“Mairok?” he asked, grimacing.
She shook her head. “Your wife. Zana?”
Torek nodded then turned away, rummaging in the cabinet for another pan.
“You have love at first sight?”
“Not quite.” Torek found a pan, placed it on the hot burner, and added another cube of fat. He watched the fat melt, determined not to let it burn this time. “We grew up on adjacent estates. My first memories of life are with Zana, playing throughout our childhood, competing with one another in class, being reprimanded for the mischief we found together, and eventually, our relationship blossomed from friends to lovers. Our mothers were best friends. Our fathers were Federation officers. It was a celebrated match for both our families and the community, but for us, it was just the next, natural phase of our lives. I didn’t know what life was without Zana.” The fat finally melted. Torek slid the keylak and jok into the pan, and they sizzled on contact.
Delaney bit her lip. “What happen?”
He covered the pan and watched the vegetables fry through the clear lid. “Zana was often ill. Rorak was difficult on her lungs—like when you run, actually.” He glanced back at Delaney, frowning, and then refocused on his cooking. “But she struggled to breathe under even normal, daily strain, like walking. As she aged, her condition worsened. I often cared for her through Rorak, but one season, her sickness lingered into Genai. I needed to return to my post and protect Onik against the zorel. I didn’t want to leave her bedside, but Zana insisted. She was at the end of her sickness. Onik’s people needed me more than she did. And Mairok was there, anyway. It’s not as if I was leaving her completely alone. Her own mother was there, and she’d cared for Zana throughout her childhood, seasons before me.”
The counter cracked, and Torek realized he was crushing it in his grip. He forced his hands to relax and smoothed his palms over the ruined countertop.
“Onik was in mortal danger, and I thought Zana was not. So I left to protect Onik.”
A hand touched his back. Delaney had left her chair and was standing right beside him. He relaxed under the gentle pressure of her hand, and with that reassurance, she wrapped her arms around his hips.
“No need to explain your actions. I know you,” she murmured. Her hold tightened. “Her death not your fault.”
“She died. While I was away, she died.” Torek confessed. He knew Delaney had already jumped to that inevitable conclusion, but he had to say it. “It took many, many seasons for me to understand that distinction. She died while I was away, not because I was away. It’s a distinction that Mairok still doesn’t grasp.”
Torek turned away from Delaney’s hold and lifted the lid under the pretense of checking the vegetables, wiping the moisture that had soaked into the fur on his cheeks. “And you, my little one? Are you married?”
She shook her head, releasing him along with a pent-up sigh as she sat back down. He could practically see the questions on her tongue, pressing for release. But with her large, keen eyes, she could see his pain. She was far too sensitive to ask more of him, and Torek was oddly touched by her restraint and compassion.
“A lover, then? Someone you’ve left behind on your Earth?”
“No. No husband, no lover, no family.” She shrugged. “I not stay in one place long enough to make friends.”
Torek couldn’t have heard her correctly. The tone of her voice, so nonchalant, could not have said what she’d just said. He covered the pan and turned to her. “No family?”
“You keep this up, your food will burn again,” she remarked.
She was deliberately changing the subject, but she was also right. He cracked several yarks into a bowl, set the oven to heat, and began whisking. “Your parents are dead? No siblings or cousins? No aunts or uncles or forefathers?”
Delaney crossed her arms. Her upper lip sneered. Had she been a lorok, a single fang would have peeked out. “Family not needed. They are expectations and rules and… and a cage. I make my own path in life, and I better for it.”
Torek heard the bitterness beneath her bravado and reeled. No. The answer to every one of his questions was no. “Were you a lone survivor of some accident or disaster that wiped out your entire family?”
“No. They alive for all I know. I just not know.”
“How is that possible?” He pulled the haekak from the chiller and spread it out on the counter, pressing it flat with long rolls. “Who raised you?”
“I raise myself.”
Still that bravado. Still that bitterness. “Young humans are self-sufficient upon birth?”
“No, of course not.”
Torek considered his haekak. It was rolled thin, but could use a little evening. Too thin and the crust would rip while baking. Too thick, and it would not bake through. “So. Who cared for you until you were self-sufficient?”
Her face burned red. “I not know the Lori word.”
“When has that ever stopped you?”
She blew out a hard breath. “People the government pay to keep children with no family.”
Torek frowned. “We don’t have a word for that. All children have family.”
A little of that bravado cracked into anger. “All children on Lorien have family?”
“Yes.”
She gave him an unfathomable look. “What about the children no one want?”
Torek stopped rolling his haekak. “Children no one want?”
“The ones born from rape. The ones whose parents die young.” She crossed her arms. “All children not have a family.”
“They do. Even if a child is born in difficult circumstances—by rape or in poverty or by dying parents—extended family will raise the child to maturity.”
“What if the child is left for dead in a, a trash heap, for example, and no one know the family she belong to?”
“Are you asking what would happen to a child thrown in the garbage?” Torek blinked. “Why would that ever happen?”
“Why do a million things happen?” Delaney suddenly shouted, her hands chopping the air. “Maybe the mother is young and feeling shame for having a child with no husband. Maybe she on drugs and not handle the weight. Maybe someone attack her, take the baby from her stomach, and toss it aside. Maybe the father is abusive and force her to do it. Maybe the mother die, and the father is too young or too stupid or too selfish to care for me on his own. In those circumstances, what happen to the child here on Lorien?”
It didn’t escape Torek’s notice that “the child” had turned to “me” in the middle of her rant. Lorien, lend me your steady breath. He draped the haekak gently over a shallow pan. If he focused all his concentration on cooking, maybe the horror he felt at her words wouldn’t materialize in his expression.
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice overly calm even to his own ears. “Many of those scenarios are unfathomable. What does bearing a child while young and unwed have anything to do with feeling shame? Why would a child be tossed aside even after a gruesome attack? Why would a father not raise his child, and if he was mentally ill or physically unable to do so, why was he without family to raise the child on his behalf? You’re speaking as if the child is a burden.”
Delaney stared at him a long moment. Her hands had locked into a white-knuckled fist on the table. “Children are a burden.”
Torek pursed his lips. “We don’t see children that way. They’re a rare gift. A blessing.” He strained to keep his voice casual as he continued, but he feared that not all his shock could be contained. “Children aren’t cherished on Earth?”
Delaney chewed on her lip, but he didn’t think the movement had anything to do with hunger. “They are, by many humans. But children are not rare on Earth. Millions of babies are born every year. Every—” Her eyes rolled up in calculation. “Every Rorak and half of Genai.”
Torek jerked back, astounded. “Millions?” There weren’t even one million lorienok on Lorien. A few thousand babies were born every Genai, and barely half ever survived their
first zorel season.
She nodded. “Children are expensive, and sometimes mothers feel shame in having them, and many of the circumstances I describe happen on Earth all the time.”
Torek poured the whisked yarks and fried keylak and jok over the haekak. The yarks pooled in the pan, connecting everything into one mass. He couldn’t imagine. So many children, so many blessings, so many resources needed for their survival. He could imagine their burden in such circumstances, but gazing upon Delaney—upon her beauty and temerity, her frailty and stubborn strength—it both grieved and angered him that she would be considered such a burden.
He slid the pan of yark e haekak in to bake and set his daami to chime in thirty minutes, ignoring the itching reminder that he’d considered her a burden when purchasing her as his animal companion.
“So these circumstances happen often enough that your government has a process for giving children a new family?” Torek washed his hands and sat at the table next to Delaney.
“Yes and no,” she said. “Sometimes a child gets a new family. But sometimes a temporary family is paid to raise the child until a permanent family is found. I live with several temporary families from when I was born until I was sixteen years, um”—she looked up at the ceiling for a moment—“almost thirteen kair.”
“Several families?”
“Yes. One no longer want me in their home. Another is found unacceptable to host children. And I run away from the last.”
Torek willed his hackles not to rise. “A home was found unacceptable to host children after you were hosted by them?”
Delaney’s jaw flexed. She was grinding her teeth. “Yes.”
“What happened?”
Delaney slouched in her chair. Her hands dropped to her lap and wedged between her thighs, and Torek realized that he was prying. His questions had crossed the boundary from inquisitive to hurtful, and unlike Delaney and her sensitive retreat when she’d approached that line, Torek was barreling headlong into unwanted territory.
“A permanent family was never found, then?” he asked instead.
She shook her head, gazing away and out the skinny sliver of window to the snowy world outside the estate’s stone walls. “I am better off. Imagine if I have family? Of all the humans to abduct from Earth, I am the best choice.”
Torek quivered with the strain of keeping his anger in check. “How is that?”
“I am the one missing person who is not missed.”
She couldn’t hide the bitterness anymore. It bled into every word, and Torek’s heart was poisoned by it. He reached out, smoothing his finger pads over her wrists.
She jumped at the contact. Her gaze whipped to his hands.
He pulled her hands from between her thighs and squeezed her fingers gently but firmly. “I disagree. You deserved a permanent family, and you never should’ve been harvested. But I’m selfishly glad you were.”
“Why?” she whispered.
“Because…” Gah, Shemara would gorge herself on this. “Because knowing you has healed parts of me.”
She slipped her hands from his. “You not know me. Not really. Not as a person.”
Torek squeezed his fists on empty air. “I want to know you as a person.”
“Why?” she snapped.
His hackles rose, beyond the ability to hide his anger anymore. “You’re part of my family now.”
She laughed, but the sound was laced with the same bitterness as her words. Where had he misstepped? “Another temporary family. Joy!”
“Not temporary. I love you, my Resh—” He coughed. “My Delaney. Your home with me is permanent.”
“Yes, your Reshna. You want to ship me back to Earth, remember?”
Torek considered his possible responses, but she’d cornered him. If he planned to return her to Earth, he was throwing her away, but if he kept her, he was enslaving her.
In the wake of his telling silence, Delaney nodded.
He couldn’t help the growl that ripped from his throat. “What would you have me do?” he snarled. “As Reshna, you’re my family, for me to care for and indulge and love. As Delaney, you’re my prisoner. I can’t abide that.”
Her eyes rolled. “Now who is the diva?”
“You’re not imprisoned?” Rak, when had he begun shouting?
“No, I am not.”
He pointed accusingly at her tether lying discarded on the floor. “Yes, you are!”
She grabbed his hand and held it. “You protect me, not imprison me.”
“Why do you need protecting? Who are you scared of?”
“Keil and I plan for the worst for five years. The worst happen. I think our plan, five years in making, is better than your plan, five minutes in making!”
“The worst happened.” Torek’s eyes narrowed. “Who murdered Keil?”
Delaney released his hand and wrapped her arms around herself. Her lips clamped shut.
He cupped her shoulders and shook her gently. “The worst happened, Delaney, but I can make it right if you’ll let me!”
“You not make it right! No one can!”
“I can do anything. I’m Torek Lore’Onik Weidnar Kenzo Lesh’Aerai Renaar. Do you know what my many names mean?”
“Onik, Weidnar, and Kenzo are the three major cities on Lorien,” she said, ticking off his names on her fingers. “And you are captain of the guard of all three. And the estate owner of a fourth town.”
“Yes, and do you know what that means?”
“It means you think you command the world!” She was so exasperated, her chest actually heaved with the strain of breathing and shouting.
Torek did not grin. She would think she’d won if he grinned. “I command, and the people of Lorien obey.”
“Not all of Lorien! Not everyone!”
“Yes, everyone!”
Delaney shook her head, stubbornly refusing to accept that he was right, to see that he’d just won their argument. He could make anything right against any enemy. He had full reign over every city, over every lor and lorok in all of Lorien.
Well, all save one. He didn’t have reign over Dorai Nikiok Lore’Lorien.
His daami chimed. Their yark e haekak was ready.
The zorel alarm drowned the chiming of his daami and all contemplations of matching wills and winning against Delaney. His stomach hitched into the throat.
Genai had come.
Part Two
Genai (noun): The slightly less bitterly cold season on the planet Lorien, lasting approximately six Earth months.
Twenty
Talk about being saved by the bell. Torek’s infernal gut logic had launched a full missile attack on the truth, blowing past every barrier she’d attempted to erect against a direct hit. He’d been getting there too, right before the power had cut, replaced by dim emergency lights, and the fierce, ear-stabbing wail of a fire truck’s siren pierced the room.
Delaney slapped both hands over her ears, attempting to muffle the sound. “What is that?” She screamed, then froze, realizing she’d spoken in English.
The siren cut midwail and was replaced by a monotone voice over an intercom.
“Third quadrant. Zone forty. Point three, two, seven, nine, four, two, two…”
As the voice droned, Delaney realized that Torek hadn’t heard her anyway or wasn’t paying her any mind. He’d retreated to his bedroom and was getting dressed. She blinked. Fully dressed. Not just in his usual waterproof workout jumpsuit and weapons holster, but in head-to-toe uniform. He pounded his claw-tipped toes into spike-soled boots, smoothed his long hair into a bun at the back of his head, and faced her as he tugged the bottom of his jacket to lie flat against his broad chest.
Her breath caught. She’d joked with him about his commanding the entire world because he seemed so arrogant and the deference people gave him seemed ridiculous, but now, faced with his solemn, confident, powerful presence, she realized that she’d misjudged. He was a commander.
The commander.
�
��Take dinner out of the oven.” He strode toward the door. “Stay here. Don’t leave this room. I’ll return before you even finish eating.”
Delaney jumped up from her chair and blocked his path. “Wait! What happen?” She waved her hand at the flashing lights.
“It’s our first zorel breach. Early this season, but considering your accident on the Zorelok, I’m not surprised.” He gripped her shoulders and moved her bodily aside. “The yark e haekak. Take it out before it burns.”
“The what?” She clung to his biceps. “Stop! Where are you—”
The siren wailed again, drowning out her voice.
“This sounds serious!” she shouted. “Should we leave the building?”
Torek picked her up and settled her on his hip. Cupping his mouth, he spoke directly into her ear. “No. People will evacuate their homes and come here if necessary, but it won’t come to that. Not yet. This early, we can probably reinforce the ice before she escapes. You’re safest here.”
She grabbed his head and turned his face aside to speak into his ear. “But you leave?”
He glanced askance at her and grinned. “I must reinforce the ice.”
He strode to the dining nook with her still on his hip, opened the oven door, covered his hand with an oven mitt—he smelled like vanilla and used oven mitts—and took out the omelet pie. It looked absolutely delicious, like a well-baked quiche. Her stomach rolled, but not with hunger. She’d be eating alone.
He set the quiche on the table, plopped her down on a chair, and extracted himself from her grip. He pointed at the pie, then leaned down to shout in her ear. “Eat. I’ll return.”
The siren cut.
“Third quadrant. Zone forty. Point three, two, seven…”
Torek stepped back, but Delaney lunged out and grabbed his hand. “You return before I finish dinner?”
He blinked once, then tightened his hold on her fingers. “Eat slowly.”
Torek released her hand, about-faced, and strode from the room, shutting the door behind him.
At least he didn’t bother trying to lock her inside.
Beyond the Next Star Page 19