As they approached the island, she began to notice small flocks of birds. For some reason it reassured her. Dammit, she should have taken time to learn more about Garathan on the way here—the thin, lightweight tablet they’d given her when she signed on for the tour was apparently loaded with all the educational material the recruits were given, and Janelle had even told her that the interactive games made learning fun and easy. But she’d only had a few weeks to catch up on what they’d had over a year to study, and the number of files had been daunting. Plus, she couldn’t shake the feeling she might learn something that would make her regret her decision to come and be terrified the rest of the way.
Dig hole in sand. Insert head.
She began to notice other vehicles in the air. Though most were smaller than theirs, some were a hell of a lot bigger, and all of them were the same sharp-edged saucer shape. When a smaller one skimmed close enough for her to see the occupants’ faces, she cringed away from the window, instinctively pulling her feet up onto the seat.
“Isn’t that kind of dangerous?”
“All vehicles, even those that crawl the surface, are equipped with redundant anticollision technologies,” Cecine said. “None have collided here since the magnetic storms of the Crunus Capture more than thirty years hence.”
The Crunus Capture—finally, something she knew about. Jasmine had told her how an incredible confluence of cosmic events had allowed Garathan to capture Crunus, Narthan’s profitable crunite-bearing moon, in its orbit. Narthan’s second moon, Lomar, had been destroyed in the process, and both planets had suffered severe magnetic storms in the wake of the capture. Now Garathan had two moons and Narthan had none, which served the sneaky bastards right as far as Shelley was concerned.
She craned her neck again to look up at the sky. Off in the distance, a large flock of birds circled another small island. “Are either of the moons out now?”
“Crunus is just visible over here.” Cecine pointed out his window. Shelley leaned his way, and sure enough, she could see a faint crescent low on the horizon. “It orbits in a retrograde motion, and Amalan’s orbit is prograde, so it can be difficult for newcomers to calculate where either will be at any given time.”
Shelley snorted. “I’ve lived on Earth all my life and I never know where the moon is going to be in the sky.”
“That would not be so if you were a spacefaring race.”
“Hey, we’re spacefaring. Sort of,” she added when he gave her an amused look.
Hastion glanced over his shoulder. “We’ll be landing shortly.”
“Please make sure your seatbacks are upright and tray tables are stowed and locked,” she recited. When the minister cocked an inquisitive brow, she grinned. “Sorry, force of habit. I wanted to be an airline attendant for a while when I was a kid.”
“What changed your mind?”
“I flew for the first time and realized there was no place to pull over if we had engine trouble.”
Though his lips quirked, the almost tender look in his eye and the resumed motion of his thumb over her knuckles made her heart thud hard against her breastbone. “How did you overcome your fear?”
“I rode dragons,” she confessed without thinking.
He gave her an intrigued look, but before he could inquire, their pod swooped down.
“Five seconds to touchdown,” Hastion reported.
Oh God, this was it. She was about to set foot on a different world.
She laughed breathlessly. “I feel like Neil Armstrong.”
“Shelley, you’re hardly the first Terran to set foot on Garathan,” Hastion teased.
“Go ahead, spoil my moment.”
The pod touched down almost imperceptibly in a huge courtyard surrounded by waving blue palm trees and the minister finally let go of her hand. Standing up, he said, “Welcome to Garathan, Ms. Bonham.”
Hastion turned to smile at her. “Go ahead and look around, Shelley. I’ll help Tara with the twins.”
She smiled back. “Thank you.”
As she unbuckled, the side hatch behind Cecine lowered to become a ramp, and just like that, he was leading her by the hand to a new world.
The first thing that hit her was the soft, fragrant breeze. The air wasn’t brutally hot like Nevada, or oppressively humid like Mississippi, both of which she’d had the misfortune to experience on summer road trips with her family. Instead, it felt like a soft caress on her skin, an invitation to peel off her clothes and dance naked across the teal grass.
Whoa, where had that come from? No naked dancing on the lawn!
Then she realized she was still clutching the minister’s hand and blushed. “Oh, sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” he said without letting her go. “Some trepidation is only natural on your first excursion into a new world.”
“What’s that scent?” she asked. “It’s sweet, like flowers.”
“That would be the flowers,” he replied, pointing. Suddenly she noticed the circular garden of dark-red and purple flowers surrounding the landing area. “The red ones are ronii and the lavender are sapabell.”
“Ronii and sapabell,” she repeated. “I’m terrible with plant names, so I probably won’t remember.”
“Then you’re fortunate I’ve decided to dispense with our traditional postprandial pop quiz this evening.”
He said it with such a straight face, Shelley stared, thinking he might be serious until he gave her a sideways look, the tiniest smile ticking up the corner of his mouth. Then she giggled a little breathlessly, her stomach feeling a little jumpy. God, he was so—
“Mama, mama, mama!”
They both turned, and Shelley untangled her hand from the minister’s self-consciously.
“Hi, sweetie,” she said as she took Wyatt from Tara’s arms, smoothing his hair down in the back and wiping a drool track from his cheek. The first thing he tried to do was pull his T-shirt off. “No, Wyatt, you have to leave it on until we get wherever we’re going.”
Fussing, he tugged on the hem again. “No!”
Shelley rolled her eyes. “Why is that always the second word they learn?”
The minister reached for him and Wyatt reached back. “Come, young Wyatt. I’m eager for a walk. Let’s see if we can reach my house before the females.”
“No fair,” she called when his long legs carried him across the grass at a fast walk. “Wait, we’re at his house?” she said, looking around.
“We are indeed.” Hastion came down the ramp with Kallie, still dozing, on his shoulder. “I’ll carry her,” he said. “To find the house, just follow the minister.”
“Are you okay?” Shelley asked Tara.
She nodded, her expression pinched and her eyes heavy and rimmed with dark circles. “Yeah, I was just nervous last night and didn’t sleep well.”
“You should go to bed early tonight,” Shelley said sympathetically.
“I probably will.”
When they finally caught up to the minister on the steps of a sprawling, brilliantly white house overlooking the sea, Shelley’s mouth hung open and not just from the brisk walk. “Wow.”
The numerous levels of the house, only a few of which appeared to have any exterior walls, flowed upward with the land, rising and turning in a gentle arc around a sapphire-blue pool. Narrow waterfalls cascaded from the roofs on three different levels and then spilled down the side of the rocky hill into the pool. And there were at least four decks jutting out in the sun, one with stairs that led down to the white-sand beach. It looked like an exclusive island resort.
“I hope that’s a favorable exclamation,” Cecine said.
Shelley nodded fervently. “It is. Very. But why are we here? I thought we’d be living in some kind of employee housing attached to the clinic.”
“The nurses’ quarters are not designed to accommodate families, and I would not have you and the twins living unprotected. Ensign Hastion has joined my guard and will be your primary protector when I am unavailabl
e.”
“That’s…” unexpected hardly began to describe it, and Shelley felt stirrings of panic, “…really nice,” she finally managed. “If you’re sure we won’t be any bother.”
“Not at all. My home contains a dozen suites that languish unused for most of the year and my staff will be thrilled to have babes about.”
Staff. That calmed her racing heart a little. Staff who loved babies, even. It wouldn’t just be her and the alien leader cohabitating in his isolated island home.
“With your permission, Minister,” Hastion said, “I should visit my father as soon as possible. He has yet to be informed of my sister’s return from the grave and I would like to deliver the news personally before she shows up at his door.”
Hastion was leaving?
“Of course, Ensign. Take all the time you need.” The minister smiled at Shelley and her heart thumped again. “I’m certain we can find plenty to occupy us while you’re away.”
Hastion’s stomach curled unpleasantly as he entered his father’s courtyard. He could never pass through it without seeing the long row of biocasks that had once sat just inside the gate, awaiting proper disposal. His dear Lonia, his father’s second mate and the only mother he remembered, had lain there among them, frozen in her agony, haunting his every waking moment. He’d had no sleeping moments after the Narthani biowar virus swept through. Lonia was among the first to perish, and for weeks, the sounds and smells of violent disease and death had infiltrated every corner of the house.
Perhaps Shelley and the twins would accompany him on future visits and give him some newer, happier memories of this place. Then he might not dread visiting his father quite so much.
“Welcome home, Ensign Hastion,” the computer greeted as he reached the open door.
“Thank you, Armitran. Is my father about?”
“Elder Brothan is in his office. Shall I announce you?”
“Please.”
Hastion walked directly down the dim, breezy corridor and into the back of the house, where his sire kept his rooms.
When he walked into the office, which opened onto a wide deck, he found Brothan leaning back in his desk chair, staring out at the sea. He looked older than his eighty years, but that was only to be expected after all the anguish he’d suffered.
Clearing his throat, Hastion said, “Good afternoon, Father.”
Brothan glanced at him and his eyes widened. “What in Peserin’s name happened to your hair?”
Hastion smoothed his hand over his shorn head self-consciously. If he heard that question one more time…
He handed him the last bottle of Terran whiskey. “It’s my punishment for drinking the other bottle of this.”
His father inspected the label. “Thank you. I look forward to sampling it.”
“Lock away your weapons first. It’s potent.”
“I’ll do that.” He set the bottle on the desk. “You should have notified me of your arrival—I would have had Osso ready your rooms.”
Hastion blinked. He’d been so focused on the matter of Jasmine it hadn’t even occurred to him that Brothan might not be aware of his bonded status. Males who were not on the mating rolls frequently elected not to receive mating notifications.
“I won’t be staying,” he began.
Brothan sighed. “That’s probably just as well since I’m due on Capsay in the next few days. We’re in the process of acquiring a distillery there.”
Shamefully relieved by the change of subject, Hastion said, “Congratulations.”
“That may be a bit premature. It’s old and in desperate need of upgrading. Save your congratulations for when the enterprise is turning a profit.”
“I’m certain you will do well with it.”
“Will you stay for the meal?”
“Of course, sir. Is Embris on the planet?”
“Not that I’m aware of, but he is an Ayeran.” His father looked both proud and resigned. “For all I know, he’s in the room with us now, disguised as that berry bush in the corner.”
Hastion’s elder brother Embris had joined Garathan’s elite covert operations group several years before the biowar attack, and he could count on one hand the number of times they’d been in the same room since. The last was Lonia’s dedication ceremony, which Hastion hardly remembered, consumed as he’d been by grief and fatigue.
“That would be fortuitous,” he said, “since there is a matter of some urgency I must discuss with you.”
Brothan frowned. “Be seated, then, and let us have done with it now.”
Hastion took the chair across the desk, uncertain how to approach the matter. “Father, I bear news that, while happy, will come as a shock.”
“Happy and shocking? You have me curious now.”
“My sister, Aylee…” he started. When his father’s expression tightened, Hastion plunged ahead. “Father, when my mother perished in the distillery vessel, Aylee wasn’t there.”
Brothan glared at him. “Of course she was there. I saw her with my own eyes.”
“There must have been a doll or something else concealed in the blanket to make you believe she was in my mother’s arms. Aylee was delivered to a Narthani female who could not bear young of her own and taken to Earth to be raised as a Terran.”
“That’s not possible!” He brought his fist down hard on the desk, his face red with fury. “Who is filling your head with such outlandish tales?”
“We pieced it together with information from the Narthani monarch…” Hastion paused to steady his own heartbeat before saying, “And from Aylee herself. She lives, Father. My twin lives.”
“I don’t believe it. Nor, my son, should you. This is some trickery.”
“No, it’s not,” Hastion said firmly. “We look too much alike and our genetic profiles share too many common alleles for us to be anything but siblings. I was named second in her bond, before we were aware of our relationship, and—”
He looked horrified. “Tell me you did not mate with her!”
“No, thank the Powers,” Hastion said fervently. “Every time I approached her with amorous intentions, her pheromones made me violently ill.”
His father visibly wilted with relief. “I am grateful to hear it. Although,” he added with a dark look, “I will not believe this female is Aylee until I see her with my own eyes.”
“Her name is Jasmine now, Father, and she wishes to meet you. Today, if you’re willing.”
Brothan’s eyes widened. “She’s on Garathan?”
“She’s on Ryola.”
His father rose abruptly. “I would see this Jasmine now. Summon her.”
“Shauss,” he sent, “my father insists on seeing Jasmine at once.”
“We have clearance to flare in. Expect us momentarily.”
“They’re on their way,” Hastion said. “Her primary mate is Shauss of Andagon. Their second is Dr. Tiber of Blaes.”
“Shauss!” His eyes widened. “This concerns me.”
Hastion shrugged. “He was a member of Ayera squad, the same as Embris.”
“Embris is not an assassin.”
“Are you sure, Father? Because I certainly have no idea what Embris’s duties might include.”
Brothan sagged. “Nor have I. But I know for a fact that Shauss was an assassin, and one of the best.”
“He’s not the terror you imagine.”
“I believe I’ve just been insulted.” Shauss strolled in from the deck with Jasmine on his arm, Tiber directly on their heels.
Brothan paled when his eyes landed on Jasmine. His sister stared back, biting her lips.
“By all the Powers…” Brothan swallowed loudly. “She’s the image of your mother.”
“The family resemblance is quite strong,” Hastion said, “but it did not become evident until she underwent her transition a few months ago.”
Brothan looked bewildered. “Her transition? She was Sparnite?”
“The Narthani who raised her administered a pheromon
e blocker so that she would not stand out among Terrans.”
“Narthani!” his father spat. Clenching his fists, he turned away from them, breathing harshly. “Peserin, I allowed my own daughter to be raised by Narthani! It is unforgivable. I do not…deserve…to even…”
Jasmine walked up behind him and laid a trembling hand on his shoulder. “You’re my father,” she said, her tone filled with wonder.
Brothan jerked violently and took a step forward, refusing to look at her. “How can you ever forgive me? How can I live with myself knowing I didn’t even look for you? I’ve failed you in every way possible!”
Hastion moved to stand beside him, the yearning to embrace him and be embraced in return almost overpowering.
“Father,” he said in a low voice, clenching his hands tightly, “every day since we found her, I’ve been on my knees thanking the Powers that my twin was taken from us. Because Jasmine was on Earth when the biowar virus struck, I didn’t have to care for her when she purged uncontrollably from every orifice. I didn’t have to watch her precious blood seeping from her pores. I didn’t have to restrain her to prevent injury while her muscles seized. And I didn’t have to walk through that courtyard every day for weeks knowing her frozen corpse lay there in a biocask.”
A cry of animal pain tore from his father’s throat.
“Because she was taken, your daughter lived to come home to you, Father. Wishing you’d done more to find her would be wishing her dead.”
“Hastion,” his father gasped. “I am a coward. If anything happens to her, I beg you, do not tell me. Just end my life. I would rather die than face it again.”
“I hope it will not come to that, but it shall be as you wish.”
“Thank you.” After taking a couple of deep breaths, Brothan straightened and turned to face Jasmine. “Welcome home, my daughter.”
Chapter Thirteen
Shelley and the minister dined alone together at a small table on the highest deck overlooking the sea, and to her eternal embarrassment, the houseman brought her the Garathani version of a child’s booster seat. She sat there with her feet dangling, unable to think of anything to say as she picked at a small but dismal selection of Garathani dishes.
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