waist. He couldn’t help himself. Teek growled beside them. When Lavrion recognized his action, he scolded himself and pulled away. “Humans don’t call what I have a ‘gift�
� for no reason. It is mine to give to others at will.”

  Teek pushed between them, his saffron eyes narrowing as he glared up at Lavrion. “Stay away from our females.”

  Our females? Lavrion saw Ramura chew a lip in contempt. It broke a piece of his heart. Members of Agutra had made a reproductive pact. Lavrion knew villages on Earth sometimes did the same when they battled others for control. He also knew not everyone agreed. He held his ground and measured his tone. “She needs to rest. She’s lost a lot of blood. Best get her a cookie, no nuts. Unless you’d rather I take care of her since I can do it without getting upset.”

  Teek bared his teeth in a snarl.

  “Then do as I say, and I won’t have to.” Lavrion gave Teek a disapproving inspection before heading out into the hallway, closing the door between them.

  Ramura released a furious grunt, followed by a loud thud against the wall.

  The muffled words made Lavrion wince.

  “Stop! You break your good hand!” Teek shouted. Something hard and wrapped in fabric thumped to the floor. Footsteps pattered across the room. “You not thinking, Ramura!”

  “I’m not going to let you, or anyone from Agutra, keep me from making new friends!” she barked.

  Lavrion released a weighted sigh and headed for the stairs so he could check on Panton. Just as he was about to turn the corner, Bennett bolted out.

  They screeched to a stop, exchanging apologies.

  “I never had a chance to shake your hand, Lavrion.” Bennett’s face was stretched with exhaustion. “If you need anything while you’re here, you can come to me. I know you’re caught in the middle of Earth, Agutra, and the shepherds. I remember how little time Command gave me to adjust.”

  Lavrion took his outstretched hand, thinking Bennett’s comment was rather specific. Heat poured through their handshake. Lavrion’s fatigue faded. It was an odd sensation, being healed by another.

  Bennett showed no sign of acknowledging what had transpired. “I can’t thank you enough for what you’re doing to help us.”

  When Bennett released him, the energetic thrum disappeared. Lavrion studied his hand in disbelief.