by Reagan Woods
“I have no desire to insult the General,” her response seemed to mollify him.
“One of your handshakes would be permissible.”
This was good information to have, it hadn’t been included in any of her reeducation information. She didn’t see anyone approaching, “How do you know they’re close?”
He bent down and pointed to a small button behind his ear, “Silex is escorting your friend and com’d me.”
“Ari,” the joyful shout caught the attention of nearly every person in the courtyard.
Domik quickly straightened, weapon hand tensing over his holster.
Arianna turned to see Silex escorting Peter across the courtyard with a firm grip on his arm.
She smiled through the sudden tears and waved. Since Domik brought it to her attention, she would do her best to be conscious of how her actions would be interpreted by others. If that meant resisting the urge to throw herself into the arms of her former lover, the only familiar person she’d seen in months, she’d somehow manage. But, God, it was difficult to hold back from him.
Her throat locked tight, she drank in Peter’s familiar features. He approached confidently, spreading his muscular arms wide, inviting. His sun-kissed brown curls clung tightly to his well-shaped skull. Cocoa-colored skin still glowed with health and vitality. His even, white smile dazzled in the glare of the early morning sun.
“Peter, I can’t believe it’s really you,” Arianna kept her urge to go to him in check.
“In the flesh, love,” he cocked his head quizzically, arms slowly dropping to his side. He’d looked at her, hand on his hip, puzzled expression on his face like that more times than she could count.
He was so familiar and solid. And so alive. She couldn’t get over it. Seeing him here, now, after all that had happened, after all the grief and terror, was unreal.
“What happened to you?” she needed to know. Some cold spike of sensibility kept prodding her through the cloud of surreality that tried to engulf her.
“That’s it? No hug? Right down to business,” he laughed indulgently. “Your mind always did work faster than your heart.”
His words stung, making her feel self-conscious and cold-hearted, bringing back other memories. Memories of old arguments that she didn’t want to rehash now. “I waited. We waited. We needed you. I searched for months, alone, in the cold for you…” He said nothing, just stood there. She knew he had no intention of answering her. She could tell by the indulgent look on his face that he was letting her get it out of her system, as he used to say, but couldn’t stop herself from asking one last question, “What happened to Tommy and Dex?”
“I’ve only just found you. Against all odds, I might add. Can’t we just take a moment to enjoy it?” His soft, dark eyes implored, his tone wounded. She wanted to give into his heartfelt plea but she knew from experience that they’d never address her concerns if she did.
“I’m glad to see you alive and well,” she conceded. Then, determined to proceed with her gut instinct, she asked again, “What happened? Where have you been all this time?”
“Why are we playing twenty questions when we should be celebrating and catching up?”
“I am trying to catch up. I was worried sick, Peter. You can’t just stroll in and behave as though these last months didn’t happen. I was hunted down and captured like an animal after I’d searched for you for months,” she was practically shouting now, her ability to be dispassionate completely overshadowed by the months of stress, worry and grief that she’d shoved down every time emotion threatened to overwhelm her. She let it all bubble up and spew out. “Then I made my way back to the settlement and found all of our friends had been captured by the CORANOS. I’m all caught up. Talk.”
He stood there and stared at her like she had two heads for a few moments. They were attracting quite a bit of attention and the crowd nearby steadily grew. Silex and Domik wore blank expressions but each giant body appeared tense, ready for action.
“I think you’re becoming overwrought. Perhaps we should sit,” he gestured to a nearby bench, outside the thick circle of onlookers, expression one of compassionate concern.
Maybe he was right. Maybe she was expecting too much for him to answer a damned question. He’d never encouraged her to rehash events with him, he simply wanted her to march to his beat when he was around. It all boiled down to the same question Darvan and Silex had been asking her, the same question she kept asking herself: What was he doing here?
“There now,” he sat on the bench and waited for her to join him, the picture of the conciliatory boyfriend indulging his unreasonable girlfriend’s temper tantrum.
She angled her body into the corner of the bench so that she could see him. He mirrored her move so their knees touched. Grasping her hands in his, he bent his head close. To the casual onlooker, they would appear to be enjoying an intimate conversation, perhaps even making peace.
“I’ve missed you so much, Ari. I can’t tell you where I was or what happened during these last months. Just know you were in my heart the whole time we were apart.”
The signals her subconscious had picked up on coalesced into one thought: Peter was a paradox. He spoke as though he knew time had passed but he looked the same as she remembered him. Exactly the same. He didn’t look like he’d been eking sustenance from the ground or scavenging to survive. His skin wasn’t dry or cracked from a hard life outdoors, his hands weren’t callused, hell, his nails appeared freshly manicured.
“Why are you here, Peter?”
“I came back for you,” he whispered, rubbing his thumbs gently along the backs of her hands. “Delay your departure. Stay another night. I will come for you and we can leave together.”
Her stomach dropped to her feet.
“Peter, what makes you think I want to be anywhere other than where I am right now?”
“Ari, it’s me you’re talking to here, not some alien dictator,” he gave her a pitying smile. “We both know you crave love and acceptance. Your father was conscripted at a critical time in your life, your mother basically abandoned you and you’re socially awkward. That makes it hard for those of us who love you to fight through the walls you build to keep yourself safe. Don’t you trust me, Ari?”
She didn’t trust him. Not at all. Her eyes were open now and she didn’t like what she saw. He was trying to prey on her weaknesses and insecurities to convince her to come with him.
His end-game was a mystery to her. Why show up now? Did he actually want her to run away with him? Or was he trying to accomplish something else?
“How do you suggest that I delay our departure?”
“You’re clever. You’ll think of something,” he brushed her concerns aside.
“How will we escape?”
“You leave that to me. I’ll meet you outside the General’s quarters at midnight tonight,” he stood, finished with the conversation now that his demand had been delivered. “Don’t keep me waiting.”
After Peter and Silex left, Arianna sat on the bench for a few moments, collecting her thoughts. She had no doubt that Darvan had monitored their conversation somehow. It would have been foolish to entrust her, a captive, with a reconnaissance mission against her own ex-lover. She didn’t begrudge him whatever surveillance he’d felt was warranted.
For herself, she’d expected to find a bitter-sweet closure to the mystery of what had happened to Peter and the others. After this meeting, she had more questions than answers.
∞ ∞ ∞
Darvan paced the small room feeling like a caged animal. Watching the Earth male with his female had nearly shattered his control. First this Peter had spoken too familiarly with Arianna. Then, he’d had the gall to demand a more private audience as though she were his to command. The coup de grace had been the intimate way that the Earther had invaded her space. How could she have allowed such a thing?
“General, we’re nearly to your field quarters,” Domik said through his com. “ETA two minut
es.”
“Thank you.”
He was known throughout the universe for his coldly formulated, viciously executed battle plans. He’d never wanted to destroy an enemy more than he did Peter right now. He needed to get ahold of himself, keep a cool head when Arianna arrived. It was not uncommon among his people for the males to face an overwhelming amount of competition for female attention. Although she belonged to him in every way but one, his instinct was to crush his rival and demand her affection.
All too soon, the door chime rang and Domik handed over custody of his charge.
“I’ll be expecting your report. Dismissed, Warrior.”
Darvan stalked across the room, deliberately invading Arianna’s space. Twisting a hand into the fall of her thick golden hair, he forced her to look at him.
She met his eyes without hesitation.
He bent down and gave her a punishing kiss. Grinding his lips against hers, he speared her opened mouth with his tongue, invading and staking his claim. He wanted there to be no doubt in her mind where she belonged. Who she belonged to.
She moaned softly and leaned into his embrace, inflaming him. Registering her lack of resistance, he gentled his approach, nibbling tenderly at her lower lip and coaxing her tongue into a sinuous dance with his.
He broke the kiss. “You’re not staying here,” he bit off harshly, not completely pacified.
“What is wrong with you?” She was breathing heavy still, affected by his kiss.
He felt a primal urge to mark her, to tie her to him irrevocably.
“He shouldn’t have put his hands on you,” Darvan ran a frustrated hand through his hair, pacing away from her. “It makes me crazy to think that he touched what’s mine.”
“I’m not an object, Darvan. I’m a person,” she shot back, surprising him.
“You’re still mine. My captive. My female. Mine. Not his.” He felt the need to impress it on her.
“I get it, you own me. I’m tired of hearing about it,” she snapped back.
“He’s had your body, hasn’t he?” he couldn’t stop, had to push the issue.
“What has that got to do with anything?”
“Yes. Or. No.” He wanted a straight answer.
“I’m no more inexperienced than you are, Darvan. We’ve both been with other people. Let it go,” she advised quietly.
“He touched you like a lover. Like I touch you,” he growled, getting up in her face. He knew there wasn’t anything she could have done to prevent it, but it still rankled.
“I went out there and asked the questions you wanted me to ask. You aren’t allowed to be jealous.”
“Bond with me, Arianna,” he demanded. Even still, he was nervous that she would reject him outright.
“That might be an option someday,” she said, clearly baffled by his behavior.
“No,” he corrected her. “Today. Bond with me now.”
“Alright,” she said slowly. “What do we need to do?”
“It’s simply a matter of my asking and your acceptance in front of witnesses. I’ll call Commander Skylan and Warrior Domik here and we’ll make it official.”
Chapter Thirty
After Domik and Skylan did their official duties as witnesses, Darvan had rushed her from the Texas camp back to the waiting shuttle. She stared numbly at the awe-inspiring view as the Earth receded out the viewing bubble in front of her. They would engage their small warp engine as soon as they cleared the satellites still hurtling, damaged and unused, around the Earth. The clouds below began to obscure the details of the North and South American landmasses. From their great height, she could clearly see the shadow of approaching night. The falling darkness chased the remaining landmarks from her vision.
She’d always imagined seeing the cities that lay in ruins below from space. Their lights would have made the Earth shimmer and sparkle like an onyx marble dipped in diamonds. In her mind’s eye, she could almost see it, but those lights were darkened now. Perhaps forever. She closed her eyes against the exhausted tears that threatened to fall at the morose thought.
Her emotions were bouncing around like a rubber ball. Tonight was, technically, her wedding night. Instead of celebrating, she prepared for an all-out anal probe from the High Council. When Darvan had failed to make her available to the High Council for “standard questioning” within two of their work cycles, someone named Councilor Tegas had insisted on opening an Official Inquiry into the matter of Attaché Jorkan’s nefarious plan and subsequent escape. It mattered little to this Tegas that she’d been barely coherent at that time. Her debriefing was scheduled for late tomorrow morning. Of course, Darvan had told her all this after they’d bonded.
There really wasn’t a ceremony involved in the bonding at all. He’d simply asked her if she came to him of her free will. She’d answered that she did. They’d placed their hands on a portable palm scanner in front of Domik and Skylan and the deed was done. She was a foreign bride, no longer a captive, to the Corian Galactic General and he was her husband. It felt weird to think of herself as free and to think of him as her husband. This would all take some getting used to, but, before she could even begin to adjust, she had to go play a game of Clue with the High Council.
If their circumstances had in any way resembled a traditional romance, she might have been less apprehensive about the Council’s questions and their situation in general. As it was, she really didn’t understand why he insisted that she bond with him. He seemed satisfied that they were bonded, but he didn’t seem particularly happy. Of course, if she understood him better, maybe she’d figure out why he’d orchestrated this whole thing.
Next to her, he was busily piloting the little shuttle expertly through the debris field. He had a relaxed air about him that seemed at odds with the intense last few weeks they’d had. His love of maneuvering the craft was evident.
“You seem happy right now, more content than I’ve ever seen you.”
“From the time I was a child, I was obsessed with flying amongst the stars. It was what my father loved above everything. He taught me to pilot small star craft when I was still quite young. Later, when I joined the ranks of the warriors, that’s what I trained for.” Arianna could hear his affection for his father in his voice and it gave her hope. If he could love his family, maybe he could learn to love her, too.
She didn’t think that knowing how to make his favorite breakfast or how to run the miniature household they’d created in his quarters actually counted as knowing him. “This might be an inappropriate time to ask but how old are you?”
“Our years are slightly shorter than the years you are used to. In Earth time, I’m forty five.”
“That seems pretty young to be a general.” She didn’t add that it seemed rather odd to her that he wasn’t already settled down with a nice Corian girl.
“I am the youngest Galactic General the CGA has ever had,” he wasn’t bragging, simply stating a fact.
“So my mate is kind of a big deal, huh?”
Her teasing seemed to surprise him. He briefly looked away from the controls to shoot her a wicked grin. “Kind of.”
“I’m twenty-nine,” Arianna volunteered, hoping to spark an actual conversation.
“I know,” he nodded. “You celebrate the day of your birth in a few months.”
“How do you know that?”
“The reeducator took certain pertinent data from your memories and made them a part of your profile. I read it before I asked you to bond with me.”
“Why didn’t you just ask me what you wanted to know?” She was hurt that he’d rather read a report about her than take the time to talk to her.
“That’s not the way we do things,” he said with a shrug. “Make sure your harness is secure,” he interrupted her questioning, watching until he was satisfied she was safely strapped in. “We’ll be jumping to warp speed in three, two, one.”
When the bone jarring pressure freed her lungs from its crushing grip, she continued her though
t aloud, “Having a conversation might actually lead us to understand one another better, you know. I’m at a disadvantage. I don’t know what you know about me and I don’t have a dossier on you.”
“Would you like to read your profile?” He seemed surprised.
“You’re missing my point. You and I are irrevocably joined now. Don’t you think we should take the time to actively learn about one another?”
“We learn more about each other every day. We’ll be docking with the Victory momentarily,” he gave her a pointed look.
“Fine. We’ll put a pin in this conversation. But don’t think we won’t be revisiting it.” She wasn’t asking him to bare his soul, for goodness sake, all she wanted was to know the person she was linked to. Was that so hard to fathom?
∞ ∞ ∞
“What happens now?” Arianna returned to stand uncertainly next to the small dining table after busing the dishes from their late evening meal. She wanted his attention but didn’t want to make a nuisance of herself. She would not beg him to love her or to want her, but she didn’t think she would be able to bear it if he continued to ignore her.
Darvan pushed the anti-grav screen he’d read while they dined away, giving her his complete attention for the first time since their return to the ship hours ago.
“What do you mean?” His razor-sharp focus was one hundred percent on her, now.
“What will you do with Peter?” It wasn’t the question at the top of her list, but it seemed like a good confidence builder. She’d work up the nerve to ask what she really wanted to know…maybe.
“We’ve kept him isolated from the general population of the work camp. I anticipate that he will try to escape and we’ll see what happens after that.” She got the distinct impression that Darvan didn’t approve of her further involvement in the situation with Peter at all.
“That’s probably a good idea. What do you think will happen with that?”
The room’s temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees. “It’s no longer your concern what happens to Peter. You are my mate and, as such, you will remove him from your thoughts,” he said coldly.