She looked at Fisher on the bed. He was cleaner than when she’d left him, and his right arm was bandaged to his side. Stepho must have done some nursing.
Damn her, she hadn’t even done a proper triage. What the hellitude was wrong with her brain? He could have died of internal bleeding while she was gone. The thought shot straight to her gut, and she retched.
Breaking out of Stepho’s hold, she darted for the bathing room and dry-heaved over the toilet.
Shiitake, Bella had to be right. Crystal didn’t have any signs of infection, which meant this could only be one thing.
She washed her face and swished water in her mouth. Then she walked out to the front room to face the men who each wore an expression of concern.
“Are you ill, Crystal?” Stepho asked, stepping toward her.
She shook her head.
“Then why are you throwing up?” Henri asked, though his tone implied he already had a good idea of the cause, but she couldn’t tell whether he was pleased or not.
Crystal stood where she could see all the men at the same time. “I believe I’m with child.”
“Oh, fuck,” Fisher cursed from the berth. “I don’t want to hear this.” He turned his face toward the wall.
Crystal bit her lip to keep it from quivering. She hadn’t expected him to completely shut her out. For some reason, she’d expected him to be the most excited about a child on the way, perhaps because of his own youthfulness.
“It’s ours?” Stepho waved his hand between himself and Henri.
“Or Fisher’s,” she said softly, preparing herself for more rejection from him and the other two men, now that they knew she’d been intimate with another man while she’d been apart from Henri and Stepho.
“Damn you,” Henri growled at Fisher. “She doesn’t belong to you.”
Fisher spun his head toward Henri and half-rose from the bed. “Are you going to tell me she belongs to you? Sorry, Doc, but until the Council assigns her mates, she doesn’t belong to anyone.”
Oh, blasters. This was not the happy little relationship she’d fantasized about with these three men. It was more like the nightmare she’d feared, a testosterone bomb exploding in her face.
“You think the Council is going to assign you to her?” Henri taunted Fisher. “She’s worth more than you could ever offer her.”
“But you’ve got everything she needs, right?” Fisher sneered at him. “Then why didn’t she tell you she’d been screwing me?”
Stepho’s dark complexion grew ashen.
“Stop!” Crystal shouted. She couldn’t stand seeing her men rip each other to pieces like this. “If you don’t stop, then none of you will be worthy of me.”
“What are we going to do?” Stepho asked quietly.
She turned to him, glad to have another relatively calm adult to try to discuss the situation with. “I don’t know yet, but that’s not really our most pressing concern at the moment.”
Henri turned to her. “What the hellitude could be more pressing?”
She waved at the door behind her. “There’s a revolution happening out there. The Council has been confined to their quarters under military arrest, and the Pro-Freedom Movement is demanding General Intelligence Directorate Omar take a position as Standing President, until a free election can be organized.”
“When did all this happen?” Stepho asked.
“The Movement went public in a big way after the Council Guards opened fire on unarmed civilians this afternoon. The number of military working secretly for the Movement is astronomical.” Crystal glared at Fisher. “Did you know Major Jeffers was working for the Movement, not for the Council?”
“I suspected.”
“Damn you.” The Major was wrong. She didn’t have the aptitude for undercover work. All these secrets cut through her like butcher knives.
“Where does your alliance lay?” Henri demanded of Fisher.
“The same as you,” Fisher drawled.
Blast it, Fisher. Couldn’t he see how his attitude was making Henri tighten up more? She didn’t look forward to having to get physically between the two of them when the fists started flying. And Henri wasn’t really doing anything to make it easier on Fisher, either. Not with that challenging dominance coating his every word.
“But I wonder about your motivations, Henri,” Fisher continued. “Why have you risked disrupting the status quo, in which you have such a vested interest?”
Henri studied Fisher for a moment before he spoke. “When a small group of men dictate the actions of an entire world’s population, corruption of power will always be possible.”
“So what? You’re just a humanitarian, then? Saving the inhabitants of this planet with your convictions?”
Henri glanced at Stepho before directing his words to Fisher. “The research Stepho and I do led us to developing plants that can grow in the native soil of Profortuna without the artificial atmosphere of the bio-domes.”
“And next you’re going to tell me that the Council suppressed this knowledge,” Fisher remarked with obvious cynicism in his tone.
Stepho surprised Crystal by stepping forward and confronting Fisher. “The population is suffering from malnutrition, which is one of the causes of our poor fertility rates.”
“You’re a little on the skinny side, man, but I wouldn’t call you malnourished,” Fisher snarked.
“Not all malnutrition can be seen on the exterior frame,” Stepho explained. “We are talking about important nutrients that feed the body’s cells and optimize fertility.”
“So you want to grow more food, so the world can have more babies, and the Council won’t let you. Boo hoo.”
“Oh hellitude, Fisher.” Crystal lost her patience with him. “Don’t you hear what they are saying? The Council had ultimate control over all of our lives. By controlling population growth, they controlled matings, and therefore, controlled the lives of the population. Everything in this society is based on a hereditary system. If we were capable of choosing our mates, that freedom to choose might spill over into other areas of our lives. We could choose our own occupations and end hereditary career paths. You’ve rebelled your whole life against the rules that keep you in your place. Henri and Stepho have worked with the Movement to help you do that.”
“Now, I’m supposed to feel gratitude toward them?”
“No, Fisher. You’re free to feel whatever you want. That’s the point. You’re free now. Just like I’m free to have nothing else to do with you.” She slammed her palm on the wall panel to open the door. “I have work to do. I’m out of here.”
“Oh, fuck,” Fisher cursed under his breath. Due to his bad attitude, he’d just sent away the only woman he’d ever wanted to keep, and she didn’t seem like she was coming back to him…ever.
“Well, that’s something you two have in common,” Stepho remarked dryly.
“What?” Henri and Fisher both turned toward him.
“An affinity for the f-word.”
Fisher stared at the other two men. Well, shiitake, he’d really screwed himself this time. He was now at the mercy of Henri and Stepho. Men who cared significantly for Crystal, the woman Fisher had just treated like crap and who might be carrying his child. Or the child of any one of them, apparently.
What a fucking mess.
He had to get out of here, get some space from the situation, and figure out what to do next. Now that the Council had been neutralized, he could go back to his assigned pod without worrying about being arrested again by the Council Guards.
He cleared his throat. “Hey, guys. If you give me a hand, I can get out of your quarters. I’m sure I’m the last person you want hanging in your pod.” He slipped his legs over the side of the bed and bit back a moan as he jarred his ribs.
Henri flashed dark eyes on him. “Lay back down,” he ordered in a deep, controlled tone.
Fuck, the goober had attitude, Fisher admired reluctantly, while refusing to give in to the tug in his gut that w
anted to submit to the scientist. “I’ll make it easy on you to get the girl back. Just get me to my own room.” He continued to push himself to his feet, as his injured left leg trembled under the stress.
“Get your ass back in bed,” Henri commanded, stepping closer to Fisher.
Fisher’s years of military training clicked in, as he instinctively responded by settling back on the mattress. Yeah, it was that, and had nothing to do with the darkness that threatened to send him to the floor again, or the hidden desire to be under the hand of a dominant man.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, everything in his body screamed with pain as he lay on the berth.
“Why are you insisting I stay?” he asked when his breath returned.
“Because Crystal brought you to us. She wants you here,” Henri bit out.
“She doesn’t want anything from me. You heard her.” Fisher had to work harder than he cared to admit to keep the pain out of his tone, pain that came from a place of emotions and had nothing to do with his physical condition.
“She’s mad,” Stepho said. “When she calms down, she’ll want to see you’re okay.” He knelt at Fisher’s side and brought his hands to the waistband of Fisher’s ruined uniform trousers.
“What are you doing?”
“Tending to your wounds,” Stepho responded calmly. “You need treatment for this laser burn or you will lose some functioning of your leg.”
Fisher closed his eyes as his head fell back on the pillow. “Whatever,” he said with more resignation than sarcasm. He’d already lost Crystal. What did it matter if he lost anything else? His leg, his dignity, his future, none of it mattered anymore if he didn’t have the one woman who challenged him to be a better man.
* * * *
“Will he recover?”
Stepho didn’t miss the contempt in Henri’s tone.
“Physically, yes,” he answered. “But from Crystal’s abandonment? I don’t think so.” They’d stepped out into the hallway, so they could speak in private, while Fisher rested after Stepho had treated his wounds. The soldier had shown tremendous stoicism in the face of what had to be excruciating pain when Stepho had cleaned Fisher’s laser burn and tended his other injuries.
“That’s none of our business,” Henri snapped unnaturally at Stepho.
He regarded his longtime friend. “It is if we want what’s best for Crystal.”
“And you think that soldier is the best for Crystal?”
“Partially,” Stepho answered evenly. “I think all of us working together is what’s best for Crystal.”
Henri snorted. “You want us to become best buddies with him?”
“I want us to work as a team so we can all keep the woman who means so much to us. And the baby she carries inside her.”
Henri’s rarely-seen insecurities showed in his dark eyes. “You think she’d walk out on us, too?”
“I don’t want her to have any reason to even consider it,” Stepho answered.
“What do we have to do?”
“It won’t be easy,” Stepho warned.
“Didn’t think it would be if it has anything to do with Fisher.” Henri clenched his jaw after spitting out the other man’s name.
“He’s acting out like a wounded animal,” Stepho reasoned in a calm voice.
Henri raised a brow. “Yes?”
Stepho paused before delivering his analysis. “We have to show him soothing, tender attention.”
“Fuck that,” Henri growled, his fists clenched at his sides.
“I told you it would be hard,” Stepho reminded him, knowing the dominant side of Henri preferred a much different method of showing how he cared.
“You didn’t say it would be impossible.”
“Do you want Crystal to choose to stay?” Stars, he needed Henri to say yes. Even though Stepho and Henri thoroughly enjoyed each other bodily, having Crystal with them added so much more emotionally, and Stepho needed that kind of intimacy as well as the physical kind.
Henri glared at him. “Don’t ever ask me that again.”
Relief made Stepho momentarily dizzy. “Then you’ll have to follow my lead on this for a change.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Henri grumbled.
“Me too,” Stepho said under his breath, as he stepped back into their darkened pod.
But one thing Stepho knew from firsthand experience was that Henri was the ultimate protector, a defender of all who were weak and vulnerable. Stepho just needed Henri to see that underneath Fisher’s sardonic attitude was a man hiding his own vulnerabilities. Something in Fisher’s eyes when Stepho had doctored him reminded Stepho of himself before he’d found the security of belonging with Henri. There was the shadow of an ache there that longed for kindness.
“Did you change your mind about keeping me?” Fisher’s voice came groggily from the direction of the bed.
“No, you’re staying,” Henri answered with a soft voice that sent Stepho’s pulse speeding.
Stars, he had it bad for Henri. Fortunately, Stepho was secure in the knowledge that the feeling was mutual.
“If I’ve got the berth, where are you two sleeping?” Fisher inquired.
“I’ll take the wall bench, and Stepho will take the other half of the mattress,” Henri decided.
There was a tense silence as Stepho waited for Fisher to object to sharing the bed with him.
“Yeah, okay, sure, but Stepho?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t cuddle,” Fisher warned, pulling a small chuckle out of Stepho.
“You’re not my type, dahr-ling,” he mimicked the drawling way he’d heard Fisher say the nickname to Crystal when they’d been working side-by-side in the kitchen.
Henri snickered quietly from the bench on the other side of the room.
The poor man was going to wake with the worst muscle cramps. Stepho would offer to switch places, but he knew it would be a useless attempt. Henri would never allow Stepho to fold his larger frame onto the narrow, short bench. If Fisher was going to be staying with them indefinitely, they were going to have to make some other sleeping arrangements.
* * * *
“I finally got us on the list for a family pod,” Henri announced to Stepho and Fisher when he returned from the lab on Fisher’s fifth day with the two intelligentsias. “The bureaucracy has gotten ten times worse since the uprising. No one seems to be in charge and able to make decisions.”
“How did you make a case for our eligibility?” Stepho asked. “Even though Crystal’s pregnant, we haven’t been mated with her.”
Fisher’s gut twisted as he thought again for the millionth time about losing Crystal to these two men, because they would surely not keep him around once he was healed.
“With everything in flux, no one questioned the veracity of my claim that we were already mated.”
“Does that mean you included me in this happy little family arrangement?” Fisher grumbled, as a buried piece of him ached to be included.
Henri turned to where Fisher lay sprawled on the berth in just a pair of trousers. “Yes. Do you have a problem with that?”
“Of course, and I figured you would, too.” While Stepho had shown considerable kindness in tending to Fisher, Henri had maintained a stoic distance; seemingly, as a way to withdraw from the awkward situation of having a man he detested sharing his pod and sleeping in his bed with his intimate partner.
“This is for Crystal,” Henri responded curtly.
“Don’t worry, Doctor. I know you don’t harbor any secret desire for me,” Fisher bantered. “Trust me when I say the feeling’s mutual.”
“You are such an ungrateful brat. I don’t know what the hellitude Crystal sees in you.” Henri’s words were much too close to those of Fisher’s childhood, and they broke his limited control over his inner rage.
“I could say the same about you,” Fisher sneered. “When she was with me, she only needed one man to satisfy her, but it seems to take two of you.” He waved his hand
between Henri and Stepho, who sat on the wall bench silently watching the eruption before him.
Fisher caught Stepho wince at his words, and Fisher felt even more like a fuck-up for hurting this man who had provided a safe and comfortable place for Fisher.
Henri straightened and stood very still as he stared down at Fisher. His calmness was more nerve-wracking than any shouting he could do. Fisher’s fathers had always been the most calm before they released their most vicious strikes.
“What’s wrong, Henri? The truth hit too close to home,” Fisher taunted, trying to force the other man into action. Waiting was always worse than taking the punishment.
“Stepho,” Henri kept his eyes on Fisher as he addressed the other man, “you know what happens to brats who push me too far?”
“Seriously, Henri?” Stepho asked, glancing anxiously from Henri to Fisher. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Remember we agreed to my approach?”
“Your approach is working great for you, babe, but it’s not my style.”
Oh shiitake. Fisher saw something in Henri’s gaze that had him regretting his smart mouth for once. Henri looked like he was ready to tear Fisher apart, and in his injured condition, Fisher wasn’t sure his military training would be enough to ensure he could defend himself.
“Henri,” Stepho implored. “He’s already hurt.”
Henri glanced briefly at Stepho. “I won’t do anything to interrupt his healing.”
Fuck, Fisher seriously needed to vacate this pod. Glancing around for his shirt, he levered himself into a sitting position and swung his legs over the edge of the berth. Just as he got to his feet, Henri’s deep voice ordered him to “Sit.”
Fisher hesitated at the command in the other man’s tone, feeling his body at a gut level wanting to respond. When Henri stepped into Fisher’s personal space, Fisher retreated and sat back on the bed.
“Good, but next time, don’t think; just act,” Henri instructed in that low, firm tone.
At Henri’s mild praise, Fisher felt a glimmer of warmth in his chest. He shook his head, trying to get back to himself.
“Should I leave, Henri?” Stepho asked from his seat across the room.
Crystals Three Chosen Mates Page 7