Stop right there, he told the greedy boy inside him, who wanted to reach out right that moment and hold onto her.
Rhianni wasn't a Taken. She couldn't sense his body's reaction to her presence and the runaway wanderings of his imagination. That didn't mean he could let his mind race until he couldn't control himself. Other Taken would know. He was just torturing himself by wanting what he knew he could never have. For his own peace of mind and soul, Rhianni had to leave Mallachrom.
Petroc decided that since Rhianni was busy with Danil, and she enjoyed his son's company, then he would take advantage of the free time. From the aromas filling the house, Burkan had supper well in hand and didn't need help. Maybe there was time for a long sit in the sweathouse. Petroc dashed down the hall to his room and grabbed the first clean clothing he found in the closet. A stack of new herbal soap bars sat on the table by the window, courtesy of one friend or another. Taken shared everything. Petroc snatched up a bar and a towel and hurried downstairs again.
He went through the kitchen and the mudroom, avoiding Gan and Burkan's conversation, slipped around the back of the house and into the forest. It felt like reaching refuge.
The air smelled sweet, heavy with a threatened shower. He enjoyed the moisture against his skin, soothing away the grime and poisons from Core air. Flowers were just starting to close with the approaching dusk, sending their various sweet and bitter perfumes into the air, rising with the mist.
Scents of clay and reeds reached him before he gained the riverbank. He slowed where the ground turned pebbly and sloped down. The water gleamed dull silver-green with the setting sun, inviting him into the cool depths. He tugged off his jacket and shirt.
A squat, rounded hut of logs covered with clay and grass waited in the shadows. The door of bovi skin swayed in the breeze. A faint odor of smoke and herbs hung around it; someone else had used the sweathouse recently. Wood in the fire pit and fresh water and herbs in the buckets inside waited for the next person.
Kneeling, Petroc scraped a sparkstone against his knife to start the fire. He tried to still his thoughts, concentrating on the flame and the smoke going upward. When he had the fire going strong, he put smooth stones between the burning branches, then stacked more wood on top. When he finished his bath, the stones would be hot.
He dropped his clothes in a basket hanging from one side of the hut as he undressed. Bracing himself, he picked up the soap and ran the last few steps to the water to plunge in.
Cold! He broke the surface with a shout, snapping his head back so the water sprayed from his hair. Already, he felt better. He rubbed soap all over his body quickly, rinsed, did it a second time, then headed for the bank.
Petroc snagged his towel and wrapped it around his hips. His ritual cleansing bath and sweat after visiting Core had become a necessity, mental and physical. He could concentrate better on his concerns and recent events when he was alone like this.
Images from the past few days returned. Petroc considered the problems and what few options the Taken had. Not until he sat inside the sweathouse, dipping water over the hot rocks and hearing them sizzle, did thoughts of Rhianni Day intrude. He added water until the steam choked him.
Rhianni would be a problem. She was a Mallachrom native, yet had lived most of her life on other worlds. Would she simply assume she knew her home world, and then make dangerous mistakes while she was here? Would the caution learned at the edge of war make her act with care? Would she ask too many questions, catch the attention of the wrong people? Could he protect her? Should he try? Was he wrong to worry about her at all? The best thing for them both was for Rhianni to head off-planet on the next shuttle.
Yet, he didn't want her to leave. Rhianni was part of the past he thought he would never regain. A normal life, within his grasp. The scar on his thumb twinged every time he thought about her.
Back when he and the other Taken hid in caves and the forest and learned to move like their guardians, the Shadows, memories of Rhianni had kept him sane. Plans for what they would do when she returned to Mallachrom gave him a reason to keep fighting to live, and ignore the people who treated the Taken like they had committed some crime by surviving. When his friends started pairing off and there seemed to be no one who filled the gaps in his spirit, Petroc had held onto Rhianni's image, waiting for her.
Then a few Taken left the planet and died. Dilan died and took Reesa with him. Petroc had put away his dreams, knowing he'd violate his blood-vow to Rhianni if he prayed for her to come back to a death sentence.
But she was here, now. Ignorant of all the traps.
Beautiful and strong. His body ached if he thought about her too much. He had to send her away, to protect them both.
His thoughts should have been on the news Cae had given him, but he couldn't focus. Rhianni kept intruding. Her scent, her smile, her laughter, the way she moved, lightly as a wild animal. The easy love she showered on Danil.
Petroc grinned, wishing he could be a little boy just for a few hours, small enough to be gathered up in her arms and held close. Rhianni was a Rover; she could protect herself. That didn't mean he could stop wanting to wrap himself around her and protect her with his body and soul.
Rivulets of sweat rolled down his face as he leaned back against the log walls and breathed the hot, moist air. He wished for the clear thinking that usually came to him in the sweathouse. He needed to think clearly now, free of his body's hungers. The Taken depended on him. He was the focal point for so many plans and hopes and fears, it was a crushing weight that sometimes stole his sleep.
Petroc concentrated on the cleansing moving through his body to push back a new thought: Maybe Rhianni was the one person he could really talk to, share his heart, to whom he could fully open all his life. The person he had needed all his life to be complete.
If their childhood friendship meant anything, he would hold back and never give her a hint of the darkness waiting to swallow the Taken, the Shadows, and all of Mallachrom.
Rhianni had brought several boxes back from her parents' house. After the supper dishes were cleaned up, she retreated to her room in Burkan's house to think and clear her thoughts for a while. She sat on the bed, leaning against the wall, and simply stared at the boxes. Would looking through the odds and ends her parents hadn't taken with them help her settle her thoughts, or only make things worse?
She slid down from the bed to kneel on the floor and reached for the closest box. The dust was thick and gritty under her fingers, smelled musty, and lifted in a heavy cloud when she pried open the lid seal with her fingernail. She held her breath, closed her eyes and gingerly stuck her hand inside. Her fingers rammed against something hard and smooth. Rhianni felt around for the edges before she pulled it out and opened her eyes.
A sketchbook. Her mother had been artistic. Rhianni remembered bits of sculpture and flowers decorating their house. She flipped open the cover, hearing the rustle of dry pages.
The colors her mother used had not faded. She stared in wonder at the life-like drawings. Children filled the first few pages, running and playing in the outpost square. Rhianni recognized the outpost office and boarding house beyond. The children had no names in her memory. She didn't recognize her schoolmates in any of those faces. Maybe they were children who had lived at the outpost before she was born.
One sketch showed two children playing ball. She nearly laughed aloud when she recognized herself. The boy stood a head taller than her. He had black hair, black eyes somberly intent as he held his hands out for the ball. The moss carpet was gold with a fringe of emerald, and the trees shed their leaves in bright purples and golds and reds. The flowers around the house's foundation blazed in vibrant blue and gold.
"Mama," Rhianni whispered, as a clear memory came to her with the picture.
The boy was Petroc Ash. His brother, Tam had been playing with her until he decided to take her ball and run home. Rhianni had fought to get her ball back. Petroc came running at the sound of her angry shouts,
punched his brother for picking on her, and offered to play catch with her. Tam had sat at Mandia's feet, pouting in silence while she sketched.
Rhianni cried as she remembered her feelings that day: laughter after tears, friendship, hero worship, and the sense of security knowing her mother was nearby. A year later, their lives turned upside down when the Talroqi went on the offensive against the entire Human race, and the squadron left Mallachrom.
She stowed the sketchbook under her mattress before Danil or anyone else could see it. After the mess the little boy had made of her trunks, she didn't dare trust him with precious, fragile things like an ancient sketchbook. What did Petroc remember of her mother's sketching? Would he remember that day? Would he care, or be indifferent? Rhianni didn't want to know. Not yet. She smiled, though, and went downstairs to join the others before anyone came looking for her.
They spent a restful evening in front of the fireplace. Burkan half-heartedly worked on reports, and Petroc took Danil through some math and reading lessons before they decided to put everything aside to roast mogo nuts in the fire and talk. Rhianni shared a few stories of the wet months of her father's final mission, making the cozy, warm room even more pleasant by contrast. Danil shivered, wide-eyed and grinning, and crept from his father's side to lean against her, edging closer until he curled up in her lap all the while she talked. Rhianni welcomed his closeness until it was his bedtime, and he demanded that she come upstairs and tell him a story before he went to sleep. Repeatedly. Louder each time she said no and he insisted, yes, she had to.
"Danil--" She ran out of words. Rhianni gently tried to pry his little fists off her sleeve. Reluctantly, she turned to look at Petroc. His eyes sparkled with laughter.
"Not tonight," Burkan said, coming to her rescue. He got up from the couch next to the fireplace and reached for the boy.
Rhianni was impressed when Danil only let out a little whine and didn't kick or struggle or try to hold onto her. She certainly hadn't been this obedient when she was Danil's age.
"Tomorrow?" Danil begged. He giggled when Burkan hoisted him up to his shoulder, then over, to dangle by his knees.
"Maybe tomorrow. If I can think of some more stories," she hurried to add.
"I think Rhianni has a lot of stories to tell," Petroc drawled. "She's just shy."
That concept shut Danil's mouth long enough for Burkan to hurry him out of the room. His muffled voice filtered down through the air vents. Rhianni followed Burkan's path by the soft thumps of his boots on the floor overhead.
"It's your own fault," Petroc continued after almost two minutes of warm, pleasant silence underscored with the crackle of flames and snap of sap bursting from the wood.
"Mine?" Rhianni turned to face him. She wondered if Petroc's superior smile had ever irritated her when they were children, or if she just had never seen it.
"He's fallen in love with you."
"How is it my fault?"
"You are what you want to be. One of the really important lessons your father drilled into us." Petroc let out a sigh and stretched out full length on the couch. The sigh turned into a luxurious groan.
Rhianni swallowed a chuckle; Petroc's shoulders were hiked up on the arm of the couch, and his knees hung across the other end. She turned away so she wouldn't see him.
"Well, it just so happens I've fallen in love with him, too. You and Burkan have done a good job with him." She waited, but he didn't respond. "Well, enough of this. I put in a long day and I have a long day tomorrow, too." She got to her feet, feeling stiff muscles complain and joints shift and pop.
"It'd be easier if you just stayed here," Petroc said, so softly she could almost imagine he wasn't talking to her. "Too bad you can't."
"Yeah, too bad." She swallowed down comments that could lead to trouble or regrets. "A convenient baby-sitter for Danil, is that what you were thinking?" she asked, turning to face him when she reached the door to the stairs.
"Among other things." He shrugged, no mean feat lying on his back. Petroc's face was in the shadows, but she thought she saw a tired smile, no mischief, no hints of trouble, just friendliness.
"Good-night, Petroc."
"Welcome home, Rhianni."
She stumbled on the first step going up the stairs. Yes, she really was home, wasn't she?
Chapter 8
The nightmare hit that night. Rhianni knew she should have expected it. The last two nights, she had too many other things on her mind, too many other odd subconscious stirrings coming to the surface. The still-potent nightmare simply waited its turn, until the newcomers ran their course, then it reasserted its dominance in her mind.
She walked through the warped Talroqi greenhouse, skirting gargantuan pots of glow-in-the-dark purple and green plants that opened man-sized pods like mouths and tried to snap at her.
The Gen-Teks had allied with the Talroqi in their efforts to create the 'perfect' Human being. When the Galactic Council outlawed their extremist tactics and philosophies, they turned to the aliens who wanted to turn Humans into food. For some reason, the Talroqi cooperated, or else held the Gen-Teks in reserve. For all anyone knew, the Talroqi worked with the Gen-Teks to create a better, more nutritious food source.
The Rovers had tracked down the central lab for the alliance. Destroying it would break the Gen-Teks and seriously cripple the Talroqi operations in that sector of the galaxy.
Rhianni had been at the back of the squadron as it walked through the nightmare greenhouse, assisting the science officer in taking samples and visually recording everything they passed. She had kept watch on the front of the column through a link with her father's helmet camera. In her dreams, she saw the disaster coming and had no way to warn anyone.
Every step she took came faster, until she ran, bumping into things that oozed over her hands and clothes or tried to wrap around her with barbed tendrils that tore at her flesh.
Suddenly there were no more plants and pots, only a spot of pale green light in a vast blackness. Rhianni kept running until the light blazed up, turning into a vast green globe of fire. Her father writhed, twisted and spun like a gyroscope in the middle of the green fire.
She screamed before he could open his mouth and call to her. He always called to her. She feared his words more than the plants or the fire.
Blue fire shot through the dream in thread-thin arcs and Rhianni reached for them, knowing they would save her. Poisonous green fire spun out from the globe that held her father prisoner, filled with thousands of baleful, multi-lensed eyes. The bands of green fire reached for her. The blue fire she grasped cut into her fingers.
Something pressed against her abdomen. Claws yanked on her legs, trying to force them apart. Rhianni screamed and doubled over, trembling with a certainty whispering deep in her soul that the green fire wanted to climb inside her womb.
"Rhianni!" Petroc whispered in a hoarse voice and shook her, hard. "It's all right. It's just a dream." He slid an arm around her and cradled her close.
His hands were hot on her icy arms. He sat on the side of the bed, dressed in knee-length sleeping shorts and nothing else, and he smelled very good. Warm and comforting, like fresh bread and clean fur and the perfume of a good fire. For two seconds she started to relax, relieved that the dream was over before the worst part hit her and she was safe in her bed in Burkan's house.
Green fire blazed in a corona around him for half a second. She lashed out against his restraining arms. Petroc held her tight against himself with one arm, his hand clamped over her mouth to stifle her screams. His warmth turned into fire.
Awareness washed over her. Bare arms and legs, his naked chest, sweaty and pressed together. Rhianni froze for half a heartbeat. The green fire faded as blue sparks filled Petroc's eyes and she imagined them entangled on the bed, naked flesh to naked flesh.
He would invade her, tear her open, make her vulnerable to the green fire that would destroy the universe.
He would fill her, enveloping them both with blue fi
re to incinerate the cold and corruption.
She wanted his touch, his kiss, even as terror made her bite down hard on the fingers that covered her mouth.
Petroc hissed, smothering a yelp. The steel band of his imprisoning arm loosened. Rhianni twisted free, jamming a knee into his gut. She pushed hard, shoving herself off the bed, and Petroc off the other side. He hit the floor with a muffled thud and a gasp. Rhianni stayed where she landed for five long seconds, listening to the sleeping house.
The world returned to normal. She knew where she was, the date, even the time--closer to morning than midnight. Rhianni shivered in the spring chill, her sleeveless nightshirt soaked with nightmare sweat.
"What was that for?" Petroc grumbled. The bed frame creaked. He got up on his knees, rested his elbows on the mattress and looked across the rumpled blankets at her.
"What are you doing in here?" Her throat closed up, making it impossible to shriek even if she had wanted to.
A quiet portion of her mind focused on the hard muscles and planes of his chest, the light sprinkling of crisp, black hair. She had examined plenty of handsome, fit young men in her duties as a medic, but it was as if she had never seen a man before.
This was Petroc. Her childhood best friend. She wasn't supposed to look at him that way, was she?
Why not? Wouldn't you rather spend the rest of your life waking up wrapped in him, rather than a cold net bunk in zero-g?
"I thought Danil was crying. He has bad dreams too." Petroc raked tangled hair out of his face. He pressed a hand against the reddened patch on his abdomen where she had hit. "Guess I went a little too far, huh?"
"Consider it payment for all those times you pulled my hair when we were little."
Shadows of Mallachrom, Book 1: Blue Fire Page 8