Wild Embrace

by Nalini Singh

A week ago, he wouldn’t have cooperated, but tonight, he made no protest as she pointed the light at his bare skin. He’d peeled off his T-shirt before lying down on his sleeping bag to rest; he’d first asked Tazia if it was all right. She’d blushed under the warm dark honey of her skin but nodded. Now, however, there was no blush, just clear-eyed concern as she touched him gently after glancing at him to check if he objected.

  He didn’t.

  He watched her as she examined him, and his hand rose as if of its own volition to tuck a tendril of her hair behind her ear. Fingers stilling, she glanced at him for an endless heartbeat, then continued her examination. “It looks all right, but let me put on some more of the liniment. It helped earlier, didn’t it?”

  “Yes.” He could’ve easily put the liniment on himself, but he didn’t offer to do so. And as she ministered to him, he bore the psychic stabs of pain generated by his mind, without flinching.

  The dissonance was nothing, less painful than when the debris had fallen on him. It should’ve been much sharper and brighter—had been a year ago, when he’d first seen Tazia’s eyes light up as she smiled, and felt something strange happen inside him. He’d thought his inexorable compulsion toward the station engineer would fade once he knew her, but it had grown with each word they’d spoken to one another, each time he’d seen her or heard her laugh or even read a report she’d turned in.

  At this rate, his already erratic dissonance would degrade into nothing soon. If he wanted to keep his mind free of psychic coercion and not attract any unwanted Psy-Med attention, he’d have to be very, very careful not to give any indication of the disintegration in public.

  In private, however . . .

  He lay quietly as Tazia spread the liniment gently over his bruises, her delicate touch rippling sensation over every inch of his skin. “There,” she murmured, not mentioning the fact that one of his hands was brushing her knee. “Sleep now.”

  Stefan didn’t want her to move away, but he remembered what she’d said about her cultural mores and kept his silence. He would not do anything to cause her distress. Listening to her settling in, he waited for the rhythm of sleep, and when he heard only wakefulness, said, “Our next trip upside, would you like to see the northern lights?”

  “What?”

  “The timing will be right. I can ’port us to a suitable location without problems.” Pausing, he said, “No visas, no airfares required.”

  Her laughter was startled and bright. “I’ve always wanted to see them.”

  “You’ll find them beautiful.” Her spirit would see more than color and sky and movement. She’d see something deeper, and she’d teach him to see it, too. As she’d taught him how to interact with the people here. “Good night, Tazia.”

  “Tazi,” she whispered softly. “You can call me Tazi.”

  • • •

  It was just over a week later that they left. Additional rescue forces had arrived in bulk, bringing with them machinery capable of shifting the remaining rubble. With the aftershocks having died down, the village was now in good shape.

  “Our assistance is no longer required here,” Stefan said that morning. “I suggest we decamp and start getting back in shape. They’ll never let us back on Alaris like this.”

  “Agreed.” When she reached out to touch the jut of his collarbone, he didn’t flinch. Somehow, they’d become accustomed to each other after so many days sleeping next to one another. For her, a girl who’d been brought up to share her intimate space with only her husband, it had been as much a discovery as for him. “You’ve lost considerable weight.” His telekinesis burned massive amounts of energy.

  “So have you.” He didn’t touch her, but his eyes, those eyes, they ran over her from head to foot.

  The two of them left quietly minutes later, though she knew full well Stefan would’ve been feted like a hero should he have given anyone the slightest indication that he was leaving. But that wasn’t who he was. ’Porting them to the closest large city for which he had a visual location lock, he checked them into a two-bedroom suite in a small, family-run hotel that had once been the residence of a famous artist.

  She didn’t object to the intimacy, no matter if it was breaking another taboo to cohabit with him in such private quarters. Being with Stefan made her happier than she’d been for a long time.

  “What do you want to do?” he asked, after they’d dropped their bags in their rooms.

  “Shower properly, eat, then sleep.”

  “You can have the bathroom first.” He sat down to take off his dusty boots. “I’ll research where we can find a good meal.”

  Laughing, she said, “There are market stalls everywhere. We’ll get some street food.”

  “Is that wise? Our bodies aren’t used to the bacteria in this region.”

  “We’ve both had our inoculations.” It was ridiculous how many things they had to get inoculated against in order to work on Alaris.

  “We also have to be healthy to get back on board.”

  “Hmph.” Giving in, she went and showered, scrubbing and scrubbing until she finally felt clean.

  Afterward, she dressed in the local clothes she’d bought from the hotel boutique downstairs. She’d wanted something new and fresh, but she wasn’t prepared for how the long, colorful skirt and pretty white blouse would remind her of home, the memories knives stabbing into her soul.

  “Are you all right?” Stefan asked when she emerged.

  “I will be.” Her heart’s ache would never disappear, but at times she could forget. “Go, shower.”

  He looked at her for long moments before disappearing into the bathroom. In the meantime, she separated out their dirty clothes from the duffels, no longer shy about going through his things after the many times she’d grabbed nutrition bars for him. Gathering it all, she sent it down to the hotel laundry.

  Stefan, too, had bought new clothes and emerged wearing plain black pants in a material suitable for the desert climate, along with a long-sleeved white tunic that had white embroidery along the bottom edges and the neckline.

  She smiled. “You look like one of the men from my village.” Her fingers itched. “And your hair doesn’t curl.” She wanted to touch the silken strands, to run her fingers through them. “It has a wave.” If he let it grow out, it’d be beautiful.

  “I’ll need to get it cut soon.”

  “Wait,” she whispered. “Wait until you absolutely have to.”

  His look was quiet. “There is no requirement that I cut it, but it gives the correct impression. You understand?”

  Because his Silence, she remembered, wasn’t without flaw. “Yes.” She would give up his beautiful hair if she could have this quiet, strong, courageous man who spoke to her, who looked at her in a way that made her feel as if she was a beauty. “Did you find somewhere for us to eat?”

  “No,” he said. “I investigated if the inoculations we received will protect us from the microorganisms in this region.”

  A smile in her heart. “And?”

  “We should be safe.”

  Laughing, feeling giddy and young and happy, she walked downstairs with him and out onto the busy street.

  Chapter 7

  Voices rose and fell around them, a hundred conversations in progress.

  Their hotel was located in the old quarter, where the streets were narrow and homes backed onto shops, the market stalls snug against one another. Cobblestones lay beneath their feet, the walls around them set with mosaics and the food cooked over flaming open-air stoves.

  “Let’s try this,” she said, stopping at a stall serving up grilled vegetables on skewers.

  She didn’t say anything when Stefan paid, because in this part of the city, she could sense it was expected that he would pay. It would draw attention to them should she insist otherwise. Taking two skewers, she gave him one, then said, �
��Wait,” and bit into hers.

  Spices burst to life on her tongue, along with a hint of honey.

  “Mmm. Delicious, but I think it may be too intense for you.” Nutrition bars were tasteless, as was most Psy food from what she knew. “Have a little bite first.”

  He did, chewed carefully. “Do you want the rest?”

  Nodding, she took it. “That stall there.” She pointed to one doing flatbreads. “It looks like it has a simple potato filling. I think you’ll like that.”

  He took her advice and bought one for himself after she shook her head, enjoying the vegetable shish kebabs. Biting into the stuffed flatbread, he nodded to tell her that she’d been right, and they continued to walk and look at things. Once they’d finished the first things they’d bought, the two of them tried more, succeeded with some, not with others, but they were full soon enough.

  Sipping at a cup of sweet, spiced milk tea as they walked, the taste making her remember home, miss home, she tried to focus on the color and beauty all around them. “I desperately want to buy that,” she said to Stefan, pointing out a vivid aqua and silver two-piece garment; the skirt glittered with hundreds of tiny mirrors, the simpler top long sleeved and cuffed at the wrists, thin silvery threads woven into the fabric. There was a silver scarf, too, she suddenly saw, made of the finest, most expensive hand-woven lace.

  “Why don’t you?”

  Her shoulders shook. “Where would I wear it? Something like that is meant to be worn at a wedding or some other big function.” She grinned at him. “Maybe I should work on the engines wearing it. Tazia, Queen of the Engine Room.”

  “The grease would ruin it.”

  Clapping a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter, she looked at his expressionless face. Despite that, she was certain he’d made a joke. “How about one of those for you?” She pointed to a fez, the traditional round hat with a tassel attached to the top that hung down the side.

  “I’m not sure it would inspire confidence in my abilities.”

  This time, she gave in to her laughter, leaning up against a wall opposite a stall selling nuts of every conceivable kind. Stefan stood to her left and slightly in front of her, blocking her from the view of a passing group of young males. Again, it was exactly what he should’ve done—most people would assume that she was in his care, and as such, he was responsible for her safety.

  “Have you studied this region?” she asked, curious how he knew what he should do, when the Psy culture was so very different from this place where time moved at a slower pace.

  “Yes.” Pushing off the wall when she indicated she was happy to continue walking, he walked silently beside her.

  “Why? Were you stationed here?”

  “No.” A pause. “Because of you. I wanted to know where you came from.”

  Tazia felt her cheeks color, the tips of her ears growing hot. “You never spoke to me much except about station business.”

  He didn’t answer her until they were almost to the end of the street, heading toward a garden that had an old fountain as its centerpiece. “I didn’t know how.”

  Taking a seat on the stone bench around the fountain, Tazia put the half-empty cup of tea beside her and rubbed her hands on her skirt, her nerves taut. Stefan stood in front of her, his bearing as military-straight as always. Protected from the sun by the shadow thrown by his body, she looked up into his eyes and said, “Sit with me.”

  He took a seat, his gaze watchful though the garden was relatively empty.

  “My father always called me a spark,” she began, and it was the first time she’d spoken to anyone about the life she’d once had. “My brother was the steady, calm one of the two of us. He was well suited to life in our village, to working in the huge fig and date groves that bring the village its income.”

  “You weren’t born to be a farmer.”

  “No.” She smiled a bittersweet smile, her hands gripping the edge of the bench on which they sat. “My father said that, too. That was why he supported my studies—he made me do my homework, got me what I needed in terms of study aids, paid for advanced classes I could take through the computer.”

  “It sounds like he was proud of you.”

  “Yes.” She swallowed. “But you see, he thought I’d end up running the power station in the village—it’s the biggest, most prestigious job there. And really, really important.”

  “So far out, power can save lives.”

  “Yes.” As they’d both seen in the quake zone. “But I’d learned how to run the power station by age sixteen, and I knew there was so much more out there in the world. So I applied for a scholarship on my own, one that meant I could study engineering.” She could still remember how her pulse had fluttered, how her palms had sweated as she filled in the online application form.

  “Did the rift happen then?”

  “No.” Her heart ached again, a throb of sorrow. “I was so scared he’d be angry at what I’d done, but my father was so proud that his daughter was one of only five students in the entire country chosen for a scholarship based on academic merit. He told everyone, held a celebration.” Tazia swallowed her tears as her mind filled with memories of the way her father had danced her across the square, her skirt swirling around her legs.

  “When the time came, I was afraid to go to the big city to study.” All at once, she’d realized she’d be far from home, from family. “But my father spoke to a friend he had in the city, and I boarded with them.” Jedim Nerif had made sure his spark of a daughter had a family away from family. “They had a girl at university, too, and she helped me, but I went home every holiday I could. I missed everyone so much.”

  Stefan no doubt knew how this story would end, but he stayed silent, let her speak.

  “I was happy to be done with my studies, to return home. But I knew even then that I’d have to leave again if I was to practice as an engineer.” She blew out a breath. “I thought I could send money back, help the village, but my father, he hadn’t given up on his dream that I’d run the power station . . . or that I’d marry the son of the man who was a good friend.”

  Stefan, forearms braced on his thighs, sun on his hair, seemed to go motionless. “He wished to force you into marriage?”

  “No, Stefan, it wasn’t like that. He knew Kabir and I were friends, that Kabir was a good man who would care for me and who would support me in my important job.” She tried to make Stefan understand. “In my culture, the father is responsible for his daughter’s happiness. If I’d said I didn’t like Kabir, or even that I’d met another suitable man, he might’ve been angry, but he wouldn’t have forced the match.

  “But what I said was that I didn’t want to marry at all.” She could still see the shock on her father’s face at her declaration. “I knew if I did, I’d never be able to do what I wanted to with my life, which was to work on the Alaris team. If not that, then another location that’d test my skills.” She’d been so hungry for knowledge. “All the men my father would’ve accepted as suitable came from the village, and they would’ve all wanted me to stay there. Even Kabir wouldn’t have been so accepting as to allow his wife to work on an island far from the village, then in an undersea station, and only return home one month out of four or five.”

  Stefan’s eyes were dark when they met hers. “Your father could not forgive you for stepping so far outside the lines?”

  “He’d gone as far as he was able, and you have to understand,” she said softly, “it was far for a man of his age and time and culture. He was a very good father.” Shuddering, she surreptitiously wiped away the tears she hadn’t been able to keep from falling. “But when I walked away from the marriage and from his dream of me holding the most important job in the village, it was too far.”

  • • •

  Stefan didn’t know how a normal man, one whose emotions hadn’t been Silenced as a child, would react
in such a situation, but he knew what Tazia needed. Except he had to wait until they were alone, where there was no risk he’d be reported. This area wasn’t heavily populated by Psy, but there were enough around that he might be recognized.

  He held his instincts in check the entire way back to the hotel, the control grinding at him. Tazia’s shoulders were bowed, her face wan. Closing and locking the hotel door behind them, he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. When she didn’t resist, he enclosed her in his arms, keeping his hold gentle.

  Until she burrowed into him, her hands fisted against his chest. He tightened his hold, held her as she cried. Right then he was helpless in a way he hadn’t been since he was that bleeding, desperate child trying to shift half a mountain off his family. There was nothing he could move or shift for her, nowhere he could take her at this instant.

  All he could do was hold her.

  When he felt her stop crying after a long, long time, he lifted her into his arms and carried her to her bedroom. Placing her on the bed, he lay down beside her curled-up body . . . and sensed the pain controls snap one by one, the fragile foundations on which they’d been laid no longer in any way hospitable.

  It should’ve been excruciating, but he felt only a sense of freedom, as if he could finally breathe. The medics who’d evaluated him couldn’t have known the extent of the weakness in his conditioning or they’d never have let him out into the world. But then, he hadn’t realized the magnitude of the fault lines inside him until Tazia had walked into the station.

  Something in him had broken that day.

  Today, the already fractured ice splintered into countless shards.

  Curving his body around her smaller one, one arm under her neck, the hand of his other on her hair, he just stayed with her. She didn’t reject his touch, her body melting into his as they lay there beneath the afternoon sunlight that slanted into the room through the blue-painted wooden blinds. Used to the rhythms of her sleep, he sensed when she gave in to exhaustion.

  He knew he should rise. Tazia wouldn’t want a man who wasn’t her husband to sleep with her in her bed. But when he tried to retrieve his arm, she made a complaining sound and wriggled closer. He could’ve easily reached into her mind, her human shields thin, and woken her, but he would never breach that trust. The only time he would ever enter Tazia’s mind was if she invited him in.