Eternity Row (31 page)

No blade. No blood. Only Duncan, fully dressed, standing over me. Not stabbing me. Shaking me.

Waking
me.

He smoothed some hair out of my eyes. “You were having a bad dream.”

My hands shook uncontrollably as I reached up for him. A moment later I lay safe in his arms, pressed to his heart as I wept. I cried so hard I couldn’t catch my breath. I cried for what I’d done to him that day, and all the other stupid mistakes I’d ever made since falling in love with him.

In between sobs, I tried to tell him how sorry I was.

Time passed, I don’t know how much. He didn’t complain, didn’t try to push me aside or tell me to shut up. He held on to me until I’d sobbed myself out, then reached for something. A soft cloth touched my face, drying my tears, wiping my nose.

“Better?”

“Let me wash my face and mop up a little more.” I eased out of his arms and stumbled over to the lavatory. When I emerged, cleaned up but still shaky, he sat waiting in the same spot. “I’m sorry about what I did today. I didn’t think of you, or Marel. It was stupid and reckless.”

He held out a hand. “Come here.”

I went to him. In the dim light from the bedside emitter, his face seemed full of shadows. The kind I’d thought I’d banished.

“You’re really mad at me, aren’t you?” I ducked my head. “I don’t blame you. I deserve it.”

“I was walking on level ten, and I felt a terrible fear. Your fear, from your nightmare. I came as quickly as I could. When I entered our chamber, I heard you begging me not to kill you.” His fingers tightened on my waist. “I would never harm you, wife. No matter how angry I become.”

“I know.” I moved my shoulders. “It just seemed so real.”

“Lie down with me.”

No dream could equal the real thing. At first we touched each other with tentative, gentle caresses, helping each other out of our garments, soothing each other’s still-frazzled nerves. Heat bloomed on my skin wherever Duncan’s fingers traveled. A mist of sweat sprang up when his mouth followed.

When I worked my fingers into his shaggy mane and tugged, he lifted his head. For some reason, I had to say the words. “Don’t tease me.”

He moved up over me, gathering me up against him as he lodged his hips between my thighs. I lifted up, caressing the smooth head of his penis while aligning myself to him. His fingers laced through mine at the same moment he sank into me.

His mouth touched mine, his tongue mimicking the gentle thrust below.

“You’re going to make me cry again,” I murmured against his lips.

“Yes.” He lifted his head, looking down at where our bodies lay joined. His voice went low and deep as he added, “But not the way you think.”

He rolled to his side, taking me with him. With our faces only an inch apart, he cupped my backside, and began to move inside me. He used slow, steady movements as I pushed back, trying to reach that place he’d taken me so often. As he watched me, he cupped my breasts in his hands and stroked them with the same, unhurried deliberation.

“Whenever I look at you, I think of this,” he whispered against my ear. “I think of being inside you, a part of you.” He buried his face in my hair. “I won’t let you go,
Waenara
.” He turned over, moving on top of me, pushing in deep. “I never will.”

The leisurely, gentle lovemaking turned into something fast and frantic, with clutching hands and eager mouths and straining bodies. He kept his promise and made me cry out, more than once, and caught the sound with his mouth as he took me.

“Duncan, please!” I arched my back as I hovered just on the brink, suspended between desperate need and mind-blowing pleasure. “I need…”

He moved faster, harder, working deeper with each thrust. “Come to me, beloved. Now, come to me now.”

The darkness exploded with a thousand unseen lights as I pulled his head down to me. As I fell into the cascading sensations, I kissed him with all the passion and longing he’d wrung out of me. His thoughts poured into my mind at the same time he came, and I rode to another peak on those twin sensations, holding him as tightly as I could, saying his name over and over.

Reever and I made love most of the night, and although we were both tired the next morning, I felt as if we’d healed a lot of old wounds. My only regret was knowing that I’d caused most of them.

“Good morning, Cherijo.” Alunthri was up and playing with the kittens when I dragged myself out to the kitchen. “Forgive me for overstaying my welcome last night.”

“Your welcome and staying privileges have no time limit.” As I smothered my yawns and prepared breakfast for all of us, I noticed my usually up-and-at-’em daughter hadn’t made her usual early appearance. “Marel still asleep?”

“I down here, Mama.”

A glance under the table revealed my daughter feeding a bowl of her favorite creamed wheat to one of the kittens. “Hey, that’s supposed to go in your tummy, kiddo.”

She grinned at me. “Kiddy wikes id do.”

Reever came out of our room, which made our kid and the kitten emerge. He swung Marel up in his arms and endured a neck-wrenching hug. “Good morning,
avasa
. Did you sleep well?”

“Free good.”

He bent down to pick up the bowl of cereal. “How did this get under here?”

“I make did.”

I’d assumed Alunthri had prepared the cereal for her, and turned to measure the distance from the floor to the prep unit. Unless she’d grown two feet overnight, there was no way she could have gotten to the menu panel. “How?”

Marel giggled and hid her face against Reever’s tunic.

“Okay, be mysterious about it.” I went over and safeguarded the unit with a pass protective code. I didn’t mind Marel getting food, but she might accidentally spill something hot on herself while climbing up or down or however she’d gotten to the panel.

After breakfast, I dropped my daughter off at school and heard from one of the instructors that Xonea had confined Ilona Red Faun to quarters. No one was sure how he would deal with her stealing a launch and inadvertently causing the loss of two more.

“What usually happens?” I asked Marel’s teacher.

“I do not know, Healer.” She made a helpless gesture. “We do not steal things. We ask permission to use them instead.”

With that new worry on my mind, I reported for duty and went over the results of the post-sojourn physicals. In addition to all the trouble she was in, Ilona’s latest scans showed two distinct fetal outlines.

Dhreen and his girlfriend were having twins.

“Two of them.” I sat back in my chair at the console. “God help us.”

When I signaled the weaver with the news, she didn’t seem very interested in that, or the follow-up physical I’d scheduled for her. “I cannot report to Medical. I am told I must stay in my rooms.”

“The Captain will make an exception for a prenatal exam.” Although she’d brought it on herself, I felt a reluctant sympathy for her. I knew how boring it was to be confined to quarters. “Listen, Ilona, if you need anything, why don’t you-”

“Thank you, patcher. I am fine.” She abruptly terminated the signal.

Life on board the
Sunlace
settled back into its normal routine quickly enough, but I began to get the feeling it was a calm before a storm.

Alunthri began dropping by Medical more frequently to volunteer its services. Knowing the benefit hard work had in dispelling feelings of guilt, I gave the Chakacat several administrative tasks, including updating our database by downloading all our recent chart entries.

Squilyp seemed to have a lot on his mind, too. When he wasn’t hopping around Medical trying to sterilize everything in sight, he was sniping at me, the residents, the interns, and the nursing staff. After a particularly nasty remark over the way I’d put together an instrument tray, I reminded him I’d already kicked his Omorr backside in a challenge and I’d be more than happy to repeat the exercise.

The Senior Healer had the grace to look a little ashamed. “Forgive me. The waiting seems intolerable.”

“Waiting for… ?” I trailed off, raising my brows.

He only shook his head and hopped off to clean something else.

I found out soon enough. The signal came down from Command one day while the Omorr was in the middle of routine surgery on one of the crew members who had complications from a previous knee injury.

“Inform the Senior Healer that the Omorr vessel
Naquorekan
has docked at launch bay four. His guests await his presence.”

Squilyp had
guests
? Since when?

I scrubbed and went into the surgical suite, and waited until the Omorr had powered down the laser before I told him the news. And watched the Senior Healer overturn an infuser rig and knock a setup tray to the deck.

“She’s here? Already? That’s wonderful.” He looked down at his patient. “No. That’s terrible. I can’t go.”

I held up my gloved hands. “I’ll take over for you.”

“Yes. No. I mean-” He stopped and took a deep breath. “I must finish here, and prepare myself. Yes. That is what I should do.” He gave me an uncertain look. “I am anxious to make a good first impression. It is very important that I do that.”

I bit back a laugh. “Tell you what-I’ll go meet your friends while you finish. And change. You look like you’ve just murdered someone.”

He looked down over his mask at his blood-spattered scrubs. “Yes. I will finish here and I will don more appropriate garments.”

“One more thing-who are these friends of yours?”

“She is not a friend. She is Garphawayn of Cestes- Lady Cestes.”

I made a rolling gesture with my hand. “And this lady is… who?”

“My
adorlee
.” Under his mask, his gildrells writhed like a bunch of thin, white snakes. “My mail-order bride.”

I changed into a clean tunic and went down to launch bay four, feeling a little like an older sister determined to make sure the new addition to the family was worthy of her fiancé.

She’d better be wonderful. He deserves the best.

The Omorr passenger starshuttle
Naquorekan
, being too large to actually fit inside the bay, was docked outside. A sealed passenger ramp had been extended between the two interiors, and as I entered through the launch bay doors, I saw five Omorr hop out of it.

Xonea and a number of the Command crew were already on hand to welcome Squilyp’s guests, and the Captain made an elegant bow. “Welcome to the
Sunlace
. I am Xonea, of HouseClan Torin.” He introduced the other members of the crew, ending with me as I joined them. “May your stay with us be a pleasant one.”

“Pleasant is far too much to expect, Captain,” a high, rather querulous voice said. “I dare only hope for tolerable.”

The Omorr who spoke hopped forward with an abbreviated version of Squilyp’s natural bounce, all the while holding her spine so straight she seemed as tall as the much bigger Jorenians. Her lean form was encased in a feminine version of Squilyp’s native, one-legged garment. A long, sweeping cloak hung from her narrow shoulders. Both were made from fabrics dyed with an eye-popping assortment of colors. The other Omorr in her party were less gaudily attired, and seemed a little older.

Chaperones, maybe?

From what I could see, there wasn’t much outer physical difference between the Omorr genders. Not that anyone would mistake the younger female for a male, given the number of personal ornaments she wore. An odd number of golden, feathery protrusions were all over the top of her dark pink skull, but I wasn’t sure if they were hers, or more embellishments. Cosmetics enhanced her round, dark eyes, and a number of her gildrells had tiny, sparkling rings on them.

One of the older, more conservatively attired Omorr bounced over to stand beside the first. She looked directly up at Xonea, her face stern as she gestured to the younger female. “This is the Lady Cestes, Garphawayn, here to negotiate a contract of marriage with Squilyp of Maftuda.”