“Calm down, Severance. She and Desma haven’t been seen apart since you left. Saints know a few hopeful types tried to get Cidra interested in a nice steak dinner or something, but no one had any luck.”
“She doesn’t like meat.” Severance readjusted the travel pack and stalked off toward the bank.
“Maybe that’s why she’s drinking ale at the Bloodsucker tonight,” Craft called after him. “A lot of protein but not much meat in a glass of Rose ale.”
“One of these days, Craft, someone’s going to accidentally push you into the river.” But Severance didn’t pause this time. He headed away from the dock facilities and up the dusty street, driven by a sense of urgency. He had so little time left with Cidra.
She must have gotten very bored to have gone to the Bloodsucker for a drink. Maybe Desma had talked her into it. Cidra never did more than sip elegantly at a glass of wine or ale. At this late hour she was probably tired of killing time in a tavern. She wasn’t really cut out for spending her evenings that way. At least there was no Cord Racer around to cause trouble that night. Severance decided he wouldn’t chew Cidra out for spending a couple of hours in a tavern. After all, there wasn’t much to do in a place like Try Again. Besides, from what Craft had said, it sounded as if Desma was doing a good job of playing chaperon. He paced more quickly along the street, anticipating the pleasure in Cidra’s eyes when she saw him again.
It was Desma who saw Severance come through the door. She glanced up, took in his dusty, stained appearance and the intensity of his eyes as he scanned the room, and then she smiled at Cidra. “He’s back.”
Cidra blinked. She had just finished the last of her third mug of ale. “Who’s back?”
“The love of your life.”
“Oh, him.” Eyes narrowed to help her concentrate, Cidra looked around and saw Severance starting toward her down an aisle of tables. She smiled wistfully. “Isn’t he wonderful, Desma?”
“He’s interesting, I’ll say that for him.”
Cidra’s smiled congealed into a frown as Severance reached the table. She glared up at him. “You’re late,” she announced.
Severance tilted his head to one side, studying her as he let the pack slide to the floor. “You’re drunk.”
“I have been drowning my sorrows. Ask Desma.”
Severance slid a grim glance at Desma. “How the hell did she get into this condition?”
“I did it all by myself,” Cidra answered.
“I can see that. Why is it that every time I leave you on your own you get into trouble?”
“I’m not in any trouble. You’re the one in trouble. Did you give those sensors away to ExcellEx?”
Severance leaned down, planting his hands on the table, to confront her. His eyes were glittering with a mixture of masculine irritation, desire, and possessiveness. “No, I did not give the sensors to ExcellEx.”
“Did you get full credit on delivery?” she demanded.
“Yes, Otanna Rainforest, I did. Satisfied?”
“No. You should have gotten hazardous duty credit on top of the agreed-upon fee.”
“I got a contract for another shipment instead. Does that please you?”
Cidra’s severe expression changed back into a warm, approving smile. “Oh, Severance, that’s wonderful.”
“Thank you.” He looked at Desma, who was smiling. “How much has she had?”
“Three mugs. Holding it very well, I might add.”
“She’s spaced out of her little mind.”
“She’s been waiting for you,” Desma said simply. “Today she started worrying that you wouldn’t return until after she left.”
“She should have known better. That’s no excuse—”
“I,” Cidra interrupted grandly, “don’t need any excuses. I am a financially independent woman who can do as she likes.”
“Too much education and too much money. It’s a bad combination in a woman.” Severance straightened. “Are you ready to leave, Cidra?”
“Yes, please. Where are we going?”
“Someplace where there’s a bed.” He reached down to take her arm.
“You need more than a bed, Severance. You need a shower.” Desma grinned up at him. “Why don’t you take her back to my place? I won’t be home for a while yet. You’re welcome to spend the night. Fred’s waiting there too.”
“I appreciate the offer, Desma. I’ll take you up on it.” He started to tug Cidra out of her chair.
“Now wait just one spaced second. Cidra lifted her chin. “I have decided that this relationship of ours is based entirely too much on bed. It’s too physically oriented. We need to talk. We need to explore the intellectual side of this whole thing. Then we need to discuss the business aspects of it. You’d better sit down, Teague Severance. We have a lot to discuss.”
Severance regarded her politely. “The thing is, Cidra, you’re not in any condition to carry on an intellectual analysis of our relationship. You’re spaced, Otanna Rainforest. Drunk as a renegade on a bonus spree.”
“Oh. How interesting. I hadn’t realized.”
“It’s all right,” he assured her, hauling her to her feet. “Just leave everything to me. I’ll handle it.” He scooped her up and slung her easily over one shoulder. Cidra’s yellow-gold gown swirled around his stained shirt.
Cidra examined the floor from her upside-down position. Then she steadied herself by grasping his utility loop. She smiled reassuringly at Desma. “It’s all right. He always handles things. Pilot in command, you know”
“I understand,” Desma said gently. “Good night. Cidra.”
“Good night, Desma.”
Desma spoke to Severance. “The door’s keyed to Cidra’s voiceprint.”
“All I have to worry about is getting her to say something coherent when we get to your place. See you in the morning, Desma. And thanks.”
Severance clamped one hand firmly around Cidra’s thighs, plucked the travel pack off the floor, and started toward the door. He ignored the interested attention of the tavern crowd. He was out on the street, striding toward Desma’s before he realized that Cidra was humming contentedly.
“I didn’t know you were musical,” he growled.
“I can do a great many things. Excellent education.”
“I’m going to put you in a bed and let you show me what you do best.”
“You don’t think we’re placing too much emphasis on the physical side of this relationship Cidra asked with both whimsy and worry.
“I think,” Severance told her, “that memories of you wrapped around me are all I’m going to have to keep me warm for a long time.”
Cidra sighed. “You shouldn’t send me away, Severance.”
“I have to send you away.”
“I know. I’ve thought it all out. I know you have to do it. But I’m scared, Severance.”
“So am I.”
Cidra lapsed into silence for the remainder of the trip. When Severance stopped at Desma’s door, she obediently said her name into the voicelock and then felt herself being carried into the house. Severance walked into the bedroom she had been using and stood Cidra carefully on her feet. She circled his neck with her arms and smiled wistfully up at him.
“I’ve missed you.”
“Not half as much as I’ve missed you.” He pulled her close, feeling her gown whip lightly around his legs as he did so. She lifted her face for his kiss, and he took her mouth with a hunger he knew he would be feeling frequently during the days and nights to come. For a long moment he simply helped himself to the promise of her, drinking deeply of the nectar that was waiting. She melted against him the way he had remembered, and Severance wondered how he would last without her during the long time ahead. The thought that she might not be waiting when the ordeal was over filled him with a dangerous tension. He realized abruptly that his kiss was growing rough and heavy. She was such a soft little creature.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“
You’re not hurting me.” She framed his face between her hands.
“I should get cleaned up first.”
“Later,” she murmured. “We have so little time.”
“Cidra, do you know what it does to me when you look at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“As if you want me so much, you’ll dissolve if you don’t get me.
“I might.”
His fingers were trembling as he undid the delicate fastenings of the yellow-gold robe. It slid to the floor, a heap of treasure around her feet. Severance decided it was nothing compared to the treasure it had concealed. He unhooked the utility belt and draped it on the table beside the bed. Impatiently he tugged off the rest of his clothing. When he was finished, he reached out to touch Cidra. It occurred to him again that he should get under a hot spray before he claimed such a sweet-smelling woman, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. Already he was pushing her backward onto the bed.
“Watch out for Fred,” Cidra said.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He’s usually in here somewhere.”
Severance looked up and saw three rows of teeth grinning at him from the window ledge above the bed. “Hello, Fred. Go back to sleep.”
The three rows of teeth winked out of sight. Severance gathered Cidra into his arms. He heard her soft sigh, felt the warm, eager welcome in her arms, and wondered how he could let her go in the morning. Then he stopped thinking of the future entirely. All that existed for him was the present with its promise of passion and satisfaction. On Renaissance a man took what he could get.
He made love to Cidra with the burning need of a man who knows he’s going to go hungry for a long time.
Severance didn’t know what brought him up out of sleep later that night. He came awake the way he usually did on Renaissance with a sudden alertness that kicked his system into full gear. He lay listening to the shadows, unmoving. One arm was wrapped securely around Cidra as if even in his sleep he was afraid of losing her. Her rounded rear was nestled intimately into his thighs, and he could feel the curves of her breasts under his palm.
But it hadn’t been Cidra who had awakened him. She was sound asleep. He listened intently, and then he heard a faint movement on the window ledge. Fred was awake too. Perhaps he had only heard the sound of his movement. The rain had begun, pouring down outside with enough force and noise to mask any sounds from the street. Severance wondered if it had been Desma’s return to the house that had brought him up out of sleep. But he could hear nothing from the hall.
Then he heard another sound, and this time he recognized it: the hiss of a deflector screen as a man moved through it. The faint noise was coming from the deflector that guarded the window across the room, Severance slitted his eyes and turned his head a few fractions of a centimeter. A shadow moved on the other side of the diazite pane. On the window ledge over the bed Fred shifted again.
Severance reached up and touched the rockrug. Fred went still, his body still and alert. Satisfied that the creature was going to obey the silent command, Severance reached for the knife in his utility belt. Logically, whoever was outside the window shouldn’t be able to open it. The diazite was locked. But there were ways around locks. Too many ways.
Severance wasn’t very surprised when the diazite pane swung inward without a sound. The figure coming through the window was holding a pulser. He got no more than one leg hooked over the windowsill. Severance came to a sitting position in a smooth rush of movement, launching the knife in his hand with the full power of his shoulder and upper arm.
The heavy-duty utility knife caught the intruder in the right side of his chest. The pulser dropped to the floor as the victim yelled in pain and rage. The force of the blow sent him spinning backward, out of the window and onto the ground.
“Severance!” Cidra came awake with a startled gasp, clutching at the sheet. Rain was pouring through the open window. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
But he was already out of bed and leaning out of the window. An instant later he was through it and crouching on the ground outside. Cidra heard Fred moving agitatedly on the ledge above her, and then she felt him undulating down onto her shoulder and along the bed. He was moving almost as fast as Severance had moved. The rockrug crossed the room and wriggled onto the other window ledge. Cidra wasn’t far behind both of them.
“Severance? What are you . . . Sweet Harmony, it’s him!” She stared at the man lying flat on the ground in the pouring rain. Severance was hunkered down beside him, his nude body gleaming sleekly from the steady downpour. “It’s him,” she said again, dazed. “The man who attacked Desma and me in the lab.”
Then she saw the blood mingling with the rainwater that was running down the man’s chest. The hilt of the utility knife protruded from his rumpled clothing. She caught her breath. “Is he . . . is he dead?”
“No. My aim was a little off. It’s hard to get an accurate shot from a sitting position. Especially when you’re in a hurry.” Severance was examining his victim. “You’re sure it’s the same renegade?”
She stared at the stricken man, whose face was twisted in a grimace of pain. It was an expression that wasn’t all that different from the one of fear she had last seen him wearing. “It’s him. What’s he doing here? Everyone assumed he’d disappeared.”
“Since he’s still alive, we’ll be able to ask him a whole lot of interesting questions. See if Desma is home yet. If not, use her comp-phone to get company Security out here.”
Cidra hesitated, deeply aware of the pain the intruder must be feeling. “We’ve got to stop the bleeding, Severance.”
He looked up at her as she stood framed in the window. For the first time Cidra saw the expression on his face. Rain washed over his hard features, revealing a grim, hollow stare that shook her to the core.
“I’m almost sure he came through that window to kill you,” Severance said much too softly. “I don’t give a damn if he dies right here and now. Go wake Desma.”
She still had far to go yet before she became completely accustomed to Wolf ways, Cidra thought as she went in search of Desma. There was no sense fooling herself. In some respects she would never become a true Wolf. She wondered if it was that weakness in her nature that made Severance wary of taking her with him.
Severance watched the window as Cidra disappeared and wondered if she could ever accept the part of him that was capable of this kind of violence. Then he looked down at the man on the ground and felt like slitting the renegade’s throat. The temptation to finish the job he’d begun with the utility knife was strong. Not only had the intruder represented a threat to Cidra, he had given her one more glimpse of Severance as a man who was about as far from being a Harmonic as it was possible to get.
Cidra stood in the departure lounge the next day waiting for Severance to confirm her reservation. She was wearing her embroidered green midday robe, and her hair was in its usual coronet. Her hands were clasped in front of her in the formal position of patience. Around her the hustle of passengers and crew flowed unheeded, not touching her either physically or emotionally. She felt isolated and intensely alone, her eyes following Severance as he verified her flight. As he turned to make his way back through the crowd she searched his face, hoping for some sign of a reprieve.
There was none. Severance had made up his mind, and she knew better than to expect to change it at this late hour. Cidra felt a rush of anger and resentment at the midnight intruder, not because he had come through the window with the intention of killing her so that she couldn’t identify him, but because he had succeeded in ruining what was left of her last night with Severance. The man had been questioned by company Security immediately after he had received medical aid for the knife wound. Then Severance and Cidra had both been obligated to give statements. It was all cut-and-dried as far as the legal aspects went. Violence within Try Again was dealt with severely. Renaissance couldn’t afford to encourage it inside the one safe zone
on the planet. Bad for business. The intruder was under computer lock, but no one could give Cidra back the rest of the night with Severance. Morning had arrived all too quickly.
“You’re all set. I upgraded your cabin. This way you’ll have more room.”
She inclined her head in formal thanks.
“Bigger lav too,” he added in a deadpan tone. “You can bathe to your heart’s content. You’ll be able to spend the whole trip under a spray if you feel like it.”
“It was very thoughtful of you. I am in your debt.”
Severance winced. “Could you cut out the ritualistic good manners? Sometimes lately I’ve had the feeling that you use them when you want to be sarcastic. I’m never sure how to take them.”
“I’m sorry, Severance,” she whispered unhappily. Nothing was going right. Severance had been short-tempered with her since he had used his knife against the man who had tried to kill her. Time was running out, and they seemed to have less and less to say to each other. Cidra was aware of a sensation of panic waiting to swamp her.
Severance ignored her soft apology, took her arm, and guided her over to a quieter section of the lounge. “I’ve got something I want you to do for me.”
Cidra’s heart lifted for the first time that morning. “Of course,” she said simply, but her eyes were shining.
He handed her a credit plate. “Take it.”
She stared at it in dismay. “But it’s for your account.”
“I’ve had it opened for you. You can use that card to access it.”
“But, Severance, I don’t need any credit. I have plenty of my own, remember? What is this all about? I don’t understand. If this is some gesture of warped responsibility on your part, you can just forget it. I don’t want your share of the stake!”
“Cidra, try not to get hysterical on me over a little thing like this. I am not exactly giving you the entire contents of my credit account.”
“Then what are you giving me?”
“Access to it. I’m going to be stuck on board Severance Pay for the next several weeks. On board, communications are limited. You know that. I don’t have the facilities to do research or make investments from the deck of a mail ship. On the other hand, you’re going to be running around Clementia with access to the best information sources on three planets. I don’t want my two hundred and fifty thousand sitting still in a credit account. I want it working.”
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