“I think we must proceed the way we began,” Alaric announced a few hours later after a great deal of thought and internal debate. “We cannot simply ignore the call for a gathering and, in any case, we are almost halfway there at this point.
“Beyond that, I did not particularly like the way the ship responded to the commands preceding the jump or the jump itself. I think it is just old and it is to be expected that it will be slow to respond and cranky, but we have done nothing but the bare minimum of maintenance in a very long while. We should set the ship down once we reach the base camp and go over it thoroughly and make any repairs that need to be done.
“She is a space woman. She will understand the need for that and then, when we have completed the dry dock, if she is no happier with the situation we can reevaluate it and decide what would be best for all.”
Luki frowned, studying over Alaric’s speech for flaws.
He saw one almost immediately.
“How are we going to court Amber and convince her if we are busy working on the ship?”
Alaric glared at him, pissed off that he had immediately zeroed in on the one aspect of the plan that was not perfect! If it wasn’t just like the depressing bastard! “I did not say that we would work like … fighting fire! We will not be entirely focused on the repairs! We will utilize the time to get to know her better and she, hopefully, will grow accustomed to us ….”
“And breeding,” Serge said happily. “This will give her time to accept the situation and then she will have a more positive outlook.”
He didn’t realize how very wrong he was about the situation or how very right Alaric had been until they joined Amber in the eating cabin to share a meal with her.
Chapter Eleven
It said a lot for the state of Amber’s mind that, by the time the food was done and the guys had arrived to eat, her little accident with the sweetener had totally slipped her mind.
Her anger or the cause of it hadn’t. It had been simmering in the back of her mind awaiting only a spark to ignite the volcano.
Serge inadvertently set off the first rumbles by checking out her belly—as if he thought it might have blossomed in the half day since he’d, basically, announced the plot to convince her by getting her pregnant that she might as well just stay with them and forget the promise to take her home.
Because that was what she’d convinced herself that it was.
She’d dismissed the fact that there had only been one sexual encounter between them and that she had been more than a little outdone that they had pretty well kept their distance since.
As if they were concerned that she’d found their performance lacking and wouldn’t extend a second invitation.
Or worse, they had not been especially impressed with her and, therefore, weren’t particularly anxious to repeat the process.
She’d actually thought a lot of very conflicting things about the event, but there was no dismissing that pat as anything but pleasure over his performance and the sort of male triumph that generally made Amber long to brain them.
And it was that sense that they all felt very smug about knocking her up that had spawned the theory of ‘securing the female by impregnating her’.
Maybe because it was hard to ignore the fact that she would be very effectively trapped if she got pregnant by aliens.
Assuming that was even possible.
They looked close enough to human she thought a half breed would pass.
Unless the child inherited any of its father’s abilities.
In which case they’d both be objects of interest that would likely make life on Earth pure hell.
Humans, contrary creatures that they were, had a serious problem with other humans that were a little different!
This despite their desperate efforts to look or behave differently so that they could stand out and not be ‘average’.
But for the poor unfortunates who had had no choice but to be born different ….
But she should be starting her period any minute and that would be the end of that fear! She could lay it to rest and she wasn’t going to be stupid enough to give them another chance!
She was so deep in her own thoughts that she jumped when Alaric gathered her against his length in a light embrace.
The emotional rollercoaster ride that precipitated left her breathless and dizzy, angry and confused.
Warmth and gladness instantly filled her as she was enveloped in his touch and scent.
Then he almost instantly broke the spell.
“Serge stupid. Sorry make anger.”
So he was going to blame the whole thing on Serge, she thought, feeling a surge of anger?
Because she might be a long way, still, from completely understanding them, but she’d been around them enough to know that Serge was a follower. Alaric called the shots!
She struggled with her anger, though. Conditioned as she was to keep her head and control her emotions, she found it easier to hold it inside than to express it.
Until they settled to eat.
One look at their faces when they’d shoveled a healthy spoonful into their mouths was all it took to set her off.
Guilt and embarrassment.
Not the righteous anger she should have felt because she was convinced they’d deliberately deceived her.
Guilt for ruining the meal and embarrassment for her incompetence.
It didn’t help her feelings—at all—that all three of them struggled to ‘carry it off’ by pretending they didn’t want to spit that food right out again.
She watched through gathering wrath and narrowed eyes as they struggled to swallow and then abruptly shoved away from the table and shot to her feet. “I told you I couldn’t cook, damn it! I’m not any good at it because I don’t care—don’t want to be good at being a domestic slave! That’s why I’m an astronaut and a scientist, damn it! I chose to be! I worked damned hard to get where I am. I didn’t just ‘fall back’ on the career path because I couldn’t find a man and the road to ‘domestic bliss’ was closed to me!
“I don’t want to be a mate and a mother and nothing else! I want to do something important with my life!
“You told me you would take me back to my home world. I believed you! I trusted you! I still want to go home!”
She stared at them when she’d run out of venom, huffing for breath, struggling with the influx of shame and remorse that was filling the void left by the anger she’d let go of.
But something else far stronger and more debilitating began to take hold of her.
Guilt wrapped in fear. Shame wrapped up tightly with the guilt.
She’d all but come right out and denounced them, she realized.
She hadn’t meant to make it personal.
She hadn’t intended to make it sound like a rejection of them.
She’d just wanted them to understand that not every female wanted the exact same thing—to just be a mother.
That was fine—great—for those who did. They kept the world turning—made everything work. But she hadn’t wanted to be her mother. She’d wanted her life to really count for something. She’d felt like she owed it to her mother to try to make important contributions to the world because her mother hadn’t really had a life, hadn’t had the chance to make a difference.
She was going to do it for both of them!
But she realized she’d grown very fond of the guys, enough that it hurt to think she might have inadvertently hurt them.
She hadn’t meant to do that.
It totally sucked that she couldn’t even stand up for herself without feeling guilty, damn it!
Was it her fault they didn’t have a home?
No!
Was it her job to make it up to them that they had no mate and no home?
No!
So why did she feel so damn guilty about it? Why should she give up what she’d planned for her life just to make them happy?
Especially when she was nothing more than a booby prize! She’d just landed in their laps and they wanted to keep her like a stray puppy!
Because she was the only puppy they’d seen in a while and the closest they could come to what they’d lost.
Not because she was a really, really special puppy!
Unable to endure the emotions that flickered across their faces, Amber whirled on her heel and stalked off to hide in her cabin until she’d decided what she could and should do about what she’d already done and couldn’t frigging take back!
It was some consolation that she knew they still didn’t have a firm grasp of English and probably hadn’t understood half of what she’d said.
But she had a bad feeling that they’d gotten the gist of it and, with her shithouse luck, they’d probably completely understood the parts she was worried about.
* * * *
“Do you think she poisoned us?” Luki asked a little sickly. “Because that just didn’t taste right.”
Alaric turned to study him when he spoke, but his mind was far, far away.
“Now that you mention it, there was something that was sickeningly sweet in there and I have to wonder if it was poison. I think I will take the rest of mine down to the machine room and use that thing that breaks things down to chemicals so the computer can tell what’s in it,” Serge said uneasily.
“I will go with you,” Luki said, surging to his feet to follow.
“It was sweetener,” Alaric murmured just about the time they got to the door.
Luki stopped abruptly feeling immensely relieved. “You are certain?”
Alaric stared at him blankly for a moment. “About?”
“The fucking food!” Luki snarled. “I mean, if it was poison, I would like to take the fucking antidote before it goes anywhere else!”
Alaric smiled in spite of his dark thoughts. “She would not do that,” he said confidently.
“Poison us for lying to her?” Luki demanded, aghast. “She is a female! Of course she would!”
Alaric shrugged. “Suit yourself. But she is not like that. She is honest and straightforward—not conniving—not a backstabber.”
“You would stake your life on it?”
Alaric shook his head at Luki, but he got up and followed when Luki turned to catch up with Serge on the way down to the lab.
After looking around a little absently once they’d arrived, he finally parked his rump on a gurney across the way and watched while Serge fiddled with the instrument he had come to use.
“She is angry with us because we made a promise we have not kept,” Serge murmured.
Luki looked at him uncomfortably. “That is not true! We have simply not looked yet. That is not the same thing as lying to her!”
Alaric nodded. “Yes, I have salved my conscience with that, as well, but she is right that we have been more concerned about our wants than hers. I had not considered that it would not be possible to convince her to accept us.”
Serge and Luki both paused in their task and gave him their undivided attention. “We are warriors of the Furian nation! Granted, we are not the highest, but we are also not the least and even the least of Furian warriors are the equal of or superior to anyone anywhere.”
Alaric frowned. “She never said that she thought we were not worthy of her,” he said tightly. “If she thought that then she would not be worthy of our consideration!”
“Exactly!” Luki said and then frowned. “I confess, I did not catch a great deal of that … uh … tirade. Mostly, it was home, home, home that I got.”
Alaric nodded. “I also. But there was a sense that she felt betrayed and mayhap it is because I had thoughts of using excuses to delay returning her, but it made me feel that she had figured that out and felt like we had lied to her.”
Serge shrugged. “She has a home world. If we did then we would want to go home.”
Alaric stared at him, frozen with wonder at his insight. It was rare that Serge actually impressed him, but this was certainly one of those times.
“You are right!” he exclaimed. “That is what we did not understand! That is the answer!”
“What is the answer?” Serge asked, excited but confused.
“What did we not understand? Beyond nothing, that is,” Luki demanded.
“I have been looking at this all wrong,” Alaric continued as if neither had spoken.
“At what?”
Alaric turned and stared at Luki blankly. “What?”
Luki blinked at him and then snarled furiously, “Whatever the fuck you are talking about!”
“Amber,” Alaric ground out with determined patience. “Have you listened to nothing?”
“I have not understood a fucking thing!” Luki growled.
Alaric was silent for some moments, debating whether he wanted to try to explain again or preferred beating the fuck out of Luki. Finally, he decided they just weren’t getting anywhere arguing. “Amber has a home world.”
“I got that!” Luki snapped.
Alaric, who’d just drawn breath to continue his explanation, punched him in the mouth. Luki hit the floor.
Before he could bound up and engage in all out battle, they all heard the call to arms, the summoning that meant trouble. They all froze, waiting, straining to catch the ‘call’ again, but they knew it hadn’t come from close by. It had been too faint for that.
The clan of the dragon was in serious trouble if they had called for help.
“The Dragon clan,” Alaric said grimly. “They are in trouble. That was a call to arms.”
“Yes!” Serge and Luki said at once, still focused on trying to pinpoint the location.
“Mayhap that nest of Basinini we did not investigate?”
Serge frowned. “It is certainly that direction ….”
“It seems further.”
Alaric shook his head. “We can find them.”
“As long as they can make the call.”
Alaric studied Serge for a long moment. “Yes.”
He could not convince himself that their situation was so dire as that.
Certainly, it was bad if they had called for reinforcements, but …. Well, anything else didn’t bear thinking of.
“Serge—go and tell Amber that we will take her to her home world now.”
Luki gaped at him. “Now? But … The Dragon clan …?”
“It is that way!” Alaric snapped. “And I will not take her into an unknown situation—especially not a battle where the Dragon clan has called for help!”
* * * *
Dismay was uppermost in Amber’s mind once she’d been informed of the happy news. She merely stared at Serge uncomprehendingly for the first several moments, thoroughly confused.
Serge nodded at her blank look. “Home world. Fine now, leeb Amber dere.”
She blinked at him.
“Take home.”
Finally, still feeling lost for some reason not immediately apparent to her, Amber nodded that she’d understood. “Uh … how long?”
Serge stared at her, struggling to comprehend when his mind had instantly leapt to his dick for some reason completely incomprehensible to him. “How long?” he echoed.
“Will it take to get there?”
“Where?” he asked, all at sea since his brain was still hung up on the mistaken notion that she’d been speaking sex.
Possibly because he’d thought about all the sex they wouldn’t be having now that Alaric had decided to take her home.
Not that that was paramount by any means, but it would certainly make his life much duller even than it had been before they had mated. Because he had only thought about not having sex a few times a day when he had never had sex. Now that he had, he thought about it twice as much.
At least.
He wondered if she was asking because she was thinking, like he was, that they were never going to see one another again and he
had only mated the once.
It seemed much worse that it had actually counted as a mating and that she was going to be carrying his offspring away with her.
He had not really given a thought to offspring since the Basinini had blown their world up because he had known there would be none.
Thought there would not.
It was way worse to realize there would be except that he would not get to enjoy his role as nurturer.
Of course, neither would Alaric or Luki and he did not doubt that that thought tormented them, as well, but he would have been second only to Amber with the tiny ones.
A lump of misery formed in his throat at that thought. “No know,” he said in response to her question and left quickly before he could shame himself.
He was still sniffing, however, when he arrived on the bridge where Alaric and Luki were working feverishly to try to turn the vessel around.
Alaric glanced at him, did a double take, and then focused on his task.
“What are you sniffling about?” Luki growled.
“Nothing,” Serge responded with another sniff.
Luki’s lips tightened but in all honesty he really didn’t want Serge to explain what he knew already.
He was miserable enough as it was. He didn’t need it spelled out.
* * * *
Not surprisingly, the Furians didn’t seem to have any sense of time.
Well, Amber couldn’t honestly say that she did after the time she’d spent with them in space. There was no sunrise or sunset to mark the beginning and ending of a day. All time just seemed to run together. They ate when they were hungry and they slept when they were tired.
Amber thought her circadian rhythm was basically unchanged, but she had no way, really, to know that it hadn’t or that it could be used to mark time.
Which wasn’t helpful anyway.
They had no clocks to help her visualize the passing time, and she only had a vague notion of how long they had traveled away from home before Alaric had abruptly changed his mind and headed back. And that left her with nothing but a wild guess about how much time it would take to get back.
They went through two wormholes—which threw her totally off because she couldn’t remember, at first, that they’d gone through two and even when she did she was completely ignorant of that mode of travel.
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