He studied her curiously, trying to gauge her reaction. Was she at all disappointed that his former wife might be back in his life?
“I am not involved with my family—anymore. After the Ramans wiped my memory—”
She sucked in air with a hiss and jumped to her feet, her eyes full of sympathy. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry. You’ve recovered remarkably well . . .”
He shrugged. “When I could no longer take care of them, my wife found another mate. She kept the children, our daughter Tish and son Tad.”
Azsla hissed in a breath, her eyes tearing in clear sympathy.
He wouldn’t have said more, but she needed to understand. “At the time, I could barely take care of myself. My brother saw to it that I was one of the first colonists to escape Rama, and I in turn made certain my former mate and my children came to Zor. But until yesterday, I hadn’t spoken to any of them.”
He got the words out steadily, and although the pain of loss still ached and left him as if part of his heart were missing, he managed to share his story. Maybe he would finally move on, let go of the old hurts.
Azsla took his hand, slipped her fingers through his, and led him to the couch. She might be tough, but apparently she had a gentle side, too. “What happened yesterday?”
“Tish hit me up for credit over the com link. It’s the first contact we’ve had since the mind wipe back on Rama.”
“I don’t understand. Why hasn’t there been any contact before now?”
“My ex believed the children would be shamed and humiliated by my mind wipe. After she remarried, she preferred to pretend her time with me never happened.”
“So if you haven’t seen your children in all this time, how can you be sure the woman asking you for credit was really Tish?”
“I’ve kept track of them.” He didn’t admit his obsession. The files. The pictures. The private investigators. “Tish wanted a lot of credit. Too much for a young girl. And she wasn’t very pleasant.”
“Teenagers tend to be self-absorbed creatures. Most of them grow out of it, eventually.”
“Yes. Well, my former wife, Poli, isn’t going to just hand over her children to me because I tell her an asteroid might hit Zor.”
“Maybe Poli and her new mate—”
“Could join us on Alpha One?” Wouldn’t that be cozy. “She suffers from space sickness. No way would she voluntarily board a spacecraft. And I won’t force her since she could die from the nausea. She barely survived the trip from Rama to Zor.”
“And your children?”
He didn’t bother to hide his anguish. “Their mother won’t allow them to see me, never mind let them make up their own minds. Can you imagine her reaction if I ask her to hand them over to me and let me take them to the dangerous asteroid mines?”
“You said you wouldn’t force Poli . . . but”—her hand tightened on his—“are you going to force your children to come with you?”
“I don’t know.” His stomach was full of churning knots. He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation with Azsla, a woman he’d just met. He’d revealed more to her than he’d told Sauren during the decade they’d been friends. It was almost as if he had no inhibitions around this woman. He couldn’t hold back. Didn’t want to hold back.
What was it about her that had him opening up?
“I assume you have the resources to grab them?” She didn’t even wait for him to nod, before going on. “But would the government stop you?”
“They could try. But I have many resources, many connections.” Even as he answered, her comments had taken him aback. Azsla didn’t think like any woman he’d met. She was thinking about strong-arm tactics, kidnapping and political consequences, analyzing and assessing, almost as if she’d had military training. He supposed she could have picked up a lot of useful information from the First she’d worked for on Rama.
“I’m worried about uprooting my children from everything they’ve ever known.”
“Seems to me you should present your offer of safety to the entire family. Otherwise, if you save the kids and their parents don’t survive, they’ll blame you.”
She made good points. Several he hadn’t thought about. In all these years he’d never walked up to the door of the house he’d paid for and demanded a meeting. The other possibilities were endless. His children might wish to come with him. Or maybe not, as he recalled Tish’s behavior with him. Perhaps the new husband would convince them to go.
And if they refused?
He’d leave that decision until later. Right now, he owed Azsla an apology. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”
“If I heard my world was going to be destroyed, I might go into denial, too.”
She let him off the hook so easily and without blame. And now he asked the questions he should have asked before. “Can you tell me any more about what you heard at the Space Ministry?”
“I only heard bits and pieces.” She shook her head, couldn’t meet his gaze. Something about that bothered him.
“Nothing else?”
“I heard the tranqed Firsts were leaving soon.”
“Who told you?”
“People were standing around a water cooler talking. I assume they want to get their people out before Katadama arrives.”
He recalled their last discussion, how distracted he’d been. He hadn’t asked her enough questions. He’d been too shocked to hear tranqed Firsts were on Zor. “How do Ramans get here and get out? We monitor the portal—”
“Both of them?”
“Both?” He frowned at her, his suspicions rising even as he was drawn to her intelligence. “We only know about one.”
“There’s another portal. The second one is on the other side of Zor, although I’m not sure where exactly.”
A second portal? Sweet Vigo. There could be tranqed Firsts, spies, everywhere. Even in his own organization. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
She shivered and rubbed her arms. “I thought you knew . . . I’ve known about the other portal since before I left Rama. I didn’t realize Zorans had no knowledge of it.”
Derrek and Taylo had spoken about cloaked portals, but the idea was theoretical. Apparently the Ramans had the jump on them by developing a cloaking device. He didn’t allow his face to change expression, but his suspicions heightened. Azsla knew too many important details, from gossip about the weapon to knowledge of tranqed Firsts on the planet, and now the secret portal. Was it simply due to the importance of the First she’d worked for on Rama? He had questions that needed answers about this woman and feared his strange fascination and attraction to her were clouding his thinking. But if what she’d said about the second portal was true, did President Laurie know? Could an attack be stopped?
Derrek realized it was time to interrupt his brother’s second honeymoon. He’d put a call through before morning. And he’d like to hear his brother’s take on Azsla’s story because something didn’t sit right with Derrek. She knew too much.
And yet although he was suspicious as hell, he couldn’t stop himself from wanting her. And his inappropriate reactions made him suspicious as hell. Even now, his blood was hot for her. He didn’t want to leave her to go after his family, but he must. His need for her was distracting, irritating, consuming. He wanted to take her to bed. But he wouldn’t. His family came first. However, that didn’t mean he couldn’t have a small taste. He stopped pacing, sat beside her, and leaned forward. “Lady, you scare me.”
She tilted up her head. Her lips inches from his. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Talking isn’t required.” He dipped his head and kissed her. Her lips were so soft, so tempting, so wonderful. She leaned into him, and he inhaled her sweet scent. Her lips parted. He took more. His tongue traced the inside corner of her mouth. Her tongue gently caressed his,
and warmth undid the knots in his stomach. Made his heart pound with need.
It didn’t matter that he was certain she was hiding things. It didn’t matter that he didn’t trust her. He only knew he needed to kiss her, to hold her in his arms, to be consumed by her heat.
And when she kissed him back, he demanded more. He tugged her onto his lap, enjoyed her fingers winding behind his neck and into his hair to pull him closer.
For long micronbits, she clung to him, kissing him back with seemingly as much enthusiasm as he felt for her. But when she finally pulled back with a gasp, her lips swollen and her eyes dilated and filled with regret, her hands shaking, she spoke in a shaken voice. “You need to go. To your family.”
15
DERREK LEFT AZSLA to get some well-needed rest and headed out to find his ex-wife and new husband, who lived in Latonia, a suburb of the capital. He flew his private hovercraft, his hands steady on the controls, his speed quick but not dangerous. Although he’d never been here before, he had no difficulty finding the residence and parked in front of a good-sized brick house with a well-kept lawn similar to others in the neighborhood. He might be heading to see the family he hadn’t seen in years, but surprisingly his mind was on Azsla’s kiss.
A real kiss. Not a vision.
That kiss had stirred his heart, nicked it up a little. And he’d wanted more. In other circumstances, taking over would have been automatic. He would have coaxed her to join him in the privacy of the owner suite and taken his time getting to know her better and loving her properly.
He hadn’t, of course. Time was too short. So, he’d tamped down his swirling desires and prayed no one had noted his struggle to leave her behind. The world was about to go into crisis. His family was in jeopardy, and he had no business thinking about Azsla.
Yet . . . he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her. At least she’d seemed happy to accept his offer to take her back to Alpha One with him. And he looked forward to showing her his home.
As he approached his destination, Derrek’s muscles tensed, his eyes narrowed, and his back stiffened. He’d paid for this house. His family lived here. If not for the mind wipe, this could have been his home. His life. Dirtside.
He headed up the sidewalk but didn’t make it to the front door. A boy, Tad, his son, who was now fourteen, was lying on his back beneath a hover cycle. Derrek had never met this child since the mind wipe had occurred before Tad’s birth. But even if he hadn’t recognized him from holopics, his pulse would have raced at the mere possibility of meeting him.
Tad was his son. They shared DNA. With his legs sticking out of the too-short pants that rode up his ankles, as if he’d recently spurted up in height, he looked skinny and determined. He’d scooted under a hover cycle and hadn’t yet seen Derrek from his position on his back, his attention on his work. A smudge of grease stained his hand. He had a dried cut over his eyes, and he looked totally happy as he whistled while he torqued his wrench.
“Mom’s not home,” he said, responding to either the sound of Derrek’s footsteps or his shadow.
“Tad.”
“Who wants to know?” The kid’s music box blared hard dunk and dive music, and Derrek refrained from wincing or asking him to turn it down.
Instead, he squatted next to the hover bike, wondering if he’d ever been like Tad. He had no memories of his childhood, and although Cade had filled Derrek in, explaining that he’d loved to tinker, there were huge gaps about which he knew nothing. “Doing a tune-up?”
“I’m retrofitting the engine. I want to juice her up hot enough to win a street race. Don’t tell Mom. She doesn’t like me getting dirty, okay?”
“No problem.” Derrek thought it odd that Tad’s mother worried about a little dirt and not the fact the kid could get hurt in a street race, but kept the thought to himself.
Tad pulled out from under the bike, jerked a rag from his back pocket, and, his touch loving, he polished the shiny chrome that didn’t have a speck of dust. “I built her from scratch out of junk parts.”
“Impressive.”
Now that he could see the boy’s face, he realized that Tad looked a lot like him. He had Derrek’s straight nose, the same jutting chin and dark brows. But even better, he had fire in his eyes that filled a bit of the hole in Derrek’s heart.
“She’d be more impressive if I had the credit for—” Tad stopped talking and stared at Derrek, his eyes widening and openly hurt. Clearly he recognized his father, and his tone hardened with defiance. “You came because Tish called yesterday?”
“Not really.” Derrek grinned at Tad, surprised Tish had shared with him, and he hoped brother and sister were close. “Did she tell you she called?”
Tad winked. “I have resources.”
“So why does she need that kind of credit?”
Tad frowned. “She didn’t tell you? She wants to study engineering at the university. Mom doesn’t approve.”
The charming brat was spying on his sister. Derrek had to hide a grin behind a cough. He thought of his own bunker where he tapped into the world’s computer system and broke encrypted code. Like father, like son. In addition, the idea that his daughter was interested in engineering impressed him, but he wondered why she hadn’t told him why she’d wanted the credits. Derrek didn’t bother hiding his own amusement at Tad’s spying and openly chuckled. “I suppose there’s not much around here you don’t know.”
“I know you pay the bills, and Mom lies about it to us. What I don’t know is why you never came around.” Hurt and defiance wrenched his thin frame.
Derrek ached to reach out and hug the boy. He didn’t have any memories of his birth, his growing up. Until this moment, they’d never spoken, never mind touched. But he felt a protectiveness he’d always known was there . . . and that protectiveness was growing. Something in the kid called out to his heart that had shattered so long ago. Maybe it was his close resemblance to himself. Maybe it was the mix of boyish hurt and adult intelligence. Maybe he reminded him of what he imagined he might have been like at that age—caught up in things he didn’t understand.
“I wanted to see you.” Derrek spoke softly, his heart aching.
“Yeah, right.” His son backed away but not before Derrek caught sight of tears brimming. “You didn’t want us.”
“That’s mud slime. Do you think I would have paid all the bills for all these years if I didn’t want you?”
“Mom said you had your mind wiped. That you’d forgotten us.”
“She spoke true about that. I was punished for a crime I didn’t do. And Firsts took all my memories. I couldn’t walk or talk. I had to relearn everything—just like a baby does. It took a long time to function again.”
Derrek tried to keep his tone easy but couldn’t help spitting the word “First” from his mouth like a curse. After all this time, he still hadn’t stopped hating all Firsts for ripping apart his life, shredding his family. As he spoke to Tad and realized how much he’d missed—birthdays, schooldays, going fishing, tucking him in at night—a lump rose in his throat.
Derrek forced his voice to be matter of fact, and he tried to maintain his cool for the sake of his son. But no one could put that kind of horror behind them and feel nothing—not and remain human. “My brother Cade, your uncle, stood by me during that difficult time. When I recovered enough to ask my brother about my past, Cade told me about my family. About you and Tish. I wanted to come back, but your mother had moved on with her life. She thought it would be best for you if you never knew me. I respected her wishes.”
“Why did you listen to her?” The kid eyed him, clearly upset. Derrek guessed his son was torn between wanting to run from him out of hurt and wanting to stay out of curiosity. “Is Mom smarter than you?”
“She knew you better than I did. I trusted her judgment that she would know what was best for you.”
Derrek was careful not to place any blame on his ex. He loved his children so much that he didn’t want them to think badly of their mother—no matter how unfairly she’d treated Derrek.
“So why are you here?” Tad asked.
A hovercraft roared up the driveway before Derrek could answer. He recognized the occupants from holo pies. Poli, a gorgeous woman immaculately dressed, stepped out of the vehicle with Tish, his similarly dressed teenage daughter. Slender and fit, they looked like sisters. Both women were stunning. Well groomed from head to polished nails that they showed off in open-toed shoes, their clothes accentuated their curvy figures to perfection.
“Tad, I told you to throw that hover bike in the trash,” Poli spoke as she handed shopping bags to her husband Mavinor, a tall, thin man who looked washed out in comparison with his glamorous wife and stepdaughter. Derrek eyed the man and wondered if he was worthy of taking his place. Was he kind? Did he love Tad and Tish? Did he support their goals and hobbies?
“Mom. We have company.” Tad’s voice sounded almost joyful, as if the mischievous kid couldn’t wait to see his mother’s reaction.
“What?” Poli craned her long neck around the hovercraft, took one look at Derrek, and screeched, “Tad and Tish! Run. Go inside right now.”
Tad folded his arms over his chest. “No.”
Derrek got the feeling he said no often. Defiance sat comfortably on his mischievous face.
Tish strode around the car and tried to slap Tad across the cheek. As if expecting the attack, he ducked and kicked his older sister in the shin. “Owww. You little slime—”
“Tish, watch your language,” her stepfather spoke mildly.
She hopped up and down, her elegance forgotten as she screwed up her face in pain. “I don’t give a crap—”
“Tish,” her mother ordered and pointed at Tad. “Grab your brother and go.”
Tad scooted behind Derrek. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You see what I have to put up with?” Poli rolled her eyes at several neighbors who’d come outside to watch the arguing. Then, as if to show off her purchases, she plucked a scarf out of a shopping bag and draped it around her shoulders, and Derrek wondered if she was teaching their daughter anything other than how to shop. Perhaps that’s why Tish hadn’t mentioned engineering school; she’d thought he’d disapprove like her mother.
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