Blood Will Tell

by Christine Pope

  “Planets are planets,” he replied. “They all have good and bad. Some have more of one than the other.” For a second his eyes narrowed, although whether it was a reaction to a sudden gust of wind or some internal reflection, she wasn’t sure. “This one’s pretty much a dump, though.”

  It wasn’t even in her to defend her home world, for she knew he was right. Perhaps someone else could have seen something admirable in the tenacity of the silk harvesters and the other inhabitants who tried to scratch an honest living from this rock, but all Miala could do was wonder why anyone would live here when they had the rest of the galaxy to choose from.

  “We’ll have to see how far we can even get,” he went on, and he, too, stared out into the desert night, as if unable to meet her eyes. “All those planets are several sectors away, and I’m guessing the Council will be sending as big a peacekeeping force as it can muster. We’ll be dodging GDF ships no matter which direction we go.”

  “You’ll figure out something,” Miala replied, and tried to take comfort in the strength of his arm around her, the warmth radiating out from his body like the banked heat of Iradia’s now-absent sun. “I trust you.”

  At those words he became still, almost rigid in his silence. She suddenly wondered how long it had been since anyone had said anything like that to Eryk Thorn—or whether anyone ever had. Possibly it had been imprudent of her, but she couldn’t take the words back now, and for some reason she believed them. He could have betrayed her earlier today, and had not. Besides, she’d just spent the larger part of two months looking over her shoulder, not confiding in anyone, always afraid she would be caught before her work here in Mast’s compound was done, and it felt better than she had thought possible to lay some of her burden on Thorn’s very capable shoulders.

  Miala wondered if he would protest or demur, but he remained silent, although he did finally turn to look at her. What he saw in her face she couldn’t know, although she was relieved her eyes were now relatively dry. In the uncertain light of the one moon his own face was even more unreadable than ever, but she stared back up at him steadily, willing him to hold her gaze. I believe in you, she prayed that gaze told him. I trust you to get me safely away from here, even if this world is tearing itself apart.

  They stood that way for a long moment, until at last he said, “It’s too cold for you out here.” Then he dropped his arm from around her and instead took her hand, leading her back inside the building.

  Not sure at first where Thorn was taking her, Miala followed him down the winding staircase. The light was dim in here. A few battery-powered sconces at strategic points gave enough illumination to keep a person from tripping over themselves on the steps, but they did nothing to dispel the shadows that lurked in the corners. Once again she had that sensation of ghostly presences hidden in the darkness, whispers at the very edge of hearing. Miala shivered, glad she would be quit of this place in a few short hours.

  It was only when they paused on the landing to the second level that she realized what Thorn intended. Just a few doors down from where they stood was the chamber where he had slept for the past few nights. Miala looked up at him, mouth suddenly dry.

  He returned her gaze, his face expressionless as always. “If you don’t want to—”

  Oh, but she did, and that was what both frightened and thrilled her at the same time. Somehow she knew that once she followed Eryk Thorn into that chamber, she would have left her old life behind forever, that she would finally have stepped over the shadowy threshold between adolescence and adulthood. Her life had already undergone wrenching changes, but this was different. From this there would be no going back.

  “I do,” she replied, marveling at how steady her voice sounded.

  One eyebrow lifted, and she thought he looked a little amused, but he said only, “Good.” And then he palmed the lock and led her into his sleeping quarters.

  He had left one lamp illuminated in the far corner of the room so it lent a soft wash of light to the chamber, just enough to reveal off-world furnishings that no doubt had been expensive but were the height of bad taste—carved stone touched with silver and gilt paint, window hangings in a particularly excruciating shade of mauve, a gruesome piece of art depicting a group of dancing girls. In short, it was a suite that Mast had probably preserved for his favorites.

  “Nice,” Miala commented. “I’m glad I decided to sleep upstairs in the slave girls’ dormitory.”

  “Bed’s comfortable at least.”

  She was tempted to reply, Prove it, but knew she’d probably find out for herself soon enough. And he gave her no time to think of an alternative retort, for once again he pulled her against him, his mouth on hers, his hands moving through the free-falling masses of her hair, finding the pressure clasps that closed up the back of her tunic. It fell from her with shocking ease, and suddenly she could feel his fingers moving against her bare skin, sending little shivers all over her body.

  At the same time she reached up to pull at the tab to the locking fastener that closed the front of his jumpsuit. It separated to reveal a well-muscled torso, albeit one that showed skin still reddened and scarred by the firefight at the Malverdine Cliffs. But Miala found she didn’t care, instead running her hands over his bare flesh, feeling the hardness of his muscles under the roughened skin.

  Then his mouth moved down her neck, brushing over the collarbones, down to her breast, even as his tongue flickered out and made contact with the sensitive skin there. She gasped, shocked that such a delicate touch could bring such waves of pleasure coursing over her body.

  Somehow they were then on the bed, his lips still brushing against her breast, as his hand dropped between her legs, stroking. She could no more stifle the cry that escaped her lips at his touch than she could have stopped him at this point, but she had no desire to. Instead she reached out to touch him as well, finding the hardness of him, taking him into her hand as if she had done this a hundred times before. He gasped—maybe he hadn’t been expecting that from her.

  After a few moments thus entwined—or perhaps it was a few hours…time seemed to have no meaning as they held one another—he moved on top of her, his mouth finding hers even as she relinquished her hold on him and instead wrapped her arms around his body, feeling the hardened muscles shift under her hands. As Miala shivered from the pleasure his touch had brought her, a tiny frisson of fear trailed its way down her spine. They were so close—so very close. She knew there was no stopping him now, no way to prevent him from taking the next step.

  It hurt, but not as much as she had been afraid it would. She’d read enough about relations between men and women to have heard that it was not always pleasurable for a woman the first time, and so she had feared this moment almost as much as she had looked forward to it. But after the first few seconds she relaxed into his embrace, instead reveling in the sensation of finally being at one with the man who had done so much to keep his true self hidden from her. There could be no barriers between them now, she thought, not when they had shared the ultimate intimacy. And finally, when he cried out and then collapsed against her, his lips brushing against her jaw line as he smoothed the tousled hair away from her forehead, she almost wept at his closeness, the sensation of his body pressed against hers, the taste of his sweat on her tongue.

  They lay there for a time, listening to one another’s heartbeats, until finally he rose from the bed and went to the restroom. She could hear the water running as she remained lying there, stretched across the sweat-dampened sheets, feeling as if every nerve ending in her body had suddenly been given a charge from a power generator.

  I feel different, Miala thought suddenly, although if challenged she probably would have been unable to say how. All she knew was that until this moment she had felt only half alive.

  A few moments later he returned to the bed and lay down beside her. She could see the water glistening in the wavy dark hair around his forehead before he settled himself against one of the pillows.r />
  “I didn’t know I was your first,” he said finally.

  “Well, I haven’t had a lot of opportunity,” she replied, thinking at the same time how glad she was of that fact. He was silent, and she added, “Does that bother you?”

  “No.” He moved his head on the pillow so he was looking directly at her and then said, “But I could have been more careful—”

  “It was perfect,” she said firmly, and meant it. She was sure that Thorn would not have avoided taking her to bed if he’d known she was a virgin, but it would have changed the dynamic between them. As it was, he had approached her solely as a woman he wanted, and Miala preferred it that way. Things were complicated enough as it was.

  He did not reply, but instead rolled over and kissed her almost harshly on the mouth, as if to make up for any perceived weakness in his earlier diffidence. “’Night, then,” he said, and with that he returned to his former supine position. His eyes closed, and almost immediately his breathing slowed into the regular rhythms of sleep.

  Must be another survival trait, Miala thought. Still, she was a little shocked at how quickly he had slipped away from her. It seemed odd to have experienced such intimacy and then, just as suddenly, become two separate beings again.

  She supposed it was sensible to make the most of this last night’s sleep in Mast’s compound—who knew what they would encounter as they left Iradia the next day—but no matter what she did, she could not seem to make herself at ease. The mattress was, as Thorn had claimed, extremely comfortable, but she could not find a restful position. Luckily her tossings and turnings did nothing to disturb the sleeping mercenary; probably he had already logged her presence as a non-threat and so was immune to her restive behavior.

  Finally she rolled over on her back and stared up at the ceiling, at the faint whorls and scrape marks in the rough-hewn sandstone as revealed by the uncertain light of the small nightlight he’d left burning in the bathroom. Beside her Eryk Thorn slept, his chest rising and falling slowly under the thin sheet. She could feel the warmth of his body next to hers and recalled with a rush of heat the sensation of that body against her, inside her.

  Her whole being seemed to ache as she thought of him, and she said aloud, in a soft, wondering voice, “I love you.”

  He did not stir, of course, and she had not wanted him to. Those were words she would never have the courage to say to him, not unless he had given her overt encouragement to do so beforehand, and she could not imagine that happening for a long time—if ever. No, she let those three words float on the night air, merely an acknowledgment to the universe of her feelings for him. She had never been in love before, had never known before what it meant or how it would feel.

  At least she assumed she was in love with him. That must be what made this strange ache in her breast as she looked down at him while he slept, this overwhelming rush of emotion that made her want to lean over and kiss him awake so she could feel him as one with her once more. She held herself still, however, trying to content herself merely with the sight of him, the heavy dark crescents his lashes made against his cheeks, the wide thin mouth, the scar that creased one eyebrow. No, he was not handsome, as she had thought dispassionately days ago—a lifetime ago—when she had first looked down at him as he lay unconscious on the powered stretcher. But there was not one thing she would change about that face, now so familiar to her, so beloved.

  “I love you,” she said again, this time in barely a whisper. No matter what happens, she thought, no matter if the only world I’ve ever known is tearing itself apart. I’ve had this time with you, and no one can take that away from me.

  She thought of what they might be facing once they left Iradia, of all the strange worlds that up until now had only been words and images on a computer screen. She knew she should have been frightened, but somehow she wasn’t. Somehow she knew that Thorn would keep her safe, and the rest of the galaxy be damned.

  It was then, finally, that she was able to relax into slumber, to let the deep, calm breaths of her lover be her final guide into sleep. She closed her eyes, secure in the knowledge that he would be there beside her when she awoke.

  X

  Miala opened her eyes. The ceiling above her was unfamiliar, stenciled around the edges in a vaguely unpleasant scroll design in purple and gold. For a brief second she couldn’t remember where she was, and then memory returned, along with a subtle soreness in her body that had not been there before last night. She reached out to where Eryk Thorn had lain, but the bed was empty.

  “Time to go,” he said, looking down at her from the foot of the bed. He was dressed already, of course, in the familiar black jumpsuit, and in one hand he held a wad of dark fabric—presumably the wrappings he customarily wore around his head and face whenever he went out in public.

  Relief made her silent for a moment. For just one second she had been sure he had left after all, abandoning her and her foolish dreams. She should have known better. He hadn’t let her down so far.

  “Let me just go gather my things,” she replied, then began to slide out of bed, pausing for a second once she realized her clothing was still in a heap on the floor. Cheeks flaming, she looked away from him as she bent over to pick up her discarded tunic and pants, then quickly pulled the tunic on over her head. Damn it, this sort of thing was so much easier to handle when it was dark...

  Still not meeting Thorn’s eyes, she hurried out of the guest chamber and up the stairs to the slave girls’ dormitory, where she allowed herself a brisk five minutes in the shower before collecting the few odds and ends she considered worth taking off-planet: her scarred old tablet computer, a few changes of clothing, the one pair of sturdy boots she owned. All of these items she stashed in a wilted duffel that she’d found tucked into a far corner of the wardrobe, and at the last minute she added a random sampling of the toiletries from the dressing area. All in all, it was a meager collection, but she didn’t mind. With her half of Mast’s treasure, she’d be able to buy herself anything she wanted once she and Thorn were safely away from Iradia.

  Miala had to go all the way down to the guard chamber to find the mercenary, as he had not bothered to wait for her in his borrowed guest suite.

  “Everything looks clear,” he said. “Just thought I’d do one more sweep of the perimeter before we drop the shields.”

  “Well, I’m ready,” she replied. ...barely, she added mentally, thinking of her still-dripping hair and rumpled clothing. But she’d known better than to make Thorn wait any longer than was strictly necessary.

  “Right, then.” He stepped away from the console. “You can take it from here.”

  Of course. She’d cracked the security system, but she’d never given him the access codes—and he’d never asked her for them. If she’d bothered to think about it earlier, she should have known that was one indication of his intention to do right by her. Otherwise, he would have forced the codes from her and then disposed of her as he pleased.

  She moved past him to enter the password to log in to the main security screen, then tapped in the command to lower the shields. After she had done so she looked up at Thorn, surprised by how vulnerable she suddenly felt, although there had been no indication that any enemies were within a hundred kilometers of the compound. “We’re ready.”

  He nodded. “Come on, then.”

  And it was with that unceremonious command that she trailed after him out of the guard chamber, through the dim corridors of the building that had been her home for the past few months, and out into the blinding heat and light of an Iradian morning. The ramp to the entrance of his ship had already been lowered, the doors standing open; clearly he had been prepared for a fast getaway.

  The metal of the ramp clanged hollowly under her feet as she climbed up behind Eryk Thorn into the cramped cockpit. The ship had clearly been engineered for speed and not much in the way of creature comforts, and she had the uneasy thought that it would get uncomfortable in here pretty damn fast. Then again, she
should just be glad that Thorn even had a ship of his own, as most people had to rely on the much slower passenger liners that plied their trade among the galaxy’s various inhabited systems.

  But in the meantime the setup was both awkward and unexpected, and she had to clamber into her seat even as Thorn slid into his with practiced ease. She fumbled with the safety harness, and after he flicked a switch to close the rear hatch he reached over to assist her, his hand carelessly grazing across one of her breasts.

  “Sure we have time for that?” she snapped, and he grinned.

  He didn’t bother to protest his innocence, instead saying only, “Later.”

  It wasn’t worth arguing over, she decided, especially since the memory of his touch had sent pleasant chills racing across her body. Miala knew she would only be a hypocrite if she protested, so instead she allowed herself a small shake of the head and then turned to watch the vista of dusty desert and hard blue sky visible directly through the viewport ahead of her.

  Eryk Thorn toggled a few more switches, and she could feel the engines come to life, the subtle vibrations seeming to penetrate to her very bones. Once, a few years ago, her schoolmate Drix had taken her for a ride in his Zephyr, a small plane designed only for atmospheric flight—no doubt in a failed attempt to impress her—but that fragile little vehicle could not begin to compare to Thorn’s scarred but powerful ship.

  Despite herself Miala felt her fingers clench on the worn synthetic leather of her armrests, even as the Fury reached full power and began to rise majestically from the sandy landing pad on which it had rested. It’s all right, she told herself. Millions of people go into space every day. It’s perfectly safe. But she was unable to release the death grip on her seat as she felt her home world’s gravity begin to claw at her, forcing her to breathe consciously, making her feel as if all of her limbs had suddenly turned to lead.