“Let’s get you home,” Tralec’s voice whispered in her ear as she was lifted into his protective embrace. “You are in so much trouble, my little love.”
“I don’t care. You came for me. You both came for me,” she whispered, sinking into an unconscious heap.
* * *
Skylar squinted against the bright light being flashed in her eyes as Tralec evaluated her after bringing her back to the cruiser. Her hip ached where he had obviously jabbed her with his damn needle, making her thankful she had been unconscious.
“I’m okay, Daddy. Just a little tender where that jerk hit me. Thank you for coming for me,” she whispered, reaching for his cheek. He pulled away, his face stoic.
“How is she?” Troy asked, sitting next to them.
“She will survive. Again, because of our interference. I have mended her broken ribs and cheekbone, and she will recover from the organ damage in a few hours.” Tralec’s voice was cold and distant. Skylar studied his face and then lowered her eyes. There was no emotion to him, and his annoying self-control inhibited even the slight bit of blue flushing that would show her that he was feeling anything. Skylar inherently knew that she had crushed him and that he believed she had betrayed his trust and broken her promise. She had tried to explain, but he refused to listen to her explanation or give into her excuses. Tralec’s cold indifference was frightening.
Troy, on the other hand, was pure fury. He glowed feverishly and his voice held a rumble that Skylar acknowledged was a sliver’s distance from an explosion. Oddly enough, she felt safer and more secure with Troy’s show of anger because it demonstrated what was on his mind and showed her that he truly cared.
“I wish you would give me two minutes to explain what happened. Please?”
“You are grounded for the next fourteen Sun-days, young lady. Once you are deemed healed, you will be punished. By both of us.” Troy drew his eyebrows into an angry frown. “If you thought that running away would make us want to get rid of you, then you are wrong. We are…”
“Enough, Troy. Save this lecture for later when she can absorb your words more effectively. Young lady,” Tralec turned to face the miserable girl, “you are to stay in this corner of this area and not budge.”
“Yes, sir,” Skylar sighed with despair. She was fearful that he would never trust her again and the thought broke her heart. She had learned that this advanced race was sensitive, honest, and uninhibited when it came to relationships and that their people did not believe in wasting time once the connection was felt.
She was intrigued by a culture with a center of society that was focused upon developing relationships. Instead of money or power, quality of life was measured by the strength and commitment derived from healthy social interactions. Chemistry attracted spontaneous physical relationships and formed lasting bonds that led to improved health and longer life, with the resultant feelings and commitment as strong as the human emotional attachment that often took time to develop. Accepting a new relationship made them vulnerable, and since they did not experience the petty drama that occupied the majority of human existence, they were ill-equipped to handle situations like this.
Since they had found her on the ground that fateful night—bruised, broken, and ready to die—she had come to accept that these alien men were given as an answer to her long-lived prayers to be cared for, wanted, and loved. The thought of being without them caused her heart to twist painfully in the hollow of her chest. She had been warned… The connection she felt with them made leaving impossible. And unwanted.
“Tralec? Troy? I… I am sorry I hurt you. I really am. Please, forgive me. It was not intentional, I swear.”
The responding silence was deafening. Skylar’s chest tightened as both turned their backs to her and left the area. Hot tears drizzled down her cheeks and fell upon the back of her scraped hands. She muffled her cries in her arms as her body racked with shaking sobs as the pain from years of being alone, rejected, and living in fear and abuse poured out in uncontrolled weeping.
* * *
Her outburst was so loud and uncontrolled that she did not hear the sound of the pod-mates as they returned, drawn by the connection and the primal anguish that she displayed. They stood at the door, physically experiencing the depth of her pain and awed by the rawness of emotion shown them. That was in itself, a gift to them. In a society that sanctioned the control of emotion, undisguised vulnerability was a rarity indeed. They looked at each other, and their resolve shattered.
“I cannot allow this,” Tralec said, making a fist as he fought back the flaring of his gills. “We cannot punish her by allowing her more pain than we experienced. It is wrong. It goes against everything we believe in. Hurting her here,” he tapped the right side of his chest, “will not make us hurt any less.”
“I am in agreement. This display is like nothing I have ever witnessed. Will it harm her?”
“I am uncertain. I do not wish to take that chance. I don’t know what to do.”
“Perhaps we should consider listening to her story,” Troy suggested, crossing his arms in front of him. “It could reveal information to help us decide the direction we should take with her.”
“Yes, we should. Her pain is so deep,” Tralec said, his brow wrinkling as Skylar’s weeping grew more despondent. “I can feel it. Can you?”
“Is this what the manuals refer to as being heartbroken?” Troy asked.
“It must be. The manuals say we are to give aftercare after we spank her, but I have not read anything that tells us what to do in this situation.”
“You think too much,” Troy said. “Pain is pain. Skylar? Come to Papa, princess. I am so grateful that we found you. If we had been any later in tracking the shifter, you would not be alive. You were so smart to charge it up,” he praised, rocking her in his arms as he covered her forehead with kisses.
“I am so angry with you,” Tralec admitted honestly, “and I do not like how this feeling sits inside of me. It is foreign to me and very uncomfortable. I cannot ignore the connection of my heart with yours. The fear of losing you sickened me. You hurt me. I trusted you and you hurt me, but I still feel you.”
* * *
Skylar continued to cry. He did not say he loved her. Neither of them did. It seemed that they cared for her like a stray puppy, something to play with and share companionship, but nothing on a more meaningful level.
“Why did you leave us?” Troy asked, pulling her hands from her swollen face. “What did we do to make you not desire the connection with us? We need an explanation.”
“Y… you won’t believe me,” Skylar sniffed, turning her face from him.
He touched her swollen lip gently before planting a gentle kiss upon it. “I promise to believe every word you utter.”
“I promise as well,” Tralec said rigidly. Skylar kept her face hidden, not wanting to look into Tralec’s face and see more disgust. He softened his voice. “Please tell us. We must know so that you will not be pressed to run again, this time seriously harming yourself. You knew the risks with using the shifter and went anyway.”
“You were lucky this time, honey. The only reason we knew you were alive was because we could feel you,” Troy added, squatting to look into her bruised face. “Please. Tell us what we did.”
“Skylar, you are part of us now,” Tralec said, joining Troy before her. “This connection we share cannot be undone, nor do we desire it to be severed. We need you to teach us how to… how to feel. To help us learn to experience emotions that our world has put into hiding. Our race has become almost mechanical in how we function as a society. We need life brought back to us and I… we… believe that you will be the one to teach us.”
Skylar looked up and watched as Tralec’s temples deepened to a dull indigo blue and spread to his shoulders. There was no glow accompanying the odd color. She looked at Troy with confusion. His gills were doing the same. She lifted her hand to her mouth, shocked. They were crying! For her!
�
�You don’t leak?” she asked quietly.
“No,” Troy said softly, pulling her against the span of his chest. Tralec simply looked at the ground and shook his head. “We don’t leak.”
“I didn’t run away. I was trying to help, that’s all,” Skylar said after taking a deep breath. She shared what had happened after stealing the shifter, how her thoughts about the type of credit card had rhymed with the name of the country, and how she pressed her thumb to the plate just as she realized she had messed up. She told them of how afraid and hopeless she felt and that she tried to get help to get her home, but no one spoke English, and everyone seemed to be afraid of her. She relayed how she would rather die than never be with them again and had consigned herself to such when the man attacked her.
Finally, she said that the sound of their voices as she drifted into unconsciousness was like the voices of angels. She ended with telling them about the moment of clarity when she knew, without a doubt, that they were the best things that had ever happened to her. She stated that she refused to play the fool and try to destroy something so incredible simply because it was unpredictable and different, and that she wanted a heart connection with someone who wanted her in return.
Both men were silent as they listen to her narrative. Based on their expressions, their senses seemed to confirm that she spoke the truth and that the experience had been one that she wished she had never had.
“I truly am sorry for scaring you. It was never my intent,” she whispered. “I am begging for your forgiveness. I swear to God that I would never hurt you on purpose. Never!”
Tralec reached for her hand. “You’re forgiven, sweetheart. I am just happy that you are back safely with us.”
“I forgive you as well,” Troy said as he kissed the top of her head. “However, I cannot overlook the fact that you stole the shifter and used it, even in knowing the risks. I cannot allow that defiance to go unpunished.”
“I understand,” Skylar said submissively. “I will accept anything you feel you need to do.” She mentally crossed her fingers in the hope that they would show some leniency if she did not dispute them. No such luck. One of them always seemed to catch on to her subtle attempts to manipulate them.
“While your cooperation is appreciated, it will not lessen the sentence that is pronounced upon you,” Tralec said. “Once we return home, you will still receive a very severe spanking for your disobedience. I assure you that after we finish, you will never pick up a shifter again without remembering the pain it cost you.”
“But Troy, my injuries…”
“Have been healed except for the bruises. You know we would never subject you to harm, either. Let’s not discuss this any further. We have to prepare for the launch and you, darling Skylar, need to sleep off some of your weakness. Into the cubicle with you,” Troy interrupted.
“Yes, Papa,” Skylar said, the words rolling pleasantly over her lips. It felt good in her vulnerable state. He kissed her soundly after placing her in the bunk. Tralec followed, pausing to run his finger over her bruised brow before lowering the clear dome over her.
“Sleep well, little one,” Tralec said, turning the switch to set the gas flow.
Skylar smiled, ignoring the ache of her cut lip. She would sleep well, knowing they were there.
Chapter Seven
“Keep her suspended in the bunk while we travel,” Tralec said as they cleared coordinates to depart. There were no oncoming airplanes, satellites, or weather balloons that would cross their paths or interfere with their progress. The hour was one that most humans were sleeping, and the moon was high and bright in the sky, effective for both charging the lunar cells of the ship and its components as well as hiding their movement once they were off the ground.
“Why don’t you want her to experience the flight?” Troy asked, anchoring the boxes of human supplies that Tralec had ‘appropriated’ during the last trip out.
“I do not want her to be frightened. Or sick.”
“You only sicken on launch and landing. And when we shift. Allow her the choice.”
“The cubicle has not shut the gas down yet. She needs to stay in sleep mode until it determines she has reached maximum healing in this episode,” Tralec argued.
“I say that we allow her to sleep until we stabilize. By then the sensors should be ready to release her from the gas.”
“Very well. But if I suspect she is having difficulties, she is going back inside and you will support that decision,” Tralec said decisively.
“You’re the boss of the operation.”
“It took long enough for you to acknowledge that.”
“What you say goes, as long as it has nothing to do with the actual flight. Then I’m in charge,” Troy grinned. “It’s almost time to proceed.”
“I’m going to place her in suspension right now and will return shortly.”
Tralec paused before the sleeping girl and looked her over carefully through the dome. Her face was still quite swollen and large; ugly bruises covered her arms, legs, abdomen, and ribs. Her ankle, while still slightly puffy and discolored, looked improved. He wondered what the council would say when he presented her. He had no fear of them disposing of her; the race strongly opposed the unnecessary killing of any life form and discouraged violence except for self-defense or in the defense of a weaker being. Nor was he concerned with the consequences to himself or Troy for bringing her home, especially when they shared the circumstances. What bothered him was the knowledge that the councilmembers might wish to share her, and he was reluctant to do so. He forced himself to put his thoughts to rest, acknowledging that their only interest would be based on the curiosity of what it would be like to have an actual podling-like creature in their lives.
Tralec returned and harnessed himself into his seat as Troy activated the resonance unit. “They are going to want to spend time with her without us,” he said moodily.
“What are you talking about?”
“The council. They will want us to share her,” Tralec repeated. “I do not want anyone else touching her like we do.”
“She will not connect with anyone else, but if they have a need to discipline her, we might have some difficulties. They need to be taught so they do not harm her.”
“That is my concern. Will they be willing to learn from me? I am a minor researcher in their eyes.”
“They will not challenge your claim over her, and they will be quick to accept that you have greater expertise on the culture than they do. Leeza will support us there. She is a mentor and her pod-mate is a creator, and both carry strength in the council. They will want to learn her language to communicate effectively as well as study the manuals. What is troubling you? Has the council ever given you reason not to trust them? Have Leeza or Leannz ever caused us harm?” Troy looked confused.
“No, never. So why would I feel mistrust now? What is this feeling I am experiencing? It makes me want to lock her away out of everyone’s sight.”
“You’re the anthropologist, brother. The manuals indicate an emotion called jealousy sometimes develops when possessiveness is felt.”
“Yes, I recall that term. Can that feeling awaken without cause? The council has no knowledge of her yet and these thoughts are purely imagined.”
“That is for you, the scientist, to determine. I am simply your pilot and a sounding board for your ideas.”
“You are more than that. You know Calipi nature and are an expert at predicting behavior. I rely on that skill more than I rely on my research findings.”
“That is why we are such a powerful team. Are you ready to go?” Troy asked. Tralec nodded, closed his eyes, and gripped the seat in preparation. Troy laughed. “I love your enthusiasm. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for choosing Calipi Air for your transportation needs. Check to make certain your harness is properly adjusted and your seat is in a full recline position.”
“Will you please just shut your mouth and fly?” Tralec groaned. “What is happening to you? I
have never seen you so rebellious.”
“How am I rebellious?”
“This display of humor. You know it is an undesirable trait among our people.”
“Our people need to, how does Skylar say? Lighten up. Laughter feels good. Why should we not indulge in it?”
“Because it leads to a lack of control and civil unrest. You know that.”
“If you say so. I think society has simply suppressed it because they are afraid to experience something they cannot regulate or limit,” Troy opined, pressing a series of buttons and wrapping his hands around the two bars that rose vertically on either side of his seat. “Here we go,” he announced as he inhaled deeply, mentally directing the launch. The cruiser rose silently, its engines a mere whisper as the vessel hovered above the trees. The panel signaled the skies to be clear of any machinery, and he released the ship to burst upward.
Tralec gritted his teeth as the speed of the vertical climb increased. The break through the atmospheric band always seemed to take far more time than he preferred.
“We’re almost there,” Troy reassured. “Hold on for a count of ten…”
“Shit,” Tralec muttered, surprising himself. He was learning some of Skylar’s colorful vocabulary and found it effective in relieving stress. He mumbled several other words as he felt the strain of the cruiser as it fought Earth’s gravity and repeated the same string of terms when the vessel finally popped through that invisible barrier.
“Damn…” Tralec exhaled in relief as the ship began to unfold and stretch to its regular size. “I will never get used to this.”
“You alive?” Troy asked, removing his hands from the bars.
“Barely. I’m going to go awaken Skylar and bring her to the control room.”
“I’ll be waiting with bells on,” Troy teased cheerfully.
“What are bells?” Tralec wrinkled his brow.
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