“Last, as far as I know. The kid’s a genius when it comes to communications and all. Commander’s going to be quite shocked to discover what all he can do. Terrin, he juiced the emergency signal through the crashed ship’s lone surviving engine’s power coils in order to break through that ion storm. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have been able to be with you when you gave birth.” He glanced down at the sleeping infant. “Callaura.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting him,” Star admitted.
“I would have been back sooner, but I stopped by Mom and Dad’s to tell them about their grandchild.” He gave her a trembling smile. “They’re anxious to meet her.”
“When Doctor Perlakian says it’s all right for me to travel, why don’t we go for a short visit?” Star suggested. “Or maybe they’d consider coming here.”
“I think we may be seeing them sooner than that. Mom was going to call the starliner port to get departure dates after I left.”
Lifting the baby to his shoulder, Hunter searched for a way to broach the next subject. Their love, their friendship, and their marriage was based on honesty and being forthright for each other. Knowing it would be best if he told her now, rather than wait until Transport Three was due to dock, he spread his internal sensors around the woman and prepared himself for her reaction.
“There’s another person on board. Someone we were reluctant to bring with us, but there are mitigating circumstances.”
She lifted an eyebrow at him but remained silent.
“Terrin, he’s your father.”
Her first response was denial. “Who? My father? Can’t be. Are you sure?”
Hunter sensed the slow crawl of dread overtaking her as she continued to think about it. About having to face the man who had deserted her. He reached out to place a hand on her knee. “He told us he’s been searching for you for the past six years.”
Her anger was quick to surface. “That’s groll shit! He walked away! He just walked away and never looked back after he s−…” For a heartbeat her façade crumbled, but she quickly recovered. “What does he really want? What’s his real purpose? Why is he looking for me? And why now?”
“I can’t fathom his reasons, but I can tell you this. The entire time he was giving us his story, I read nothing but deceit from him.”
“Then why are you bringing him to Synaria?” Her anger increased, for which Hunter was happy to see. An angry StarLight was a formidable enemy. She wasn’t mad at them for transporting the man. She was mad at the man for tracking her down.
“Because I’m just as curious as you as to why he’s after you. And because I want to stop this man in his tracks. I want to convince this guy it’s time he stop hunting for you and go back to where he came from…unless you decide differently.”
“I seriously doubt it,” she told him, a hard edge to her voice. Reaching out, she took the baby from her husband’s arms and got to her feet. Hunter noticed something fall to the floor, and bent to pick it up. It was a white bootie, still warm to the touch.
“I think you dropped something,” he commented with a grin, holding up the lost object.
Star snorted softly and plucked it from his fingers. “Thanks.”
Hunter followed her into the bedroom area where the incubator he’d seen in the medical clinic hovered on Star’s side of the bed. She tenderly kissed the infant’s forehead, then lay the child into the container. Closing the transparent cover, she turned around to face him. She had made a decision.
“What did you tell him about me?”
“Nothing. He knew you were a Guardian, but that was all. He doesn’t even know who I am,” Hunter told her.
Her eyes narrowed. “Then how did he find me?”
“We have no idea. He hailed us at the SPF station as we were getting ready to leave. He asked… No, he commanded we take him with us. Terrin, take care. We’ll have your back the entire time he’s here. I’ll always be beside you. You know that, right?”
She walked up to him and pressed herself against his length. Hunter wrapped his arms about her waist, mentally noting how the large bump that had separated them the past few months was no longer there.
“Promise me he’ll never find out about Callie.”
Hunter almost laughed. “Callie? What happened to Callaura?”
She started to reply when the crystal at their throats sounded the little four note song he’d heard at the baby’s birth.
He chuckled. “Let me guess. Emma calls her Callie?”
Star snuggled closer in reply. The contact, after months of celibacy, sent unwanted signals to his groin. Uncomfortable signals. Unconsciously, he wriggled his hips.
“Terrin.”
“I told you I could take care of you.” To prove her point, she slid a hand down his thigh. He stopped her before she grabbed his lengthening erection.
“Terrin, no. Not yet. Yes, I know you can give me release, but not in the way I want. I want to be inside your body, not your mouth, and not in your hands. I want to feel your inner muscles stroking me.” He pulled her away until she met him eye-to-eye. “I want to make love to you, and I’m willing to wait.”
She answered him with a lazy, sexy smile. “All right. But if you change your mind…”
He could tell she wasn’t feeling the same sensations as he was, and he didn’t expect her to. But the fact that she was willing to help ease his need humbled him.
He felt her hand at the back of his head a moment before she guided his face down to hers. Their lips met again, and this time Hunter did not hesitate to crush her against him. Unfortunately, his libido did not appreciate the teasing, and he had to end their lip-lock too soon.
“I’m starving…for food, Terrin.”
Her soft laugh told him she knew what he really hungered for. Rather than tease him about it, she turned and lightly tapped the top of the incubator.
“Security sensors on.”
The comm board at the foot of the bed beeped in reply. Emma also burbled to let them know she would watch over her baby sister.
Terrin laced her fingers through his. “Come on, Udo. I don’t feel like cooking, and I’m assuming neither do you. What do you say we go see what’s being served in the dining hall?” Checking the timer on the comm board, she added, “When is Three expected back?”
“Not for another couple of hours.”
“Good. I hope I’m ready by then.”
He knew what she meant. She needed this window to prepare herself. To be ready to face the man whose DNA she shared, but nothing else. In Hunter’s opinion, DiMackerlyn didn’t even deserve the honor of being called her father.
With one last glance at their daughter, he followed his wife out the door and into the main building leading to the heart of Guardian Command.
Chapter Nine
Dynamics
Everyone was gathered in the bay when Transport Three arrived. StarLight stood in the back, legs apart, arms crossed over her chest as she watched the largest ship in the Guardian fleet touch down in its cradle. A hand barely grazed her back.
“You have nothing to fear,” Hunter softly reminded her.
“I know. I know. Still…”
She couldn’t help the queasy, nauseated foreboding roiling around in her stomach. Her memories of her home life, and what life she’d had before becoming a Guardian, were not happy ones. They were filled with helplessness and hopelessness, instances of extreme depression and fear, and ultimately of desertion. And the man about to disembark off the ship was the sole cause of all her misery.
She thought she had pushed all the anger and resentment to the furthest corner of her mind. Shut it away behind sealed and impenetrable doors. Once she had confessed her past to Hunter, he’d helped her to find a way to cope with the horrors that would suddenly rear up at unexpected moments to torment her, usually when she slept. With his love and patience, she’d found a way to cope. To forget. To live again.
Then he taught her to love.
; Now her father was coming back into her life. She didn’t want him here. She didn’t want to see him or talk with him. She wanted no communication whatsoever, and gods knew she didn’t want any personal interaction. But Hunter was right. If she didn’t face him, her past would forever haunt her. This was her moment to shred the last of the demons by banishing DiMackerlyn out of her life forever. And by doing so while being surrounded by her Guardian family, and protected by her husband, she was in the safest place to confront him.
Hunter caressed her back again, running his fingers through her long, unbound hair as he loved to do. His gesture reminded her that he was in his powers, keeping her and the area in front of her shielded as he tuned into her emotions. Once DiMackerlyn stepped within that boundary, he would be acutely watched by her husband. And if things got out of hand, she knew Hunter would immediately shut the man down.
All sound in the bay hushed as the engines were disengaged, their familiar whine lowering to a whisper. The landing platform swung inward to hug the ship’s belly. The outer hull door opened, and Sender emerged, followed by a slightly built young man. Star assumed the person following her would be the genius engineer named Wooly.
She continued to watch as the two descended the short flight of steps, when she caught another movement. Glancing up at the ship, cold dread filled her at the sight of the man standing on the landing platform. Instantly, Hunter sent her a thread of warmth to dissolve her fear.
DiMackerlyn slowly went down the steps with Challenger directly behind him. The man glanced around the bay, observing the small two-seater One parked at the further end of the immense enclosure, and Two closer by where repairs continued to bring the ship back online.
From where he stood at the front of the group, Deceiver greeted the little man walking with Sender. The two shook hands.
“I’m Deceiver, leader of the Guardians. Welcome to Command Center.”
“Melbin Wooly. Thrilled to meet you,” the young man replied. His wide grin almost split the engineer’s face in two as he stared at Deceiver. Star hid a smile as she recognized the almost adoring expression. It was the same look the Guardians got whenever they were around the general public.
“I hear you might be able to teach me a thing or two?” Commander spoke up as he joined the two.
Wooly’s face paled, and for a moment Star wondered if the little man would faint. Fortunately, the little man managed to collect himself and shake the outstretched hand of his idol. “I-I-I don’t know, but I’ll be delighted to show you what I know,” he stuttered.
“How about right now?” Commander inquired, gesturing toward the disabled Two.
“Sure! All right!” The little man nodded, and together the pair walked away, already engaged in animated conversation as Commander explained the problems they were having, and Wooly pelted him with questions.
Star shifted her attention back on the older man now approaching Deceiver. This time, however, the Guardian leader did not offer his hand in friendship. “I’m Deceiver, leader of the Guardians,” he introduced himself again.
If DiMackerlyn noticed the slight, he didn’t appear to be bother by it. “Aginthon DiMackerlyn. My daughter is Terrin DiMackerlyn, although I hear she’s calling herself StarLight of the Guardians.”
The man’s eyes darted from figure to figure standing behind Deceiver, finally landing on her. At first he appeared stunned to see her dressed in her Guardian uniform. In the next instant, one of those oily smiles she hated slid along his mouth.
“Hello there, Tereshca. It’s been too long.”
“My name is Terrin, and you damn well know it. Quit calling me by that name,” she snapped. She kept her arms crossed, almost hugging her upper chest. Again, a warmth curled inside her as her husband soothed her ragged nerves.
“Ah, so you prefer the name your mother gave you, and not mine?” By the tone in his voice he sounded disappointed. By his demeanor, he was not. Rather than argue a moot point with him, she opted to go ahead and get this whole ugly encounter over with.
“What do you want?”
“I wanted to see you. I been looking for you ever since you ran away.”
“You frecking sold me to a gypsy train!” Fists clenched, she jerked her arms down to her side and verbally lashed out at him, unable to hold it in any longer. “You sold me! I didn’t run away, but I would have if I’d had the chance. What? You thought I wouldn’t remember? That I’d somehow forgotten that little detail? Just because I was a child doesn’t mean I wasn’t aware of what was happening. I just didn’t fully understand it at the time. But not now. Not after all these years.” Jabbing a finger toward the nearest exit, Star demanded, “Get out of here. Get out of Command and out of my life. I don’t ever want to see you, or hear of you, or hear your voice again! Ever!” When he hesitated, she added, “Go!”
DiMackerlyn’s face sagged with disappointment. The ruse was so good, for a moment she actually believed she’d hurt his feelings, when something within her crystallized, letting her know the man was continuing his act. Before she could make up her mind whether to pursue ordering him away, or turning around and disappearing into the safety of the inner offices, DiMackerlyn commented.
“I’m here because of your mother.”
Star froze, her disbelief evident. “My mother is dead,” she flatly responded.
The older man shook his head. “No. She’s very much alive, but she’s dying. She…she never forgave me for what I did, but she understood why I did it. Whether you want to believe me or not, Terrin, she agreed to my plan.”
“Liar.”
“Since then we’ve regretted our decision. Our conscience has eaten away at us. And now that she’s breathing her last, we want to atone for what we did. We want your forgiveness.”
“Liar!”
“You don’t know what we were going through!” DiMackerlyn suddenly exploded. Fists raised at rib level, he leaned in toward her although he never took another step closer. Star could feel Hunter raising a protective barrier in front of her in case the man lashed out.
“What would you know about having a child who suddenly had these gods-awful powers you could do nothing about? A child who terrified you by making things explode or tossing them away into the sky, sending them to gods knew where? A child who found new ways every day to use her abilities to terrorize us?”
Hunter’s love was back, wrapping tighter around her heart and around her vulnerable psyche. It enabled her to think more clearly. Star calmed enough to recollect.
What DiMackerlyn accused her of was true. She’d discovered her abilities at a very early age, and she’d practiced using them every opportunity she could. She remembered how her parents had begged her to stifle her powers, but she’d refused to listen. Refused to care. Refused to back down.
In the years that followed, for every threat her father gave her, she retaliated in kind. Not against them. Not physically, anyway. Simple, shocking things like moving their chairs across the room when they were sitting in them. Or tearing the roof off their home during a storm.
She was barely five years old, and with each passing day she grew stronger.
What if DiMackerlyn’s treatment of her wasn’t because he was an evil man, as she’d believed all this time, but because they had feared for their lives?
“I never meant to hurt you,” she told him.
“But you did. To the point where we felt we could no longer claim you as our daughter.”
Star felt her face grow hot, and tears threatened to fill her eyes. “So you sold me to a group of space gypsies? That was your decision?”
DiMackerlyn nodded. “I know it sounds cruel, but we couldn’t live like that anymore. Not when you did something terrifying every time we tried to stop you, or punish you. We had no other choice. You were too young to send out on your own. Besides, the gypsies paid us a lot of cred to take you off our hands.”
To take you off our hands. All of a sudden, the story he’d woven and tangled her up inside unr
aveled. Narrowing her eyes at the man, she straightened her spine before addressing him again.
“I wasn’t a child to you. I was an object to barter with. Here! Look at this young girl! She can do things that no one else can! How much would you pay me to own her? You could make a fortune showing her off on the circuit!” Her voice dropped with her increasing anger. “I was no longer your daughter to you then, and neither am I your daughter now. Here I’m Terrin DiLyric, also known as StarLight of the Guardians. You sold your flesh and blood to rid yourselves of any responsibility you had in raising me. You sold me for a few lousy creds to ease your life’s burden. Well, screw you, Aginthon DiMackerlyn. Go back to where you came from, and leave me be.”
DiMackerlyn appeared undeterred. Apparently he’d expected her anger and her rebuttal, but he persisted. “Your mother wants to see you one final time before she dies. Please, Terrin, if for no other reason but to give her closure, won’t you go to her?”
Hunter remained silent in the shadows behind her. Glancing at her fellow Guardians who remained, watching and listening and providing their unspoken support, she caught more than one expression of pity for the man, as well as a plea to her to at least reconsider.
Should I give him a chance? It’s been years. Maybe I’ve taken this all wrong. Maybe I’ve been mistaken because I was understanding everything with a child’s perspective. Aren’t all parents critical of their offspring? Aren’t all parents considered harsh and cruel whenever they try to punish or correct their children?
Dropping her gaze to the floor, she addressed the man standing less than two meters away. “Where is she?”
“At the hospital on Space Station Gregis Minor, in the Wodurati system.”
Turning to Time Merchant, Star asked, “How long would it take to get to Gregis Minor?”
“On a space cruiser, nine days. In Transport One, nine hours, give or take a few minutes,” the Guardian responded.
If she went it alone, it would take her the full nine days, since she didn’t have the capability of hitting hyper light. Her eyes drifted over to the small ship. It could carry two people. There was no way she would go and leave DiMackerlyn here by himself, even though she knew there was no way the others would allow him to get into any trouble. Yet the idea of spending that much time alone with the man in the confined cockpit was enough to make her physically ill.
HeartStorm (HeartFast Series Book 3) Page 6