“My father is the police chief. He looks after security for the whole planet.” How like a child I sound.
“That must take away from the anonymity of the name. Is it hard to get out with a father like that?”
“No, he’s not strict with us.”
“Us?”
“Well, just me now. My mother and my brother died six years back.”
“Ah. I’m sorry to hear that, Marim.”
Marim twirled the rose between her fingers. “You know, you never did tell me your surname.”
“Silvia and I were given one, but it lacks meaning. So we’ve dispensed with it. A family name is a mere formality. How often do your friends call you Ms. Trehar?”
“Not often,” she admitted. Their gazes locked, and he angled his body toward her. They stopped. His chest was hot and firm under her fingers as her hand settled on him of its volition. Her fingers moved up his chest over to his muscular arms, hidden inside the dark shirt. Would all of his skin prove as dark as his face?
Deep inside her, she knew she should stop. But the morning waited at the end of time, an eternity away.
“Marim,” he said, “that’s what I’ll call you. That’s who you are. You aren’t your family. You’re Marim.”
“And you’re Halis.”
“Yes.”
He kissed her, his lips softer than the petal of a rose, his mouth warm. Her eyes fluttered closed, and she tasted the night on his breath. His hand moved to her shoulder, and his lips hovered over hers, mere breaths between them.
“Marim.”
Now he liked the taste of her name, and she soared.
“Halis.” His name felt solid on her tongue. He was contained in those two syllables. “Please, kiss me again.”
He kissed her again. The rose fell from her fingers. She had never been embraced by a man. His kiss traveled to every secret place on her body without his lips ever leaving her mouth. She leaned her body against his, her limbs conforming to him. She felt him right through their clothes. She had been taught all about the male body in school, but now the muscles moved under her fingers. For the first time, she knew what the male body was. For the first time, she knew her body. His hand traveled down her side, and she sighed into his mouth.
“No, stop,” she said, something stirring in the back of her mind. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t what she wanted.
“Yes,” he said.
The feeling of wrongness drifted away with his word. “Yes,” she said.
He kissed her, and she allowed him, welcomed him. Her lips parted and his tongue slid across hers, and she shivered. He held her close, and she tried to get closer.
“You’ve bewitched me,” she said.
“We shall make music, you and me.”
“Silvia…”
“Is with Darith.”
“It isn’t right.” But it feels good. Life is so short… so very short. I want this. Why say no? A fog of desire covered her brain, making further ruminations drift away into the thrum.
“Does it feel wrong?”
“No, but it is. Isn’t it?”
He drew back. “Ms. Trehar.”
“No, don’t call me that.” Marim’s hands gripped his arm. Her body called out for his, yearning as if the inches between them were miles and the distance tormented her.
“Marim.” He pulled her close again, his hands sliding up the front of her dress, resting on her breast.
“Yes, yes.” Her eyes closed, and she delved deep into the feelings within her.
“We’re making music already. You can feel the song in your bones, can’t you?”
She could. “It’s a dream and nothing can be wrong in a dream.”
Somehow the ground wasn’t hard, but soft and warm. He was heavy on top of her, and his kisses slipped inside her. Her dress slid up over her hips and his fingers stroked and explored the exposed flesh. She leaned her head into the ground and experienced the feel of him without burdening the experience with names. The straps of her dress slipped off her shoulders, and he kissed her there.
She moaned. His hands played her body, and she held him to her. Then his mouth warmed her as her skin was revealed to the dark heavens.
The night’s eyes saw her, and she saw the night in him. She knew him but was not afraid. Her fear hovered in the night waiting to swoop down but couldn’t get past the spell he wove. His next kiss was forceful, and she moaned and moved her hips against him.
Then he was inside her, and she cried out in pain. The pain didn’t last. The feeling of the night did. The night slid into her with him, like velvet. Her fingers dug into his back as she clutched him to her. He was the hungry void, and there was a hidden cruelty beneath his charm, but for now, she was his. Nothing else mattered.
Bark scraped against Silvia’s bare back, and she turned her face up to the moon. Drunk on her aura, Darith’s mouth traveled down her neck. No sense of triumph came with the conquest. With one so young, the natural pheromone lure of her breed rarely failed.
Her fingers wound through his hair, stroking softly. She took this moment, after coupling, to touch the web inside her, drawing power from it. Conception was a foregone conclusion—the pheromone and hormone mix also ensured that. Mating with a human, without proper precaution, always led to a child, just as she and Halis could never create a child together.
If only I could bear a child for Halis. But being made as they were, that was impossible. And now that they would have their freedom, the idea of offspring appealed to both of them.
“I didn’t intend this,” Silvia said. It was true, but something about the boy called to her. His beauty had tempted her, but there was something deeper, something inside him that she could not name.
Darith leaned back on the tree beside her and smiled.
“When I came here tonight, it was for one purpose only.” Teaching Berrick a lesson on how easily they could break him using little Marim, but Halis had clearly been as impressed with the girl, as she had been with Darith. Did Halis even realize that coupling with the girl would be worse in her father’s eyes than any physical harm he could have done? She doubted it. Halis saw bearing a spider child as an honor. “But you were surprisingly impressive.”
“Purpose?” Darith’s eyes narrowed.
Clever boy to have picked that out. She doubted she could enthrall this one as fully as she had done with Henri. Too bad, a message was needed.
Silvia gathered the web of energy around her and drew on the currents, forcing her body into her spider form. No matter how she wished the transformation was natural for her, it wasn’t. Unlike Halis, the change took effort for her. Long, white legs thin as spears thrust from her sides as her body fed into its new form.
All of her spider eyes fastened on Darith. Despite her expectations, he didn’t run. After leaping to his feet, he spread his arms to the side, and a glimmer formed around his fingers.
He was an energy-bender like her. Interesting, the mutation was rare, especially in a form powerful enough to give him any practical aid. Yet clearly, he was strong. The plants around the edge of the clearing drooped, the flowers dried up, their petals either falling or shriveling. He knew how to pull on the surrounding energies.
Silvia gathered venom in her jaw. She needed to incapacitate him, but he was too beautiful a specimen to destroy. This would require a gentle touch.
Darith’s hands ignited, and he took several steps away from her. His glare had widened into something more akin to what she had expected. Fear.
“What are you?” The energy in Darith’s hands crackled as he brought his palms together, gathering it.
Too slow. He may have ability, but he wasn’t trained properly. That’s what comes of having to hide your strengths as if they were perversions.
Silvia leaped, and he released his energy to form a wall. A light shock ran through her as she collided. Tumbling back, she released the venom she’d gathered, burning the ground and Darith’s flimsy protection.
This
time, she circled more carefully. Darith’s eyes darted around for something to protect himself with. When his gaze strayed from her, Silvia pounced.
Darith crashed to the ground under her weight. The tips of her legs, razor-sharp, pressed against him, but she eased back, avoiding slicing the lovely body. This time the venom she gathered was not so deadly. She swirled it with the energy gathered inside her.
Her maw broadened, and she darted down, sinking her fangs into his stomach, several of her legs holding his upper body down. She released the venom aiming for a spot on his spine. Sitting there, the contaminate would cripple him until he accepted the Drambish gene that her venom carried.
His scream echoed out into the gardens, a song that should have been sweet to her ears. As soon as he’d received the full dose, she darted off into the trees. His cries reached her as she allowed her body to change back into its human form.
She wanted to tell the boy that he’d be whole again, in time. But he couldn’t know that some of the damage was temporary, if he knew, he’d tell Berrick. And she needed Berrick seeing as much harm as possible in this attack.
I could have killed him. That would have been even more terrifying. But no matter what they see, I’m not a monster I’ve never killed by choice, and never will. Why did that feel less comforting than it should?
Chapter 6
Consequences
The drive from the shop in the boonies back to town had been completely silent. Berrick leaned against the passenger door, watching the country go by, cursing himself for not being more vigilant. Sue-Ellen drove, tapping her hands on the wheel and occasionally glancing at Berrick.
When the vehicle crunched up the long drive to the Cortanis estate, Sue-Ellen gave a little gasp. Berrick lifted his eyes from the rose-lined walk to the house.
The count’s house was decked in black.
“I’ll send someone to retrieve your car from the city. Don’t you worry none,” Sue-Ellen said. The car came to a halt. She laid a hand on his arm and gave him a reassuring squeeze.
“Thank you, Sue.” Berrick climbed out and waited until the sound of gravel under tires faded away to approach the house.
For a moment before he knocked, he imagined that the black flag on the door bore no relation to his adventure with Henri. After a few days off the grid stranded in the country, anything could have happened. It may have nothing to do with Marim.
The fabric flapped heavily in the wind. Each flup, flup sounded like an accusation. The huge oak door swung open, exposing a dark entryway and behind that the cavernous black of unlit halls. With the steward’s sad, sallow face, hope dissipated. Halis and Silvia kept him in their control as surely as if they’d tied him up until he did their bidding.
“Mr. Trehar, come in.” The steward bowed and stepped aside. Berrick grabbed his arm and stared into the house passed his head. No answers leaped out from the dim entryway.
“What happened?”
“The young master was attacked.” The steward looked away. “Go in and talk to the count, sir.”
As uninviting as the house was, Marim was inside. Berrick strode in and focused his gaze, determined to get to the count as quickly as possible. He didn’t want to talk to his friend. Getting to Marim mattered exclusively. By the gods, if they had hurt her… his wife’s bloodless face in her coffin swam in his vision. Marim looked like Polly had in her teen years. Berrick wanted to see Marim’s face immediately, to ensure that she was filled with life and health.
He couldn’t and wouldn’t lose her, but the count must come first no matter what the instincts of a father told him. Any planet but Yahal and formalities might have been dispensed with, but not here. That was why he’d chosen to move his family here in the first place. No good would come from questioning those choices now.
The first person who met him was the countess, her face swollen and red from crying. She clutched a handkerchief in her hand. The tight line of her mouth and too-wide set of her eyes formed an expression Berrick knew. That look of grief had lived at his house over the past six years. Berrick turned away.
“He can’t walk, can’t even move his legs. My little boy, my angel. I never should have let them attend that party. Why should he have gone? He didn’t want to go. He went to keep your daughter happy.”
You’re the reason, her voice accused him. You’re the reason my son is hurt.
Why did you let them go? Had she not guessed that he’d put a guard on Marim for a reason?
Then the count entered, and Berrick tried to look anywhere but at his friend’s tear-stained face. The count ran his hand through his hair, a nervous gesture he’d had since they’d been in college together. “What have you been told?”
“Nothing.”
“The kids wandered off at the party, and…” Count Cortanis’ voice trailed off. “Darith took Marim to the ball, and when they got there, they took a walk in the gardens with two unknown guests. Marim came back with the man. There wasn’t a scratch on her. No one suspected anything was awry until Marim left and the guard unit wasn’t there. Both guards were found dead in the bushes…they’d still been searching for Darith. They thought he was… They found Darith in the morning.” His voice choked to silence; he lifted a half-filled glass of whiskey to his lips.
The countess slapped her husband’s hand. A sob escaped her lips before they pressed back together. The glass crashed to the ground, scattering glass and little amber droplets over the pale carpet. The couple glared at each other before the countess lifted her hands to her eyes and sobs wracked her body. The count turned from her to the wall, his shoulders stiff.
The nearly silent tears tore at wounds hidden deep within Berrick. That hopeless grief waited under the surface for him, never more than a thought away. In those little gasping breaths, he saw Polly, cold, gray, and ugly in death. Only her red curls pretended to life. Blood had splattered from several holes in her chest. Berrick had witnessed Petyr as he must have been before he died, alone, terrified, and splattered with his mother’s blood. Suffering for a crime he hadn’t committed. Petyr’s existence had been the crime.
“Gods, I’m sorry. We’ll find whoever did this,” Berrick said.
I’ll kill them. They’ll pay for touching Marim, for crippling Darith. Since Darith’s birth, Berrick had been there to watch him learn to write and hunt. Darith had been a rock for Marim when Berrick broke down after they found Petyr’s body. And now someone had taken that prideful young man’s future and shredded it. What kind of monster harms a kid?
He couldn’t pursue the ones who’d hurt Petyr. Even knowing who they were, he could do nothing because they’d only been executing the directive of The Galactic Council. But these, the ones who’d dared to accost Marim, he could exact revenge from.
“I think you know who did this, Father.” Marim emerged from the shadows of the doorway.
Her words slipped through Berrick’s ears. The countess’ flare of anger also swam by. Nothing took root in his mind except for the frail, changed child in front of him. A contagion corrupted her and left a black streak creeping down her once fiery-orange locks. Marim’s altered hair tumbled over her bony shoulders. Clear as day, Halis had left his mark.
Marim wore her nightdress, but despite being dressed for sleep, her eyes were rimmed with circles as dark as kohl lining. He had only stayed away for a short while, but his daughter was a different creature. Her eyes made him shiver, and then Marim’s legs crumpled, and she toppled to the ground in a pool of white lace.
The countess screamed, and everyone else rushed to Marim.
Berrick sat by her bedside, silently watching as Marim came to in her borrowed bed. If he could have helped her open her heavy, drugged eyes, he would have. Instead, he put his hand on hers. Alive, she was alive, but the dark in her hair was a calling card that things could have gone differently. He turned his badge over and over in his hand—useless. After all he’d sacrificed, all the anger and pain he’d buried, his title was useless to help him once aga
in.
Marim pulled herself to a half-sitting position and fixed him with an imploring stare. From many investigations over the years, Berrick knew that look. His sweet little girl didn’t think he would believe her. Possibly, she didn’t believe her own memories.
That was easy to understand. From what he could gather from the count, everything Marim remembered about the night was implausible, vague, or both.
“Please, have they found the people who hurt Darith?” Marim asked.
“No. Who are they, Marim? The count says you don’t remember.” According to the police report, she remembered things, just not anything that made sense. But if he said that, she would shut down and tell him nothing. He wanted to believe her.
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