Charming Charly (English Edition) (Lords of Arr'Carthian 3) (15 page)

“I don’t know what or who I should believe,” she shouted. “I only know that I don’t want to be controlled by any drug and …”

“But, baby, of course you’re not …”

“And I don’t want to have five boys and die in the process like your other females. I trusted you and now … now everything’s …”

“What five boys?” he roared.”I don’t understand a …”

“It’s true that this … this drug has changed me!” she shouted and began walking up and down the cabin, ruffling her hair. “You don’t need to deny that. I am not …”

“Damn it, Charly, listen to me calmly now. Let me …”

“I’ve been afraid of this the whole time,” she continued angrily. “You laughed at me and that’s why my fear was justified. Humans and aliens cannot have children together. That never turns out well. That is …”

“Are you starting up that nonsense again!” he roared, thumping a pillar. “Damn it. I can’t believe this.”

Charly began to sob and put her hands over her face.
 

“Charly, sweetheart. Let’s sit down again and talk calmly. You’re wound up and I understand that. This abduction must have been awful …”

“Let me go!” she shouted at him, as she felt his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t touch me!”

“OK,” said Amano, moving away from her a little. “I’ll go now so that you have time to calm down. I realize that it seems impossible for us to talk at the moment. I … I’m going.”

With these words he rushed from the cabin and Charly threw herself onto the bed, sobbing. She was so confused that she no longer knew whether she was coming or going. Her life was a complete disaster.
 

***

Amano could see his cousin a little further along the corridor.
 

“Hey, Kordan!” he called.

Kordan turned round and waited until he had reached him.

“Will you go for a drink with me?” asked Amano.

“Of course,” replied Kordan, looking at him searchingly. “Did she give you hell, too?”

 
“Yes,” sighed Amano. “… and she’s going on about such incomprehensible stuff about not wanting five boys who’ll kill her and things. I didn’t understand a word she threw at me. I tried to reassure her but she didn’t let me get a word in. So I’ve left her alone for now. She needs to calm down first. Tonight I’m going to sleep in one of the officer’s quarters.”

“I was planning to do that, too. Lory spat at me and threatened me. I had to chain her up in my room.”
 

Amano stared at his cousin in disbelief. Had he misheard? He
must
have misheard.

“You’ve chained her up? Why?”

“If she’s let loose in my quarters she’ll just short circuit the door again and get away from me. With the chain she can only go as far as the bathroom, but not the door.”

“I see” murmured Amano. “She probably wasn’t exactly
happy
about that, was she?”

Kordan laughed bitterly.

“That’s another understatement, cousin. First she threw every insult at me that she could think of, threatened me with all sorts and then just fell silent, looking at me so accusingly. That was worse than all the insults and threats put together. That’s when I fled.”

“Let’s have a double then. I’d really like to drink myself senseless today. Then I wouldn’t have to think about her constantly,” said Amano, sighing.

Kordan nodded and the two males made their way to the ship’s bar.

Chapter 9

Y-Quadrant

On board the Cordelia

16
^th
Day of the Month of Manao in the Year 7067

Federation Time

Amano was sitting in the bar, bent over a drink, staring into space. He had spent the night in one of the officer’s quarters and in the morning he had tried, again, to talk calmly with Charly, but she had simply declared
that, right now, she neither wanted to see him nor speak with him. So he had ended up in the bar again. A little later Kordan had also appeared and was now sitting opposite him in a similarly bad state.
 

“Real warriors you look like to me,” Amano suddenly heard a mocking voice and looked up abruptly from his drink. Kordan had also woken up from his trance and was staring at the apparition that had appeared in front of their table.
 

 
“Man, the Kirilian rum’s strong today. Now I’m hallucinating,” Kordan muttered.
 

“Wow,” said Amano. “I’m hallucinating, too. I can see your mate standing in front of me.”

“You can see her, too?” asked Kordan, blinking.

The apparition snorted and put her hands on her hips.

“Truly great, Mr General. If somebody attacks the ship now the crew will have to cope without its general or its captain because both blockheads have drunk themselves senseless.”

“I don’t
bloody
care about the
bloody
ship,” murmured Kordan. “I don’t …
bloody
care
about anything without my little one anyway. She’s leaving me and then I’ll be alone. Once I’ve taken her back to wherever she comes from I’m going to blow myself up with the bloody ship.
Bummm!
”

“That’s great, Mr General. And what if she doesn’t want to go back to wherever she came from?”

“But she does want to,” insisted Kordan. “She hates me because I’ve given her pleasure. No idea why. Maybe the females from wherever she comes from don’t like sex.”

“And mine doesn’t want to have five boys,” Amano joined in. “Whatever that’s supposed to mean. My little one doesn’t hate me. She’s afraid of me.” Amano shook his head sadly. “I’ve never done anything to a female. I don’t know why she’s afraid of me.” He sighed.
 

Amano felt a hand on his arm and jumped. It was Lory and he had really felt her. So she was not in his imagination. Her right hand was on his arm and she had put her left hand on Kordan’s arm.
 

“You’re not a halluci…?” stammered Kordan.

“No, Kordan. I’m real.”

“But how …?”
 

 
“Baby, do you think that a little chain can stop me if I really want to get out?”

Kordan just looked at her, flabbergasted, shaking his head again.
 

“I’ve come to tell you that I don’t want to go back to earth. I listened to the wrong people and did not give you any real chance to explain to me what the biting and the drug were about. I overreacted. I’m sorry.”

Kordan remained silent. Amano did not say a word either, but looked at Lory, his mouth agape. If only everything was not spinning before his eyes.
 

 
“Don’t … don’t you want me after all?” stuttered Lory. I mean, maybe I’m not worthy of you because of the way I doubted you and …”

Kordan cut short what she was saying by pulling her to him and kissing her. Amano sighed. He looked back at his drink. It looked like Kordan’s relationship had been saved. But his Charly would never forgive him. He felt miserable.
 

 
“Would you like me to speak with her?” Lory pulled him from his dark thoughts. “I know where the problem lies and if I talk with her I can probably clear it up.”

Amano looked up at her. Did she really mean that?

“Would you do that?” he asked, full of hope.

“Of course. I’ll go to Charly right now and sort that out. Then I’ll come here with her.”

Amano nodded. He hoped she knew what she was doing.
 

Lory kissed Kordan on his forehead and jumped up. She felt really good again, for the first time since Ellyod Allegrass had abducted her.

***

Charly was sitting in the dark. She felt awful.

“Charly?” she suddenly heard a familiar voice.
 

“Lory? Is that you?” she asked.

“Yes, it’s me,” her friend assured her. “What’s going on here? Why are you sitting in the dark and why, for goodness’ sake, have you heated the room so much? It’s like a sauna in here.”

“I’m here. In the armchair – in front of the fireplace. And I’m sitting in the dark because I feel like it and I put the fire on because it’s calming me, OK?”

Charly heard Lory come closer and sit down opposite her, but she did not look up. They were both silent for a while. Charly was torn between the wish to talk with someone and the longing to be alone.
 

“Didn’t Kordan lock you in?” she asked at last.

“He chained me to the bed,” replied Lory dryly.

“You’re joking,” Charly uttered, horrified.

“No, no joke. He specially had a contraption installed into the wall and a neck halter made for me.”

Charly stared at her friend in horror.

“But how did you get here then?”

Lory grinned.

“Nail files,” she said triumphantly.

“No! That worked?”

“As you can see.”

“But there’s still no point,” said Charly sadly. “We’re on a ship in the middle of nowhere and our return ticket is probably gone for good now.”

“Ellyod lied to us,” said Lory.

“What did he lie about?” asked Charly. She was still not certain who the good guys and the bad guys were here. How was she to know who was lying and who was telling the truth?

“About Kordan and Amano,” Lory answered her question. “Listen carefully to me. I have something to tell you. You’ll understand better then.”

“OK.”

“Well, as I said, Kordan had me chained up after I had insulted and threatened him in every possible way. Today he suddenly came and declared that he would take us to earth. He wanted to go to some astronomer who was supposed to help us locate earth.”

“What? They’re taking us home?”

“Wait! So he declared that he would take me back to earth. I asked him why. He said because he loved me too much to live with the fact that I hated him. Then he rushed out of the room. In the end I freed myself with the nail file and looked for him. I found him with Amano in the bar. They were both drunk and thought they were hallucinating. They thought I wasn’t real so they just blurted everything out. They were both totally done in and poured out their hearts to me. Charly, I think this Ellyod completely took us for a ride. I think the business with the drug is not the way he said it is. It seems to be just a kind of pleasure enhancing hormone. And that about you having five boys that will kill you is complete nonsense. I’ve come to ask you to give Amano another chance. Two lovesick boys are sitting in the bar. One of them loves you.”

Charly was silent. Tears ran down her cheeks and she sobbed quietly.
 
Suddenly Lory was at her side, sitting on the arm of her chair.
 

“Hey!” said Lory comfortingly. “Don’t cry! Everything’s going to be fine. We all over-reacted a bit. We can put everything right. You’ll see. We’ll fly back to Karrx7 and be waited on hand and foot by our males. You can’t deny that Amano spoilt you like crazy when we were on Karrx7.”

Charly shook her head. What was she to think now?

“I … I don’t know … I’m so … confused.”

“I understand that. I am, too. It’s just that I’m used to dealing with problems. I’ve got so much shit behind me that I’ve got a pretty thick skin. That doesn’t mean that things don’t occasionally get to me.”

“It … it’s just that I … Amano’s the first man for a long time that I’ve trusted again. Then I suddenly had to think that it was all a lie, and now everything’s … everything’s the other way round and I can’t keep up. My emotions are going crazy and I don’t know anything any longer.”

“No one’s saying that you have to rush everything but I do think that it would be good for you to come with me now and talk with Amano. He really is in a bad shape.”

“OK,” Charly at last sniffed in agreement.

“First go into the bathroom and splash a little water onto your face. Go on.”

Lory got up and held out her hand to Charly. Charly took it and was pulled to her feet by her friend. They hugged briefly before she disappeared into the bathroom.
 

Her heart was pounding as she looked into the mirror. With those swollen eyes she looked really awful. She ran cold water into the basin and washed her face. It felt good and cleared her head. Once she had dried her face and looked in the mirror again she looked a lot better.
 

She went back to Lory, considerably calmer and smiling timidly.

“Shall we go?” her friend asked.

“Yes, let’s go.”

Both men looked relieved when they entered the bar. Amano got up from his seat, awkwardly and slightly wobbly, when he saw them come in. Without a word Charly threw herself into his arms and he held her tightly. She only vaguely noticed Kordan carefully standing up and leaving the room with Lory.

“Charly,” murmured Amano. “I’m so sorry.”

“No!” she sobbed. “I am sorry. I was so foolish to have doubted you. Please forgive me.”

“Let’s forget the whole thing,” he suggested and she nodded.