Luckily, this chance meeting—if, given his visions, it could even be called that—was more than a fleeting encounter. Like her missing walking stick, she wasn’t going anywhere for a good long while. She might be able to get around with the aid of various self-help devices, but if his suspicions were correct, she had nowhere else to go.
Unless…
“Where’s your campsite?” He shot her a quelling, sideways glance. “And don’t tell me you don’t have one. You didn’t walk all the way from Damenk this morning.”
“I don’t, actually,” she replied. “I keep moving.”
“What do you do for food?”
“The same thing the condors do. I hunt rabbits and birds.”
“Seriously?”
“It’s easier than you might think. The little critters are everywhere out here. There are also edible fish in some of the ponds.”
“How do you—”
“Catch them?” she scoffed. “Really, Aidan. You can take down just about anything with a wide stun beam.”
He hadn’t bothered to check her backpack for weapons.
My mistake.
If she’d been more alert after she’d fallen, she could’ve easily defended herself against the condors. For that matter, she could’ve shot him out of the sky the moment she laid eyes on him.
He cleared his throat with an effort. “Guess I should be more careful.”
To his surprise, she responded by giving him a light slap on the arm. “I wouldn’t shoot at you.”
“That’s good to know.” But she was armed and had the potential to deal with anyone who posed a threat to her. In many ways, this information made Aidan feel better about her safety, despite not having the knack for setting her own broken bones. Or did she? She’d been unconscious when he’d applied the splint. For all he knew, she could’ve done a reasonably good job herself.
“Besides, carrying a pulse pistol is easier than carrying food around. I could’ve stocked up on dried foods in Damenk—and I do carry a few things—but this way, I can keep moving.”
“Do you at least have a tent?”
She shook her head. “Adds too much weight. The temperatures are moderate, so I have no need for blankets or a bedroll.” With a smile, she added, “Although I do have an inflatable pillow.”
“Thank the gods for that,” he muttered. Clearly, this woman had no qualms about roughing it—or being alone. Here he’d been congratulating himself for saving her life when in all honesty, his help had likely been completely unnecessary. “What would you have done if I hadn’t gotten you out of that cave?”
She shrugged. “Lived on condor eggs for a while, I guess. They’re pretty good if they’ve just been laid. I roast them in a small fire and chip off the shells when they’re done. As for the birds themselves, the juveniles aren’t bad, but the adults don’t taste good at all—very stringy and tough. Still, in my position, I can’t afford to be too picky.”
“My, how…resourceful of you. Tell me, have you always been this self-sufficient?”
She shrugged again. “Not really. Lately, it’s been more of a necessity than a choice.”
“I see.” She’d been living entirely off the grid, like some sort of nomadic hunter-gatherer. “Do all anthropologists learn how to live off the land?”
“Not directly. But you can’t study primitive cultures without picking up a few of their everyday survival techniques.” She chuckled. “Then again, most primitive people don’t carry pulse pistols.”
“Probably not.” He waited a beat before adding, “You aren’t going to tell me, are you?”
“Tell you what?”
He rolled his eyes. “Why an anthropology student is roaming the mountains of Rhylos living on rabbits and condor eggs and doesn’t want to seek medical attention even when she has a broken leg.”
“What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” The firm set of her jaw warned him that this was no dainty little woman who could be pushed around or tricked into divulging her secrets. She was as tough as, well, Indiana Jones. Or Jack Tshevnoe. From what he’d seen of Jack over the years, about the only difference between her and Indiana Jones was their gender.
“I disagree. It’s better to be prepared to face danger when it comes than to be caught unawares. And just so you know, my offer of help still stands.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He tried a different tack. “Anyone who knows we’ve been together will assume you’ve told me everything.”
“That’s why I’d rather no one knew you found me.”
“Not sure I can keep you a secret forever,” he said. “You aren’t exactly something I can stash in a locked drawer.”
She huffed out a breath. “Look, I know it sounds crazy or at least unreasonable, but humor me, will you? For a while, anyway. Protecting myself is hard enough without having to worry about someone else.”
“True,” he conceded. “Although having someone to watch your back is pretty useful. I’ve been involved in a few harrowing adventures—most of them when I was a kid—and I understand the value of teamwork.”
“Like I said, I’ll keep your offer in mind.” With that, she folded her arms, and her features took on an expression that informed him in no uncertain terms that the conversation, as far as she was concerned, was over.
He waved his arms in defeat. “Okay. I’ll stop hounding you. Let’s just get you home, and we’ll figure out the other stuff as we go along.”
For one thing, he had to find a way to help a woman with some of her more intimate bodily functions without embarrassing her to death. While the idea of tending to her needs himself had its appeal, he seriously doubted she would see it the same way. Perhaps one of the older girls from the orphanage could help out. Sula would undoubtedly balk at the suggestion; if she feared for his safety, she would be doubly concerned over a teenage girl’s well-being. The problem was which girl to ask. It couldn’t be one of the Norludians. They were well known for their inability to keep a secret, and given what had happened to Raj, a Scorillian was also out of the question.
Then there was Qinta…
The Treslanti girl had arrived alone on the doorstep of the orphanage a few months back. No one had sent her; she’d claimed to have observed other children coming and going and deemed it a safe place to stay for a while. Since then, she’d been helpful in looking after the other children. Onca and Kim had even discussed hiring her as an assistant. If she was willing, she could stay at Aidan’s house and help with Sula’s care. He would even pay her a salary to make it worth her time. More important, with her species’ ability to blend in with their surroundings to the point of invisibility, no one would ever know she was there unless she chose to show herself.
Not a bad idea for a dumb blond.
Aidan wasn’t truly stupid, although compared to someone with Sula’s level of education, he might seem that way. Throughout his formative years, he’d spent so much of his time and energy pretending not to have any Mordrial powers that he hadn’t bothered to do the one thing that made the most sense, which was to pursue a career of some sort. Even though he didn’t really need the money, there were bound to be plenty of jobs that his fortune-telling ability would enhance. He just didn’t know what they were—at least none that weren’t illegal.
It was only when he realized that in the process of hiring Qinta he would have to explain why he needed her that his failings were highlighted once more.
The dumb blond strikes again.
However, despite the inherent flaws, he still believed it was a good plan. The details were a tad murky, but no doubt they would reveal themselves in time, as the solutions to most problems generally did.
Sula stifled a yawn as they flew into the outskirts of Damenk. “Pardon me,” she said. “Must’ve gotten up too early this morning.”
“It’s been a busy d
ay for both of us. How about I fix you something to eat, and then you can get some rest.”
“Sounds great,” she said. “I’m looking forward to eating something other than roasted condor eggs and rotisserie-style rabbit.”
“Can’t promise you much, but I can promise you I don’t have anything like that in my house.”
“Trust me, I’m not picky. Although I don’t suppose you have anything other than water to drink, do you?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” he replied. “My housekeeping droid can make anything from lemonade to a margarita.”
She sighed. “There’ve been times I believe I would’ve given anything for a glass of lemonade. You probably have running water too. I really miss that.”
“Yep. Running water and electricity and everything. I even have a sonic shower.”
This time, her sigh was more of a groan. “Ohh… That all sounds perfectly wonderful. You never realize how much you take those things for granted until you don’t have them. Especially running water.”
Quite honestly, Aidan wasn’t all that anxious for her to hop in the shower, because her scent in no way repelled him—in fact, it had quite the opposite effect—and the urge to purr was growing stronger with every breath he took. He could almost feel her pheromones pinging his olfactory receptors, affecting him in a way no one else’s scent ever had. Diluting them down would undoubtedly be for the best.
Too bad I can’t open a window.
Aidan snatched onto the new thread in the conversation like a lifeline. “Speaking of which, what have you been doing for drinking water?”
“I fill up my canteen at any ponds I run across, and when there aren’t any ponds, I have this cool gadget that pulls water right out of the air. It cost me a bundle, but it was worth every credit. The air is pretty dry in the mountains, so it takes a while to fill a bottle. Sometimes I think I’m recycling my own sweat. If I’d still been out there, I’d have been very happy to see that storm coming.”
The mental image of Sula standing naked on the mountainside with rain sluicing down her body distracted him to the point that an alert sounded as he came dangerously close to sideswiping another speeder.
“Sorry about that,” he said as he corrected his flight path. “The anticollision system won’t let me run into anything, but it loves to fuss at me if it thinks I’m being careless.”
“You say that like it happens a lot. Are you normally so careless?”
“Nope.” Turning a corner, he aimed the speeder down the street, doing his best to focus on the way ahead rather than the increasingly desirable woman sitting next to him. She was too close, the speeder too enclosed. If she hadn’t stressed the need for secrecy, he’d have slid the canopy back to let in more air. The lack of desire in her scent didn’t matter one iota; she still smelled fabulous. At this rate, he’d be purring long before they reached his house.
Stealing a glance at her, he spotted a possible reprieve. “Want me to turn up the air? You’ve got to be burning up in that jacket.”
“It is a little warm,” she admitted.
He tapped the control as quickly as he could without appearing too anxious. Cool, fresh air flowed over his face and filled his lungs. “Better?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Let me know if you get too cold.”
“Okay.” She sounded somewhat meek, almost as if she’d seen through his ploy—but for the wrong reason.
As always, honesty was the best policy. “I don’t mean to insinuate that you smell bad, Sula. To be perfectly frank, you smell too good. I just needed a little air.”
* * *
Sula hadn’t forgotten the important role scent played in Zetithian interpersonal relations. However, never having dealt directly with a Zetithian male, she hadn’t realized how much it would affect the way he related to her.
“I promise to take that sonic shower as soon as we get to your place. Are we by any chance getting close?”
“Almost there,” he replied. His voice sounded odd, as if his throat hurt or was constricted in some manner. He cleared it with a significant effort. “I’ve been thinking. Maybe we need a female to help care for you. I could hire someone—maybe one of the teenage girls from the orphanage. There’s a Treslanti girl named Qinta who might be willing, although I’m sure she would want to know a little something about you before she would agree to take the job. You wouldn’t need to tell her everything, of course,” he added hastily. “Although she strikes me as being fairly tight-lipped. If she isn’t interested, there’s also Abuti, who’s about the same age as Qinta. Being Norludian, she probably isn’t much good at keeping secrets, but we’d only have to tell her that you’re a friend of mine from offworld who needs help for a while.”
Sula was silent for several moments as the wheels in her head began to spin. Knowing what she did about Norludians, she probably couldn’t trust Abuti with her given name, let alone her surname. She’d be a fool to tell her the real story. On the other hand, Treslantis tended to be a little on the dishonest side.
“I mean, all I did was find you,” he went on. “I don’t even know what you’re hiding—other than yourself—so I can’t blab about it to anyone else.”
“What about your secret? Will you tell them you found me while you were out flying in the mountains?”
“No,” he admitted. “But if we put our minds to it, we should be able to come up with plausible explanations for everything.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” she said with a slow nod. “I’ll think about it.” As her gaze drifted to their surroundings, the size and style of the buildings made her gasp. “Oh my…”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she replied. “You live around here?” The squeak in her voice made her want to smack herself. She hadn’t exactly lived in a hovel while she was growing up; her parents both had well-paid, respected careers. Even though she had been living in dormitories for several years, she’d only been technically homeless since she left Ecos.
“Yeah. Just down the street a little.” He turned his head to stare at her. “Is that a problem?”
“No. I-I guess not. I mean, no. It’s fine. I just didn’t expect the neighborhood to be so…grand.”
To her surprise, he actually laughed. “You’ve obviously never been to the ritzy side of town. This area is pretty tame in comparison. When I bought the place, it was listed as a modest starter dwelling, suitable for growing young families.”
She reacted with a snort. “Young families with a dozen kids, maybe.”
“I bought it thinking I might have a family someday, and if you know anything about Zetithians, you know we tend to have children in litters of three.”
“Yeah. I knew that. Just never thought about what it would be like to house a family that size in a ‘starter’ home.” Sula was the third of her parents’ four children. A Zetithian family could top that number with two pregnancies.
“Tell me about it,” he said with a trace of sarcasm. “My mother only had two litters, which, given her Mordrial witch ancestry, was extremely rare. The witches of Utopia usually have only one daughter. The fact that my sister has five brothers is nothing short of a miracle. We lived on a starship with another Zetithian family that had three litters. All of them boys.”
“I feel sorry for the girl,” she whispered under her breath.
He apparently heard her, despite her mumbling. “She turned out okay. Took her a while to come to grips with her Mordrial side, though.”
She gave him a wry smile. “She sounds a lot like you in that respect.”
“I suppose she does.” He heaved a sigh. “Until today, Val was the only one I’d told about my Mordrial powers, and even he doesn’t know everything. I’m pretty sure my sister, Althea, has figured out at least part of it, although she’s never come right out and said so. Being an empath, she probably
sensed my desire for secrecy.”
With very little warning, he banked the speeder into a sharp turn before coming to a stop beside one of the larger buildings. “We’re here.”
Chapter 6
Sula’s jaw dropped. “This is a modest starter dwelling?”
“It’s just a house,” Aidan said wearily. “No need to make such a big deal about it.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I guess I’m not used to the building styles on Rhylos. I grew up in a very nice house in Bangalore, but it wasn’t quite so…”
“Ornate? Yeah. I thought it was a little over the top myself when I first saw it. Although compared to some of the others around here, it’s actually kinda plain.”
Plain was definitely not the word Sula would’ve chosen. Broad, shallow steps bordered a wide front porch that was spanned by six columns set between intricately carved arches. Beyond that was an arched entryway that wouldn’t have been out of place on a cathedral. Numerous windows studded the facade of both wings of the two-story building, each of them framed with gilded molding carved with asymmetrical curves and S-shaped designs.
“It’s an Old Earth style called rococo,” he said. “Probably the sort of thing that made French peasants want to start a revolution.”
Sula’s background in ancient architecture being virtually nonexistent, she was in no position to argue. “I’ll take your word for it.” Nevertheless, after living in the mountains for months on end without so much as a roof over her head, the place looked like a palace. “You must really be rich.” The words were out before she could stop them. Heat rose in her cheeks. “Please forgive me. I’m not usually so tactless.”
“No offense taken,” he said with a smile that warmed more than her cheeks. “A trust fund for surviving Zetithians was set up using the assets of the man responsible for destroying our planet. He had a ton of money, so we’re all pretty well off.” A soft chuckle escaped him as he waved a hand toward the house. “The design is a little pretentious, but the interior is more functional than fancy. Plus, there’s plenty of room. You could have the entire second floor to yourself if you want.”
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