by Reagan Woods
That was close enough, she decided. “That would be lovely, thank you.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Darvan felt satisfied with the way his visit to the surface was progressing. His warriors were restoring order, the civilian liaisons the High Council had set on him were contained and he’d spent the morning hours making love to his female. The fact that she’d initiated their tryst wasn’t lost on him. It was the first time she’d voluntarily made a move towards him and the heady impact of her desire for him rocked him to his soul.
The only blight on the horizon was this Peter. Just when Darvan felt like he was making strides winning over his little Earther’s affections, her former lover shows up. He needed to find a way to question Arianna about Peter’s ability to hide from his warriors and why Peter might be here now, but he didn’t want a repeat of their first morning together, when he’d questioned her about Peter. He hadn’t realized how emotionally vulnerable she was at that time and had set a tone of hurt and mistrust in their relationship with his insensitive questions. The very last thing he wanted to do was give her hope of rekindling her romance with Peter. He needed to be very clear, no matter who showed themselves from either of their pasts, Darvan was not relinquishing his claim on Arianna. Ever.
Nearby, drowsing in the early afternoon sunlight, Arianna gave a sigh of contentment. They’d eaten food she called steak fajitas with sautéed mixed vegetables and a spicy dish of red beans and rice. She’d been delighted when he’d unpacked the little picnic from the package Silex had delivered to them.
“You should come over here, out of the direct sunlight,” Darvan patted the blanket next to where he sat under the protective sunshade. If he was going to question her, he might as well get it over with.
“I know. I’m probably already burnt but the heat feels so nice on my skin,” she crawled lazily across the grass to sprawl on the blanket. Laying her head in his lap, she asked, “Can’t we just stay here forever?”
Sifting his fingers through her silky hair, he answered, “I’m afraid not. I think I can stretch this trip out one more day. After that, it’s back to the Victory for us.” And likely back to face the Council but he was certain she didn’t need any more upsetting news than what he had to tell her.
“When is your Engineer supposed to report?”
“Within the hour,” he answered regretfully. He might as well get on with it. “Where were you when you were captured?”
“St. Louis, Missouri. It’s a long way from here,” she gestured vaguely with an arm in the air.
“Where were you before that?”
It took her longer to answer this question.
“Well, I’d been travelling around quite a bit, looking for some friends of mine who’d gone missing,” she said slowly. “I was up in Chicago, Illinois, I’d made a few trips across the Great Lakes. For several months my home base was in Indiana,” the information was given grudgingly.
“Did you ever find your missing friends?”
“No.”
“Who were they?”
She sat up and moved to face him, putting distance between them. “I lived in a settlement, I guess you’d call it, of survivors. It was like this,” her gesture indicated the agricultural operations in the distance. “But much smaller. Everyone had a job. In order to be fed, you had to be useful. The group that disappeared was a scavenging team. They were supposed to go into Chicago for medicines and anything helpful they could get their hands on. We estimated that their trip would take around two months. When they still hadn’t returned after three months, I volunteered to search for them.”
“Alone?” he couldn’t imagine sending a tiny, defenseless female like her off into such a dangerous world on her own. He wanted to berate the people who’d allowed such nonsense.
“Yes. My job was done for the year and, frankly, I was just one more mouth to feed. I took some provisions, knowing that I could likely scrounge more somewhere down the road. I’m pretty resourceful, and we really needed antibiotics and anti-virals.”
Darvan felt a new respect for the Earther. She was obviously tougher than he’d given her credit for. He’d been certain that Vank over-stated her abilities but now he wasn’t so sure.
“You were unable to locate this team of scavengers?”
She shook her head no. “There wasn’t even a trace of them on the path they should have taken. They must have met with trouble somewhere along the way and been killed.” She looked into the distance for several moments before adding quietly, “Their bodies were long gone by the time I came along.”
“Did you know them well?” She seemed quite happy to tell the story in broad strokes, carefully leaving out any of her feelings or detailed facts. He began to think that she was being deliberately vague, that she suspected some of her fellow settlers were living free and she didn’t want to endanger their chances of survival.
“As well as I could, I guess. One of them was my, um, my boyfriend, Peter,” she studied her hands, glanced at the ground around her, looking anywhere but at him.
Darvan could see that it bothered her to talk about this Peter, still. But it couldn’t be helped. He reached out a hand to still the nervous attack she’d waged on her cuticles and waited for her to meet his gaze. “I need you to tell me about him, please.”
“What do you want to know?” Darvan understood from the hesitant look on her face that she wasn’t agreeing to tell him anything, simply willing to consider his questions.
When they’d arrived on-planet, Darvan had initialized his implanted com device and was able to communicate quite fluidly with his warriors. Now, he reached casually up to the device behind his ear and tuned Skylan into their conversation.
“I’d actually like to know several things about this Peter,” Darvan told Arianna, also signaling the waiting Commander.
“Ask her how she knew the parameters of our scanning technology and try to find out if this Peter shared her knowledge,” Skylan’s voice coached over the com.
“You were able to hide rather effectively from my Track Team for quite some time. I assume this Peter knew some techniques to avoid my warriors as well?”
“Actually, Peter disappeared before you revealed yourselves to us,” she answered without volunteering more information.
“Where did he come from?” Skylan wanted to know.
“How did you meet him?” Darvan asked a more open-ended question.
“I met him when he and the two friends he disappeared with joined our settlement.”
“And that was when?”
“About a year ago, I guess. Why?” she regarded him suspiciously.
“I’ll answer your questions after you answer mine,” he gentled his voice to take the sting from his words.
Maybe it was his guilty conscience, but he thought she looked even more suspicious of his motives. When she found out the real reason behind his curiosity, there was no doubt in his mind that she’d be angry with him.
“Where did Peter say he came from?” Darvan asked.
“He really never spoke about his past. It was one of the reasons we argued. He was very adamant that we not discuss our pasts. In fact, he often got angry when I’d speak of my family or life during the war. He said we should focus on the here and now, so that’s what we did.” That was the longest, most in-depth answer she’d given him yet but it wasn’t particularly enlightening. Time was swiftly passing, so he decided to try another, less circuitous route to the answers he needed.
“Why would this Peter show up here asking around for information about you?”
She gazed at him, green eyes uncertain, for what seemed like eons before answering.
∞ ∞ ∞
Arianna couldn’t believe that Darvan would be so cruel. She’d played along with his uncomfortable game of twenty questions believing that they were making strides in getting to know one another. Hoping that the tentative decision she’d come to would prove to be the right one, but now he was being an ass.
/> “That’s not even remotely funny,” she said angrily, unable to keep the disappointment she felt under control. She’d been trying to practice the art of setting reasonable expectations, the old adage claimed she’d be pleasantly surprised. Now she felt like even a worm couldn’t limbo under the bar she’d need for measuring progress – and it had already been set low.
“I assure you, I don’t find the situation humorous in the least.”
“You can’t be serious, so what’s your game?”
“This isn’t a game. He’s been here since I made the arrangements for you to accompany me,” he looked like he wanted to say more but decided against it.
“Where is he now?” she asked, not quite believing they were having this conversation. Maybe now he’d let her in on the joke. His alien sense of humor was not amusing her.
“He’s being held separately from the other Earthers. I assure you, he’s perfectly fine for now, but he’s privy to sensitive information. We need to know how he came by that information,” Darvan’s voice was forceful, the voice of a General. Gone was the considerate lover of that morning, instead, he was austere and remote. And not a little frightening.
That brought her up short. She couldn’t even begin to figure out what to think of this new development.
Then a disturbing thought hit her. Surely he didn’t suspect her of arranging to meet Peter here? That was a little far-fetched, wasn’t it? She’d been locked up and out of contact on his ship for months. Before that, she’d been alone without human contact for what seemed like an eternity.
Her head spun and her field of vision narrowed until only tiny pin pricks of light were left. White noise pounded through her head in a deafening silence. She bent over and put her head on the cool fabric of the picnic blanket, trying to get a grip on her reeling emotions.
Forcing herself to breathe slowly through her nose, she fought the nauseous churning sensation in her gut. He wasn’t playing some misguided trick. Peter really was here, alive and, from Darvan’s brief description, doing just dandy.
“Are you alright?” She looked up to see Darvan kneeling in front of her, an odd mixture of worry and grim appraisal on his face.
“No,” she said through stiff, frozen lips. “I am definitely not alright.”
“You didn’t know he was here?” he cupped her face gently between his hands and peered intently into her eyes.
He had suspected her. That knowledge hurt more than it probably should have. After all, they were together due to circumstance, not out of a shared affection. But, there it was, she cared what he thought. Unfortunately, she was bound to be disappointed because he obviously didn’t think much of her.
“I didn’t know he was alive,” she choked out, unable to keep the hurt confusion from her voice. “He said if anything ever happened to him to make my way to the Texas Territory. That’s what I was doing when I was captured. I can’t believe he’s been here this whole time.”
“He hasn’t. At least, not in this camp. His DNA was not in our database at all. This Earther was not in CORANOS custody until two days ago. He came here asking for you. Then, one of my warriors caught him speaking Doranese to one of the Doranos liaisons,” his tone was less dictatorial now, but the damage had been done.
“I don’t understand. Where has he been all this time? How would he know how to speak Doranese without being reconditioned?” Her brain refused to make sense of all these random facts.
One thing she was sure of, she wouldn’t forget that Darvan had taken her trust and the closeness they’d forged and beat her over the head with it. He’d brought her here under false pretenses and waited until her guard was down, then he’d taken a run at her. No matter where they went from here, she needed to remember how ruthlessly cruel he could be when it suited him.
“You’ll have to ask him those very good questions,” he placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. As if one tender gesture would undo his nasty trick. Please.
∞ ∞ ∞
Darvan had considerately insisted that she rest after their little “getting to know you” date went sideways. And frankly, she was glad for some time away from him. Surprisingly, she’d gone back to the field quarters and fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Instead of waking refreshed, she’d been cranky and out of sorts when Domik had arrived with her dinner. She felt like she was being punished for having the audacity to know someone who’d managed to evade CORANOS custody. Her sentence for her heinous crime, dinner alone in her room.
Darvan had arrived a few hours later, waking her once again. “Your brain is still healing and you had a big day,” he’d explained his reasons for confining her to his quarters. We wouldn’t want the delicate female to become overstimulated, she’d thought peevishly.
Her ridiculous insistence on being logical compelled her to admit that her bad temper was a result of just that. She’d had it up to here with the rapid-fire changes and was nearing her breaking point. If revelations were bombs, she was being shelled. Being captured by the frightening aliens, getting reconditioned by a psychopath, surviving the Ventix attack & her subsequent adventures, Darvan seducing her and then demanding that she bond with him and finding out Peter was still alive was really pushing her tolerance for bull-shit to capacity.
Now, the heart-breaking jerk had the audacity to sleep soundly next to her, arm locked possessively around her while her thoughts circled, whirling from one to the next in a dizzying pattern of nonsense. He wouldn’t be dissuaded from taking his place next to her, and that made her perversely happy. His suspicions of her would have given him ample reason to back away from her, but he didn’t, at least, not physically. Maybe he was just waiting for a more opportune time to leave her.
She was supposed to meet with Peter tomorrow, now, later today. She had so many questions for him. How had he come to be here? Where had he been all these months? Had he, too, been captured and somehow managed to escape, erasing all traces of himself? What was going on?
If she thought about it dispassionately, she could see the reasoning behind Darvan’s suspicion of her. Peter’s arrival, timed so closely to their own, was highly suspicious. Knowing that he had cause to behave as he had lessened the hurt some but didn’t nearly sooth it all away.
How had Peter managed to put himself in her path? Who was he working with? Moreover, why reach out to her now?
There were far too many questions for her to answer without more data but her exhausted brain wouldn’t stop trying to put the puzzle pieces together. All too soon she’d have the opportunity to ask Peter these questions. But, if her conversation with Darvan, pre-Peter’s Alive and Here Revelation, had spotlighted anything, it was that she didn’t really know Peter. She’d been in love with a stranger, with someone she’d assumed she had plenty of time to get to know better. Frankly, she’d been in love with love, with the idea of someone who would stay by her side. But that person didn’t seem to exist.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Early spring sunshine beat down on Arianna’s bare head making her wish for a hat or some shade. She contemplated using her escort like a shade tree, but wasn’t sure Domik would see the humor in that. They must have been early and the silence, at least on her part, was awkward. She felt like a puny David standing next to a very bald, pissed-off Goliath.
Before coming here to meet with Peter, Darvan had taken her to meet with Commander Skylan. It hadn’t been a fun meeting for any of them. Arianna had still had a bad taste in her mouth where the Commander was concerned. The agenda of their early-morning breakfast meeting hadn’t endeared the sneaky, secretive Corian to her at all.
Commander Skylan was very interested in how Peter had come by the General’s supposedly secure travel information. Obviously, the CGA had a leak or some other form of weakness that either Peter or someone else was exploiting. Skylan was determined to stop the leak and he intended to use her to help him do it. She wanted no part of Skylan or his subterfuge.
Afterwards, Darvan had relu
ctantly declined Arianna’s invitation to accompany her to meet Peter.
Large hand on his side arm, eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses, Domik continuously scanned the courtyard as though he expected trouble. Earthers, apparently still on their lunch break, gathered in groups speaking quietly. Some sat on the lawn, others congregated near a small fountain. Every once in a while, one or another of them would dart a speculative look at the two of them but, once again, no one approached.
“So,” she cleared her throat nervously and angled her watchful stance so that she was facing him and still keep an eye on the court yard entrance.
Domik raised his sunshades to reveal stunning copper and black-swirled eyes. She could definitely see why he kept the shades on all the time. His eyes were distracting…mesmerizing.
“Um….I should apologize,” she felt like a nervous, bumbling idiot but she needed the tense, at least on her part, silence to end.
“For?” he settled his shades over his intense eyes.
“Hitting you with my gun,” she said ducking her head in embarrassment. She’d smacked him around and it hadn’t done either of them a bit of good, but how was she to know they weren’t going to kill her on sight?
He shrugged and went back to scanning, “You could have shot me.”
“I’ve seen enough senseless death to last a lifetime. I wanted my freedom. I’d hoped to escape without escalating the situation.”
“I doubt they would have killed you for shooting me.”
“Why not? They killed others just for running.”
“The collection teams killed those that they perceived as a threat. Usually, they terminated males who were either armed or were attempting to arm themselves.”
“But not females?”
“Rarely. There is a dearth of females in Corian space, therefore, it is abhorrent to harm a female in our culture.”
After a few moments of silence he spoke again, “They are nearly here.” He paused and seemed to come to some decision, “I know you Earthers touch one another in greeting. It would be a grave insult to the General if you were to allow another male to put hands on your body.”